[center][color=ed145b][b][h1][i][b]M[/b] i m r i n[/i][/h1][/b][/color][/center]
[right][hr][color=gray][b]The Well of Valdis[/b]
12th Day of Autumn, 1088 AD[/color][hr][/right]
Mimrin returned in a flash of agony. Her eyes opened so suddenly she might have caught a glimpse into her own skull. She drank in fetid air that clung to her throat and burned her nose, only to hack it all back out. Every muscle clenched and twitched, she dug her hands through the dirt until she’d squeezed a fist beneath the surface, and tried to rise to no avail. 

[color=ed145b]“Ugh…”[/color] Her voice was a wreck. Meek and quiet and—she reeled—[i]shaking.[/i] How disgusting. 

She felt around, first to her neck on a strange impulse, then to the rotten ground around her. Her daggers, she needed her daggers, that much was certain. Her vision was blurry, but she could hear well enough the sounds of life around her, struggling for bearing just as she was, only [i]she[/i] would not be caught off-guard. 

At last her fingers found the round of a hilt, and she yanked it close. She expected the umbral sheen of Draethir steel, dark and sharper than any other land could ever [i]hope[/i] to forge, but when she could finally see clearly, it was no master-craft she held. The dagger was hardly recognizable as such; its leather binding was old beyond old, the guard bent, and the blade—Warlord’s breath, the blade—it was snapped off only four or five inches high. The blackish metal was overtaken in rust that mocked the bloody-red color she remembered had lined its fuller. With no small amount of horror she realized that the dagger had not been destroyed in combat, but rather [i]time[/i] had eaten it into a worthless husk of a once-renowned weapon. 

Upon closer inspection she saw that her armor was in a similar state, and further off the hilt of her other dagger jutted from the muck. It was no better off. 

This was not where she had died. 

[color=crimson]“What the hell.”[/color] She mumbled. Or rather, she thought she had. When she opened her mouth though, she said nothing. No, she wasn’t even opening her mouth. She wasn’t doing anything, just sitting there on her hands and knees, staring dumbly at her ruined dagger. Again she tried to speak, and said nothing. She tried to rise, but would not budge. [color=crimson]“Get [i]up[/i]!”[/color]

When she did, it was not of her own accord. She got to her feet quivering like a newborn fawn, clutching the dagger close to her chest. Unwilled, her eyes darted about the decrepit pit, jolting at the other gasps, and even her own. She thought, [color=crimson][i]‘Run!’[/i][/color] but did nothing. She did nothing. 

[color=ec008c]“H-hello?”[/color] she asked.

Something gripped Mimrin then, as she heard herself speak words she had not thought. As she moved without permission. It was not fear, it was something [i]beyond[/i] fear. It was the realization that she was not in control of her own body. And if she wasn’t, then who was?

--

Mimrin saw something move out of the corner of her eye, and yelped, only to cover her mouth an instant later. It was another person, a girl with rosy hair, holding as sword as she retreated from the putrid mound they’d awoken on. 

Her instincts told her to run, but she was frozen stiff. Only the idea that this person might be, like her, confused and afraid, pushed her to move again. Not quite an approach, Mimi kept her distance, but still drew close enough to make herself heard.

[color=ec008c]“Hello?”[/color] she repeated. [color=ec008c]“Who are you? Do…do you know where we are?”[/color]