In Stone

27: "How did you get down here?"

27: “How did you get down here?”

It was the second dream.

Caia came awake all at once that morning. Her eyes snapped open on the pre-dawn sky outside of her window, her body ready to move at a moment's notice. For a moment, she wasn't even sure why she had awakened like that, especially considering that Caspian was still asleep. She could feel the weight of his arm around her under the blanket, his breathing even against her back. The birds weren't even up yet, but she suddenly was.

Then the dream came back to her. Visions of the goddess's statue, and a second statue, a much larger one, danced in her head. They were quick glimpses, so fast that she barely could focus on half of them, but they were powerful and clear.

Being careful not to wake up Caspian, she slowly extracted herself from his grasp and stood. She put on her clothes quietly, smiled at the sleeping Caspian, then left, blowing him a kiss as she shut the door behind herself.

As she walked downstairs, she heard Elanil baking in the kitchen. She considered stopping by to grab something to eat, but she wasn't really hungry. She only felt restless. So she let herself out the front door and started walking through the town.

Very few people were up at this hour. A few people that baked bread could be smelled working, but they were mostly indoors and out of sight. The deck scrubbers were up, finishing their tasks. Caia walked around them, not wanting to disturb their jobs.

For a moment, a brief one, she considered finding Vaeri. She wasn't sure where her friend was working this morning, but Caia hadn't had a chance to speak with her since the truth came out. Sometimes, she thought that she saw Vaeri disappearing as she walked around town. It made her afraid that she was avoiding her. Caia had never been avoided like this before. She wasn't sure if she was supposed to go to Vaeri, or if Vaeri was supposed to come to her.

But she decided not to go after Vaeri after all. Her friend was working right now for one thing, and for another Caia really wanted to get started on what she was doing. It was important, it wouldn't be denied for another moment.

Though even she wasn't really sure what it was. She walked straight past the sculptor's shack without even considering going inside. She had a picture in her head now of exactly how the goddess's statue should look, but she didn't want to work on it at the moment.

Instead, she walked towards the gate of the town. The watchman perched on the top was half asleep, his head kept falling against his chest and bouncing back up. Caia giggle at the sight as she passed under the arch and out into the surrounding woods.

Then she was walking down the path outside of town. She hesitated after only a few steps, then looked into the underbrush off of the path. It would be stupid for her, a girl raised in a city, to step off of a safe path and into dense woods.

The pull that got her out here was strong though. She simply smiled, figured that the worst that could happen was that she would get lost, and she walked inside almost confidently.

The sun was just barely peeking over the horizon by that point. The nocturnal animals were bedding down for the day, the diurnal animals were yet to awaken. The forest was quiet and still in a way that was rare and wonderful. The only sounds were those that Caia made, probably disturbing both sets of animals as she clumsily hiked her way through the trees.

That didn't bother her though. She hummed as she walked through. Her shoes, completely unsuitable for hiking, slipped a lot, and her dress, equally unsuited, exposed her legs to branches and brambles, but she didn't mind that. She felt like she did when she was playing with her power. She was having fun in a mind numbing way that canceled out thought.