Reaching For The Light

Chapter Eleven: Two Years Later

I take in a deep breath, pulling back the bow string at the same time, and letting go of the string when I exhale. Bullseye. Zaan claps behind me. "Perfect! Keep doing that." He smiles, this is a rare thing. Two years ago, when he lost Sage, he'd never smile, and he'd hardly talk. Now, he's almost recovered. I shoot another arrow and get another bullseye. "Great job, Rae. Go ahead and take a break." I set down my bow and head over to the kitchen. Now that we have a new, smaller base, we don't have a big kitchen. We get our food from Hillary and keep moving to another spot to eat. Hillary smiles as she puts the stew on my plate. "Thank you." I say. I walk out of the kitchen door and almost loose my food when I ran into Zaan. "Woah there." He pats my head. "Got to be careful." He walks into the kitchen. I walk outside to sit in the sun for an hour, as I always do. My hair is lighter, a dark brown now, from the sun. I'm proud that my hair is now to my chest, instead of my shoulders. I see my horse, Polly,  eating grass off to the side. Once I finish my food I walk over to her. "Hey, girl." I pet her head. "You're such a pretty horse." She looks like all the other horses, but I could tell her apart from the others. I smile and continue to pet her.

~Zaan's POV~
She admires the horse, the pistol is pointed for her torso. One pull of the trigger. I take a deep breath and pull the trigger, just as she looks my way. When I turn visible again, she gapes her mouth and stares me in the eye with confusion. "Why?" She mouths. A tear trickles down my face. I put the gun to my head and pull the trigger once more. I mentally smile, we have peace. That's all I ever wanted.
I shoot up from my horrible, horrible nightmare. The thought of just hurting Rae, hurt me. I look around for Rae, but I don't find her by the horse, where she was before I fell asleep. "Rae?" I call. She pokes her head out from behind a tree. I let out the breath I was holding in. She smiles and walks over to me. "You were dreaming." She says. I nod. "Oh trust me, I know." She laughs. "I wanted to do something today.." She says. I narrow my eyes. "What?" Her eyes light up and she smiles. "I wanted to go spy." I shake my head. "No, it's too dangerous." She frowns. "Come on! Everything we do is dangerous!" She runs over to the archery training grounds and picks up her bow. "I'll bring this!" She says, shaking it in the air. I roll my eyes. "Fine." She perks up. "Really?" She looks me in the eye with pleading eyes. I nod. "Sure, for a little bit." We travel through the jungle, once we reach the base of the Frueth I turn invisible, and Rae turns into her beautiful blue smoke. I climb up a tree for a better view. Our weapons were on the ground, far from reach, which bothers me immensely. Trucks pull in, carrying something. I focus on the trucks, then look for Rae. She wasn't above or below me, then, I realize she is above the truck. I hit myself in the face, is she were to get hurt I'd blame myself. The Frueth soldiers open the truck and the General steps out. I gasp, the Frueth had the General. This would never end well, Rae wisps back to me, using her new trick. She figured out that if she looks at somewhere she wanted to go, she'd show up as her original form. I turn visible so she can come straight to me. "We have to save him." I say. "I know, if the General is caught the Frueth would massacre his army." She wipes her face and tried to think of something. "You and me have to go in. I'll try to use my smoke to teleport him out." She finally says. I look her in the eye. "You don't even really know him." I say. "You don't have to know someone to save them." She quotes from our first meet.