"it's Wendy Moira Angela Darling, I knew her some years ago, but can't remember where she lives!" explained Peter with a look in the depths of his eyes that reflected the woman's face, and the feelings he bloomed for her.
Liz smiled indulgently having realized inmediatly that Peter's true interest in women layed in an old friend of his, a platonic love long lost and who he attempted to find. It was not that he was weird, scentric or any kind of freak, but that he was a new soul seeking for that lost half.
"I'll help you!" said Liz with a smile, placing hesitant fingers upon his cheek as if to reassure that promise.
Peter smiled gratefully and his hand grabbed the woman's, keeping it pressed against his face, absorving her warmth and inhaling that perfume which rested timidly on her wrist, too faint yet strong enough to be scented. Liz smiled dreamily, remembering old times, the begginig of her relationship with Josh, when he would realize any faint detail in her figure, the smell of her cologne, the way a strand of hair on her right side would curl, or how her lips curved sideways when she was being funny. And suddenly all that hit her with the force of a rampaging bull, throwing her backwards, the realization of all she had lost with Josh, the wild fire of the beggining was nothing but the dim flame of a candle. All was lost. And Peter realized.
"what?" he inquired raising an eyebrow, seeing that drastic change of humour. His hand grabbed the woman's comfortingly, retreating it from his cheek and squeezing it gently.
"It's Josh, my boyfriend, I realized how much we have lost!" she explained calmly, a weak grin appearing in the violet brilliance of her lipstick, "but let's not talk about him any more, ok? Let's talk about Wendy, how did you know her?" inquired Liz, her features reflecting greater excitement.
"oh Wendy? It was a long time ago, she...was my neighbourg and...um...she liked telling stories so one night I heard her and I liked them so much that I returned every night, I sat under her window to listen to her stories..." Peter explained, that distant look returned, and his vision seemed to be pointing straight to the stars.
"I write stories, and every night I tell them to my younger sister, Kelly, obviously I skip a few NC-17 rated details that should not be told, but she enjoys them as greatly as if she was living them herself, instead of hearing them" Liz explained excitedly, living her own story with that emotion which drowned her sister's soul.
"fantastic! And what kind of stories do you write?" inquired Peter showing all his teeth, white pearls so pale they seemed to be made from the same light that shone from the moon and the stars.
"I'm writting one about dragons, it's about this four dragons that fight the dragons of darkness, and there is this story inside about Shaimoon and Aura, who are a silver and moon dragons, Shai likes Aura but she loves a Sorcerer, and is kinda mean with him. But I'm stuck at this point that I dont know how to go on, when Aura gets torched by Nerana's flame, the leader of the dragons of darkness!" Liz said with a sigh of despair and frustration, and a gentle and nearly unperceptible shake of her head.
"I've got it!" said Peter with a nervous stutter of his voice, grabbing the woman's hands so suddenly she nearly shrieked in surprise, and fixing his blue gaze intensely in her hawk eyes, "why not make Shai realize that he never loved Aura, but was phisical attraction, and make him realize that he truly loved someone else, for example one of the other dragons?" commented Peter, surprising himself in the ignorance of love at speaking so wisely.
Liz's eyes were fixed in Peter's sky blue orbs, locked in a bond that was invisible, slowly appearing, generating intro a strong link, yet taking it's time. She absorved his words, and a silence appeared over both of them, covering them with a veil of comfort yet nerves. They leaned in, over the table, Liz was expectant to feel the texture of Peter's lips against hers, yet her mind played with contradictory thoughts over her boyfriend's existence. Peter's mind was a chaos of confusion, he felt this was right, she was an atractive woman, however he possesed the kiss of another woman, one whom he had known to love with all his heart. Their faces tilted slightly to the side, to position themselves for the fusion of passion, their eyes were basicly closed, and their hands were held tightly, nearly painfully due to the nerves they both felt. So close, the kiss had basicly ocurred.
"Elisabeth? Liz!" called a voice in the corridor, just outside the cafe worried and anxious, and dangerously familiar to Liz.
The woman pulled back quickly, regaining her senses, flushed with the embarrasement of having nearly kissed this stranger in whom she trusted more than her own boyfriend, and realizing for the first time in nearly two hours that her clothes were still damp and wet.
"it's Josh, sorry!" she said shrugging, her mind was dizzy with thoughts, her heart was beating hurriedly, and she prayed with all her strength that Josh hadn't seen any of what ocurred.
"go!" Peter whispered with a sly and weak smile, the first trace of unhappiness, of confusion and inexistance of perfection that Liz had ever seen in this boy's behaviour.
