I Will Be Strong

#8

Postea walked. He didn't know where he was going, but he really didn't care all that much. In fact, he really didn't care at all. He breathed in the sharp, cold air as his feet led him to wherever they pleased. The sun had only just risen above the distant horizon and the glows of yellow split the darkness into tiny fragments, until the whole sky had become its regular, dull grey. The clouds were many that day, and Postea prayed that the rain would hold off long enough to reach his destination. Wherever that may be. He quickened his pace, now almost at a run. The rocky and dirt filled ground of the mountain became softer and softer as the rain began to fall. Slowly at first, with the trickles of tiny droplets barely scraping his eyelashes, then with tremendous power. The heavy downpour almost knocked him over, and the mud under his now sprinting feet kept threatening to send him hurtling to his death. 

Postea finally reached the forest and slowed to a halt; the dense canopy of trees now stopping the rain from reaching him. Not that it mattered anyway, he was soaked through and through. He emptied the slosh that had built up within his boots before looking around. No animals were out as the rain had only just passed, so the forest was eerily quiet. He stood still for a moment, listening to rustle of leaves and staring into the depths of the dark secrets this place held. The grass beneath him scratched the soles of his bare feet and threatened to tickle his legs, but he appreciated it nonetheless. It wasn't often that an entire section of environment was left untouched, not with the Corrupted searching for every source of life that they could. It was what sourced their power, what let them thrive in Fylak. For no other place on the living side of the world had as much greenery and life that Fylak has. Or, had. This forest was a sanctuary for the remaining animals, and a sense of hope for the remaining people. Postea had always found peace here, tranquillity, hope. A reason to carry on, to keep fighting. To be strong. He sat down on the floor of the forest that every child in the kingdom had been scared away from. The forest that not even the Corrupted dared to enter. He simply sat; leaning against the thick trunk of a tree and taking one last look up at the ceiling of green before closing his eyes.

He listened.

He simply listened.

To the whisper of the wind, to the scratching of squirrels, the chirp of bugs.  

He listened to the songs of the birds, to the faint flap of butterfly wings, to his own heart.

The steady beat. The same beat. Never changing, not here. Not when he was calm.

His heart was something he could count on. Something he knew wouldn't change, wouldn't wake up one day and decide to let him down.

Hopefully.

Postea sighed. Once, he had known this sense of peace wherever he went. Now, it was a scarcity as rare as a sorcerer. He opened his eyes to pull his boots back on, and winced as the hard leather scraped against his blistered skin. Once they were firmly on and he was sure that his last personal possessions wouldn't be stolen from him and he would be forced to wander back up the unforgiving mountain bare-foot, he laid back against the enormous tree and closed his eyes once again. This time, his thoughts were the sounds he could hear. The questions, the worries, the hopes, the wishes. They circled his mind, drowning out the noises of the forest. The smoke of his thoughts, his deepest and darkest thoughts, choked him. Drowned him in a sea of honey-sweet lies and bitter truths.

Postea shifted in his thinking, trying to push out the horrid taste of the truths. The inevitable ends they were all destined for.

He thought about Avery and Myosotis. He thought about how vulnerable they would all be if the King found out she was a cora. He thought about how strong Avery really  was, and how long it would be before she couldn't fight off the power of a young sorcerer. He thought about the trust that the others had lost in her after she revealed she had been lying to them. He thought about how all this could mean death.