Skeletons of the Past
“Mph… no…” Learth muttered, disturbing the hay beneath her thin, tired body. “No,” her voice rose, “No… NO, NO!”
“Quit your shouting, silly girl,” Bweer, still only a child himself, shook her back into the waking world.
Learth rubbed her eyes.
“You don’t want to cause trouble. You need to quiet down, or they’ll come and chase us out again.”
“Sorry,” she mumbled, pulling herself up against a wooden beam, peering through sleep-dazed eyes in the dark cellar of the Blue Moon Inn at her brother’s shadow.
“Ray told me there’d be Black Arm Gang lootings tonight,” His face was set like an old marble statue. In the dark, he could have been more than just a boy. “But the innkeeper’s paid them this time, so as long as we don’t give them a reason to notice us, we’re safe.”
Learth tugged a grain sack up over her knees, “I didn’t mean to shout. It was the dream about the skeleton man again.”
Bweer sighed. “Sis, I thought we had that problem taken care of. We’ve been over this a dozen times—we were in the sewers just last week watching adventurers, remember? You were really scared then too, but what did you learn?”
“T-that Skeletons are easy to beat, as long as you hit them with something made of steel or better, right? Yeah, that was it. I think.” She looked away from his face. It was difficult to see in this kind of darkness anyway.
“And you shouldn’t be scared of them.” Bweer nodded, “They’re not coming to get you, and even if they did, the city guards would make quick work of them. They’re only brittle bones.”
“They’re only brittle bones,” Learth repeated, trying to reassure herself with her brother’s words. “But… the one in my dream is different. It had green, glowing eyes. It really REALLY wanted to kill me, and very nearly did!”
“Don’t let it bother you. Dreams can be strange like that. In real life, skeletons are wimps. If I ever came up against one, I’d give it a good thrashing.”
11-Mar-2019 21:35:30
