Fri Aug 06, 2004 10:36 am
“Calliste” It was a whisper a single word on endless repeat at the edge of her hearing, a reminder of things past, and a torment. Awake she could ignore it, and so for the last four days and nights she had not allowed her eyes to close, had kept a bitter watch through the long dark hours of the night. But as the sun rose on the fifth morning eyelids weighted by the body’s need slid closed, breathing fell into a slow regular rhythm and curled into the armchair the fire still flickering in the hearth she fell asleep.
Mists swirled within her sleeping mind carried her back into the realm of memory releasing her into the beginning of a familiar nightmare. Yet like every time before she did not wake, did not realize what was to come just like she had not then, not even when sleeping gifts had rung a warning through her mind.
Within the dream Calliste Alexis Demarshay jerked awake the violence of it leaving her gasping for breath, her heart pounding with nameless dread. “Home I have to get home” Gaze fell to the fire to the shadowed shapes of her sleeping friends even as the words fell from her lips. Blankets were thrown aside and she padded to the tethered horse the three had been trying to break. “I know you don’t like us you want to be free but I need your help, I have to get home.” Time seem to still, the night to hold her breath as woman and horse stared into each others eyes into each others very souls, what passed in a matter of heartbeats to last forever. Still the moment came when the two reached perfect understanding and untying the rope Alexis swung up on to the stallion’s back and turned his proud head towards home.
As hooves tore at the ground the two sleeping males awoke to see the pair racing at an all out gallop, towards the wood towards Demarshay manor.
“Something is….” Began the older “wrong” finished the younger and moving as one they scrambled to their feet, grabbed their bows their arrows and were racing on bare feet after the fleeing pair.