Peter saw the woman smile gratefully and rush outside to meet her boyfriend, he observed the situation carefully while his mind and heart decided to walk through opposite pathes. He saw Liz turn her face to avoid receiving a kiss from the tall, and grown looking man, and he saw the angered look in his face and the accusing hand pointing straight to him.
"who is that?" Josh nearly yelled which allowed Peter to hear his voice booming deeply against the walls of a silent cafe and a wide corridor.
"Peter Turner, my friend! Got a problem with that?" yelled Liz at him, and Peter was able to analize the tension in her muscles, and the paleness of her knuckles at being clenched so tightly.
"Turner? That freak your friend? Dont make me laugh!" snarled the man cruelly, smirking devilish at the young boy.
"dont call him that?" Liz had hissed at him in a poisonous voice.
However Peter didn't hear that for he had realized very suddenly about the consideration people had about him, how the students saw him and thought of him, and that knowledge was tougher than he could accept in the infant's innocence. He knew people avoided him, he wanted to be avoided, but he never imagined he was considered weird or anything close to that for he appeared to be very normal, a loner who ignored proposals from girls to join them in feasts, but apparently normal, although a bit obsessed with reading.
Peter stood up grimly and left, walking the oposite way torwards the terrace, not wanting to see the woman's face, trying to stay as far away from society as he could, highly affected by the knowledge he suddenly aquired. He vanished in the darkness, and left, it almost seemed as if he had dissapeared in the nothing, left without a trace, only a few coins and an empty cup pointed out his existance.
Liz realized and she frantically searched for him through the place, her eyes dancing worriedly into the dim light, eyeing sharply and with effort into the dark cornes in a hopeless attempt to locate the boy. But it was futile. A hand raised to her lips, and a worried expression seemed to reveal all about the previous events, the worry that flashed in her eyes, the concern that irradiated from her soul, and a slight tremble of her lowr lip.
"what the...? you care for him?" Barked Josh angrily, pointing at the empty space with a face so red it could have been sold as the biggest tomato of the year.
"oh Josh, dont be stupid, we should say HE cares for me MORE than YOU do, he's not the one who was nearly 3 hours late while I waited like an idiot under the rain!" spat Liz, poking him continuously with her index finger in the chest while an accusative glare appeared in her eyes, flaming like hot coals with the anger that consumed her soul.
"fine then! If that's what you think go with him, I shouldn't have come at all!" snarled Josh, turning around and leaving in a rampage, storming away pushing aside any tiny thing that dared to stand on his furious and destructive rush.
"you should have been here in time, first of all!" she yelled at him, raising her voice to make herself be heard, and shaking it right after in a hopeless way. Liz knew he would call her tonight, begging forgiveness like he always did, it was the same story over and over, but she had never seen that hathred blazing in his eyes before. That reminded her of Peter, with a gasp she made her way inside and rushed torwards the terrace, the only possibility. But she found nothing, the emptyness of a rainy night, the shinning of light reflecting against the humid tiles, and the splashing of very small and unperceptible rain drops. Below her the people scurried like rats torwards their caves, escaping from the very annoying tears of heaven. The orange lights from the lamp posts flickered unsecurely when the water poured and sneaked through their electronic connections. And a coat of dark grey clouds glowed with a silvery light, faint and weak but pointing out the pressence of a pale moon.
But Peter was nowhere to be seen.
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Dark hooves stomped heavily against the humid moss and the moist sand. Unconsistent mud of a dull, brownish colours splattered all around, leaving the hoofprints of a half moon shape printed on the path. Strands of dark greenish grass were viciously teared from their roots, still firm into the ground. Hesitant flowers that attempted to sneak past the jungle of tall plants were squished and broken wildly by the quater ton weight of the beast. The only sound heard echoing in the forest, silent still before the abrupt blooming of life, was the dry, hollow and continuous booming of the animal's footsteps at gallop, and the creepy and almost sinister sound of his heavy breathing.
The night after the storm oppened clear and the stars sparkled brighter than ever. The only one who dared to impose her brightness before the magickal beauty of such beings was the magnificency of the full moon herself. Patches of light were splattered here and there, silvery glow that illuminated the forest with a pale and almost inexistent mist. The rays of silvery moon that managed to sneak past the ceiling of tight and strong leaves created a pattern of fantastic glitter when drinking delicately from the water drops that rested against the leaves. The whole forest, seen from it's core, looked as if the millions of stars that sparkled on the dark veil of a night sky had fallen to rest on the peace of nature's boundaries.
