OOC: Welcome,
@nizzy !
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On the edges of the Kilanthro mountains, there was a village. To be even more precise, there
was a village. It was a dead thing now-- empty and hollow, with only the rattling of unlocked windows in the valley winds to make a sound. Plates still lay on tables, still full of now-rotting food, and valuables still lay locked up in their cupboards.
A hanged person's spinal column still rattled in the breeze, the rest of the body not more than scraps of cloth and scattered bone, picked clean long ago by scavengers. The bones were the only villager left, the rest of what had once had to have been a decent population gone. Vanished, like smoke.
Or a ghost.
Beyond the ruined village, deeper into the mountains, there was a fortress-home. Or, at least, the skeletal remains of one. Blackened stone told of a fire long ago, though it did little to destroy the heart of the place-- and even less to destroy the labyrinth of stairs that led down, deep into the earth.
What had no doubt once been a meticulously tended courtyard was overrun with wildflowers and brambles, the grasses allowed to grow tall in the absence of the usual vicious winds that rattled the village below. A well stood in the midst of all this, unburnt and unchanged save for the creeping vines that threatened to choke one side.
Kyrrha gripped the lever, and began turning the crank to lift the bucket upwards, full of clean, delicious water. She licked her lips, and wondered why she always waited so long to do this-- soon, the bite of the rusted iron reminded her well enough. She hated the feel of it, of iron, and while it produced no physical malady, it seemed to shake her to her core to be in contact with it.
It was much the same with salt. She hated the stuff, hated the sour bite to her tongue whenever she tasted it. When had she last tasted it?
She sniffled, loudly, eyes welling up at the memory of the last home-cooked meal she had, at the memory of pushing around her potatoes with disdain because her mother had oversalted them. At the memory of being able to see her face for the first time that night, so clear and vivid it terrified her to even speak of it.
Kyrrha turned the crank all the faster, her entire face scrunched up as she tried not to think of her mother, of her mother's bones down in the village, of all the bedtime stories and the comforting hugs she would never experience again.
She was starting to even forget what her mother sounded like.
Finally, the bucket crested the top of the well, and she pulled it to the side, first taking a long drink and then washing her hands of the residual feel of iron on them. A quick splash to her face rid her of the tears that had threatened to fall, and the cold felt good against her skin. She closed her eyes for a moment, just a moment to get under control, and when she opened them again, a half-burnt woman was standing in front of her.
The woman stood tall, where there was still a body to support her, the other side blackened and skeletal from whatever horror had visited her in the end of her life. Kyrrha had tried to ask once, but the woman refused to tell such horror stories to children. Kyrrha smiled up at her, and moved her hand in askance.
The ghost, in kind, rapidly moved her hands, and Kyrrha nearly jumped out of her skin. Someone was coming, and she didn't even bother dropping the bucket back down the well. She ran past the woman, through her, over to the last standing bit of roof and the entrance to the cellar of her home. She ducked down, made herself as tiny as possible, and listened for the approach of footsteps.
