The Last Dryad

|03| Traitors

Silla

Silla woke up to light shining in through the window over her bed. Where had her leaf curtains gone? They had always done such a good job of blocking out the sun...

Wait. Her mind spun, instantly awake. This wasn't her bed. Silla jerked up, pulling herself into a defensive position. It all came back to her.

Running away from Laurelin's village. Seeing the heavy smoke in the sky. Learning her family was dead. Fleeing to the nearest township. Buying new clothes. Fear; worry; grief.

This must have been the inn that they had crashed at the night before. She needed to find Laurelin to plan their next move. She heard gentle snores from the bed beside hers.

"Laurelin?" She asked, looking over at the bed. "You awake?"

A sleepy grumbling was her only answer. That answered that question.

Silla slipped into her cloak and dress and pulled the sleeves down to hide her markings. It would be unbearably hot – the woman at the shop was right about that, as much as it pained her to admit it – but she wouldn't be hunted. Hopefully.

"Laurelin," she said more urgently, shaking her friend. "We need to get moving again. I don't think that anyone knows we're here, but if someone reported us last night...." Her voice trailed off. The whole world had changed. She and Laurelin were fugitives. The word tasted bitter in her mouth and she shut off those thoughts. They wouldn't do her any good now.

Laurelin snored louder. If there was one thing that Silla knew about Laurelin, it was that she could sleep through a tornado. Silla rolled her eyes. The girl could sleep through a herd of stampeding cattle if she was dreaming deeply enough.

"Wake up, Laurelin!" Silla grimaced as she shook her. It still had no effect. She was going to have to resort to drastic measures.

Noticing a vase full of flowers sitting near the window, Silla grabbed the container and tipped it over directly on top of the snoring Meliae. Laurelin shot up, eyes wild.

"Ah! What in the name of the southern kingdom are you doing?" she sputtered. "These are the only clothes we have!"

Silla hid a smile behind her hand. "You'll thank me later when I'm burning to death and the water cools you off. Besides, the sun will dry you off quickly."

Surprisingly, this didn't seem to placate Laurelin, who looked like a drowned cat. An angry drowned cat.

"I'm going to get you for that!" Laurelin yelled as she grabbed at her and Silla shrieked.

She ran around the corner to their floor in the inn, narrowly escaping Laurelin's wrath. Silla laughed at the look on Laurelin's face. She wished she had some way of capturing the moment so she could look back on it in the future; pristine and unchanged by the failings of memory.

Silla went back to the room a few minutes later to make sure Laurelin wasn't really mad, but sure enough she was grinning to herself as she brushed out her drenched hair.

"One of these days," she heard Laurelin mutter amusedly, "I'm going to kill that girl."

"Ah, but then who would make you laugh?" Silla asked with a wink.

"You numbskull," Laurelin tried to glare at her, but her lips twitched and that was all it took for all out doubled over laughter to begin.

It felt good to laugh. It made the grief from the previous night seem to fade in intensity a little bit.

They gathered their bags and were off on their way before the sun had reached its peak. Silla knew it was foolish, and that there were more important things to focus on, but she couldn't help searching through the crowd for the face.