***Would you do it? Walk into a demon's home of your own free will if you were Selena? Remember that she's a very capable rogue, and has always had to take care of herself. Ten golds is a lot of money to Selena. 0_o
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She awoke looking at a nightstand which was not familiar to her. Selena groaned as she realized where she was and she rolled over onto her back. The light coming in through the window past the almost drawn curtains told her that she'd slept a lot later than she'd have intended. She sat up and thought about where she had to go today.
She almost fell right back down onto the mattress again. Not that, she thought, wondering how she'd ever agreed to it. She thought about it and began to think about just going back home. She had the two golds, didn't she?
With them, plus a little care, she'd go far into spring before she needed to look for work again, maybe into summer. It would almost be like a vacation, not as though she'd ever had one of those, but she'd overheard wealthy patrons talking in taverns once in a while. They told of traveling to places that she might have heard about, but sometimes hadn't. Even the places that she had heard of weren't possible to even think about much. But she'd listened anyway as she'd picked their pockets now and then.
Alright, she thought. She had to do this. There were ten more golds at stake for her. With those, she might even be able to travel at least a little and if she stayed at home, she wouldn't need to work for two years and maybe more! She could plant a garden; she could plant barley and wheat, once she'd gotten a plow.
Besides, she thought, she wanted to spend more time with Ny'Zeille if she could. She almost hoped that this would take all of the possibly three days now, just for that. All that she had to do was, ...
All that she had to do was to go up to some strange home and have to see him again -- maybe have to answer questions from him. Well, she could do that for ten golds, she decided, and even maybe face the little kid with the big eyes too.
She got out of bed and checked her hiding place first. Satisfied that the money was still there, she pulled some clothes on and sauntered down the hall to pee. From there, it was a quick trip to fill a basin with water and she washed her face and brushed her hair before going to see about a morning bath.
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She stared at the innkeeper for a minute. "You're certain?"
"Well yes," he said, "Everything was paid for but this amount here, Miss. If I remember rightly from what the other lady said to me, it's fer the second pair of ales that was called for last night."
Selena began to laugh.
"Is there somethin' wrong then, Miss?"
"No," Selena grinned, feeling a little sheepish now as she pulled out some coins, "No, not at all, sir. And here's for a tip. Thank you and have a fine day."
He smiled at her, "And to you, Miss. We'll look forward to yer next trip through, then."
She nodded and walked down the steps to where her horse had been tied up for her. At least the sun was shining again, she thought. But then she stopped and looked across the way at the shop.
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She found the slightly overgrown pathway without difficulty and started up the long incline. It only went straight for about the distance that it took to get out of direct sight with the road below. After that, it began to wind in a series of switchbacks, so that she found herself riding to and fro, left and right along the low mountainside.
At every turn there was a stone pile of some sort with markings carved into the biggest piece. She'd passed two of them by before it dawned on her that they'd been piled in such a way so as to look generally like a human figure in a sort of stylized way. Each one looked a little different than the last and had a pile of round stones placed to one side of it. She wondered what they'd been placed here for. She began to feel as though she were being watched, but there wasn't enough heavy vegetation on the slope for an adult person to really hide themselves behind.
When she looked back, the stone 'figures' seemed to have shifted a little, at least the top stone of each one. There were no faces carved into those rocks. She stopped her horse and looked around. The sky was blue, and the birds were singing. What the hell was the matter here? The birds would have stopped singing if there were intruders there from their point of view. She looked back the way that she'd come. She couldn't see the road down below. She couldn't see the tip of the hill, though she could see more loops of the road that she was on, zigzagging their way to the top. She nudged her horse onward, hoping that this wouldn't take all day.
She thought that navigating this pathway must really be a joy to have to do on a dark night... with no moon to see by ... especially after a heavy snowfall.
She thought of other possibilities as she went along. What if one were being pursued? She looked up and then down. Oh, that would surely be fun. There were places where the loops were pretty close together, less than ten yards -- thirty feet, but they were about ten feet apart in height and the face was sheer here. So that meant that anyone chasing her only had to wait for her to pass to rain arrows on her. She got back to the matter at hand.
Her next thought took her back to the stone 'men' again, since the one immediately above her stood a little ahead and on the next step up. She noticed that the 'head' of this one had a line on the back side, looking a little like a crack. She didn't think about it again until she looked as it was directly opposite here to her right. She looked up and saw the crack again. But not on the back side now. Chastising herself for being foolish, she went on until she passed the next one at the bend and started back.
