Chapter Two: The Search

...In other news, I'm over halfway done with editing Powerless.  EEEK!  Speaking of which, you'll notice I used the word Powerless.  That's because in most of my stories, I try to put other titles somewhere in them.  This doesn't work so well with titles like "Tuesday and a Half," but I do it a lot with Powerless and Spectrum :D

Chapter Two- Search

I screamed myself awake.
I’d been trapped in a nightmarish terror that I was incapable of waking up from.
Snow was drifting onto the ground, building walls around me.  But whenever the snow touched my skin, it melted into water that pooled up around me.
On top of the snow were the wolves.  Ashy gray, midnight black, ivory white.  Tawny eyes, black eyes, blue eyes, all fixed directly on me.
And the shadowy stranger.  I couldn’t focus on just one of his eyes- I would see amber, then jade, amber, then jade.
The melting snow was growing into a puddle around me.  Rising above my face.  I was too weak to lift my head, so water submerged me.
In the water, there were lontralupa’s, dozens of them swimming around me in circles.  I was their prey, but they refused to attack.  All they would do was draw near and snarl, hissing at me through barred teeth.
The water drained off from me as I was lifted up.  At first I saw a face with multicolored eyes, but they shifted for a moment until both were blue.
Aylde put his fingers on my lips.  They were cold, like soothing ice on my burning body.
“Don’t say anything, ‘Ray.  You’ll be okay.”
And although he kept hold of me, I felt myself falling back into the water with the snapping lontralupas.

When I woke up again, Vivanna was there.  I started up in my bed, my eyes wide.  I’d thrown the covers off of me and they lay in a heap on the floor.
Vivanna was grooming her brown hair and staring into a full length mirror.
“Awake?”  She asked, glancing behind her for a moment to look at me face to face.
“Why are you here, Vivanna?”  I said, glowering and wiping a few beads of sweat from my forehead.
“Ooh.  Someone’s in a bad mood on their birthday.”
“Shut up.”
She smirked.  “In that case, I’ll try to say this quickly.  Mother is furious at you.  She’d arranged a suitor to come to the castle, and you ruined that by sleeping through breakfast and midday meal.  Oh, don’t make that face, little sister.  You’re sixteen, time for you to realize the suitors are coming.  Anyway, Mother says that if you don’t come to supper, she will ‘personally take you out to the shore and feed you to the sea monster.’  I suggest attending supper.”
Something about Vivanna’s superior, almost monotone deliverance of the message irked me greatly.
“Go away, Vivanna!  Can’t you see I’m incapacitated?”
Vivanna smoothed the satiny purple fabric of her dress as she stared at my own wardrobe.  The silvery gown with bells at the hem still hung in my bedroom.
“Are you going to wear that to supper?  It’s quite-” she snickered.  “Tasteful.  I’ll see you in an hour, sister.”
And with that, Vivanna swept from the room.
I snatched the silver backed hairbrush from a side table and threw it after her.  “You’re so vain!  I hate you!”
The door latched shut behind her.
I buried my face in my pillow and screamed.
The one good thing about Vivanna- the only good thing about Vivanna- was that she was twenty, and engaged.  She would never be the Queen of Terramaurus.  Thank God.  And soon, Vivanna would be out of my life.

My next visitor was Miles.  Like Vivanna and everyone else in my family (except me, of course), Miles had dark hair and dark eyes.  But what set him apart from the rest of the family was his attitude.  When my oldest two siblings, Odolo and Vivanna, were born, they grew up hearing tales of how all their little siblings would bow down to them, how they were the most wonderful, perfect children in the world.  Once Odolo was six and Vivanna five, they were out of the nursery.  Miles was only two at this point, and I was born one year later.  Miles and I grew up together like Odolo and Vivanna did- hearing all the same things, thinking all the same things, being taught all the same ideas.  But unlike the perfect first children, the King and Queen did not dote on us.  They left both of us entirely under care of the castle’s large staff.

The maids and cooks and caretakers and butlers were all wonderful people from the village.  They were fired right and left, but all shared a common realization that there was a large gap of the attention Miles and I received versus what Odolo and Vivanna got from our parents.  And they never ceased to talk about it.

And so Miles and I grew up, being together as one group.  Although I was the one who was actually rejected by the King and Queen, Miles was forced to undergo that as well.  But since all he heard from a young age was how both of us deserved better, it’s what he grew to believe.

