To Shout Fire From The Heart

Chapter IV

A forest. The sweet dew is soft in the air as the light of the twilight covers all. The crunch of leaves and petals. My gaze moves slowly down to the floor. I see the fallen leaves and they are frosted. I picked a petal up to look at it. It was in covered with crystals, frost, but it is not cold. I put the petal in my mouth. Sugar. I look around and the trees are made of glass. Long white glass rods protruding from the earth with strikes of brown in the core. Light bounces off the trees and ground. I am lost in amazement. Strong orders of smoke and lavender wafts from what looks as if it was a path in the crystal woods. Calming it was. I trusted my insight.

I follow the trampled path to a clearing in this glass forest. In the center there was a table and two chairs. In one of the chairs there is a woman smoking out of a long cork pipe. Her back is facing me.

"I've been waiting for you." The smoking woman said as she turned around to meet my gaze.

"Please have a set. We have lost to discus and such little time." She gestured to me on the empty chair.

I walked down to the table to take my set. I pulled the chair out and it was made from strong sturdy wood as if it were carved out from one large oak tree. I look and on top of the table is a lazy Susan full of cookies and biscuits covered in frosting. To the side is a tea pot with the smell of coffee.

"Now then little fox. I need your help with freeing the people of this land." She said puffing out a cloud of smoke. The cloud had the hew of purples, pinks, and blues all swirling together. This is most definitely a dream.

"I know you're a dream and I'm going to wake up from this." I say with confused confidence.

"Are you now." She takes my hand and pulls it close to her. She taps the ash from her pipe to my hand. The burning sensation hurts my inter being and I pull back. This time I look at her face and it is as solid as if looking at someone is in the real world. Her face is cool and calm, and she was aged with time. There where crow's feet with her blue and purple eyes. Her black curly hair was in the form of a loses ponytail. She wore a robe that looked as if it were underwater moving and swaying, taking the shape of animals and people living their life's.

"Are you done?" She says with a sarcastic tone in her words. I looked at my hand and the ash and blood melted as soon as I touched it. Only leavening the smell of lavender and smoke. It was healed and there was no scare, as if it never happened.

"What do you want with me?" worried about my safety.

"I'm Baku. A traveler, messenger. Comes with the job." She says as she takes out a can of dried leaves to fill her pipe.

"What job is that?" I am suspicious of her intention. She looks at me and takes a long deep breath from her pipe.

"Listen fox, I was paid to find a worrier to free the people of this land, what you do with that information is all entirely up to you. Whether you want to help these people or not it will be your fault. Ether you die like a hero or be a coward and let countless more people suffer. It's up to you?" She says all while holding in the smoke.

"Well, when you put it like that then you make me look like the villain." I say eyeing her down from the rude comment that she said. This time I get a look at her hands, aged by time with blotches of ink splattered and mixed. Her nails are painted black with amethysts in the dead center. She lets go of a little cloud that runs to the top of the sky.

"Little fox, there are no villains or heroes in this world. Only people who win or lose. And the people who win get to tell their story. Your goanna let somebody else tell your story?" The sun is gone now. The moon walks slowly up to the sky and the stares are like little gems gleaming in heaven. The moon with a silvery milky face looks upon us as if we were the gems that were in the sky. The glass trees reflect the light of the moon as if they were glowing. There is so much light that it feels like it is in the daytime. There is a red glow coming from the distance and in the silence of the trees, there is a shouting of the most unhuman sounds that one would hear.

The woman looks at me with a worried look and releases all the smoke that she inhaled. "Hurry." She says, looking at me with a fearful face. Looking straight into my eyes "Shake on it." She sticks out her hand for an agreement, with all the smoke and noise I grab her hand. She started to shake it. To an agreement that I so hastily agreed on.