Hidden Spirit

Chapter Five: On a Decline

Together they had walked for hours, past the stables and through the fenced in fields, then past the fences of the pastures and through the open land of the much larger seasonal pastures where only the wild horses roamed. Winding through the forest to their right was a river; Amelia had seen the difference in the trees from her room before. As they walked she could see the dragonflies roaming about, bouncing from grass blade to blade. When one had landed on her fingers it brought a small smile to her face. The blue and black wings were beautiful on the small thing. Andrew laughed at the way the creature captivated her.

Amelia, with the dragonfly having flown away, tugged at the long skirts of her satin dress. It was more annoying to her than appealing, but she tried to ignore it as she walked through the fields. With a rustle of her fabric she swooped down to finger a pretty bundle flower. Definitely not a kind she had seen before.... Andrew quickly supplied her with the name 'helenium'. He did that with many of the flowers she did not recognize, and the same with some birds that were flying about. There were definitely many colors in them all.

Well after noon they came to sit under the shade of a large oak tree. Andrew sat with his back against the trunk, Amelia with her head on his lap, caressing the pedals of a small yellow flower. The same saying drifted through her mind over and over again: "... A flower picked for beauty and left after a single glimpse, to die on the ground that once nourished it...."

She sighed at the daisy. What if she were that flower, the beasts of her past lands being the ones that picked her? But she shouldn't be thinking of something so depressing to the present mood. She was with good company. Company that could respond.... It was what she needed, no?

"Tell me your thoughts," Andrew asked of her.

Her gaze shifted to look at him, and daintily her hand rose to brush aside a strand of his blond hair. How ever would she answer? Her thoughts belonged anywhere — everywhere — but there, in Firica.

"You miss your home," he said. It wasn't a question.

Amelia nodded briskly. That was only a bit of the truth. As hard as she fought, she couldn't keep her thoughts away from her family, her tutors, the customs of her home that so differed from those of these... humans....

Smell quickly reminded herself that Andrew should not be worried for her thoughts of home. His mother, and surely his council, would have to have been discussing the possibility of marriage — of diplomatic associations to save her country from the blight that had burned it to the ground in, what felt like, a single night.

And she could live with this as her home, if only she could learn to live among these people, and be allowed to wander as she wished, and wear and eat and act as she wished....

"... This could be your home."

Her mind had been drifting so far from him that his words confused her, at first. Of course that was Andrew's place now: to make her accepting of this place. He would try to help her like this place, just as she knew the others expected her to. Because to the others, it didn't matter that she had just lost everything, did it? Even her powers were then weak, starved from the opportunity to flourish as they had been under her teachers back home.

"You could be happy here, with me," he whispered. "Do not let the others discourage you. I know that there is so much good in you."

"You don't know me," she told him, speaking for the first time with a mocking voice. The words snapped from her mouth; immediately she regretted it.

"I'm trying to."

Amelia wasn't exactly sure how to respond to that bit. It was a nice contrast, she supposed. Not yet relieving in the slightest, or comforting at all, but better than any other effort she'd seen. And that was only in the sense of formality — not any sort of romantic relationship, if that was what was intended for them. Amelia was still young. None of the men had ever payed her any mind in a... romantic kind of way, for lack of a better term. She wasn't sure if she was curious of it or wanted no part.