The Blue Fire - A Short Love Story

Reuben

Reuben shut the house door quietly as he slipped outside. The cool night air caressed his face as it blew softly across the desert sand. The moon rose high in a clear night sky. He walked some hundred feet away from the farm buildings and sat down on the course sand, looking up at the stars. Each one twinkled back at him. He could see Sagittarius in the south. How peaceful the horseman looked.

Memories he didn't want came back to him them. The raiders that had taken his family—killed his father and raped his sister. He'd only just gotten away. Angry at himself for letting the images rise again to his mind, and frustrated that they'd not disappeared forever into his subconscious, he got up and strode with purpose back to the house. He would go horse riding.

Saddling his chestnut horse after he'd gotten to the barn, he leaped up onto her back and charged her out of the barn and into the open desert. He could could feel the power of her legs beneath him as they ate up the sand, and he felt as invigorated as she must have.

Finally, when he had left the images and angry thoughts behind, he slowed his horse and pulled her to a stop. Now he could finally think.

"There we go Nalgar. You have your rest now," he patted the gorgeous animal with affection as he dismounted. Sitting near her hooves, Reuben pulled out a bag of oats and fed them to her. He smiled at the horse and leaned against her leg—a thing she'd never minded of him. As he stared out into the open night and desert sands, he slowly realized that what he'd previously thought to be a small dune shadow was not in fact a shadow. There was a person lying in the sand—sleeping? There was no horse nearby, no camp, nothing. Who would sleep out on these sands in such chill temperatures, he asked himself.

He must investigate.

The only weapon he had with him was his knife. He should be more careful next time. If there was a next time. Maybe he should not investigate. Reuben had stood up and was examining the shadow of a person as much as he could from the distance he was at. Nalgar stomped her foot, feeling the tension in her rider.

Carefully did Reuben draw his horse closer to the sleeping—or dead—form in the sand. He was thirty feet away when he realized that she was in fact a woman. The lovely curves of her still form wrapped in dark fabric betrayed the fact. Sighing in his breast, he went closer to see with less fear. He released his strong grip on the knife, putting it away in his belt. A woman had no reason to want his money or life. Women were not desert raiders.

He came to stand over her. She did not stir at his presence, and he wondered for a moment if she indeed was dead. In a moment however, he saw that she in fact breathed, the curve of her chest rising and falling with each intake of air. Her skin was deeply tanned, yet still paler than his. He saw that her hair was yellow, the color of sand, where it stuck out of the loosely wrapped scarf about her head. Reuben also observed the nasty scar slashed across her left jawbone—a clashing abnormality in her fragile beauty.

What is she doing out here?

The suspicion was quickly followed by a fearful thought. She had to be from a nearby farm. What other than suicidal tenancies would possess a woman to walk out alone onto the sands?

Reaching down, he shook the woman. She did not stir. When he shook her harder and she still remained unconscious, Reuben realized severe intervention would be needed. She was easy to lift and swing over his horse. Much lighter than he'd expected. He often glanced back to make sure she was still alive as he rode slowly back to the house.

Yes, she still breathed, was his same thought every time he looked.