NOVEL SIMPLE 8. Down the old stump
Water, rushing fast past her, surrounding her on every side, dragging her with it. The river was a beast, alive with unstoppable motion and it had her trapped in it's grasp. She could fight it, try to swim in the opposite direction, but it would accomplish nothing. Back there was where the guards would be coming from. Too many for her to fight in her exhausted condition.
It was easier to stabilize, let the current carry her to safety. But that was easier said than done. The river was raging forward, with no sign of slowing down. Her only escape from the chaotic tide was found below the surface, in the face of the deep.
Down there she was alone. No fish was brave enough to swim through this, and no other living thing called this place home. It was Abigail and her thoughts and forward.
The map was down there too.
She realized her mistake and swam up. The map, soaked, followed after her into daylight. It was near unreadable and only getting worse. Waves of water crashed into her, drenching her and her precious cargo. There was no escape.
The best she could manage was studying the map far more intensely than she'd ever studied before and trying to commit it to memory. In it's soggy state, that was near impossible. Some details were already missing, she was no master of geography, and she didn't even know where she was on the map in the first place.
She gave her it all anyway, taking note of the nearest city, located on what looked like a giant stump not far from here. Then the map was torn in two by a wave and ripped from her grasp, still she was confident in her sense of navigation. All she had to do first was get Ashore and then...
Everything would start getting better.
It took twenty minutes before she was in a position to escape the river. They were, of course, terrible. Then, once those twenty minutes had passed, Abigail started swimming under her own power. From there it was a short trip to climb out of the water and onto dry ground.
Well, it was short, but it didn't feel that way. The climb seemed arduous at the moment, thanks in no small part to her expanded figure. Breasts dragging across the ground as her rump waggled in the air behind her. Hips and thighs evoking no shortage of embarrassing images that she was glad no one was around to see.
It only got worse when she finally found her feet beneath her. A combination of her stolen armor being filled with water and copious amount of boob. Together they worked to either loosen it or make it to heavy to continue wearing. An effort that was far too successful, resulting in her unclasping the breast plate and dropping it to the ground.
Then she started walking, looking for somewhere to sit. Somewhere she could rest her far too weary bones until all the aches she had been ignoring went away. A short search that ended almost as quick as it began.
A few feet away from the river was a tree laying on its side. She lowered herself onto it with a sigh and tried to relax. To breath and forget about her issues for a moment. Which she utterly failed at. Her mind refused to budge from the thought of Esbern and how he might be suffering as a slave. How he could be tortured, or worse.
Thoughts that led to her getting up almost as quick as she had sat down. Unfortunately her body and mind were not in agreement. The pain she had suppressed so far came roaring to life, burning her from the inside out and dragging her back down.
It was a feeling she'd experienced one too many times. A sense of overdoing it, pushing her body too far, too quickly, and too hard. Almost like she was a little kid again, running through the streets looking for her mom, on the edge of panic, forcing herself to keep going even as every one of her senses told her to stop.
Somehow she almost missed those times. A mix of nostalgic longing and what was probably wishful thinking. But only almost. Right now, all she wanted was for this pain to go away.
To sleep a little while, long enough that when she woke everything would be better.
Sadly that wasn't how the world worked. More often than not the world was unfair and cruel, and if Abigail wanted anything to get better she was going to have to move. Even if it hurt. And it did. The simple act of standing was a drawn out affair that took a whole minute. Of legs, stiff, resisting her attempt to get them to move, and only obeying after a delayed pause. Arms sagging, weighed down by the physical presence of "in hindsight".
But she moved. A start that soon led into slow steps further inland. Past trees four times her height and colored with red leaves. They were a kind that she recognized from the map, a sign that she was even closer to her destination than she thought.
Sadly, she wasn't close enough to make walking a better experience. It was still half miserable, with every step she took followed by a jolt of pain, tempting her to just take off running so she could get over with faster. Which she would have if she didn't understand how terrible an idea it was. Even by her standards.
Thankfully, the walk ended up being a shorter one than expected.
She arrived at her destination, a giant grey stump, in minutes rather than the hour she thought it would take. Equally as surprising was the lack of a city. There was nothing in sight that gave the slightest hint of civilization. It was all wild and untamed as far as she could see.
She had to have missed something. A detail overlooked, or forgotten, or... Or maybe her sense of direction wasn't as great as she thought it was. Either way, this was clearly the wrong stump, even if it did look almost exactly like the one on the map.
Which after a moment of staring, she realized that it was exactly the stump from the map. Just smaller than it had been made out.
And without a city on top of it.
But maybe, maybe the city was never on top. Curious, Abigail climbed up the giant stump with a grunt of pain and found that she was right. The stump, it's insides carved into a spiral staircase, led down. Deep, deep down.
A path, that after a second of hesitation, she boldly walked. Her first step on it a heavy one that caused the grey wood beneath her feet to groan out. A creaking sound that persisted for a few seconds long, a song that it was not alone in singing. New voices joined it with every step she took. Some louder. Some quieter. All unique in their little variations rebounding off the wooden well that the stump had become. A pit that seemed like it went far too far down into Ardia's burning heart.
The kind of thing that Abigail maybe would have enjoyed if she wasn't tired, in pain, and in a rush. Instead it was a slow descent that was equal parts boring as it was nerve wracking. With every step she took followed by the persistent worry that the wood would fall out from under her.
It was a fear that she slowly grew to resist even thinking about. Most of the time at least. Then, when she finally reached the bottom of the stump she stopped thinking about it entirely. Her thoughts were consumed with a new subject to focus on.
A city, grey and old, with ruined buildings standing on crumbling foundations. Every window empty, the rooms behind them devoid of life, and the streets eerily quiet.
She had found her city.