Ever So Lightly- Book 1

11

 Saria did not creep from her room on the second floor of the inn. She walked down the stairs as naturally as if she always got up this late at night, dressed in her long coat and carrying her small sack of belongings. The way she saw it, sneaking around was just as likely to make her stand out if someone did happen to see her, so she decided to leave the inn through the front door as if she owned the place, and hope that if anyone watched her go, they wouldn't question her reasons.

As she walked through the dining room she had been in earlier, where she had heard the news of Zephyr and Agitha, she didn't make eye contact with the few people still seated about the room. She kept her eye on the door and her pace steady and natural. She had almost made it out when someone to her right caught her eye from across the room. The woman she had noticed earlier when the rumors from Bremerton were being discussed, the one who's face had looked so familiar, was watching her intently from a stool at the counter. Saria's eyes met the woman's for just a moment before she quickly turned away and pushed the front door open.

Saria huffed, hoping the familiar woman wouldn't say anything to anyone about her departure, and a puff of wispy white air floated and curled in front of her mouth. This night was the coldest so far of the season and Saria was glad she had decided to wear her coat instead of putting it into her pack. She fought back a shiver as she crossed the spotty grass in the yard of the inn over to where the stables were located.

Luckily, the doors had been left unlocked, and Saria gave a quick glance around the yard to make sure no one was watching her before slipping backwards inside the building. As she pulled the door shut and began to turn around to have a look at her options for transportation, a laugh rang out, echoing through the stables, and Saria whipped around to face whoever had just caught her.

"You haven't changed one bit," laughed the woman who had been watching her inside the inn. Saria cringed, wiping the shock off her face and replacing it with a look of indignation. She held her head high as she tried to come up with a valid reason she would be caught here in the stables. The woman continued before she could come up with anything that half made sense.

"The way you waltzed right out the door, as though no one had a right to question you, that had to be the silliest, most assuming escape tactic I've ever seen. I can't believe it worked," the woman was still laughing as she spoke, looking at Saria in what she took as a demeaning way. It made her blood boil, and a wave of heat rushed her cheeks.

"And who are you?" Saria snarled, causing the woman's eyebrows to rise once more in amusement.

"You mean you really don't recognize me?" Saria's only response was to shake her head no. The woman flashing a sly grin at her.

"Do you remember the time you got yourself stuck in that tree, and you ending up hanging by your dress like a picture hung on a wall?"

Realization dawned on Saria, and instead of finding comfort in it, Saria felt her irritation soar through the roof of the building.

"Gretchen! Why are you here?" Saria hadn't seen Gretchen Glynn since, well, before she was a grown woman. The last time their paths had crossed, back when Saria was still living with her family in Faron, Gretchen had been a gangly, loud, obnoxious - in Saria's opinion - girl in her late teens who didn't look a day past fifteen years, and who had convinced a twelve year old Saria to climb a tree in one of her prettiest dresses, only to stand there laughing hysterically at her once she was thoroughly stuck in said tree. Now, several years later, she had obviously grown up. Still tall and thin, she had gone from gangly to lithe, with sinewy muscles and a forceful grace that lit her every movement. Shining, loose curls of mahogany hair reached down her back, and her thin face had become classically beautiful since Saria had last seen her.