Eternal

I stepped outside into the sunlight...
The air was fresh...the day new.
I left my family inside their shelter,
It was too early for their wake.
...So I took on the beauty of the day that was mine.
Soaking in its glory...
The air was cool and damp with the coming of spring.
The season of rebirth, a chance to experiance being new again.
I listened to the silence, as not even birds chirped around me,
only a faint whisper of the wind,
bring voice to the leaves and blades of grass as it brushes through...
I wished I could stop time briefly...
But that would ruin the beauty only the flowling river of time grants.
It would never be so desierable...so radiant as it was that morning, so many nights ago.
I sat there, taking in the fresh air.
And then when I had basked in its glory, I went back inside to my awakening family.
Forever leaving that morning behind me, fading to memory.

Chapter 2

I stopped and turned at the hill, off my land, through the woods. Sitting down on the crisp grass, knowing the harder months were soon to be upon me. I turned my attention to the young man approaching me, a hardened look on his face, one I knew well. One that I often carried.

He stood as he looked down at me, I very absent, for my determination of being so. He looked confused as he thought of what to say, I had to chuckle at his youth...His confusion, and utter determination.

"You're...the one the Elf spoke of?"

My thoughts went blank, all that was left was the burning inside of me. The flicker of mixed emotions, swirling into anger and deviance.

"What makes you think I am?" I glared up at him, the flicker in my eyes catching him.

"You must be. Why else would you react this way?"

I stood and went to turn off angrily.

"I've been looking for you...I've heard of you from continents across the sea...I was led here. I lay in wait for years...watching this town. You haven't changed a bit. Frozen in time."

I turned, he was overwhelmed with determination...I could see it radiating off of him, but behind that I could see the desperation he was hiding. I scoffed. "Why would you waste years to find me?"

He met my eyes, his expression calmed..."Years are like seconds to me" He paused. "I'm sure you understand the feeling."

I calmed... I felt strange...for the first time in...as long as my memories descend, nothing has changed, nothing has caused me to think, for I've seen it all before. Until that day. It were as if time had shifted, moved just a little bit forward. I tasted freedom.

I sat back on the grass on the hill, bringing my knees to my chest and wrapping my arms around them. I looked up at him, "Yes. I think I do know that feeling...except...Its not luxurious enough to be true, that years are seconds I mean." I sighed. "I'd kill for milliseconds even."

He sat beside me. "So you do understand?"

"Quite."

He was silent, looking up at the clouds. Like me, he probably felt what I did. After years of leaving people...and years of trying to escape, but never exceeding...to think someone could understand that. It was relieving.

''The elf that sent me...He was an Elder. He said I should find you. That you might hold some answers that I seek."

"That depends on the question." I wasn't sure if I should let my guard down at this point, I was revealing my past...of true joys and horrors, opening it up to someone who could never understand...but then, couldn't he? I feared my vulnerability...feared it, hated it, despised it. So much so I couldn't open it even to myself.

He chuckled. "Its all a question."

"I can't help then." I looked at his desperate face. I recognized it...him...he was me, he's what I used to be. Desperate...for anything that could clear his mind and put him at peace. "...I still haven't found any of the answers. I stopped searching."

He jumped up, desperation overflowing him. "What do you mean? You've been around longer then some of the elders! How can you not know?"

"Sorry kid." I said standing. "I gave up believing in answers...the answers you seek, you'll probably never find."

"How do you know!?" I watched as his desperation turned to panic, to emotion...I looked away.

"Because I've been there. I've searched for those answers, years and years...and I still can't answer those questions. You don't live in this world like the others...They are one with the world, we are not. We live in it, hiding ourselves...running in circles...lost. We don't belong, we don't fit. And the earth wont bend to suite us. Nor does it have the answers to our questions. We're stuck here, and there's no escaping it." I turned and began to leave.

"Wait! please...at least tell me what to do from here?" He pleaded.

I pitied the boy. Spending so long chasing what he believed to be an answer, and like all the others, just turned up blank. But the world didn't pity him. And that's the first thing he needed to learn. "Do what I did. Try your best to fit. That is all you can do..." I paused "Or you can try to run away from everything, look for answers...I did that too."

He was silent, but as I continued to walk away he spoke, fearing to be left. That was an answer he had to learn...one he didn't want to learn, but would have to anyway. Everything that comes will eventually go. Being stuck in place, unable to move on as well, would just make it that much more difficult. "So...that's it? Just keep living...forever?"

I kept walking and nodded, not wanting to look back at my former self...not wanting to remember.

"That's how I see it."

I left, leaving the lost boy behind. A part of me wanted to retrieve him, like I wished someone could have for me. Someone who couldn't let go. But at the same time...I wanted to run. Because I didn't understand...didn't have the answers...And because I was scared to reveal what I had hidden...scared if I opened the closet, all the build up of memories would flood me.

And I had given up looking for the answers. They are but an unrealistic luxury.

The night was restless, I bordered on wake and sleep; and sleep remained my greatest nightmare.

Panic had stricken me; I never thought it would come to this.

I had been so sure, I had thought of every situation...

And yet my men fell dead around me, streams of blood underneath my feet, I backed away in terror as escaping ground watered with my men's blood was near impossible.

