The Light in the darkness

Chapter 3

              Before I knew it, we were on the other side of the castle, not the side that I had come thought last night but the backside. When he opened the door, the sun swept over my face and warmed it. There were acres and acres of land with a big stable only a few yards away from the castle. There was at least a good dozen of horses in the pasture. Another in the stables. There was one that caught my eye. It was a pure black horse that had a certain wildness in it that I was drawn to.

            "Her name is Moonlight do you want to ride her," I jump so focused on the horse that I had forgotten that Nicolis was standing right next to me. I was so fixated on Moonlight that all I could muster up was a nod. I could hear him chuckle. We started towards the stables to saddle up the horses. There were a couple of stable hands inside.

              "Saddle up Moonlight and Chestnut," he said to a boy maybe three years younger than me. The boy didn't say anything he just ran off to get the horses. Ten minutes later the boy came back in with Moonlight and a chestnut horse. He walked over to one of the stalls to hook Moonlight to it to saddle her up. He put Chestnut on the other side. While the one boy was saddle Moonlight, another girl came around the corner to saddle up Chestnut. They looked identically like they were twins. They both turned towards me and Nicolis and said at the same time,

              "We are done, please enjoy your ride.' I turned towards Nicolis and asked,

             "Are they twins," he looked towards me and just nodded. I walked towards Moonlight and started to get up on the horse but then I felt two strong hands around my waist and lifted me on Moonlight. I looked down at Nicolis in surprise. I started to blush, so I looked away. He walked over to one of the back stalls and walked out with two sets of bows and arrows. And hand one to me. He walked over to his horse and hopped on.

         "Ready to head out," He asked. I nodded, and we headed out. We headed towards the edge of the forest.

         "So, tell me something Isa why were you in the forest yesterday," he asked me to look for something to hunt.

         "I am one of the respectable families in my village, my dad is one of the richest merchants.' I paused to think. "I am betrothed to one of the other respectable families. I have expectations that I don't want to uphold. So, I hunt to get away." I finally finished. I looked over to him to wager what he was thinking.

         "Was the guy you were betrothed so bad," he asked looking away.

         "No, but he has no social skills, he doesn't respond well to criticism plus I don't fancy him nor is he that attractive for someone of status he doesn't take care of himself," I said

          "I can understand that," he said to me.

          "Tell me something Nicolis..." I began to say but Nicolis interpreted

           "Call me Nic," he said.

           "Ok Well, Nic why did you change your feelings about me yesterday you were looking at me like I was a disease but today you seem to be okay with me," I asked.

             "I didn't hate you or think that you had a disease, I needed to act like that around my brother so that he would think though I was on his side. This morning I didn't think that was the best way to handle the situation." He finished saying. Why would he think that it would be better to let his brother think of such things? We didn't say much after that we just rode in silence trying to track down our prey. As we crossed the tree line, I spotted a deer just inside. I drew back my bowstring and aimed for it took a deep breath and released. As always, the arrow went straight into the deer's heart. The deer dropped dead. We rodded over to the fallen deer and I got down off Moonlight and walked over to the deer. I bent down to look closer to the deer and I looked into its dead eyes. I was not sorry that I killed the animal, but I was sorry that I couldn't take its pain away when I did. Deer are food for me, and my father has said to me that if I am going to eat, I must face how we get our food and that was hunting and killing the food. My first was not something to be proud of it was messy and I ended up not killing the animal with one shot. But as I practiced and hunted more, I found comfort in it. Maybe it was sick, but it was my release, it was my world away from reality. To make sure that it was fully dead I pushed the arrow further in its chest and yanked it out. I wiped it off on the cloth that I bring with me every hunt to clean my arrows and slide it back into its rightful place in the quiver. I stood up and looked up at Nic to see a surprised expression on his face.