Paradise lost, Paradise found

This leads up to Chit beeing trained, some chapters until he meets his master

 

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He hurt, it was a pain that left him numb in the end.

He didn´t hear, see or react to the things around him as the cage was taken from the ships cabin and put in the back of a horse drawn cart.

He just wanted to keep quiet and not move around, just curled tightly together and floating in the pain of his body, which left him blind to the things outside of his cage.



The rough movement of the cart did nothing to ease his pain, he only slipped further into it when the cart went over bumps and through dents in the road and he was jostled.

Night had come and they were still moving, the nightsky obscured by the covering that kept rain, wind and too much sun away.



Someone spoke to him and nudged the side of his snout carefully, trying to rouse him out of his state.

Opening his eyes he was greated with the sight of the mumbling scholar who had opened the cage and tried to lift his head with one hand, tipping a bottle with the other to feed him some potion through the small space his jaws could open to.



At least now he felt some relief as the potion worked through his body and tiredness claimed him,dragging him into a deep sleep.



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As he woke the next time he was in a stable, still in his cage, near the horses and some of the dogs that had been on the ship.

Still he was too exhausted to care, only laying there until Auratan entered the stables, taking a seat on a small stool next to the cage and offering sticks of vegetables and fruits to the argonian.



He couldn´t even feel wary of the mer that had broken his childish trust, numb and tired he took the sliced up food that was tiny enough so he could eat it, the rings in his mouth getting in the way, his tongue had no proper way to rest or move.



His declawed fingers and toes felt all wrong, no longer painfull wounds as long as he lay there, but trying to touch something with the stumps was uncomfortable, not yet painfull but wrong, sensitive in a bad way.



In the eyes of the mage he could read nothing, either because he was still on recovery and numb, or because...he was just a research object for the scholar.





The next days were passed with sleeping mostly, his body on the mend but his mind more than just strained.





The caravan took a rest one day and it seemed they were nearing their destination as the scholar opened the cage, now not for a feeding or for inspecting his goods but for a little..run.



One of the servants had put his cage down from the cart and there was green all around him.



The lizard felt better and when the cage was opened..a chain was hooked to his nosering that dangled on the outside before the scholar stepped aside and the lizard tentiatively climbed out of the cage.



The grass felt nice, the wind was warm and brought dozens of smells with it, flowery, fresh grass, the wooden scent of trees and water.

He just laid there for a while, the chain lightweight but still pulling heavily on the nosering,the movement destracting and his declawed limbs...strangers to him.



As a toewalker, using his toes and not the sole of his feet, claws needed for balance, walking, getting a hold of the ground, he was ...useless.



First he tried to walk by rolling over his toes and fingers as he had done normally, but there was no cushion, the tip missing and the pressure on the scarred tissue quite uncomfortable,no nail to tell him how to roll his tips, to give hold on the ground.



So he tried to use the middle feet which was normally slightly bent to give him an elastic walk..putting it down on the earth to ease pressure from his toes he could not use to walk as before.



It made him look clown-like, overly big human feet, waddling and curling his fingers to walk on the knuckles.



Not that it was comfortable, but it was better than trying to walk on the scar tissue he would put pressure on when he tried to walk.





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Laughter was what meet his tries,but laughter meant also no further pains, even when it somehow hurt him, the noise sounded...no longer nice.

His knuckles tired fast so he lay down, any place as good as the other as long as there was grass which he could smell and use as his bed, blinking into the cloudless, blue sky.



Daydreaming he gnawed on some blades of grass until a thug on the chain made him whine and jerk around.



Auratan wanted him back in the cage and he didn´t take care if he could follow fast enough.

His knuckles hurt already so he went up on two legs for the first time since before his capture, swaying from side to side as he tried to keep up with the mer, arms pulled to his chest, his middle feet making flopping, padding sounds on the ground.



When the mer stopped with all the laughter around and looked back at Chit, a rather amusing, strange gait as he walked on two feet, all he could think about that the lizard tried to imitate them and looked funny.



If he couldn´t use the lizard for anything else,surely entertaining his guests or even his employer would also be fine.

But he would need some clothes, costumes for the lizard. Chit was just an animal but having it so ....strange walking around as if it was sentient, no clothes could be seen as offending.



And clothes would make it even more entertaining.







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Back in the cage, back on the cart, further beeing bumped around on the street he tried to see what went on around him.



They had come over hills, higher than the land they traveled too, coming down a winding mountain path.



It wasn´t a valley, it was much too big, shimmering white stones ..in reality cities of the mer, linked together by walls, trenches more like small streams cutting through the ground, dividing the cities but also making a net structure, linking the cities like the walls did and near the middle of the ...valley, delta? Oh it was the highest tree he had ever seen, but also without any branches and leaves, glistening like pearl in the sun, surrounded by a lake and the trenches that went in bigger and bigger circles with land in between them, cities.





To him it seemed strange and beautiful even when he didn´t know that the stones were cities and the circular patterns of water made by human hands, everything seemed to glitter and shine, full of a strange beauty...on the outside.



The inside, the core of the cities and the people there was a different matter