As he got older, Miles figured out that I was the one our parents didn’t care about, not him.  He realized that he had only been treated as such because he was so close in age to me.  He learned that he was fully entitled to hate me.

But as a young child, what you hear is what you always believe.  Miles and I did drift apart, especially since both of us were quite fond of solitude, but out of any of my family members, Miles was the only one that tolerated- perhaps even liked- me.

“The suitor is an idiot,” was all Miles said.  He walked across my room once, gave me a small smile, and left once more, his blue robes swishing out from behind him.

Dark, navy blue.  It had always been the color of the second prince.

In Terramaurus, the King generally wore all gold.  The Queen wore copper and bronze.  The eldest prince, Odolo, first heir to the throne, would wear a rather blood colored shade of red.  Second heir to the throne, in this case, Miles, wore blue.

The oldest daughter wore dark purple, the color of grace and royalty.  Just like Vivanna.

The youngest daughter wore pink, and the youngest son wore yellow.  I hated those colors on Cassia and Cassius.  They made the little demons look innocent and angelic.

I wasn’t sure how it came to be that I wore gray and silver.  I suspected it had something to do with my mist-colored eyes that stood out from the rest of the families.

The door closed again, locking me alone in my room.  I stared longingly at it.  Miles was my brother, no matter how distant, and I wanted to talk to him again, just once.

An hour later, I sat up slowly and stared around the room.  It was a prison.  An empty, desolate prison filled with nothing haunting memories, ghosts of past I would rather just forget.
Every once in a while, my whole life seems to stop.  I break down, in a way.  But I do not cry, or yell, or try to run away.  I morph into a creature that simply is not me.
This Creature- she is guided only by an external instinct pushing her to and fro.  She listens to what she is told, and follows every command.  She is soulless.  She is utterly powerless.
My feet could hardly hold my weight, but the creature commanded them to remain steady, and they listened.
The Creature guided me over to the dress, and I slipped it over my head, pressed my toes inside of satin slippers, breathed deeply.
Every time I moved, the bells would jingle exuberantly.  I couldn’t move like a shadow, as I usually did.
I couldn’t do anything like I usually did while the Creature was my puppet master.

