Water and Wind

Chapter 27

Arian

In one fluid motion, she's gone. Her honey hair is swirling as she pivots, the edges of her skirt dancing around her. The blue eyes, that speck of the sky, disappear as she faces the forest. He feels rage bubbling up inside him. How dare they let her? How dare they just allow her to walk to her fate?

He's angry at all of them, angry at the guards, the judge, the people, the children in the audience watching as children their own age are sentenced. Angry at the other kids for not stopping her, Jinx and Sirena for letting her hug them last and letting go, the elders for not doing anything... and himself. Most of all himself.

He's helpless, and that's the feeling he hates the most. Inside him, something cracks as he watches Nimue take one step after another. One step closer to her fate. Her chosen fate. One step closer to her death.

There's one step left between her and forest. He watches as she stops, hesitating briefly. She lifts one foot to take a step, then snaps it back. Come back Nimue. Don't take the step. He knows that once that foot falls, she will never, can never, come back. Please Nimue. Mentally, he's on his knees and begging her. He knows he can't hear him though. And what he knows better is that she isn't going to come back, isn't going to stop, will never stop until she drops dead, and even then, will never give up.

Nimue

She senses it, senses it right as her foot hovers over the boundary between village and forest, life and death. There's an aura, a presence. Ah if only she'd had more of these feelings during Aradia's Wednesday classes.

It's light, yet heavy, cold, yet warm. Forbidding, yet welcoming. She hones her senses in, trying to remember everything that Aradia has ever lectured on.

Let yourself go. Spirit sensing is all about letting go. It's never about you, but about sensing others.

So she stands there, the guards and the old lady alongside her, too scared to force her to move. She closes her eyes, opens her palms, and releases.

Nobody is sure what the girl is doing, but they're all fascinated by the curious bubble she's managed to make. All eyes are on her. Is she doing witchcraft? Sorcery? Preparing to kill them all in one swipe? Instinctively, mothers' hands clutch their babies tighter. Fathers reach for their childrens' sticky hands and draw them closer. They wait. Everyone is afraid, afraid of what might happen, afraid of the power in the girl... afraid of the girl.

Nimue

Her palms are parallel to the ground as she blocks everything out. Blocks out the stares, the murmurings, the whispers, the memories, the feelings, everything. And then she feels it, the slightest tickle at the very center of her palm, which spreads to her fingers, up her wrist and her arms. There's a whooshing in her ears as she concentrates her energy, her very being, on sensing, not feeling.

Her vision flashes as her eyes close, and she feels a coldness run chills down her. There is death in the forest. Beyond her darkened world, she feels a curious sensation, and with that, her closed eyes are roaming the forest from the view of a bird, as if she were floating directly above it.

Her eyes take in treetops, looking rather like broccoli from above. Her ears hear the forest sounds, and the birds' calls. She feels warmth coursing through her as she floats high above the scene, following the glittering ribbon of a river.

And then all of a sudden, it changes. She feels cold, like the temperature has just dropped, and her vision goes spotty, flashing in and out, rather than staying steady. In between dark flashes, she looks down, surveying. She sees death, little children, peoples' souls. A broken house.

She continues on, but the temperature does not warm. Instead, it cools, colder and colder until raised goosebumps line her arms. That's when she sees it. A spot among the green. A cloud of white and black. Sadly, that is not what the world is like.

She lowers herself, arms outstretched like an eagle in flight. The closer she gets, the colder she feels and the thicker the air gets, until she almost can't breathe. She feels, not anger, like she'd expected, but pain, physical and mental. She feels unbearable sorrow, so heavy it's almost as if someone has put a ball and chain around her neck and expected her to walk. She feels drained, like someone's zapped the energy right out of her, but like she's expected to plod along and keep going for all eternity.

She gets closer still, and lands on her toes right in front of La Esperanta. But she knows the spirit lady can't see her. Still, up close it's different. Her fingers flutter as they search beneath the layers of grime, wiping it away so that the spirit can't feel it, but she can.

Layers of muck, silt, sand, charcoal dust, they come off onto her fingers and blow away in the breeze. And beneath it, as she scrapes away the pain and the hurt like layers of skin and blows it away as well, she sees.

And that's when she makes up her mind. She pulls herself out of the threshold between the spirit and the real world and crosses the real boundary. Between life and death.