They had been traveling for around a day without stopping now, and all three were fatigued.
"Do you want a rest, Jasmine?" Barda asked, worriedly. In the last few hours, she had become withdrawn and pale.
She did not look up, as she answered, "No. We must carry on," and trudged on.
Barda and Lief, who had stopped briefly, looked at each other again, and ran to catch up to her.
She did not give them a glance as she asked, "Do you need a rest?" after a few minutes had passed by uneventfully.
"It's getting dark, so we might as well," said Barda. Lief agreed, and the three started getting ready for the night, when a raven flew over Jasmine, screeching madly.
Jasmine immediately recognized it at once, and called out, "Peace, come down and give me your message!"
The bird named Peace fluttered down, obviously tired, and held out his leg for Jasmine to untie the note.
Jasmine stared at it, until she could make out the words. "Barda needs to come back to Del... because Doom needs... him."
Flushed with the effort, she smiled a shadow of her normal grin, and Lief smiled back, as she caught his eye. Barda got up and brushed off the seat of his clothes. "Well done, Jasmine. You're improving." Seeing Jasmine smile again, he carried on. "Well, looks like I'll have to get back to Del, then. Look after yourselves. Lief," he added as an afterthought, "come with me." He beckoned him, and Lief got up to walk the short distance to him. Barda bent down and whispered, "Look after Jasmine. She'll need a lot of moral support, what with Kree and all those rumours, and make sure she comes back with you, even if she fails."
Lief nodded, and hugged Barda tightly. Jasmine came over to do the same. As she pulled back, he saw her eyes were unnaturally bright. She brushed it away, and he realized it was the tears that were sparkling in the dim light.
"I'm not crying," she said, as she brushed away more tears, "some dirt got into my eye and it hurts."
Lief stood beside her awkwardly, not knowing what to do. Barda turned his back and started walking back to Del, pack dangling at his shoulder. Peace stayed with Jasmine.
After a while, Jasmine returned back to the roaring fire, and sat down in front of it. Peace flew into an open backpack and stayed there, somehow seeming to know that it was a private time for the two.
Lief sat down beside her. "Are you all right?" he asked her gently.
She nodded. It was hard for her to speak with tears so close to falling. "I'm... fine," she managed to croak out.
"No, you're not fine. I can see it in your eyes. Now, tell me what's wrong. Please?" he pleaded.
Her well of tears suddenly burst, and one moment she was telling him the beginning of all her problems, beginning with Kree, and then the next... she was asleep. Leaning against Lief.
Peace crept out of the backpack, wings raised as if to say, 'I come in peace.'
Lief sighed. "I guess all this is all a little too much for her, right now, with Kree hurt and the citizens of Del not liking her..." He shifted the arm a slight inch, and Jasmine stirred. He put a hand out to stroke her hair, and she fell still again.
In the morning, when Lief woke up, he sat up to find Jasmine, whom he had laid down beside him carefully and draped a blanket over just before he went to bed himself, was...
Gone.
Just like that.
He scrambled up to look for clues as to where she had gone. Only then, he found a note, pinned to his shirt.
Good morning Lief, it read, I've gone to fetch some water, and do some thinking, too.
I'll be back when the first sunlight shines on your backpack. Don't move it.
Jasmine.
He looked up from the note, to see the shafts of sunlight creeping towards his backpack. 'About twenty minutes,' he thought, as he started to get ready to travel again.
"Lief!" Jasmine called. She came scrambling over the rocks, cradling Peace in her arms.
"Lief!" she called again.
The aforementioned boy looked up to see a bloody bundle in her arms. His face grew pale: another struck down by the hurrok!
He rushed over to her. "Hurroks again?" he asked urgently. Jasmine nodded without a word. He looked down. The poor bird was barely breathing; you could just see his chest taking in painful lungfuls of air.
"He won't live." She said flatly. "I know it for a fact."
She sounded so depressed that Lief began to feel sorry for her. First the citizens, then Kree, now this? It seemed like too much for one girl to bear.
Peace gradually stopped fluttering.
At the same time, a tear fell down Jasmine's cheek.
"We've wasted enough time, Jasmine. We'll need to get going, but first, let's bury Peace, shall we?" Lief asked.
Burying Peace was a small affair; Lief dug a shallow hole, and inside it, Jasmine somberly laid Peace inside.
Lief whispered a few words before filling up the hole, then patted the dry earth down over the bird.
When it was over, Lief tried to sound brisk, like his mother was when she wanted to get something done. "Now, let's get you cleaned up, shall we?" He fished a sponge out from his backpack, acquired from the seafolk at Del, soaked it with water, and began washing away the blood and dirt on Jasmine's arms and face.
The next day was uneventful – it was a quiet affair, with Barda gone and a recent death of a treasured one – but for when Jasmine saw a hurroks' shadow against the craggy rocks of the plain.
Before they settled in for the night, Lief sat down beside Jasmine. "Jasmine? Are you feeling okay, after... Peace?"
Jasmine nodded silently. "Yes." She scattered the firebeads around the sticks, and they flared up at once, to start a merry fire. "I'm fine."
They sat, beside each other, just enjoying each other's company for a little while. Then Jasmine turned her head to look at Lief.
"Lief," she started. "Do you think I should go back to being a being of the forest until I meet someone else?"
Lief looked horrified at the very mention of it. "No! Why do you even ask such things? You know I love you!"
Jasmine replied, "I... knew that, but it's just that I'm so unpopular with the country that maybe you should take another wife, not me."
"No! I'd never do that! Don't ever think about me doing that to you. Why would I? The one I need the most is here, with me." He lay back, looking at the stars. "You know," he said again, "If you asked me to get a star for you, I would, even if it were impossible. I would do anything to do it."
Jasmine was touched. "You really would? Lief, you are so stupid at times. Would I ever ask you for a star? To have you waste your life away, trying to get me one star? I'd rather go back to live in the forest!"
Lief laughed. "That's good, because I was wondering how to get you one."
Jasmine smiled, and bent down, to kiss Lief on his cheek. Her hair fell down her shoulders to brush on his shirt. "Why not on the mouth?" he asked when she broke away, a playful smile tugging at his lips.
"I'm not exactly ready for that yet." She replied.
Lief sat back up. "Really? We are a married couple after all."
"Yes, but…" Jasmine couldn't make up an excuse for that one. "But… we're only young," she finally finished lamely.
"Hey, we're twenty -two and twenty-three respectively. I don't think that's young." He smiled again. Things were looking up.
Chokes I cannot believe I wrote that. Honestly. Yes, it was fluffier than a woolen jumper, I know, but I couldn't help it, and I was on a huge mind block.
Be glad you even got that chapter as it was.
…Ebony
