She wakes.
It's not so much a singular event as a slow and gradual rise, from the relief of unconsciousness to painful awareness. Her head throbs with echoes of the bells that were ringing in her dream, insistent and unrelenting. It's cold, so cold, and she's reminded against her will that yes, she's still here in this Song-forsaken frozen hole of a town. There's a voice, somewhere nearby, shouting ugly Ilexi words that her mind can't quite parse just yet. A command, repeated. She can't open her eyes, glued sticky shut. That voice shreds across her entire being like a jagged scaling knife over raw flesh. But, just like a dead fish, she gives no response. Whoever it is could probably gut her and string her up to dry, too, and she wouldn't move.
"Get up. Get up, you furren drunk bastard! Get out of here!"
A woman's voice. Not one she recognises. Dimly, she registers physical pain, though it's small in comparison to the ringing ache inside her skull. She's being kicked.
She peels one eye open, and immediately regrets it. Too bright, it hurts, nothing but searing light. An involuntary low groan escapes her, but it dies off into a hoarsely whispered sigh as her voice gives out. The kicks don't let up, landing in her side again and again, as the shouted curses continue to lodge in her head.
Where had she ended up last night? She can't remember through the haze of headache and screeching noise. The world comes into focus gradually, the scorching daylight dimming down enough to make out details. A street. Buildings visible above, behind the pale, angry face of the woman screaming and kicking at her. Late morning, by the angle of the light. She's yet immobile against the onslaught, but comes to a resolution: this woman wants her to get up? Fine, she'll get up. She'll get up and she'll draw her blade and she'll hack this stupid ghosty-white An-Sor peasant fuck right in two. Cut her ugly fuckin' head off.
That's the idea, at least. The reality doesn't live up to such lofty dreams: she rolls away from the kicking a little, struggles to get one foot beneath herself, and lurches unsteadily in an attempt to stand-- but only briefly, before collapsing back again, into a half-frozen mud puddle that she'd somehow managed to avoid sleeping in. There's some success to it, anyway, in that the local backs up a step or two, clearly not game to take on the giant Salawi when she's conscious. She tries again, staggering, and rises at last to her full six and a half feet with an ominous crack from one knee. She turns to face the woman, intending retribution, but she's too slow: a ball of muddy horse dung slaps wetly full into her face, accompanied by further shrieks that dig their claws into her tender head and rip chunks of her brain free. She swipes a hand over her face and spits, spluttering, mud and manure in her mouth and eyes. Soon enough, she's coughing, helpless against the choking hacks. Another dung-missile hits her in the shoulder, from another angle. The others on the street are joining in. She gives up.
Inaya turns, shoulders hunched, and flees, unsteady and limping. Pale eyes follow her from all sides, full of revulsion and animosity.
It's been like this for months, now. Days, nights, the hot comforting sting of Tiya's "whiskey," one pasty hateful face after another, one morning of hungover hammering inside of her head after another, they all blur together. She can't remember when conversations happened, when she last ate, what day it is, when she stopped showing up to the churchyard for work or the last time she prayed. No reason to remember, to differentiate one day from the next, when all of them are miserable, cold, and interminable, and they lead only to the Mist. To madness and death.
But then, abruptly, she does remember. One thing, sharp and shining as a blade.
A ship. Wasi had said there was a ship. When? She doesn't know. It doesn't matter. The memory is real, she knows it is. Remembers his sneer as he said it, the implication that she wouldn't care. Wouldn't keep her promise to the crew. Even as angry as he was when he said it... he wouldn't lie, would he? Wasi doesn't lie. Not about that.
Nevermind that she was too drunk at the time to respond with anything but anger. That she'd accused him of lying, would have shouted him off if she was capable of shouting. Drove him away all the same. The seed was planted, and now there's a fierce and tender hope growing. A ship. A way out. An end to the torture of this place. A way home at last-- or at least a chance.
He wouldn't just make that up to taunt her, would he?
There's a ship. Don't get your hopes up, comes the little whispering doubt in the back of her mind. But she can't help it. There has been nothing else to hope for since the storm, since the Dolphin broke apart on the rocks and went down. It's impossible not to hope for better when there's a ship. She's been so long with her feet in the dirt - is it too late? The last time she was on land this long-- well. She was younger, then. Much younger. And right now, she feels her age more keenly than she ever has, every joint aching, every nerve screaming. Maybe she's just too old for any of it...
No.
She straightens, and shifts to track toward the hostel, moving with more purpose now that she's got a destination.
If there's a ship, Inaya is going to be on it.