C H A P T E R N I N E
Get up now.
Nola now.
Go into the forest.
Will you wake up all ready?
Wake the fuck up.
You have to get up.
Follow the butterflies.
Nola jerked awake from her slumber and flinched just before she fell out of the tree. When hitting the ground she landed on her stomach and her knife pierced her lower torso. In any other scenario someone would have heard her fall, but to a Terra, slumber is like death—one does not wake when woken.
Nola stood up and leaned her shoulder up against a tree bark. She looked up to see everyone sleeping in the trees. A bright colorful hue caught her eye and winged creature landed on top of a fragile branch; fluttering.
"Follow the butterflies," Nola said to herself just before the winged creature flapped its wings. "Wait."
She walked closer and closer to the butterfly as it flew farther and father away from her. She ducked underneath fallen trees and jumped over puddles from the rain. More and more hues of colors appeared in her peripheral and they brought her to a body of water.
Nola kept her hand pressed against her stomach and she felt the blood oozing onto her cool skin. Far out she could see an island big enough to home a civilization. She could see the mainland of the undines.
In the split of a second she removed her blade from her scabbard and drew it forward as she heard a twig snap. An old man in dirt covered rags—holding a long, carved, plat of wood as a cane—kept his distance from her.
"Nola." he spoke in almost a question—a whisper for some odd reason she could not hear her name—one of the butterflies landed on his shoulder where his thinned hair was cut. His height was quite intimidating, something her brother would never have had admitted. "My apologies if I frightened you."
"I'm not frightened." She lied and cautiously lowered her weapon, keeping her stomach pressurized as it was beginning to healing itself.
"Is there any reason why you are out here by yourself?" the old man asked. Nola was taken aback, for in the last several weeks no one had spoken to her without formally referring her to as 'her Grace'. He looked at her wound. "You're hurt."
"It's just a flesh wound." She waved the pain off as if it were nothing. He removed something from inside his robes and held the vial out to her.
He chuckled, "Its liquid herbs to quicken the healing process by several days."
"I'm fine—really."
"I insist." She reluctantly took the vial from his wrinkled palm and removed the cork, lifting it up to her lips. "It's not poison if that's what you're thinking."
She raised her brow. "How do I know you're not lying to me?"
"I guess you'll just have to trust me."
Nola couldn't present herself to the undines with a wound slashed into the side of her body. Her brother taught her better, though she'd never really cared what others thought of her. A wound that pungent took days to heals, and she only had hours before taking the journey to the mainland.
