Hey everyone! This really seems rough to me, but I can't really put my finger on it. If you could give me some pointers, that would be great! Thanks so much!
Tossing and turning, his stomach performed acrobatics as a mental sledgehammer came full swing into his mind. But the princess would not relinquish her grip on him. It was as though an iron hand clamped onto his brain. Frantic, David attempted to close his eyes to the memory threatening to overwhelm him, but the onslaught of details and yelling kept flowing eagerly into his mind.
So long he had shut this out of his mind, he felt as though the memory were a stranger to him. Many things he had forgotten as they grazed his retinas and flashed in his mind's eyes. But now unearthed by the princess, the images elicited an unearthly scream from his throat.
"No! Please!"
The onslaught of memories stopped.
Hesitantly, David opened his eyes. He was afraid they would hurt as those buried images had hurt him.
The princess, in a sitting position, did not look at him. Her hair covered her face, and David was glad. Maybe then the girl wouldn't see him in this state. He took some steadying breaths. When he felt he had sufficiently recovered himself, he forced himself to speak first, but the air would not flow out of his lungs and came out as a rasp. Still the princess did not turn. He tried again.
"Do all people feel it when we use the Sight on them?" he asked, voice still cracking.
"No. Just seers."
"I forgot...what that night was like," the boy whispered. As he looked up at the bound raven locks and the hard unyielding face suddenly facing him, he noticed she would not meet his eyes directly.
"Is something wrong, princess?" David asked.
"Why do you ask? Why would anything be wrong?"
Suddenly self-conscious, the boy dropped the matter quickly and discreetly.
"Time for bed," she said.
"But-"
"No 'but's, David," she turned. Surprisingly, David found her tone more tired and weary than hard. He knew he had imagined this brief moment as the girl curtly snapped the tent-flap behind her.
~~~~~
Silvia had never understood humans before. That was for certain. She had once been adamant in her beliefs that they were nothing more than filthy, greedy animals. But, as he had looked into her eyes that way, Silvia had to do some serious soul-searching.
Trying to pace around, she growled in frustration as the tent's limited space prohibited much movement, let alone pacing. She tried solving the dilemma, kicking the sand inside her tent angrily. Should she tell him her secret? No. Of course not. Human that he was, he wouldn't understand, and definitely wouldn't stay with her if he knew- if he so much as caught a whiff of what she was.
"Princess?" a soft voice called. The voice was slightly husky, and Silvia knew the human was attempting not to cry. Buried memories were difficult to face. If she knew he had buried this memory, she wouldn't have dared try to bring this memory to the surface. Doing something like resurfacing painful recollecting was dangerous.
She felt a slight twinge of guilt at using her Sight on him.
She almost replied, but decided not to. She didn't trust her voice to not tremble.
"Are you alright? What did you mean earlier?"
With a sigh of frustration, Silvia snapped the tent flap open yet again.
"David! Go to bed! You've got a big day ahead of you tomorrow!"
"Pardon? A big day? A what?"
"Stop asking me to repeat myself. Good night!" she said assertively.
Stripping off her outer tunic, she left on her undergarments and nestled to rest. But the human's brown eyes kept returning out of the darkness to haunt her.
In exploring his past, she had sniffed hints of his personality, a crispy sweet scent. It had been strong as pine needles, but seemed soft and gentle, like a blanket of rain. With that strong edge of pine and a whiff of cinnamon in his heart, she felt as though she wanted to immerse herself in the human's bloodstream-make herself one with him.
She shook her head ferociously at this idea, making her black locks violently stream from side to side, like fallen ribbons of velvet. But at the same time, she could almost imagine that moment of joining minds with his and perhaps discovering a person she could confide her many unspoken secrets to.
A friend.
But she didn't need friends.
And yet, between the scents of sweet cinnamon-smelling characteristics, she had felt that acrid, bitter aftertaste underlying each trait.
A tall, dark silhouette of a man loomed in her mind. He had also had the very same vile aftertaste in his being. Withholding the cacophony of hate, she shoved that hated man's image out of her mind, but only just. That man's mocking face continued to mock her, like it always did, night after night.
Somehow associating David with the man made Silvia's lip tighten and her chest squirm uncomfortably. It was as though associating an innocent with a mongrel was a serious wrong. It felt like a crime as it weighed down her lungs.
Suddenly her sharp ears pricked. The silence outside seemed deafening, crushing. The air had almost taken on a heavy quality that threatened to crush her. She was relieved when the wind began to pick up speed and swirled the sweet air towards her nostrils. Something to break the silence. However, the humming of the wind soon evolved into an eerie lullaby that seemed to sing, "sleep if you dare..."
Succumbing to her restlessness, she pushed aside the silk coverings and sat up, caressing the silk with her long slender fingers and turning over multiple threads of thoughts.
Without warning, her pointed ears shot up as a scream echoed throughout the night.
"David!" she yelled.
Rushing headlong out of the tent, she grasped the pocket within her boot for the small knife always there.
But there was no one screaming. Only the horse and human cuddled together for warmth in the blanket of sleep.
"Something is out there..." she whispered. She continued to stand there, stock still, with only the wind for company.
Trying to relax, she sat down at the foot of her tent. She rested on the white sand, but it was as though invisible prickles lined the sand bed.
"You're just too jumpy," the princess said to herself. "Relax. Who knows you're here?"
But the answer sprung all too willingly to her mind.
In her mind's eye those animal blue eyes flashed, and that too pale face- almost white- smirked at her jeeringly beneath a handkerchief blocking her mouth.
She shivered. Yes....the girl would know.
"Silvia."
She jumped.
David's voice. But he was asleep.
"Over active imagination," she chided herself half-heartedly.
Carefully and cautiously, Silvia took her traveling cloak from her back and draped the gray and white fur covering over the human's body carefully and gently. Turning away to go back to her own tent, she heard the soft murmur of her name come from David's lips.
Silvia then jumped, thinking he had woken up when he then said her name, but realized he was still asleep.
Something seemed strange. Something had happened that hadn't before. She knew it, she just couldn't place her finger on it. Then-
"He said my name..." she whispered to herself. After he had found out she was a princess, he had never called her name. In the way he had muttered the word, she thought she could feel tenderness embedded in those three syllables.
She thought, eyes narrowing, that she didn’t even know him. Why would she think or self-delude herself into imagining such soft sweetness in his voice? But there was something she couldn't deny. There was something vaguely familiar about him...An eerie vision of a chemist suddenly loomed in her mind.
How could she continue to think that that he resembled the the one of the Cyrus's leaders? Could she not put aside her cynical nature and trust him? Even though he was human? she guiltily reproached herself. An ear-splitting scream echoed throughout the night, and the princess rushed to David's side after her initial shock.
“No! Don’t hurt her! Don’t touch Silvia! If you dare- No! SILVIA!!!” Silvia jumped. His scream echoed off the cold sand dunes. She shook him by the shoulders, but David, no matter how restless he was, wouldn’t wake up. “Let go of me!” She bound his mouth and plugged his nose. The screaming stopped after an initial struggle until she let go of him.
Peace and quiet ensued, but something was going completely wrong out there in the complete stillness. Something was out there, and whatever it was, she didn’t like it.
Looking across their campsite at the peacefully snoring Starlight and the fitfully sleeping human, Silvia scanned the desert for any disturbance, no matter how slight.
But there was nothing. Only their campsite.
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