Another World. Another Time (Akira.S & Gracielle Grace)

[Akira.S]

Glaren was to be the tie breaker that set their course of their evening. It was getting dark again and they’d have to make camp on the outskirts in order to be safe from the Abbadon or whatever was lurking in the forest. They also had to keep out of sight of the Great Darkness that was constantly seeking more life to take.

Since he decided that Bren was still somewhere in the forest they’d stay. Or rather he thought she was swept away by magic. Elves didn’t believe in magic, but after today Isley and Thea weren’t sure what they believed. The brother and sister looked at each other before turning back to Glaren, Isley speaking first. “We don’t practice Magic. The Magic of the Elder is different…besides there hasn’t been Magic for a long time. When The Great Darkness came, it killed many wizards and witches as it road through the country.”

That wasn’t entirely true. Well, not for Thea anyway. She wasn’t a wizard or a witch, but they had to admit that she could do things ordinary people couldn’t. Thea wasn’t an elf, but she wasn’t human either, she was something different all together. “Maybe I can find her,” she said to her brother while holding her horse. “How?” Isley turned to her in curiosity. Thea looked nervously at the ground and shrugged, “I just think I can…just trust me. For now we should make camp. We’re too far into the forest.”

So they turned around and headed back to the border as the sun was setting. They were running out of provisions, and needed to get to the next town at the base of the mountain as soon as possible. The mountain could be seen from the edge of the forest, but it was still a long ride, and their horses needed food as much as they did; they’d been in the forest far too long.

Isley made a small fire in order to keep them warm and stood as a look out in a tree. He left the provisions to his sister and the human, seeing as they probably need it more than he did.

Thea had refused to eat, even though she hadn’t eaten since that morning. She knew they were running out of food, but it needed to last until they reached the town. Instead of sitting near the camp and Glaren, she sat on a rock and stared into the dark forest. She didn’t know what was supposed to happen or what she was supposed to do exactly. But she was sure something would happen, something would come to her if she willed it. “I need to find Bren…” she whispered to herself and held the thought in her mind. She sat there for hours in silence, just staring….the fatigue and hunger getting to her….

Just as she was about to slip away, something happened. Her forehead seemed to ache. The violet star/flower symbol on her forehead seemed to throb. She ran her fingers over her and pressed on it to try to get it to stop. When she looked up she felt like she saw a ghost. A thin, wispy outline of Bren ran through the forest as if it was chasing something. Thea immediately shot to her feet and started following the wisp without giving it much thought.

Isley noticed his sister was walking away and jumped down from the tree. “Thea! Thea! Where are you going!?” he called to her, but she didn’t stop to respond. She just kept walking, following the illusion of Bren that was leading her back into the forest.  

[Gracielle Grace]

Isley wasn't the only one who noticed Thea walking backing into the forest. As soon as he heard Isley call out to her, Glaren rushed to the male elf's side and called out to Thea to wait for them. Thea, however, continued walking without stopping to tell them where she was going. Without waiting for Isley to permit him to, Glaren raced after her. "Wait! Wait for me, Thea! Where are you going?" Thea didn't even seem to hear Glaren calling out to her, though. Confused and worried, Glaren ran all the more faster to catch up with Thea. Bren had gotten lost, and he didn't want to lose beautiful Thea, too!

As her companions searched for her, Bren lay sleeping contentedly. "I wonder what's for lunch," she murmured to herself as she groggily began to wake up from her deep slumber. She had been dreaming a wonderful dream that she was playing in a field of lovely yellow flowers. In her mind, she knew that it was strange to have a field of flowers untouched by the Great Darkness, but she payed little attention to that thought and just enjoyed the beauty of the flowers. The color was so beautiful, more beautiful than anything she had ever seen. She was so dazzled by their color that she decided to pick them up and eat them.

As she did so, Sense came bounding up to her in her dream and began playing in the flowers as she ate them. Oh, the flowers tasted so delicious, more delicious than anything she had ever tasted! They tasted so good that she decided to eat more of the flowers. Each flower that she ate seemed to taste even better than the last one. "I want to stay here forever!" she thought to herself. "I have all I need here, and I am so happy here, too! Even Sense is here with me!"

Suddenly, looking down, she realized that there were no more flowers left in the field, only brown, dried grass. "Oh no!" she thought to herself. "I've eaten them all and there is nothing I can do to bring them back! What can I do?" Looking around, she couldn't even see where Sense was. It seemed as if he too had disappeared. As she began to worry, a terrible taste came into her mouth, and her tongue felt drier than it had ever felt in her life. Trying to cough to clear her throat out, a wrenching pain that she had never in her life felt before claimed her stomach. She cried out in pain and fell to the ground, clenching her stomach, vainly attempting to ease the pain. Her stomach hurt so much that tears came into her eyes without her even realizing. "Is there no way to ease this terrible pain throbbing within me?" cried Bren.

"There is a way," answered a voice from the sky. The voice sounded vaguely familiar, but Bren was in such great pain that she was unable to associate the voice with a face. "There is a way, Bren," the voice restated. "It will be hard; obstacles will never cease to come in your path and many will try to stop you in your progress. But never give up hope. Someone is coming."

"Who?" Bren weakly cried out. But the voice did not answer. Instead, clouds gathered in the sky, the sky grew grey, and it began to rain warm drops of rain. Wind howled in her ears as if to mock her. "No!" she cried to herself. "No! Why doesn't the voice answer? I need to leave here, but I don't know how!" No voice came to her, though. Only the howling wind could be heard besides her crying. Lying on the ground that was quickly turning into mud and clenching her stomach that was still in great pain, Bren closed her eyes in exhaustion.

Suddenly, remembering how the way her dream had ended, Bren's eyes opened in a flash. She jolted up to a sitting position from the ground where she had been sleeping. A white fuzzball yipped in surprise at her sudden move and jumped back a little ways from her. Realizing that there was no pain in her stomach, she heaved a great sigh of relief to know that her dream had not been real. When she noticed that her white companion, Sense, was still looking at her a little worriedly, she patted her lap for him to jump onto. Sense's ears perked up, and he leaped up into her lap with delight. His little body pressed against her chest in a comforting way, and she smiled down at the little dog. "At least I have you, Sense," she commented. Still, she realized that she was stuck back in her cell with no apparent way to get out. Was this perhaps what the voice in her dream was speaking of when it said that she would have to face obstacles? Did this mean that someone was coming to save her? "Oh, I wish I knew!" she cried out in frustration.

Turning her mind to what had happened before her dream, Bren remembered how the food had tasted so good and that for some reason she had told the Queen about herself and her friends. "Why did I do that?" she wondered to herself. "I would never share personal details to a complete stranger, let alone someone who I don't trust. Could the food have had magic in it to make me talk?" Not knowing what else to do, she decided to tell Sense some stories while they searched for a way out of the cell. Many stories that she had heard by the village storyteller back home she knew by heart. Some stories she had made up herself. Whether she told her stories or not, though, telling stories made her feel less scared. She just hoped that help would come before she ran out of stories to tell or something worse happened.