As a ghost did the beast fly, his good breeding and andalusian blood reflecting on his speed and the elegance of each movement, from the continuous stepping of his hooves to the waving of his neck and head. The moon caressed enviously the silky fur that covered the beast's body, paler than fresh snow in stood over the natural white of water lilies. The animal's mane was of a pearly white, floating in it's cloudy weightless like the threads of vapour that hovered lazily over the surface of a tranquil pond. His strong muscles rippled under his short skin, the power in potence being strongly represented in his resitance at gallop and the tightness of his fibrous body. A sharp and intelligent head crowned with a pair of deep, penetrating eyes, a strong body, elegant legs and handsome figure in general. It looked like an unicorn, the magickal horse, only it lacked the horn. But one would have never been able to see, at the speed at which he galloped.
Liz, in the grandness of her wealth, possesed her very own stable with various horses of noble breeding, and very extensive lands which allowed her to race her animals across the patches of forest and meadows and fields that rounded the enormous house. Incredibly enough the large extensions of her terrain were all fenced with a very high, antique stone wall peaked with a crest of iron railing of a dull black colour. From the modest stables she had two horses of her own possesions, the noble andalusian, Blue, and the nervous but charming Pegasso, a racing horse. That same spirit which galloped through a blueish mist and the sparkling stars of humid fluid across the forest.
The young female, consumed in her wrath and conffusion, decided to relax by going out for a night stroll on her horse. She was glad that the night oppened so beautifully, therefore she could take the equine out for a gallop. Had it not stopped raining the animal could have never left the stables, hence their delicate nature.
She followed the animal's movements with accuracy, separating her waist from the rest of her body, keeping her butt glued to the saddle, the hands (holding the reins short) very still, and the back very straight. Ther was a frown of concentration standing out in her features, but the faint lecture of conffusion, and anger could be read in her eyes. She was more relaxed, however her mind was a sea of conffusion, the reaction torwards this stranger, how his unusual innocence affected her. He was such a peculiar boy, it almost seemed as if he was very lost in the world, but his happiness torwards the reject from the rest of the teenagers affected him so little, as if he didnt really care, or realize at all. However, in that image of a young boy layed the greatest heart and the most caring person Liz had ever known. She permitted herself to smile gently through the tense muscles of her effort, and her features seemed to soften slightly. That flame of rage had stopped illuminating her skin, which now aquired a tone of silvery blue, pale from the moon's bright and faint light.
Elisabeth leaned forward so much that her arms could have easily hugged the beast's neck had she tried. The animal made a clean leap over a fallen log that layed, stiff and putrid but with a sparkling veil of velvet moss, across the path. Pegasso landed elegantly and Liz sat back following the animal's movement with expert muscles, and almost an automatic reaction. Pegasso kept galloping, the reins relaxed slightly to let him move forward freely, yet not enough as to loose control over the animal. Liz was galloping torwards the clearing, the one she called "the Clearing of Fireflies" since this timid insects flew in a dense swarm all around the little area, a collection of golden glitters, brighter than the stars, chiming timidly in their chanting, like minuscule bells. Liz remembered clearly the area where she dropped all her thoughs and liberated her mind to float freely in her inspirations. The trees were older than time, with their thick trunks hollow and knotted in fantasious patterns, some of them looked almost bearded and ancient in wisdom. The glow that emanated from a few of the gaps in the trees increased that touch of magick, "Homes of the Faeries" Liz called them, although she knew well they were the nests of fireflies. And that event, alltogether with the moon and stars showering over the clearing, made the place seem like a piece of her fantasy land that had been left there by accident.
Liz saw it, approaching, with the fireflies dashing past so quickly that sometimes they left a tail of light remaining for a brief instant hanging on the air, like a magickal powder of golden glitters and light of it's own. Liz swore many times that she could almost see the powderish substance falling as an effect of gravity, but presumed her mind had been altered by the levels of imagination that had grown in her. So absorbed in her own world that she even imagined that this powderish thing fell on her clothes and on her horse's skin, leaving a trail of golden glitter on the animal's fur.
Pegasso made one last leap and both submerged themselves in fantasy, the fireflies scattered, chiming wildly and shocked at the abrupt intrusion of the beast and his amazon. Elisabeth's lips broke into a radiant smile, her teenager self vanished, blown with the wind, left behind when the animal leapt, she was a child again. Engulfed in such fantasy, in such beauty and magick, Elisabeth became a new person, the girl she had been when younger, the little child that believed in dragons and magick.
However something was wrong in the area, something was there and should have never been. Liz's smile fade, replaced with shock, her voice vanished, blown away with the wind. Hawk eyes reflected not only shock, but an inmense happiness and pleasure, unable to believe her eyes her child self began to believe again. But confussion stood over all it when a gloved hand left the rein and pointed at...
To Be Continued...
AN: ok, here comes another chapter of Legends of Childhood. I can see many of you are enjoying it, and I promise it's realism and teenager stuff is to be finished soon and the real adventure will begin. What can it be whatever shocked Liz? Read on to find out. And thank you all for your reviews.