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Zoe in a land of daydreams (which my teachers say I visit too often) |
When Azara awoke it was cold. Not just cool, the typical dawn sort of temerpature, but truly cold. Shivering, she thrust the cloak around her, glad she had not lost it. Her body ached, as she had been sleeping at an awkward position. Well, that is to be expected when one is sleeping against wooden crates. She blinked her tired eyes and stood up, so she could see where the wagon was going at it's steady and slow pace.
The sight took her breath away. The dawn was breaking, and pinks and yellows broke the night. She could see her breath when she exhaled at the sight, and it swirled into the quiet air. Nothing in the world seemed to stir, except her. The man and woman sitting at their perches at the front of the wagon were sleeping soundly, and the man held the reins limply in his hand. The beauty was not only of the breaking dawn and the quiet, however. Ahead of Azara loomed mountains, the snow-tipped peaks seeming to touch the morning sky. There were so many of them, as far as Azara could see, and the path the horses were riding on kept going, but she lost track of it somewhere near the mountains. Around Azara were trees, evergreens, and they also loomed tall, blocking out the dawn in some ways so that light sprinkled down from the tree tops. There was no snow on the ground around her, but she wondered why. It was so cold, so so much colder than she was used to. But for some reason she could not concentrate on that with the beautiful sight before her.
So she sat down. She needed to concentrate. She needed to put up that barrier that she did every day. She needed to block her thoughts and her feelings. But she didn't.
Azara sighed, and mirroring her sigh was another, deep and masculine. She drew in her breath sharply. The man was stirring. He was waking up. She needed to get away. Surely he would search the back to make sure everything was okay, or to get a blanket, or something. She needed to get off the wagon.
She crawled towards the back of the wagon, but the horses skidding to the side for some reason Azara didn't know. Just her luck. She was thrust loudly into a crate, and while she fought to get her breath, the man stood. He shouted a command to the horses, and the halted. She could hear a bump as the man got off the wagon.
"Where are you going?" came a groggy female voice, the one of the other woman in the wagon.
"Hang on, Delia. I'll be right back. Go back to sleep."
She heard footsteps as he neared the back of the wagon. In seconds he would see her. Azara took in a breath, inching fowards, to the very back of the wagon. Just a bit farther. . .
"You there!"
Her heart all but stopped as the man shouted at her. Okay, no farther. She stood, and ran. Her legs moved easily, as sore as they were, and she leapt off the horse drawn wagon, flinging herself onto the road. Her feet ached at the impact, and for a second she stopped, but then she regained running. She turned to her right and darted towards the forest.
"Come back here, mangy littler stowaway! I said get back so I can claw your eyes! What, afraid?"
Yes, she was. What, did he expect her to come running into his arms so he could kill her? Geeze, maybe she was smaller than him, younger, but she wasn't stupid.
She picked up her pace, though she knew he would not follow her. She had too much of a lead, and he wouldn't leave his wife, assuming she was that. No, she was safe. From him at least. She was entering another danger, the danger of the wilderness. And that was one thing that mildly frightened her.
Why in the world wasn't she blocking off her emotions? It was harder this way, she knew from experience. Well, maybe she could let herself feel her emotions. No one else had to know that she was feeling them. Not that there was anyone here to feel them. . .
Soon she was walking, gasping for air and hoping for warmth as she bundled her cloak tightly around herself. She needed more warmth, badly. And soon.
She continued walking, no idea where she was going, for hours. By the time she stopped to rest the sun shown it's brightest through the tips of the towering trees. It was warmer, yes, but she was tired and the cold had built up in her body. She couldn't go on for much longer. She knew that. And she hadn't accomplished her mission.
She was sitting on a fallen tree to rest. It sheltered her. But it wouldn't for long. She had heard wolves howl earilier in the morning, and knew she was in the forest of Shielda-Nai. Deer loped, and she could see their brown pelts glinting through breaks in trees. Wildlife was abundent here. It was near the mountains. And only then did she remember a song she had heard as a child.
When all is soft and quiet,
And wildlife is abundent,
And poems lead to there,
The land of mountains, and forest of elves.
You will find in snow,
Everlasting life,
And songs will sing forever,
In a gem where your eyes sparkle.
A lullaby. It was talking about the gem. It was what she needed. Forest of elves. . . Think Azara, she told herself, where have you heard that? Then she remembered.
Sheilda-Nai. Forest of Elves. Someone had told her that when she was little. It was translated to a spiecial dialect, of course. Nai meant forest, and Shielda meant elves. That was that forest. She was there. She was there! She was close to finding the gem!
She leapt in the air with a cry of joy that resounded and echoed through the forest, startling a group of starlings that had been flocked in a nearby tree. With warning calls the flew into the sky, and Azara's face grew hot with humiliation, though there was no human here to have heard her. If there had been she wouldn't have cared. Which was maybe why she cared so much now.
How would she find the gem, though? She needed help. She needed more guidence. She needed a guide. She needed for find a town. And she needed to remember the rest of the song. The rest was more important though.
Azara kept walking, a new determination and strength in her stride. Hurry, hurry. That was what the trees seemed to be whispering. And she did. But soon the light of the forest grew dimmer, and she grew frightened, and cold. It was even colder than it had been at dawn, and it chilled her bones. She had no protection. There was no sun that her black cloak could draw heat from. There was no light, or hardly any. By the time night broke Azara was stumbling half-blind through the trees. She was cold, and felt as if she was going insane. Indeed she may have been. She began to run, though there was nothing to run from and no where to run to. She ran anyways, fast.
And then she was not running. She was on the ground with a splitting pain in her skull from the impact of hitting a tree. She was sprawled like a dead eagle on the forest floor, and breathing deeply. She was cold, so cold, and so tired. . .
She was shifting in and out of reality, of death and life, sleep and awake. . .
She was not thinking much, but even in her state her eyes were drawn to a face. In the dark it shone, a perfect face as white as snow, or whiter. Hair wafted in all directions from the skinny head and smooth face, hair the color of gold. The eyes were icy blue, and ominous. The lips were pink and smooth. Everything was so pure, and so haunting. And then the singing began.
It was all so pure. The lips moved softly and surely, beautifully. A sound like bells or chimes wafted from the lips, and filled Azara's half-dead ears with a pure and lovely sound. It was not singing, it could not be, it was too other-wordly. Yet it was singing. Yes. Singing. So beautiful. . . Yet so scary, in a way. Azara wanted to stop listening, but at the same time she never did. She could not make out the words, but that did not matter at all.
Then all was gone.
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