Everheart

From the Dragon's Eyes: Chapter 7

By the time I woke up the next morning, the sun was high. Realizing that we would be an easy target, I shook Elija awake to start to get on the move. “What time is it?” Elija asked when he finally woke up.

“Just about noon I think. C’mon. Lets go, I don’t want to be in the same spot for too long. We both know what happened last time we did.”

Elija agreed and began to gather up his things and eliminate traces of us being there. He got rid of our fire and tossed the bones of our dinner into the river. Add that to the list of things Elija was good at. Disappearing without a trace, a trait that would be helpful escaping the Royal Guard, but extremely bad if he decides to leave me. While he was at the river, he filled the canteen the shopkeeper gave him before we left. I walked up behind him, “What do you think?” I asked. “Keep heading east or follow the river north?” 

It was a risky move either way. If the Royal Guard had caught on, they would be looking east, but if they hand’t then they’d still be heading north. But even more than that, if we kept heading east, there would be a chance that we would be far away from a source of water. If we traveled along the river, there could be a bigger chance of running into the Royal Guard. “Lets keep going east. But make sure you’ve had enough to drink before we go because who knows when we’ll run into water next,” Elija decided.

I agreed and we had our fill f water before continuing to travel east. I admired how he was decisive when it counted. I was impulsive, he thought things through. I act on instinct, he acts with reasoning more often than not. Of course he acted on intuition to escape and follow me, but other than that, he has yet to do something impulsive. He stopped us to make camp, he made a fishing rod out of a twig and twine. He was calm and collected while I was a crazy ball of impulse.

For the first hour of traveling, we were silent. Elija walked slightly behind me and out of sync with my foot steps. Every no and then he would accidentally step on the heel of my shoe and apologize, then continue walking behind me. I could feel my hair sway from side to side each time I took a step. All I could think of was how in his half asleep state the night before, during the story Elija told me I was the young woman from the folk tale who saved the boy and his father from prison.

Elija quickened his pace slightly and walked next to me for a minute before he asked, “Hey cypress, is your hair naturally that color?”

I stopped walking and looked at him confused. It was an odd question and so out of the blue. “Yes, it is,” I started walking again and he walked along to my left. “My mother’s hair turned this color when she was about my age too. Except mine went a lot earlier than my mother’s did. Her’s turned when she was about eighteen, mine turned when I was about fourteen. Weird, huh?” I explained.

Elija watched as my expressions changed before he asked, “Have you ever wanted to change it back or wish it never turned?”

“I mean, when it first started to turn I did, and then after I was fully silver, I got teased for it a bit, but the teasing stopped after a while and I became okay with it. Now I would probably opt for my black hair back, but theres nothing I could do about that. The Guard has seen me and I’ll be forever marked the ‘Silver-haired girl,’” I explained.

Elija stayed silent, taking in everything I had just told him. I was shocked when I told him I was teased. I didn’t mean to say it, it just slipped out. I decided that I needed to be more careful about what I told him, I didn’t want to freak him out or give him reason to leave. “And Cypress,” elija spoke up again. “What are you looking to accomplish with this?” I was silent. Elija waited patiently for an answer, but when I refused to give one, he added on, “I’m not trying to say this is pointless or anything, but what are two teenagers walking around from town to town going to accomplish? How do you expect to get this thing, whatever it is, in motion? And once it is, then what? What are you planning on doing?”