Supper was going just swell.
Lord Foeda was a knight.  He was “handsome”, extremely wealthy, and utterly idiotic.
“Lord Vacca Foeda,” he said, bowing deeply when he first saw me.
I tilted my head to the side.  I was fairly certain that his name meant something in a foreign tongue, but the Creature forbade me.
“Pleasure,” the Creature said, emotionless.
Foeda shifted uncomfortably at my level of enthusiasm.  There was a silence that stretched across the room like a sheet.
“Well... shall we eat?”  The Queen smiled thinly, trying to maintain her act of the gracious host.
It didn’t take long for Foeda’s uneasiness to fade.  Before long, he was talking endlessly- entirely about his own accomplishments, I might add- and hardly even pausing to swallow.
“So there I was, with the army approaching from all sides.  And I said to myself, I said, ‘Well, Vacca, if you’re going to die, you’re going to die with honor!’”
“Simply fascinating tale, my dear boy,” my father said as he stared at one of the pretty servants as she retreated into the kitchen.  “Riveting, really.”
“Oh, but that’s not all!  I battled that whole army by myself, and all I had to do was use my strength and my intelligence.”  He smiled over at me, but not in a real way.  In a way as if his own Creature had permanently possessed him.
He wiped his fingers thoroughly on the cloth napkin before placing it in a heap on his plate.  “You look beautiful, Princess,” he said.  
The Creature stopped me from slapping him.
“And altogether wonderful.  And I am handsome, and completely wonderful.  I do not mean to brag, but I know that it must be true, or else I wouldn’t be a lord and a brave knight.  So that is why, Princess, I request your hand in marriage.”
I spit the water I’d been drinking back into the glass.  The Queen coughed pointedly.
There was another silence, until Cassia said, from across the table, “I’ll marry you Lord Foeda!”
Miles laughed and laughed, ignoring the menacing glares of my parents.  At least my youngest older brother hasn’t been utterly consumed by his Creature.  Yet.
My fingers moved to my wrist to twist my bracelet anxiously.
Then my true self repressed the Creature, not just some, but completely and entirely.  I stood up in a flash, my chair skidding to the floor.  The bells on the hem of my dress jingled in the deafening silence that followed.
“Where’s my bracelet?!”  I demanded.  My left arm shot up into the air.  It felt light, empty, the ring around my wrist where it would usually lie cold.
I glared at my mother first.  “Tell me where it is!”
“Arayla!  This is not the time for your childish-”
“About the marriage,” Foelda cut in, staring up at me.
Cassia again repeated, “I already told you my answer, Lord!”
And then chaos struck.  My parents were yelling- at us, at me, at the Lord.  Miles could do nothing but laugh at this point.  The twins began shouting at each other.  Vivanna tried to maintain her composure.  And Odolo stared silently at one wall, as if nothing at all was happening.
I didn’t stick around long enough to check up on Foeda too.
Through the commotion, I slipped out of the dining hall.  Once the viscous voices of my family ebbed, the tinkling of the bells rang through my ears again.  Every time I took a step, they would ring.
I stopped in my tracks and ripped off every one of the bells, and the dangling sleeves too, for good measure.
When I walked then, I bathed in the sound of the silence, how I could move without the constant effort of ignoring the little bells.
I broke into a run, and the moor, the kingdom of Terramaurus, the whole world was within my grasp.
It was dark, nearly pitch black except for the stars and moon, most of which were blotted over by the returned clouds and fog.  But this darkness didn’t scare me.  Not like during the eclipse.
I ran endlessly, letting myself go where ever my feet chose to carry me.
Which happened to be Kusa Hills.  But my feet seemed incapable of stopping, turning, taking me back home, or at least back to the village.  I kept up my run, this time cautious enough to avoid all Tegalon camps.
But I didn’t stop until Kusa Hills were behind me as well.  The ground under me grew rocky, hard.  The Infinita Moutains, stretched out in front of me, represented just what they were named for- infinity.
Pretending they were the castle wall, I placed my hands against the rocks and began to climb.  The ground shrunk below me.  I left a good deal of the fog behind me on the ground, not only the mist, but also the fog in my head.
I sat on a ledge and dusted off my hands.  The wild cavallgua’s were nothing more than miniature pinpricks, only the size of stars from up here.  I squinted down to the ground.  I’d climbed far, far higher than I thought.
For the first time in a while, I felt totally isolated.  Which is what I was always asking for, right?  Solitude?  Peace?
But all I felt was unease.  The last time I was alone, I almost died.  But somehow...  I didn’t.
I didn’t know of anyone who had ever recovered from a Tegalon bite, let alone someone who was able to climb cliff-sides the very same day.
How did I get back home, anyway?  My mind was ensnared around that figure.  One eye amber, one eye jade.
I swung my legs off the edge of the cliff and thought, staring into space.  Just about the time when I came to the conclusion that the man must have been one of the villagers, I heard a soft noise from behind me.  Almost like footsteps, but lighter.  Then a small clink.
I whirled around, standing up and looking every direction wildly.
Utter solitude.  There was not even an animal scurrying around, not so much as a bug.  Although a metallic glint caught my eye.
I knelt down and scooped up the thin silver bracelet and slipped it back over my wrist.  It was warm, as though skin had recently been touching it.
My eyes flicked around one last time, but I still saw nothing.
“Thank you,” I whispered before sliding off the edge and crawling back down the wall.

Except for the flicker of light from the candle flame, the barn was dark.
“So,” I said absently, running my fingers back and forth across the bangle.  “Where’s Aylde?”
Rigg glanced up from the saddle he was polishing.  “Out feeding the pigs,” he said shortly.
After a moment of silence, I asked, “What’s wrong?”
The dark haired brother pursed his lips, throwing the rag across the leather saddle.  “What’s wrong?  Arayla, it’s all wrong!  What are you doing to yourself?!  You’re just going to end up dying, miserable and alone.”
I clenched my fist.  “Shut up, Rigg.”
“No!  I’m always quiet, just listening to you tell my brother all of your magnificent stories.  How you slipped the water snake into your mother’s bath, when you were fourteen.  The time you cut off Vivanna’s hair when she was asleep because she threw your favorite doll into the lake when you were eleven.  And my brother will laugh, and it’s all just wonderful, isn’t it?”
“Stop it!”  I yelled, marching towards him.  “Listen, I know I’m nowhere near perfect, but I get reminded of that every day by my family!  I don’t need you telling me too!”
He wasn’t finished.  “So now, when a perfectly fine suitor comes along, you ruin every chance you could get of a future with him for no reason!”
“No reason?!”  I exploded.  “Rigg, he was stupid!  And self-absorbed!  I hated him, and I never would have been happy married to him!”
“Has it ever occurred to you that nothing will make you happy?  I’m only saying this because I care, Ray!  You’re so used to being independent that you’ve completely blocked yourself off from the rest of the world!  You’ve become someone who tries so hard not to be crushed that you’ve forgotten to try and just be happy!”
I stood and stared at him, my mouth slightly open.  It hurt so much more because it was true, because it was coming from Rigg.
The door creaked open, but I kept staring at Rigg’s shadowed face through the candlelight.
“Arayla?”  Aylde’s voice came quietly.  He touched his hand to my shoulder.  I shrugged it off and marched past him.
“Arayla!”  He yelled, though not angrily.
I grabbed a random tattered cloak from a hook near the door and drew it across my shoulders.
Rigg said bitterly, “Just let her go.”
With as much force as I could muster, I slammed the door shut behind me.  I could still hear the voices inside though the wooden panels.
“Rigg!  What did you do?”
“I told her the truth.  She needed to hear it.”
I ran before another word could penetrate my skull.  Maybe that was my problem.  I spent so much time running from my problems, running from people, that I really wouldn’t ever be happy.
But for now at least, I wouldn’t worry about that.  More pressing matters were at hand.

