Lucian was a whirlwind of emotions the moment Coriander was obscured by the trees. From the moment he left the brown, ruddy paths of his village onto the sparse patches of grass leading into the forest, he made a point to look over his shoulder every few steps. Higher and higher the trees climbed and the hand of terror gripped his heart tighter and tighter with each passing glance.
"It's amazing," he murmured, standing with his arms hanging confidently to his sides. Brian had heard him speak and encouraged Lucian's train of thought.
"What is?"
"This…this perspective," the boy answered right away, still intrigued by the vastness of the forest, "I have always ventured off away from my home, into the trees but there was never a sense of…finality. Like this," Brian merely patted his shoulder and kindly led him back around onto their path.
Their destination was to the south-east, Crell Monferaigne. Lucian had knew of it only through stories circulating in the village. Having never visited a kingdom, especially a predominately religious one, his insatiable curiosity only strengthened with each passing day of their journey.
Brian proved to be an excellent travel companion, and a good man that Lucian instantly took a liking to. His hair was long and thin, and usually rested upon Brian's shoulders when he intended to make camp for them for the night. Lucian also came to take an interest in the clothes that he wore, baring no resemblance to the tunics and heavy slacks that was the traditional dress of the residents back in the village. Brian's clothes flowed loosely and he wore thin layers of soft, enchanting colours that proved to be hypnotic. They were uncommon to Lucian.
"Where I come from, everyone dresses the way I do. It is very warm in Hai-Lan, but also traditional. This is typical clothing attire that one might see a swordsman wearing, or a priestess. My niece Ai made these clothes for me with her nimble fingers," Bri explained to him one evening. Lucian felt himself hungering for a new, clean set of clothes, one that resembled Bri's.
The two were also accompanied by a boy named Erik, one that Lucian often worked with in the loggers fields. He was a taller, meeker boy than Lucian, and was a bit older as well. He stayed silent and often lagged behind the other two, stopping silently to observe a flower, or to follow a bird hopping from tree to tree with his eyes. He was kind though Lucian thought he seemed a bit absentminded and distracted.
"Yes I've been out of the village many times," Erik had answered, when Lucian asked him of previous journeys., and then offered nothing more. This was frustrating in itself, especially when Erik would go on to pipe up about anything remotely interesting and foreign to Lucian, and then fall short, as if uncaring.
Nothing could dampen Lucian's excitement though, as the three spanned the entire forest leading southwards into Crellen territory. For several days of hiking, Brian taught Lucian the names of new species of plants and animals; names he had only read in old and rotten books with Maleah. Variation amongst game and plant life was bland and scarce at best around Coriander, and Lucian relished the warmth he felt upon taking in numerous snippets of knowledge gleaned from Brian's history of continental travelling. When the trees thinned and gave way to rock and winding passages through low mountains, Lucian felt as if he had died and was walking through the fabled paradise of Asgard.
"How can people just go about their lives without ever knowing of such wonders?" he once asked his companions, as they slept at the highest peak one evening.
"They do not know of them, for they are little and mountains are great," Erik offered, "such wonders would frighten them, burn fool's ideas and visages into their brains. There is so much to nature and life, that we as sheltered animals would not be able to grasp it all," Lucian was satisfied with the answer and would nod eagerly whenever Erik chimed in flatly.
The last day they spent on the mountain, Bri said to Lucian, "Be sure that you never let a day go by in which you do not think of everything that you experienced in the wilderness. And not just the part where you claimed the earth as your temporary home, but, here,"-and gently clamped a fist to his heart. Lucian bowed his head thoughtfully and his eyes glistened with tears as he thought of the cage he had endured throughout his life; the need for escapism and the opportunity he was experiencing in fathoming it.
It was only a few hours from the mountain when Lucian thought his heart would burst out of his chest when the spires of Crell's ghostly cathedrals melted out of the clouds and stood proudly in the grey sky.