I hear the wind
Call your name
It calls me back
Home again
Sparks up the fire
The flame that still burns
It's to you
I'll always return
I can still feel your breath
On my skin
I hear your voice
Deep within
Sound of my lover
I'm feeling so strong
It's to you
I'll always belong
Now I know it's true
My every road leads to you
And in the hour of darkness
Your life gets me through
I want to swim in your river
Be warmed by your sun
Bath in your waters
Cause you are the one
I can't stand the distance
I can't dream alone
I can't wait to see you
Yes I'm on my way
I hear the wind
Call your name
The sound that leads me
Home again
It sparks up the fire
A flame that still burns
It's to you
I'll always return
**I can't believe it didn't work!!!** Cordelia thought in irritation as she followed Breia's directions and urged her horse up the ridge and around the remains of the battlefield. **Whistler GAVE me enough clues!! They all matched!!!** She harrumphed rather dramatically. It had been so obvious. Saeryth met all prerequisites regarding the Powers' instructions that she'd been able to discern, hell, the man himself had confessed to posses the needed traits himself, though not in so many words. Why were the Powers so cruel? She muttered a litany of profanity to herself and headed in the direction Breia had indicated, towards the Protective Army's fortress complex. **If it wasn't Saeryth, I'm right back to square one. What the hell? Doyle said there were freaking 2 million humans on the planet!! What if the guy I'm looking for isn't even BORN yet? What if it's not a GUY?** These thoughts hit her in rapid succession, and with each additional, her weariness increased tenfold, her apprehension and her annoyance double that. **Stupid, stupid! Find an anomaly, he says, find the KEY he says…who's more key than the big bad leader?! The Powers have to have a complaint box somewhere…**
She sighed and looked up at the moon. It was a lopsided yellow crescent resting low in the sky, hardly auspicious as far as moons went, stuck somewhere between transition, almost gone, but not quite. It hung in the air amidst twinkling stars far smaller than it itself was and though the stars were perhaps more beautiful, they were quite less significant in the light that the moon provided for her and her mount. For the time being, in any case. **What an ugly sky** she couldn't help but think. **The moon looks like the light could give out any second now.**
She wondered if Doyle was looking for her. Or if he thought she was already dead. She wondered what the hell had happened back in Breia's tent, with Saeryth. It was like she hadn't been able to handle him, like the darkness inside of him hadn't wanted to go anywhere, had decided quite adamantly that it preferred his company, like a sentient being. Or perhaps it was the other way around. Perhaps he preferred its company. In either case, she'd felt everything she'd been trying to pull from his soul rubber-band back into his body with such force that it knocked them both back, her to the bed (thankfully) and he into unconsciousness. And thus he had rejected her, rejected the light. He had been so cold and indifferent that the evil had gone back to its owner seemingly under its own volition. It was so much a part of him even her own significant powers had no ability to withdraw them from Saeryth. **Fine, he wants to be that way, let him,** she huffed mentally, an air of finality in her tone. She'd just have to finish her mission at a later time. Possibly forever. She sighed.
She picked her way carefully over a rocky patch of earth, listening for the telltale signs of the border patrols Breia had warned her of. Truth be told, for an enemy, that woman was pretty good. In the future, Cordelia wouldn't mind enemies exactly like her. She'd gotten her a horse, had snuck her out of the camp undetected, had given her food and water and directions that would allow her to be home before sunrise. **Providing one of those patrols doesn't find you and kill you.**
Wearily, she opened the canteen hanging around her neck and took a sip. There was so much yet to do, she didn't even know where to begin. And she worried. Was Doyle okay? What about Maj? Had she been able to save him from her own foolishness? She even imagined worrying for Breia. Would her escape be blamed on her? Had someone seen the colonel sneaking her out of camp? And knowing Saeryth, the man might just kill her on a whim, or as an example. And her own quest was no nearer to completion. She took a deep breath and shook her head. Too many hours alone on the trail was enough to drive someone batty. Too much solitude was unhealthy.
~~~~~~~
Doyle cursed savagely and plopped onto the ground, pulling his boot off and dislodging the handful of pebbles that had somehow found their way inside over the course of the miles. In the back of his mind he wondered if the Powers really didn't want him saving Cordy--because she was alive, damn it—with all the impediments they were throwing in his way. He'd had to dodge another border patrol as they'd double backed on the trails, his progress slower than he'd thought when he'd heard their hoof beats so close by. Weary from the tribulations, he slammed his boot back on and lay down for a moment, looking up at the midnight sky.
All of this was driving him crazy. He bit back the urge to go and find that border patrol and take the entire group out just because he needed to vent his frustrations. He laughed humorlessly at the thought. It seemed both Pacifist-Doyle and Self-Preservationalist-Doyle had been clubbed over the head and tossed into the supply closet of Doyle-Command-Central by his dreaded alter ego, Die-Bastards-Die-Doyle. After a minute of musing over the actual merits of slaughtering an entire patrol, he sat up again and pushed himself to his feet. If he thought too much about his situation it would drive him insane. Rubbing his tired eyes, he took a deep breath and began to walk again.
He stopped when he heard the telltale signs of an approaching horse, the steady thump of hooves at an easy, ground-eating lope. It was headed in his direction. How strange that there was only one.