The sea spray licked up around my ankles as I walked across the shore.  Although it was late, the village was bright and full of light.  It was one of the villagers’ festivals, that I had so often watched longingly from my window when I was younger.  I didn’t want to have a party, I was forced to attend plenty already.  Just the thought of a less complex existence, one where I wasn’t forced to do anything, pleased me.
The festivals literally started at dawn and went to midnight.  No matter how cold and frigid it got, the villagers kept dancing, playing music, laughing.
With the cloak’s hood shading my face, I approached the first towns-person I saw.
“Excuse me,” I said boldly.  “But have you-”
“Oho, and who are you?”  The man’s voice held a trembling pitch, one that I had heard in my father’s voice once in a while.  “Why don’t you pull down your hood so that I may see your pretty face?”
“Drunkard,” I muttered as I moved in a wide arch around him.  The next person I asked was a girl about my age.
“I’m looking for someone.  He’s a young man, with two different colored eyes.”
The girl turned around and stared at me.  “I don’t know who you’re talking about, sorry.  There’s no one in the village like that.”
“Are you positive?”  I pressed.
“I’m absolutely certain.  Sorry, I hope you find him.”
Turning my head this way and that, I looked around desperately.  
“Is he your brother?  Your husband?”  She asked kindly.
“No, nothing like that...  But thanks for all your help.”  I began to move off further into the festival, but she caught my arm.
“Wait, I haven’t ever seen you around.  Are you from here?”
“Uh, no.  I...”  I glanced out to the docks and saw a few burly ships that I knew were not part of my father’s fleet.  “I just got here from across the sea.”  I pointed out to the boats.
The village girl raised an eyebrow.  “Did you now?  Well, I’d better let you find your friend.  I’ll let you know if I see him.”
I thanked her with a nod and darted away.
As I wove through the crowd, I felt a tap on my shoulder.  It was a wizened old man with a deeply wrinkled face and snowy white hair and a long beard.  His eyes, set behind a pair of thin glasses, were dark and wide, almost like an owl.  He was the type of person, who, despite being a total stranger, I instantly thought was kind.
“Are you looking for someone?”  His voice was inquisitive and trustworthy, but trembled with high-pitched tones.
“Yes.  A young man with two different colored eyes.  Have you seen anyone like that?”
He paused for a moment, just long enough so that I could get my hopes up.
“No, I’m sorry, dear, I’m afraid I haven’t.”
“Oh.  Well.  Thank you anyway.”
Before I could leave though, he said, “Actually, come to think of it, I haven’t seen you around here either.  May I ask why that would be?”
I reused my excuse, pointing again to the ships docked by the edge of town.
The old man smiled at me.  “I’m sorry, but the only ships in town at the moment are from the merchants.  But it was quite a valiant effort, dear Princess.”
A startled breath escaped from between my lips.  “How did you-”
“Don’t fret!  It’s only me who has realized you’re the second eldest Reed daughter.”  He smiled broadly.  “Now, I think I might also be able to tell you where your friend is.”
At this point, curiosity got the best of me, and I followed the old man through the festival.

There was so much noise, I really couldn’t hear anything other than my own thoughts.  It was so jovial, so happy, that my subconscious began to let out a steady stream of contemplation.

