Breaking a tale

Dawn - Guinevere is going to be mad.

"I don't know, maybe just stay here?" I said, I hadn't meant forever, just for a few days until we were all ready to move.

"Why would you want to stay here!" Luna asked, her voice rising to a shout, maybe I hadn't made myself clear enough... "We should leave, go somewhere safer."

"You might want to, but I'm staying here, it's easier to do things in the city" I replied.

I was about to give my reasoning when Luna cut me off. "It's so much safer to keep on the move."

"Well, I don't want to, I'm tired," I snapped back, if she wasn't going to listen to me then I wasn't going to bother explaining.

"It not all about you, Dawn!" Luna shouted at me, slamming her hand on the table "Sometimes you have to do what's best for everyone, not just you! You might be fine but if anyone finds me or Biron, it's game over!"

I stared at her, was I really that insignificant, she had only known Biron for one day, did she really think I was that unimportant? "After all I did to try and find you this is how you treat me!" I shouted back at her, trying to keep my eyes from welling up.

"All you did for me! We just happened to be in the same place at the same time, you didn't do anything! You never have done anything for me, I was no more than one of your servants back home!" Luna glared at me.

I wasn't that bad, was I? It wasn't my fault I didn't talk to her, mother would yell at me if I ever tried to... I looked back at Luna, something wasn't right, then I realized, there was black smoke coming through her glove. I decided that maybe it wasn't best for me to upset her any further, so I sat in silence, glaring at her until Biron walked in..

We ran through the night towards the centre of the city. The image of Luna's hand smoking still fresh in my mind, the smoke coming of it was oddly similar to the mist, the dogs that were chasing us seemed to be made out of. We ran through the city and to the stables where we had left our horses, we had realised that Luna had left her horse at the same stables as ours, what a coincidence! Even though there was nobody there to help us unlock the stables we managed to open the gates and let the horses out. We each jumped on our own horses and sped out of the stables and into the streets. I could hear the dogs again, they had obviously escaped the garden and were back on our trail. We stirred on the horses and galloped out of the city gates, hearing the guards shout behinds us. The dogs were running faster than any dog should be able to run and were keeping up with us, we kept on going faster and faster, urging the horses on until I heard a cry from behind us and I realised Luna was not beside us any more. Her horse, really a pony was much slower than ours and she had fallen behind, the dogs surrounding her, nipping at the horse's legs causing him to buck and rear, Luna barely holding on.

Luna cried out again, scared, I turned my horse around calling to Biron to do the same, Luna had managed to draw her knife and was holding onto the horse with one hand and jabbing at the dogs with the other, but she was fighting a losing battle. I took a deep breath and rode into the swarm of dogs, trying to trample of many of them as I could along the way, indeed I heard various squeal and whimpers, Biron stayed just out of the pack trying to do what he could from the outside. I reached Luna's horse and tried to calm it but it was in such a state that it just grew more alarmed. I realised that Luna would never be able to escape on that horse, it was too slow and had already been badly injured by the dogs. She would have to leave the beast behind.

Even though Luna protested she realised it was the only thing she could do. She let me help her onto my horse and we made our way out of the swarm of dogs. They paid us no attention, they had tasted the blood of the poor horse and were now obsessed with it and wouldn't stop until they could take it all. We rode away from the poor beast as fast as we could for none of us could bear to watch the animal suffer. I could feel Luna shaking just behind me. We rode all through the night and the next day. Only stopping when the horses started to slow with exhaustion. We were riding through a bright forest at the time and stopped in a small clearing. We realised that in our rush to escape from the dogs we had forgotten our bags so we only had the stuff we had been carrying at the time. Unfortunately, that was just a sleepy cat, a baby dragon my sword and one small hunting knife, not the most useful collection of items.

We needed a plan of what we were going to do now, after that second encounter with the dogs, I had realised that Luna was right and we needed to keep on the move but first we needed to set up camp for the night. Luna tied up the horses. I think she was feeling very upset about leaving hers behind and I went out into the surrounding forest to try and find some food. Turns out wandering around the woods with Guinevere had actually had some decent payoffs, I was able to identify which plants were edible and managed to forage enough for a decent meal. We sat around the fire which Biron had made and ate the variety of berries and fruit I had collected. While Biron had been gathering sticks for the fire, he had come across a path which he said led straight into the mountains and we decided that would be a good direction to go in. There would be fewer people there so we would have to worry about anybody spotting Lantern or Squeak, especially since we now had no bags or baskets to hide them in, from now on they would have to travel with us out in the open. After the mountains who knows where we would go.

Everyone had fallen asleep except me. We had decided to always have one person awake to look out for danger and I had the first watch. I sat next to the dying fire, absentmindedly stroking Lantern who was curled up in my lap and stared up at the moon. It was a clear night and the moon cast a silver beam across the clearing. At this point I just wanted to go home, the adventure had been fun but it had lost its sparkle. Surely there was another way out of the tale? Surely there wasn't just one exit? I wanted to ask my friends but I decided they needed their sleep, it had been a long day. I was thinking about possible exits to the tale and the potential to find one when I felt a strange sensation on my neck. Even though I still had a small cut from when Luna had held her knife to my neck it didn't feel like it was coming from that. It was a warm sensation and felt nice on my skin. I tried to find where it was coming from but I couldn't. Then I remembered I was still wearing Guinevere's necklace. I touched it and realised it had become hot, I ripped it off my neck and held it in my hand, confused and terrified by the small object. The little gemstone on the end of the necklace was glowing, a small pretty glow.

As I stared at the gemstone it became warmer and began to crack, I was terrified and wanted to wake Biron up so he could help me but I couldn't make a sound. The gemstone split in half and the swirling light that had been inside it was released. I could barely breathe as it hovered just above my palm, twitching slightly. It looked like it was judging me. And then suddenly, it plunged towards my hand, I flinched and pulled my hand away but wasn't fast enough, the mysterious light hit my hand and melted into my skin causing a warm sensation to spread through my body. I continued staring at my hand in awe, I wanted to try and figure out what had just happened but only one thought dominated my mind, Guinevere was going to be so mad when she finds I broke her necklace. I picked up the two small pieces of the gem and placed them on the blade of the sword, it was a better place for them than the muddy ground. Maybe I could fix the necklace at the next town we reached. As I stared at the stone the metal around it started to sizzle and the two halves of the gemstone sunk into the blade. I picked up the sword in shock but the gemstone didn't fall out, it was completely stuck. I sat wondering about what to do for several hours until I had to wake Luna up for her time on watch.

I gently shook Luna's shoulder until she finally woke up. She got up groggily and I realised she was still wearing those strange gloves, even though they were stained red and were covered in small rips and tears she hadn't taken them off once in the entire time we had been together. I wanted to ask her about them, but I decided to wait until the morning.