The world spins around her, too fast for anything around her to make any sense, to be anything more than blurry, rapidly changing colors. Alice squeezes her eyes tightly shut in the hope that it will ease the nausea. It does, but only a little. Even without vision she can feel the whole world is spinning, her poor head working overtime trying -- and failing -- to interpret the signals coming from her inner ear to tell her which way is up. Which way is any direction.
And then her knee hits something solid. Then her hand. She lands hard on her stomach, wind momentarily knocked out of her. She scrambles to get up and manages to get on all fours, before she tries to open her eyes and almost falls back over. Her head is still spinning too hard. She closes her eyes and shakes her head to try to make it stop. She's distantly aware of the throbbing pain in the knee she landed on, but the spinning in her head is so much worse it's taking up all her attention.
She can hear Sam groaning somewhere to her left. The sound pretty much sums up how she's feeling too. Behind her Kevin chuckles.
"I didn't remember it was this bad," he mutters, clearly to himself. His voice is coming from close to the ground too.
She opens her eyes again. This time she manages to keep them open and take in her surroundings, though nothing is quite in focus and everything seems to be tilting to the right. She scans the room, but doesn't see anything immediately threatening. "Small house" seems to be an accurate description. There seems to be only this room, since she can't spot more than the front door. Next to it a small window covered by what once was curtains, sunlight dappling the floor through the many many holes in them. By the looks of it, the house hasn't been used in a long while. There's no one else there, and probably hasn't been in the same long while since it's been in use. There's a few scattered pieces of broken, odd-looking furniture, but otherwise the room is empty. The air is cold, and smells old and dusty. Her breath is coming out in tiny clouds of vapor.
Alice turns to look at the other two, but turns her head too fast, and a new wave of dizziness washes over her. Not that it was gone in the first place. She shakes her head again, and the worst of it passes. The other two don't look to be doing much better. Sam's sitting on their knees, leaning on the floor for support with on hand, holding their head with the other. Kevin is leaning on the wall behind them, which gives her pause. That's weird, surely they came through there-- No, wait. Now that she's looking, there seems to be an outline of a door. One that's clearly there if you're looking for it, but would be easily missed if you didn't know about it.
Alice decides to try to stand up. She leans heavily on her hands and pushes off the floor, making it all the way to her feet before tipping over again. She manages to step in the right direction to stay upright, and her elbow finds a wall. Now her elbow hurts too, but at least she manages to steady herself for long enough to find her feet.
"What were you thinking?" Sam asks form the floor.
"That we needed to get as close to the capital as fast as possible," Kevin says. He feels the wall behind him with a hand and begins to make his way to his feet too. "Are you both just dizzy? You can still tell where all your limbs are? Any vision loss? Weird smells or tastes you don't think should be there? Pain?"
"My knee and elbow hurt," Alice offers. "And I think I have a couple of bruises. But those are all from the rough entrance."
"I can see," Sam says and squints at the ceiling, "but my eyes won't focus for more than a moment. Everything is spinning too much."
"Seems like we got off easy," Kevin says, trying to find his feet.
"Speak for yourself," Sam mutters from the floor.
"It could have been a lot worse," he rephrases. "Though who knows, something might come bite us as lingering after-effects."
"For how long?" Alice asks, not liking the sound of that at all. Kevin simply shrugs. Sam groans on the floor again. "Great."
"I think I'm ready to try to stand. Can either of you give me a hand?" Sam says, reaching their arm up. Alice takes a step away from the wall, then a moment to make sure she's steady on her feet, bedore taking their hand and pulling. They rise and immediately begin tipping to the side, but Alice manages to catch them before they fall. They look at her.
"You're not dizzy anymore?" they ask, a hint of envy in their voice.
"I am," she assures them. "But it's not too bad anymore. That said, if you fall, you might well pull me back down with you."
They nod and move to lean on the wall instead.
"Why do you even have this door?" they ask Kevin.
"The Seasonal Fairs have been held for centuries at a glade only a twenty-minute walk from here."
Alice raises an eyebrow and waits for him to continue. He doesn't.
"Well, let's not go there," she finally says. "We'll want to stay hidden as much as we can. Do you know if were safe here? I mean, in this house? Are we in a hurry to get out before someone catches us in here?"
"No one should know we're here nor should anyone have a reason to come in."
Good enough for her, for now. She digs out the conch shell.
"Vanessa?" she says into it.
"Alice?" the voice coming from the shell warms her heart, and for a moment she smiles, almost forgetting they're now officially on hostile territory.
"We made it to Fey Wilds," she tells her. "Do you..."
"Wait, we?" she interrupts.
"Uh... Yeah. Me and Kevin and Sam."
"Oh... That's probably not..." she falls quiet on the other end for a moment. Then a quick whisper: "I have to go."
Alice curses and bites her teeth. It seemed like someone just interrupted them at Vanessa's end. Alice only hopes they didn't catch her and take the conch away. She spends a moment wondering what Vanessa had been about to say, but then dismisses it. There's no way to know, and they have enough to worry about as it is.
"Well, then," she turns back to the other two. "Shall we?"
They nod, looking reasonably steady on their feet. Alice turns to the only door in the room and opens it, the bright sunlight flooding in.
_______________________________________________
I do not have my head in this yet. But soon, I hope.
The topic for tomorrow is Audience.
~matleena
Pesky portals :D
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