Why am I following this stranger?  I asked myself.  You already know the answer.  You need to find him.  The boy with different colored eyes.  You have to find him.

Why?!  I retorted to myself, realizing I didn’t have an answer.

Was it because I owed him a thank you, for saving my life?  Was it because I had never been more curious to find anyone?

Because that must have been extremely strong poison if I dared to let someone else help me.

I’m letting this odd old man help me though.  Perhaps the poison’s effects have not yet diminished entirely.

Once we were on the edge of the village, the man handed me a scroll of paper and smiled.  “I was instructed to give this to you… many years ago.”

I shook my head.  “I was in the castle the whole time.  You could have given it to any messenger.”

He smiled almost apologetically.  “You would never have understood.  But now, I think you just might.  Good night, Princess Arayla Reed.  And good luck.”

“Wait!”  I called after him, but he had already submerged into the mass of villagers.

I wrapped my fingers tightly around the scroll and dashed just of eyesight of any suspicious wandering eyes.

My curiosity was pressing in on me as I ripped the red ribbon off from around the scroll and tore it open.  Disappointment set in.  Confusion joined it.

I stared at the scroll, running my eyes across it over and over again.  The scarlet ink burned into my eyes.  But I did not understand.

A heavy sigh escaped my lips as I rerolled the piece of parchment and headed back through the moor grass.

I wasn’t particularly fond of the idea of going back into the castle, but with Rigg behaving the way he was, there was no way I would hide out in the stables.

The soft, downy sheets of my bed engulfed me.  My eyes fluttered closed and the parchment slipped from my fingertips.  I tried to stay awake and decode the message, I really did, but sleep was too great a force.

Moments later the door creaked open and I sat up fast, the blood rushing from my head.  I pressed my fingers to my temples.

“What do you want, Mother?”

She narrowed her eyes at me and parted her mouth, ready to chastise me.  Her eyes almost imperceptibly darted around the room before she shut her thin lips together tightly.

The Queen glided over to me and sat on my bed.

I braced myself for the scolding.

“Happy birthday.”

She scooped her skirts back up off the ground and floated back out of my room.  I was too shocked to speak at first.

“Wait!”  I called.  “Mother?”

She was already gone.

I sat and stared at the door for a few minutes straight, just thinking.

Then I whispered, “Thank you,” and found myself submerged in a deep sleep.

I’m not quite sure what woke me.  To this day, I believe that some distant, inner instinct took hold of me.  An instinct that told me to rise from my bed, to sneak down the hallway.

I was so groggy and tired that I didn’t have enough reason to question this instinct.  I simply did as it told.

The second I heard my parents voices over the crackle of fire, I was completely alert.

My back was pressed against one of the walls so that they could not see me.

“… just don’t understand how she got a hold of it.”  I recognized the tired, agitated voice of the King.

“I told you!”  My mother snapped quietly.  “It has something to do with her disappearing so often lately.  Where was she all of today?”

“Arayla is our daughter and we should trust her!”  My father boomed.  I could tell he didn’t mean it honestly, just a way to escape his wife and go to sleep.

“Shh!  Do you want to wake the whole castle?”  She hissed.  “I found this in her bedchamber.  It’s serious.”

My father sounded more and more annoyed each time he spoke.  “Just burn it.  No one will ever know it’s gone.”

The crackle of the fire grew momentarily louder.  I made to run- if my parents knew I’d been eavesdropping, I was dead- but something came over me.

I knew they had burned that piece of parchment, the one with the scarlet ink.  I was beginning to question if it really was ink.

My whole body felt warm, hot, burning.  Pain shrouded around me.  I bit the inside of my cheek until blood flowed viciously into my mouth.  It overwhelmed me, I couldn’t move.

“Arayla!”  Someone said angrily.  I was too overcome to know who.

I rushed past them and stared into the fire rabidly, looking for the parchment.

It was too late though.  It was blackened, all but the center.  The paper fell away until the only thing that was left was the spot of scarlet ink, the large paw print.

There were no words on the paper, there never had been.  That was all the message was.  A paw print, stamped in blood.

And it was gone.  Turned completely into ashes.

My body felt numb, but I regained most of my senses and the burning feeling stopped suddenly.

I slowly turned to see my parents, staring down at me in confusion, anger.  But all three of us jumped in surprise as a sound split through the air.

A wolf howl, a yell of pain.

And it was close.

*A note- I'm sorry there are so many errors in these chapters.  I haven't edited them at all really, and I don't ever plan to.  Thanks!*