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Author: Holiday
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Her voice drifted up to me, carried by a cold wind that caressed the jagged boulders and rustled through the waist-high grass of this ancient clearing. A song, a soft lament in a tongue my ears could make no sense of. The voice, so clear and pure, laden with such sadness I could hardly bear to listen.
I cast my eyes across the moonlit landscape, seeking its source. What pained her so greatly I could feel it not only in her voice but in the air, the trees, the earth itself; as if the land shared her sorrow. The wind drifting through leaf and bough was the whispering of spirits who understood what troubled her... yet I could not.
Her song faded, leaving me to wonder if my eyes had missed the chance to light upon her. The chill of the air seemed deeper in her silence; the knife-edged shadows between the rocks darker. The absence of her voice cast a pall over the land, giving whatever blackened creatures roamed these woods freedom to venture forth.
I hopped down from my perch atop one of the larger boulders, anticipating danger. The tingling across my flesh was not from the chill. Something approached. I felt malice seeping into the air around me, dark, thick and clinging like syrup. I reached for my sword, but sensed it would be of little use against this threat.
A sound behind me and I whirled, freeing my blade on instinct. My heart stopped. It was her.
Her hair was long and straight, bright as a flame in the moonlight, nearly blinding me from the gentle curve of her cheek and the barest impression of her slightly upturned nose. She sat on her heels with her back to me, small hands folded neatly in her lap, the trim line of her shoulders shaking with sobs.
I knew immediately, whatever force approached sought this woman. I knew as well I had been called here to protect her. How and why were lost to me.
A single teardrop traced her jaw, glittering like a diamond, trembling as it clung to her chin before falling down to shatter against the back of her hand like glass.
“They are gone,” she wept, burying her face in her hands and letting her sorrow overcome her.
Were there time, I would have thought to ask what she meant. There was not. The dark presence drew nearer with each breath.
I reached for her and the world froze. The mist of my breath, the wind, the gently swaying grass; all settled to stillness. Everything around me collapsed, coalescing into a single pinprick of light, then, like so many times before... the dream ended.
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