Wanderlust

Whether to the second sun, or beyond it to the first

Whether to the South, far from the lands of your birth

Whether a valley or a mountain you shall call your own

May your wings always carry you upon the Winds of Home

Waves lap lazily at the shore, momentarily rinsing the sand from between Osthryn’s toes. With another step she undoes the water’s work, the wet sand clinging to her feet. Her kirtle, the hem darkened with saltwater, is hiked up to just above her ankles. A thick, blonde braid falls to her waist, flyaway hair gently brushing her cheeks and temples in the strong southern breeze. Her shoes dangle loosely in her hands, all semblance of civility quite abandoned.


Long months at sea had made her all too eager to feel the grounding presence of the earth directly beneath her feet. She takes her time to savour it. The departure of the second boat upriver isn’t for a few hours yet. Many fellow passengers have luggage and fuss to occupy themselves with, but Osthryn’s meagre belongings are sufficiently housed in a pack strapped to her back. She’s free to embrace the sights and smells of the Southern Coast as she pleases.


Osthryn peers at the sky above, the peaks of the Southern Mountains that stretch from the coast inland are just visible from this side of the river. Two shapes appear on the horizon over the peaks, and Osthryn holds her breath. Squinting her eyes, she strains to make them out, hoping beyond hope that they are Dragons. She feels her elation seeping out of her like the water around her ankles as she grudgingly resolves that they are most likely wyverns or birds of prey.


Osthryn mentally chides herself, looking back down at the water rolling over her feet. She allows the feeling of the sand pulling out to sea to ground her thoughts. What she would feel when she inevitably saw a Dragon, let alone in full flight, is a puzzle that teases her deeply. Such a sight is anathema to her people. While she would hardly admit the truth of her quest to anyone, coming face-to-face with a Southern Dragon was a scene she often played over and over in her mind. It always ends in one of two ways: that her Southern kinsfolk would be disgusted by her, or she would be disappointed to find that Southern Dragons were no different from the Dragons of the North. Neither thought is a useful one, according to her, and she hopes that a third, unimagined outcome would rather be the case.


The occasional wyvern is the closest Osthryn had come so far to seeing her southern kin. These horse-sized, flying reptilian beasts grew more common the further south Osthryn travelled. While they still fly freely in the North, they remain rare in those frigid realms. The cold itself is no reason for the relative underpopulation, however. While they are reptiles, wyverns, like their Dragon cousins, do have some magical regulation of body temperature. This is simply not the case of other cold-blooded creatures. Osthryn personally feels that the greater population of wyverns in the South is a good sign; it means she might be heading in the right direction to freedom.


The second sun, now receded in size to merely a large star in the sky, had begun to follow the primary sun’s descent into twilight. Osthryn sighs. The second journey upriver to Mountainkeep is a mere week’s travel, but she is reluctant to give up her barefoot wandering just yet. This reluctance will not do, she notes, when she sees her travel companion busily begin to urge their fellow passengers to make haste to the boat. Oswald the Scribe waits for no-one.


Osthryn rubs her wrists. The burn marks are long healed, but the itch would often reappear. It is as if it wants to remind her that the last few months of her journey are solely owing to Oswald’s impulsive intervention. Osthryn taps her index finger against the ghost of the burn line three times before reluctantly pulling her sandy feet into a run toward the boat. Oswald is her rescuer, but more than that, he is also her guide. If he happened to abandon her, she would be utterly lost.