Amelia Story.
Prologue
My heart pounded with fear, it felt as if it was about to burst. The even deep breath of the scarlet steed I was riding was my only source of sanity for the moment. I rode bare back barely holding on with the little experience I had. My arms were wrapped tightly around the horse's neck; feeling each movement of every powerful muscle in his great neck. My knees were buckled against his sides and they were beginning to ache since I was only holding on for dear life! A brief though of regret crossed my mind but I quickly shunned it.
There is no turning back now Amel, this is what you wanted. Besides you are doing yourself and them a favor. They hated you! Why would you go back to them?
My thoughts were interrupted by a large group of men on horses coming quickly up the rear. The sound in my ears was the sound of the thunder of pounding hooves and raspy, sporadic, angry voices calling obscenities. The smell was that of dust and salt. Sweat ran softly down my face more from fear than work. Thanks to my poor horsemanship the men were drawing steadily nearer.
I could make out very little of what they said except "Horse thief! Stop!" but my mind was made up. I was leaving this a cursed city and everything in it. Even at the expense of my own life. I would rather die than continue to live as I had, stuck in an orphanage because no one wanted me, cursing anyone who would have adopted me and in turn slowly killing myself of loneliness and despair.
Floods of painful memories poured to the front of my mind. Being passed from one family to the next all either to afraid to keep me or somehow horribly slaughtered by some wild animal or natural disaster. People would call me "The child of the demons' curse." It was at the age eleven when my 'curse' finally affected the orphanage I was forced to stay at. It burned down over night and no one ever found what started the fire. Some said it was I that did it because I was bitter. Why would I destroy my only home as terrible as it was?
From then on I lived on the streets, hated and avoided. Even those who were kind to the poor and hungry turned my away at first sight. I had to dig though the trash, fight other 'street rats' or steal for my food. I knew what mold and dirt tasted like better than the bread it was on. Many nights I went hungry and even more nights I spent awake running and hiding from scouts who were after the homeless thieves. Once or twice I spent the night in a terrible city prison. I had my share of illness and pain and I was finished with it.
Chapter 1 (My name is Amel)
My last night in Samania; I vaulted quietly over a large courtyard wall from a nearby roof top. Quietly I opened the latched door to the wall. Desert roses lined the walls and ground my bare feet seethed in pain as I navigated though the painful disarray of thorns and flowers. In some spots I even began to bleed. The time it took me to reach the stable seemed longer than it was. The goal I had sent shivers up my spine. I had never bothered to steal something so big and few times had I ever been near a horse let alone ride it.
My heart jumped as the stable door creaked open. The heart retching noise must have been a product of my imagination because inside the sable not a sliver of straw had been disturbed. Straight ahead I saw my prize. A tall red steed with a long beautiful face, tall slender legs and a high set main and tail. I crept across the floor hoping that nothing I did would disturb the sleeping animals seeing as though one bray or whiny could by my doom.
It wasn't long before my finger tips were in reach of the horse's blood scarlet main. After I unlatched the stalls door I hoisted myself on its railings. Launching myself on the large back of the magnificent creator proved to be more of a literal jolt than I had expected. At that moment the stable came alive with a burst of activity. Cows and horses shuffled at their stalls and a few horses bayed or whinnied. Chickens startled from their sleep in to a quite literal frenzy of panic. A few seamed to nearly fly in my face as they flapped across the barn squawking and clucking. This all happened in a flash as I was soon flying out the door on four legs I had no control over instead of my two very familiar ones. In the flurry we left behind a shattered stall door and an alarm alerting my presents.
Almost instantly the noise of dogs barking, people yelling and horses hooves filled the streets. Shrieks of mothers and rudely woken children filled my ears as my long black hair whipped my face and back. As the product of a tight nit city it wasn't long before my I was hotly pursued. The chase had begun for them but for me it was nearing an overdue end. I managed to secure my knees tightly to the horses' sides and with them I managed to somewhat direct the horse directly into the desert. My hope was that soon I would be free of the pain I felt in this land.
People ran out of houses to deliver me an unfriendly greeting. All flew by in a blur of activity but the excitement seamed dull compared to the vivid flow of the bright red main that moved heavily like a calm sea. The noise grew more distant like an eco as it grew closer; slowly each of my senses left me. All but my vision which was consumed by the ever flowing golden sea of sand that loomed before me like a dark fog in the midnight light. It seemed so welcoming as if with great warm arms it beckoned me into its eternal belly.
One by one my pursers dwindled off as I entered the beginning of the never ending golden sea, alone. Nights were cold and bitter, days were long and hot. As time passed I began to fear that my end was near. My mind was clouded feeling suspended over the world, my skin flaked and pealed till there seemed to be nothing left and my throat burnt like the sand both day and night. After walking or riding day after day over the desert that expanded unceasingly on every side till even where I had come from was only a memory covered over the sands of the time in my travel. I knew gallivanting into the desert with not but the cloths on my back was an action of pure madness and desperation that would most likely cost me my life and yet my only regret was to drag such a beautiful animal down with the consequences of my actions. If I stayed I would die eventually in prison or starvation. Run or die; the last piece of hope I had left to my name.
Some days I would sit in the expanse of the land near dead in body waiting only for my thoughts to cease so I could listen peacefully to the last beats of my fading heart but something kept me moving. A faint séance of destiny or maybe glimmers of hope possibly only my desire for motion and stimuli. On my fifth day in the desert and my second day without any water a gray haze was visible in the distance, a dot that gave my aimless quest an anchor or a reference point. So, not knowing why, or even if this eclipse of the desert sand was more than an illusion created by the torment of my mind, I made my way toward this elusive darkened haze in the distance.
Days no longer mattered and I couldn't tell if the haze in the distance had grown closer or if it was my vision blurred by my sever emaciation and weak body playing tricks on my mind. After what could have been a mile it could have been longer, time had no meaning, weight seemed to have as much meaning as time and my head spiraling in a foggy blur I found myself face to face with a patch of hard hot desert sand. Not owning the strength in my arms to lift myself or the strength in my legs to keep moving. The last thing I heard was the low thud of horse hooves near my head. I passed out of consciousness.
Chapter 2 (waste land)
It wasn't uncommon for me to leave the house near midday in the heat of the sun something that most would avoid but never bothered me. Staying inside clay and flax house all day, even to escape the burning sun, seemed more like a prison to me. Even so I covered my head and face with the necessary protection for desert living. Winds sweeping over the area from the sea not only swept away all the moisture from the area creating the desert waste also encourages violent and unpredictable sand storms.
The sand swept over my feet and the wind mussed the long thin cloth that desert dwellers used to protect themselves from the sun and sand formally known as a bazshak. In the distance something like low dark clouds seemed to move down and forward from the great sand dunes that blocked our town from the sea. These were all tell tale signs of a sand storm.
As I was examining the forecast only two stone throws away lay two defeated figures. The first was easy to distinguish as a large red animal; as I neared it I could tell it was a horse. The second lay a quarter of a hand's with face first in the sand. Seeing their state I knew immediately that the sand storm very well saved their life, for if it wasn't for the foul weather they, though still partially alive, would have been devoured by scavengers.
By time I reached the figures the wind seemed to have only grown in strength. Forcing me to move quickly, I determined that the horse and girl, as it turned out, were both barely alive. I swept the girl up in my arm haste fully and pushed through the sand at a furious pace knowing I had tested the storm long enough. At my heals followed two things, the first to my delight was the horse making one last effort for survival instinctually avoiding the second thing, the flurry of innumerable grains of hard stand forced by the power of great sea winds.