From where she stood she could see the vast moonlit field before her. Nothing but rock, mushroom and time stood against her in her endeavour to get answers in this forsaken place. The answers it seemed were yonder in that suspiciously town-like looking establishment of lights and bustling motions in the distance. And so marched on the redhead, following the sound of the bell their potential meal.
10 minutes later she found herself about halway to the suspiciously town-like looking place and nearing the three-quarter finished mark of her wine bottle. Izzy shivered and decided that now would be best to put on her clothes now.
Little warmth they provided since they were still damp but better than the nights chill ignoring her skivvies and biting her skin cold. Little warmth was still warmth after all. A yearning look befell her eyes as they spied fire in the distance. Suddenly she was up and moving again. With a resounding growl, she stabbed the gaff into the earth and left it in her dust; hunting season was on hiatus for now. Long legs pumped double time, for the promise of heat spurred her on and she made good haste to reach her destination.
~~~
And so finally then, she was greeted by the sights and sounds of utter magnificence and grace... and the resplendant heat of a body warming torch. There truly was more to this land than she first suspected; a whole town’s worth of wonder in fact. A ponderously graceful gait she had for one who had nearly a whole fat wine bottle’s worth of alcohol to herself, but it seemed the onlookers cared not. They continued on their business in this quaint little town backed by the giant and spectacular spires. The dogs however, recognized a stranger when they smelled one, and so began the rough chorus of barkings. Izzy in response merely found a dopey, huge grin plastered to her face and suddenly she began to whistle at the doggies, waving at them. Soon enough she was making kissy noises at them and of course she just had to saunter on over.
Her melodic voice was crooning out a soft and mellow lullaby that all Daemon Squall children were taught. One after the other, the dogs began to calm and a puzzled yet bemused look befell the redhead. She reached out to pet one, but then a body intervened. The caretaker of the dogs prevented Izzy from losing a limb. This person was the reason the dogs calmed, not Izzy’s perception that her song had lulled the dogs to rest.
A drunken smile she offered the dog-keeper,
“Well met, mate… I be Ms. Izzy and a trade if ye can ken me speech then? A drink for the whereabouts of a lad with a meal—goat. A goat heheheh… he look like this—” Izzy re-enacted the boy slipping over the rocks, over exaggerated his motions and over embellished his speech—
“I say! Oi! Ya barmy gits! Shut yer pie holes!! Bad children are loud children! Oi, selfish redhead! Loudness will only bring bone cracking, giant jawed Monsters raaaaaawwwrrrr!!!”Izzy raised up the near-empty wine bottle to the dog keeper.
“Wellllll… in so many words that be, mate… hah.”The dog keeper took one sniff at the top of the bottle, crinkled not just nose but entire face, held both palms to Izzy and just pointed her in the right direction. A sniff at the bottle opening she herself took, a shrug she tossed, a swill she had, a smile, wink and nod she offered, a tip of a phantom tricorn hat she gave and Izzy sauntered on in the pointed direction.
~~~
And it was here, near the lantern 'shrine,' where that moment of sobering clarity found itself inside her near-drunken head.
The glow of the spectral light was amazing. It was of a hue that Izzy had only witnessed in her dreams; it was a hue that only the worthy could touch with more than merely hand and fingers. The uprisings of wheat swayed like row upon row of zealot followers and Izzy, whether from drink or whether from mere awe, she herself began to sway as well. Then abrubptly, she stopped when she looked upward towards the moon and into the glittering skies beyond moon's face.
All voices that spoke to her, haunted her, commanded her, she could no longer deny; she had seen this sight before. Upon waking atop that floating wine barrel she had looked skyward.
Instinct to look up was what any good for anything sailor worth their salt should have done in her position. They would have looked to the stars in the nightsky to get a bearing; to know where they are at sea. And aye, Isabellia herself had first looked to the stars upon waking, but until now she denied what she had seen.
It took an ashen skinned, giant toothed, self-healing monster and a dreamy, aethereal, and monolithic lantern light to finally break her denial. But alas, here she stood, almost full drunk but she had full clarity in her mind as she looked to the heavens above and admitted the defeating, undeniable truth to herself;
she did not recognize the stars above her. Nary a one.
“Izzy, the lost at sea…” an audible, dry and strained swallow she took,
“…is still lost…”Her shoulders rose and fell with a heavy sigh as she lowered her eyes. That moment of clarity further expounded and traipsed into Epiphany's territory once those steely-blue eyes finally saw it. Upon the piece of metal she had collect was engraved script. Neath the moonlight, she had not the ability to read what it said, but under the lantern light it was clear as day; it was part of some kind of plaque. Most of the script she did not pay attention to, save for the one part; that one part highlighted by the radiant hue of the lantern light. It spoke a name. A name she did not realize, until now, was her name too.
“'…we sail the high seas with fire in the heart of our Legend’s Forgery…'” she recited. But Izzy’s melodic voice was not so melodic when she repeated the words again.
“Fire in the heart of our Legend’s Forgery. The unequalled Flame is legend, find you in hell then… No one strays from the fire. Find you in hell, yet again... The Flame is but a legend’s forgery. ”Oh, she saw where the goat-herding urchin went alright, and she would follow, but she needed a moment to herself. Such an an Epiphany required a moment to soak it all in. And in the end Izzy just laughed.
When you find yourself stranded in an uncharted place, no map, no ship, no friends, no family and find yourself as only a legend’s forgery what else could you do but laugh. And so Isabellia Courtana Faunarios, formerly known as Flame, captain of The Enchanting, one of the leaders of the Daemon Squall Pirates, just stood there and laughed.
With chin lowered, she had laughed until she cried.