She stared at that one rock now, and the crack was facing her again. She rode up to it and stopped directly in front to stare at that line. She leaned out as far from the saddle as she dared without falling and saw no such feature where it had been before. Shuddering a little and trying not to think about it, she rode on, but on her way by, the next level up, that crack was still facing her. She turned her horse around and rode back a ways. Turning around again, she looked and that line was still the central feature of the thing. She spurred her horse a little quicker after that, realizing that it these stonemen were alive somehow, then each of them had a pile of stones to hurl.
At last, the slope eased off into a rounder shape and she rode to the crest, happy to leave the stonemen behind. Beyond that she saw an arched gateway, all by itself in the thin woods. Thankfully, the gate was open, she smirked to herself as she rode up to it. She'd have hated to have had to ride around it. It would have taken her at least thirty feet out of her way, she chuckled.
But then she noticed something and she was certain that had it not been for her thoughts about the rockpiles, she'd never have the thought to notice what she was looking at now. As she came very near to the open archway, she looked along the line where there would have been a wall if this had been the gateway through it. What she saw was grassy light forest, the same as it looked everywhere else, lying flat and damp-looking like any other in the cold winter here which snowed little. But there were no trees along that line. Only the grass. She looked the other way and it was the same.
She looked down and saw a piece of deadfall -- a thin sort of branch which had fallen from a tree at some point, either from snow or a strong wind. It looked to be a piece of one of the nearby birch trees. Selena knew that birches give up their branches easily in strong winds. She looked down at it and considered, thinking to get off her horse and toss the branch into that clear and open line of grass, just to see what would happen. She almost did, but suddenly found that she really didn't want to now.
"Oh, for pity's sake," she grumbled to herself, wondering what was wrong with her. She rode through the archway.
From somewhere far ahead, she heard the sound of a single chime.
Shaking her head, she rode on, noticing the angle of the afternoon sunlight. She sure hoped that she got to where she was going soon, because if she'd been wrong in her choice of pathway to follow, she wouldn't be getting back to the road until dark, and the thought of riding past those stones again, ...
But she saw a high wall up ahead, maybe twenty feet high with another gate. She rode up to that and saw that it was closed.
"Oh, this just gets better every minute," she muttered, climbing down from her horse. "Where's my welcome?" she wondered aloud, thinking now that she had the wrong place for certain, though she couldn't really understand how it was possible. She reached out to touch the ironwork, seeing that there were doors as well which could be closed behind the gate.
That chime sounded again, and then there was silence. Only the sparse chattering of the few birds intruded on her thoughts. Looking ahead, she saw a large, low building a long way off with a great set of doors. In between, there were gardens and open sections which looked a little inviting. But then they were there and she was out here, she thought.
The heavy doors began to swing open and she saw Ny'Zeille step out to begin walking toward her. Selena stared. This was her friend in her natural state, the horns which she'd seen the day before, wings, long tail and all. And she wasn't wearing a thing. Selena noticed that as the demon came a little closer.
It wasn't terribly cold at the moment, but Selena would have hated to be naked here just now. Ny'Zeille didn't seem to notice the cold at all, other than the way that her nipples seemed to have reacted to it. It took a while for her to get to the gate -- it was that long a walk, and she walked at an average pace, not striding for speed or anything, she only walked. Selena only wished that she might have that sort of feminine grace as she watched. The demon's face opened into a wide smile and the gate opened inward by itself.
"Selena! I was wondering when you'd make it up the hill," she said, "I was growing worried, until I heard the second bell at the gate out there. It can take a good length of time to get here, I know, but still..."
"I guess that I was slow, looking at things, mostly. So I've come, Ny'Zeille, I'm finally here. After all of that," she waved her arm behind her. "You didn't say anything about earning at least one gold just for getting up here."
The demon laughed, "True, I guess that I should have said something about the long way up. Come, let's see to your horse." As they led her mare through the gates, they began to swing closed soundlessly behind them.
The walk to the stables took a bit of time as well. "Aren't you cold?" Selena asked.
"I'm not really bothered all that much by cold, "Ny'Zeille said with a bit of a shrug, "I suppose that it comes from flying during the winter. The work of it keeps one warm. Out here like this well, I'll live long enough to get inside the stables. Now yesterday, that was cold for me, just as it was for you. I wasn't moving at all then, was I? I was just sitting and shivering on my horse, the same as you were."