Always on the alert for discrepancies in normal behavior patterns in the enemy, Doyle slid off the trail and into the surrounding brush, melting into the darkness as he'd learned on earth, when being inconspicuous on the streets of Los Angeles had been all the difference between life and death, between avoiding the bookie and paying your debts with your life.
But instead of avoidance, he sought his enemy out, to sate his curiosity, to possibly vent the frustrations he had been lamenting only moments before. His sword felt solid against his back, and he drew it ever so slowly, the scrape of metal barely perceptible even to his own ear. He closed in on the sounds, those that belonged to equine and not the familiar wilderness. He heard no clink of metal amour, as was normal in border patrol riders. Perhaps this was a civilian? Some were known to make their homes deep in the surrounding woodlands, or even underground. Of course that didn't mean the lone-horseman couldn't catch up to him, mistake him for a person, and shoot him for food. It was better to be safe.
Crouching low to the ground he approached the horse in the darkness, he could see its shape now in the distance, as well as the blob that sat atop it, as the animal picked its way through the more troublesome underbrush step by step. He held his sword loosely, not poised to strike until he could catch a picture of the person in the moonlight.
~~~~~~~~
Cordelia took another sip from her canteen, weary from hours on the trail, looking no closer to clearing the woodland ridge and finding the broken path that would lead her back to the army complex. Her butt hurt from the bumpy road, her back from sitting up so long, her head from every stupid thought about her mission here.
The horse on the other hand, was content with finding the best footing the uneven ground could offer. She looked up at the star- the Galaxy Star was what Breia had called it…she supposed that was Kaylorin's North Star. She was to stay south of it on her journey.
As she approached a particularly difficult growth of underbrush, her horse slowed to pick its way through. The rustling of its hooves against the grass was not a unique sound to her at this point in the ride, so when she heard movement to her right, she gave a small start and stiffened, head snapping in the direction of the noise. When she saw nothing, she pulled the reins of her mount in an effort to stay still. **What was that?** she thought, eyes darting in all directions. She strained to hear, squinted to see into the inky blackness. If she concentrated, she could hear the slightest misplacement of grass and leaves, it was near. She felt as if she were being watched, felt like something was poised over her, deadly and quiet, waiting to strike.
She didn't know what to do.
**Go with what you know,** she encouraged herself.
With that thought, she took a deep breath and sat up straight in the saddle, an air of demanding authority in her posture, despite the fear in her rapidly beating heart. "Who's there?" she called out, voice assertive, ordering an answer. The rustling leaves grew louder.
~~~~~~~~~
He was within twenty yards of the horseman when his stepped onto a miniature shrub. He cursed internally when the little twigs and leaves rustled under his foot, and watched the rider's reaction without breathing. Their head snapped in his direction, whatever they had been preoccupied with moments before forgotten at an unnatural sound in the natural wood. He stayed completely still, waiting the other's apprehension to dissolve, for the rider to chalk up the noise as a forest animal and no more. It pained his already sore leg muscles to do so, and he bit down on his bottom lip to keep from groaning aloud.
Seconds later, he shifted his weight to the leg that had met clear ground, and gingerly lifted the foot that had crashed into the brush so unceremoniously. The relief on that leg was fabulous.
The rider still seemed to be listening for him, trying to discern what might be out there. After a moment, he saw the shoulders square, the head rise up to full height. **Hey…that kinda looks like Cor…**
"Who's there?"
His mind didn't have to finish the thought. When he heard the voice, he knew.
Eagerly, he pushed his way out.
~~~~~~~~~~
At first there was no response to her inquiry. Though she hadn't really expected one, calling out "Who's There?" in the middle of the woods usually didn't garner answers, not from all the horror movies she'd seen in her lifetime in any case. This was usually the point in the movie where the heroine was…
She jumped when the rustling became more pronounced, nothing a wild animal would do. Which actually meant that any second now some psychotic killer was going to leap out of the trees with a chainsaw and a mask and…
"Cordelia? Princess? That you?"
"Doyle?" she called back, watching as a figure materialized out of the darkness not 10 yards from where she herself was situated. She nearly laughed out loud at the relief and dismounted her horse without a second thought. Upon seeing that it truly was Doyle's face in the sallow light, she released the sigh she'd been holding and moved to embrace him. Chuckled slightly in disbelief himself, but accepted her hug readily, if not easily.
"Been lookin for ya, Princess," he murmured into her hair.
She pulled back to look at him, her russet eyes sparkling mirth. "My God, that was anticlimactic."
He laughed a little and released his hold on her. "So long as you came back to me, Delia, I don't care if it was the least adventurous of yer adventures ever."
"It's good to be back." She looked around, the woods still dark and foreboding. "Well, it's good to be with you again in any case," she corrected.
"It's good to be with you too, Princess."
I hear the wind
Call your name
It calls me back
Home again
Sparks up the fire
The flame that still burns
It's to you
I'll always return
I can still feel your breath
On my skin
I hear your voice
Deep within
Sound of my lover
I'm feeling so strong
It's to you
I'll always belong
Now I know it's true
My every road leads to you
And in the hour of darkness
Your life gets me through
I want to swim in your river
Be warmed by your sun
Bath in your waters
Cause you are the one
I can't stand the distance
I can't dream alone
I can't wait to see you
Yes I'm on my way home
I'm on my way
I hear the wind
Call your name
The sound that leads me
Home again
It sparks up the fire
A flame that still burns
It's to you
I'll always return