The Sword Bearer

Chapter 21

When we reached the edge of the grassland I couldn’t believe my eyes. What I saw amazed me beyond belief. I could see the same expression of disbelief on Daren’s face. We had to be imagining this. It wouldn’t be real, could it? I rubbed my eyes to make sure I wasn’t seeing things but when I removed my hands from my eyes nothing changed. Standing there, at the edge of the grassland, we could see where the landscape changed. The grass changed into crystal. My eyes bulged. I still couldn’t believe what I was seeing. The crystal coated everything and I realized that the grass didn’t change into the crystal but was covered up by a thin layer of it. The grass was still healthy and green under it giving the crystal a little bit of color. It looked slippery. I put out a foot to test if I would fall but to my surprise it had an okay grip. It was like walking on marble. I slid my other foot onto the crystal and I still didn’t slip. When I looked down it unnerved me that I wasn’t slipping on such a smooth surface. I could feel the heat emanating from it through my boots. The crystal captured the heat of the sun I realized. I could walk on it fine and the boots kept out most of the heat so we could go on from here. Daren still stood on the grass eying the crystal with unease. I motioned that it was okay so he pushed out of his legs and tried moving in on it. When I didn’t slip he let his other leg follow. He started to walk slowly then normally until he reached to where I was. “Safe right?” I asked him. He grunted then started walking forward confidently.

I followed behind him. The crystal amazed me for a time then I realized how dreary it really was. Everything was covered. There was nothing that was alive here. Everything seemed dormant. It made me feel awkward being on land where nothing was alive. It felt like me and Daren were misplaced. I wanted to get away from here fast so I started pulling Daren to go faster. He looked at me with surprise but soon enough he just shrugged and started walking faster. I could tell why he didn’t seem to be disconcerted here. He wanted to discover new places while I wanted to keep to places that were, let’s say more welcoming. The crystal land didn’t last for more than a day. When we reached the edge there was another grassland. Daren excitedly added the crystal land to his map. He seemed so ecstatic about it that it made me smile. I looked at his map and too my dismay he hardly had any space left. He filled it up with the grassland we were in now. His map was finished. He let out a satisfied sigh then smiled at me. “I’m done,” he said lifting it up so I could see it. It was beautiful. He had created a decorative border at the ends of the paper. It wasn’t organized but it was a nice mixture of many swirls of different sizes. Some overlapped each other and weren’t set in a way where they were equally apart. After I was done admiring, he gently folded it up and put it away.

Daren was satisfied with exploring now so what to do next. First, I decided that we would spend a few days here. There was no need to rush to where ever we were going to go. The thing that I wanted to do was go back to following the star but I had to get Daren to agree first. He was asleep at that moment so I decided to wait until he was awake. Then we would decide what course of action we were going to take. There was a full moon tonight and the stars looked brighter here than anywhere else I had seen them. Something caught my eyes and I saw that the in the distance the crystal landscape was creating a slight glow in the air. I smiled it at it. It was beautiful. I wanted to wake Daren up so he could see the glow but since we were going to stay here for another few nights I knew he would have many more chances to see it. I sighed with contentment as I watched the slight tinge of light in the air, the moon and the stars. With that I drifted off to into a peaceful sleep. No visions bothered me that night to my relief. I was exhausted and I need this rest.

When I opened my eyes it was because the sun had bothered my eyes. I growled and dug my head inside the darkness in between my crossed arms. I let out a hum of satisfaction and tried to go back to sleep. I waited for a few minutes for it to envelop me but I didn’t. I sighed. It was one of those morning where you were dog-tired but you couldn’t go back to sleep because once you were awake your body wouldn’t let you. I rubbed my eyes and let out a small yawn. I gazed at Daren jealously. He slept undisturbed because he had faced the other way when he slept last night. I waited for him to wake up while watching the sun climb higher and higher into the sky. As the rays fell on my body I started to appreciate the warmth it had. I closed my eyes for a while and without realizing it I fell asleep again as my tiredness over took my senses. I felt something pulling on my shoulder. I sighed and tried to swat it away. I was still tired. “Wake up” I heard Daren say but I pushed it away. I was way too tired to wake up already. He didn’t stop so finally I gave in and woke up. He had a cheeky smile plastered onto his face. I wanted to growl at him but it was interrupted by a huge yawn. “Good morning” he said happily. I wondered what had put him in such a good mood. I muttered something like that back to him. He didn’t seem the least bit tired. He held out something for me to take. I didn’t look at it properly in my tiredness but instead just took it out of his hand. After a second of grumbling about the lack of sleep I had I looked down to see an orb. I smiled and took a huge bite out of it. I looked around to see where he had got it. Then I saw a tree. It wasn’t close at all. It was just at the edge of my vision. I smiled thinking about how he had gone so far to get the orbs.