The plains could drive a man mad, if he wasn’t careful.
The empty expanse stretched from horizon to horizon. There was little to break it up. A gnarled tree here and there, its limbs twisted by wind and rain. The occasional ruin of a civilization long destroyed. A cliff or a crater covered in the ashes of a war forgotten long ago. And in between, flat earth, miles and miles of flat earth, as barren of landmarks as the ocean. If a man was unlucky, or careful, he could go for weeks without seeing another soul. True, there were traders and travelers- the bandits would have nobody to prey on if there weren’t. But the plains were vast, and swallowed up entire caravans in their embrace. A lone man was nothing to them.
Tor could remember a time when he was small and a man had been found wandering the plains by his tribe. The man was raving, brought in by two hunters on horses, his mind addled beyond repair by days of dehydration and sun exposure. All the children were fascinated by him. It was not only his madness that made him so intriguing. For many, he was the first person outside of their tribe that they had ever seen- children were not permitted to leave their caravans when foreigners came to trade. The children huddled together and formed half-baked schemes to sneak into the healer’s wagon and speak to the madman. They would sneak in through the skylight, they would set the wagon on fire and snatch him when he ran out, they would balance on each other’s shoulders in a long robe and pretend to be an elder. Misty plans with no intention behind them. Tor was the only one who dared to follow through.
The healers were not nearly as vigilant as an overawed ten-year-old would assume. The door to the wagon wasn’t even locked. Tor just waited by a nearby tent until the healer on duty stepped out for a pipe break and slipped inside when the man’s back was turned. He’d been inside the wagon before, of course. He was very familiar with the stinging salves for scrapes and bruises that the healers would use on children not hurt enough to merit spellwork. He knew the hanging bundles of dried herbs, the rolls of bandages stuffed into every corner, the one high skylight that did little to ventilate the dense smells in the tiny room. But he had never seen the wagon so dark. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust. As he stood in the darkness, unmoving, he could hear a muffled groaning. Tor felt the darkness and the close air pressing in around him. He looked up to see a sliver of sun where the skylight should be. A dark cloth had been hung over the only source of light and air in the musty room.
Tor moved forward, blinking away the dazzle of light. His foot hit something soft and he stepped back in terror. The madman on the floor groaned again, shifting and rolling over. Tor backed away, holding his breath, and his elbow hit a shelf. He tried too late to steady it, but his flailing hand knocked a bowl onto the floor with a loud clatter. At that the man on the floor jerked upright. The sliver of light fell across his eyes and he shrieked, lurching forward into Tor to avoid it and thumping both of them into the closed door. Tor yelled and tried to shove the madman off. The man should have been weak from dehydration but his grip on Tor’s shoulders was iron-strong. He shoved his face into Tor’s. His breath was hot and his eyes were wide and staring, too much blank white, irises barely visible around the huge ragged pupils. He rasped something at Tor, something too rattling to be language, as Tor scrabbled madly for the door’s handle. Tor could feel the man’s fingers digging into his shoulders, and could hear his heart beating double time. Then the door opened, and Tor and the man toppled out into the bright of day. The man screamed and fell off of him- to Tor’s relief- and writhed on the ground, clutching his head and wailing at the light. The healer who had opened the door ran to bundle him inside, and in the commotion Tor managed to slip away. The other children pressed him for details, hungry to know more about the madman, clamoring to hear about his adventure, but Tor shook his head at them. He didn’t sleep that night.
You shouldn’t travel the plains alone. But sometimes you had to.
Author's Notes:
Written 1/15/2020. This was the prologue to a long planned AU where Tor Draggoth found Enna wandering as a child in the plains and adopted her. It was based around the dynamic Enna and Tor had in the// actual campaign- he was sort of a reluctant mentor, and she latched onto him right away as a fellow barbarian.