The Youth and Desire

[Shalandravv]

Crickets, owls, and the dim light of candles filled the room in the Mistyvale Inn’s second floor. The smell of incense mixed lightly with the scent of wet grass from outside the open window. The stars were clear in the sky, dotting the canopy of blackness with shimmers of diamond points.

Amis Irisha stirred in her sleep. Dreams were rare these days. The times she had anything resembling a dream, she saw her family overlooking an empty valley. It was a place of expansive green with mountains afar. The plains were barren of any settlements and she recalled her dead father saying how he wondered when farmers would come and make their claim there.

Growth.

Growth was what she had interpreted from the dream. Something barren. Amis rationalized it was her heart. The road she walked to save Ashram, her brother, had brought her this far, but she had nothing to believe in. His cold, empty eyes haunted her sleep now. They mocked the good boy he once was. The cult changed him, preyed on his jealousy, turning brother against sister. Amis was afraid. She feared she was weak and would fall to the same traps that Ashram had. Amis had to grow. She had to become stronger.

Tonight, however, was different. As others had claimed, their dreams had been changed since encountering the shadows, the lich. Indeed, the subconscious’ black emptiness had descended into something even darker. Red eyes and claws gouged out for her. Something craved her heart, her very being and she knew that with enough reach, it could. Amis shrunk in the blackness.

Courage.

A rending screech broke out in the emptiness. The claws had retreated in horror from something far more terrible than themselves. The deep darkness began to push away as a pinprick of light pierced through its center like the first day’s break through the curtains. The light focused until all was illuminated in a great, overwhelming warmth.

Believe.

Amis bolted upright, awake. Sweat beaded down her forehead. The room cleared into focus. She rubbed her eyes. To her surprise, she was calm and unafraid. The wind continued to cause the shutters to flap back and forth between opened and closed. She stepped over and put on the latch, feeling as though she had been awash with warmth within her heart from whatever vision of fancy had taken her.

As she asked herself what had just happened, the candle, with its burning fire atop the flowing wax, caught her pale-blue eyes. ‘Believe in what?’ she thought. She had recalled dreams, vivid dreams at that, but nothing as vivid as to linger so deeply into the waking world. Amis still felt as if the power within her mind still walked alongside her waking body. She trembled at the overwhelming force, the feeling of responsibility that came with it.

Amis gathered her blade and fastened it to her hip, and grabbed a small flask of firewine she had saved from the previous evening. The Misty’s wooden stairs groaned with her every step. The patrons had cleared by this time of morning. Unlatching the door, to the main entrance, she stepped outside to the crossroad and sat. The guards made casual passes and glances at the youth in their sentry duty. His mail was still damp with the rains from hours earlier. A horse and cart passed through the gates following inspection. It galloped towards the trades and commons, its rider a small Halfling with eyes that seemed halfway between waking and dream.

Amis touched the small dirt path she sat by, aside from the cobblestone main streets of Northern Cear. She had walked the earth a mere nineteen years, and yet everything had been difficult to her.

The road had yielded her naught but the tracks she left in its dirt. No answers were given that brought her closer to her brother. Strangeness and uncertainty had always been a part of her life. Since her youth at the first sight of her mother’s murder by the hands of her father, her life had been difficult and full of questions. She wondered if her answer had finally come, even if she hadn’t known what she had asked.

More dreams would come. Amis knew this, if nothing else. They would continue, until the warmth in her spirit overwhelmed her mind with anxiety and need for truth. She had left the road, and the road had found her again. The path, however, was beginning to have a destination in sight.

Amis uncorked the flask and took a deep drink from the fiery contents within. She recalled Lucius Silverbeard’s words about drinking when the anxiety hit worst. Amis knew that this was different from what he warned against. This was not terror, or fear. This was standing before a sentinel, a being gazing down upon her, with no face, but devoid of fury or malice. Something was reaching out to her, but she knew not what.

The stars shone down at her from the heavens, and Nuarari’s domain had brightened the gloom of the evening. As Amis swallowed the brew, she felt relieved and overwhelmed. For some reason, the girl knew that she was not alone any longer. For the first time in a long time, she awaited eagerly the next day.

[Depheant]

Nice to see something from you again - I liked the imagery in places, good read.

[Nathen Arnes]

Really nice writing. I hope the story continues! I'll be waiting for more

[stoned-raider]

Nice story, hope there comes more

[Greyshore]

A good read indeed. Hoping for more!