No Rest on the Brink ( Kwars )

She stood to the right of the large iron gate, leaning idly against the
tower itself. The late day shadows had stretched across the sandy ground,
lending a much needed break from the dry heat that wafted up from the
ground.

The Bakali were out there in the distance, but it was beyond them that she
found her gaze settled. She had walked the paths out there time and again
to reach Storm Keep and had watched, time and again, as Reklah disappeared
into the blistering heat and sands as he returned.

An abrupt ache began to throb through her left hand at the thought,
following the line of the scar that had torn a ragged path from the palm to
mid-wrist. She had sustained the wound for Arinas Schwartz, in Necrucifer's
name. It struck her as appropriate. She had shed blood willingly for
Shalonesti to prove herself, it stood to reason that, for the duty she oft
found herself employed in, it be the same elsewhere.

She had also been an exiled elf of Shalonesti about to walk into a world
ruled by humans of the dark pantheon then. She hadn't been prepared for
that, no matter how many of them she had come to know throughout her
lifetime.

Setting the memories aside as best she could, she tore her eyes from the
dunes to gaze down at her left hand. The pain was increasing with each
throb, a thing it had never done before. It creased her brow and with
growing concern, she uncoiled her arms from across her chest and slowly
peeled her leather glove off.

...to find that the white gash of the scar had reopened.

Blood spilled down her arm and her hand, dripping from her fingers to pool
on the sand below, and pain coursed up through the rest of her arm as if the
blade were ripping its ragged path into her flesh again.

* * *

She awoke with the nails of her left hand dug painfully deep into her palm
and a dull ache coursing through each of her scars. Confusion held her in
thrall for a handful of moments before she managed to push herself up from
the bed. She hadn't bothered to dress for sleep, not with war so close on
the horizon, and she was paying the price for that now.

Sore through and through, she rubbed her right hand back along her neck and looked to the window. A gentle, cool breeze was ruffling the curtains and the faint light without told her that she'd only gotten two, maybe three hours of rest at most.

Sighing heavily, she arose, grimacing at the shallow crack along her spine
when she straightened and grabbed up her weapons and baldric.

If she wasn't going to be allowed much rest, the least she could do was make
herself useful by walking the escape routes again. She knew them
blindfolded now - but her archers could always use the refresher.