Screaming just as bloodcurdling, a thousand thoughts swarmed my head, where were they in this disaster stricken battlefield? Fire...

Fire danced on every building, smoke lay blanket over us as none could see the other, but coughing came from all directions.

Just then i heard a voice that made my heart sank and everything around me fall still and nonexistent,

"Claire!" My scream sounded so distant to me, and terrifying, as i screamed again;
"Claire!"

I heard a faint cry come from behind me, and I ran blindly, the only thing stopping me from throwing up from the exhaustion, smoke, disgust and terror, being the frantic panic to find my young daughter.

How did they find her? I had told her and her mother to hide in the cellar when the guards signaled an attack on the village, though the warning was little preparation.

What of her mother?

Finally the small figure appeared to me through the smoke, she had fled the cellar, and was slumped by a tree nearby. I ran to her.

I collapsed beside her instantly, turning her small figure perhaps a little fast, to see she was still living. And relief sank over me.

"Claire, are you okay?" I quickly examined her small body to see only a few scrapes from which she must have obtained falling.

I took her in my arms.

She cried, but did not speak as I spoke to her just as much for my own sake as hers,

"Claire, wheres mommy? Claire?"

Her sobs became frantic and loud and I tried to sooth her as I searched around her frantically for her mother.

I looked to the cellar and seen the door open.

Hurriedly I stood up with my child in my arms to check the cellar.

She screamed frantically and pulled to get out of my arms, preferring to fall into the gravel then to go remotely near the cellar, i could not leave my child again, but my wife may be dying alone. I had no men to count on, any that were not dead were fighting or running for their lives in the labyrinth of fire and smoke and blood.

Just then my faithful friend limped out of the smoke and into view, still fierce, but scared of the battle. He was a dog I would trust with my life, but then, my life was of no need for protection. But my daughters was, and so was my wife's. I would have to come back for her.

My horse was still alive and standing, having separated from the battle, and I jumped upon his back with my daughter, and rode off.

I called to the dog as I did so, and he followed faithfully.

Guilt had already consumed me.

It had not been long before I had abandoned the village and came to a place free of smoke and fire, and found a small, but damp cave.

I removed a jacked I had been wearing and wrapped Claire in it, placing her gently inside the small cave.

"I'll be back as soon as I can Claire, I'm going to get mommy. Don't move, stay right here with Rawn until I get back." I kissed her head and she nodded as her endless tears fell down her dirt stained cheek.
"Rawn" I said firmly. "stay with Claire, protect her."

He was a well trained dog...And had never yet failed to perform a duty. And I was confident he would do all he could, and they were far enough now from the massacre to be safe. So I hurriedly jumped upon my horse and fled back to the village, not even stopping to care I was heading back to such a horrible place.

As soon as I was back to the where I had found Claire and had left to bring her to safety i jumped off the horse and ran down to the cellar where I had told them to hide, I descended the stairs more afraid then I could imagine, and then stopped abruptly when I got to the bottom.

My world went black. I threw up. And collapsed in tears.

I awoke in cold sweat and a lump in my throat.

My breath slowed as I came to my senses.

The immense feelings of guilt and shame, complete sorrow stilled in me as if my dream had been my current day. I knew it would fade. It always did.

I missed the tears though, truthfully, they offered cleansing the mind by will could not.

Every time I had this nightmare though, I was reminded of one miracle or victory that gave me a faint feeling of relief, Claire had not died. She grew to live her life to the fullest, and happily.
Even tragedies have their blessings.

In a way they made the blessings that much more special and beautiful.

These were not the stories I tell Sandra and James though, I reserve for them only the truly happy and beautiful stories, I'm sure they will have tragedies all their own... And then they will have their own stories, but I will not inflict any of that sorrow on them.

I will leave that up to life, and even then only tell them the happy and beautiful stories.

The rest of that week was quiet and normal, still, I could not bring myself to shake that off feeling since the morning the young man appeared. It was lesser, but still hiding in the back of my mind, regardless of how I tried to enjoy the story book feeling of my family.

They truly had become my family, but I think they were since the day I met them.

As I was drinking my tea on the table before a meeting I was called to for the town council, I sensed Sandra watching me through the corner of her eyes as she took her turn on the dishes. She always made sure to do as much as she could for the family.

"I know somethings wrong" She said, "the young man, isn't it?"

How sharp she was.

"Yes" I replied. It occurred to me then, I was not the only one feeling that something was off in the air, nagging at the mind. The way she spoke, it was clear she sensed it too. I then had the strange thought that, for the first time in a long time, I was not alone. Even with family, it had always been me on my own, truly. Isolated by default and nature.

But we shared senses, she understood - in the only way she could with my secrets. I wasn't, in this moment at least, truly alone. And I smiled.

"What did he want with you?"

I paused. Yet again, how could I answer this? In order for it to make sense I would need to explain my whole life. But then, hadn't I already? I had been telling them nearly since they first arrived. Every night and every day.

"Answers." I said "Answers I can't give."

I stood up, and brought my tea cup to the sink laying it in the bowl of water.

We said our short good byes as I went through the door. I got on my horse, and headed for the council meeting, wondering what was so important I was summoned. It was a small town, and important things rarely happened.

It was strange, that as I rode, the dreaded feeling from the night mare that would usually cling to me like sludge all day, was already gone.