The Lost

PART 2- Azure

Azure

How did I end up here? Seriously. Absolute, completely insanity. Maybe I had finally lost my head. It would be about time, wouldn't it? The sleepless nights had been stacking up for a long time, each one followed by a restless day: maybe that tower of pressure had finally become too tall. This unending ordeal had finally driven me mad.

You've lost your mind. It was the only explanation... because if I wasn't crazy, that meant that all of this was really happening. Aspen was really gone, I was here in this human city, and I was being led towards a human by a little girl with white hair.

In what way could all that not sound crazy?

"You... you don't need to be nervous." The strange girl advised in her child voice.
I stared at the back of her head as we made our way through the bushes. She moved gently, quietly through the leaves. Even in bare feet she didn't seem to be bothered by the sharpness of the foliage. If I didn't know any better I would have been sure that she was from a tribe. Only, she lacked the gracefulness to her movements that could only be acquired by living in the forest. Where I tiptoed, she stomped. Where I avoided a protruding leaf, she brushed it aside. Did she not know she would attract unwanted attention with such a fuss?
No, she didn't. Which meant that this... Lyn... really wasn't from the forest.

I simply shook my head. Maybe she was a hallucination. Or a ghost. White hair, white eyes; If it wasn't for the stains on her dress and the pink on her cheeks, she could have passed for a snowflake. A girl, in a human city, with a human. No knowledge of the Winged or the tribes or the forest, or anything for that matter.
I stared long and hard at the lost creature. Where did you come from?

"Lyn?" A voice split through me.
It stopped me dead in my tracks. We were hovering at the outskirts of the bush now... And there was no way I was stepping out of these leaves.

I could sense it in the air now; a human. There was almost a presence. The occasional trembling of the floor, the unnatural shadow, how the air felt heavier as we neared him. In a way that was impossible for us to replicate, all humans had a certain... formidability to them. A bad feeling. As though your body told you to turn and run at the first imposition of them. Then again, I was probably incredibly bias. My only experience with humans had been... well, not great.

Little Lyn looked over her shoulder at where I had stopped.
"A... Azure?" She spoke my name with a hint of hesitation, like it was a word more than a title. Maybe I would have smiled had I not been so tense. Was I was genuinely going to allow this... this child to lead me into the presence of a human? She looked about seven years old. He let me go only a few minutes ago... humans never let us go once they caught us. So was I really going to ignore my good fortune and throw myself into danger again?
Yes, I supposed. What other choice was there? If there was just a tiny chance that he could help Az, I had to take it.

You're going mad, you know that? I did know that, but it didn't particularly bother me. I also knew for certain that I was too tired to care anymore.

I think the young girl might have been able to see the discomfort on my face, because she retraced her steps and came to my side. Lyn looked up at me with her big snowy eyes... so round and trusting of me. And then she smiled.
I blinked, deja-vu suddenly like strong perfume filling my head. There was something so familiar in her face, so innocent and sweet. She genuinely wanted to help me. Micah. That's who she reminds me of.
"Come on," she took my hand into two her her littler ones, "Don't be scared of him." And softly, she was tugging my rigid body forwards. I was helpless to resist.