Faithful Pebble
Part One Hundred and Nine

"I don't need you," she stated. "I don't..." Pebble trailed off. She stepped away and didn't look back. "I'll see you when you return."

It was the last thing she said before the bedroom door closed shutting quietly between them.

The wanderer stared at it for a while... a long while.

Even hours later, he stilled stared at it in his mind regretting words and actions. He sighed, the wanderer, before his thoughts twittered elsewhere, to time and clocks, dragons and villages. So lost in thought was he that he didn't notice the forest begin to change around him, nor the shadow following him step for step. A mile, two miles past and it followed unseen until at a particular juncture it finally spoke. "You are correct," it said. "It doesn't add up

He knew the voice. Its sweet distinct ring frolicked shyly down his spine. It gave him pause, the wanderer. It dowsed him in dread, in alarm, unease, and fear. He swallowed. The wanderer stopped walking, forgetting to account for where his steps were landing, which flowers he accidentally crushed in his concern. Instead, he took a breath. Instead, he let it out slowly watching as the eerie morning light seeped brazenly through the trees. He panicked, like a startled deer, like a tardy white rabbit caught in a sticky red snare. The clearing about him wasn't wide enough. The trees weren't thin enough, sickly enough to allow the light to beam like it was. And yet, it blared gold heedless of the trees and its foliage. And yet, there she stood basked in her glory heedless of the time or the position of the sun.

The wanderer turned shifty eyes to the figure, the girl that stood happily next to him. She was small, the size of a scrawny teenager, barely ten and two. She grinned shyly through her hair, the color of wheat, the texture of sand and sea. Her grey steel eyes laughed as those heavy cotton strains danced about their darkened lashes. With carefree abandon, they narrowed pointedly to pierce his own. Cyan met steel. Green met blue. The wanderer grimaced and the girl's smile widened.

She peered up at him, her blue and white dress fluttering, its crisp white apron blossoming. She chuckled. Her laughter fell like petals upon the grass smothering the dying flowers wilting unseen beneath his feet. She tilted her head. "How interesting. Out of everyone, it was you who decided to grace this village. Even at such a late hour as this, you came and then stayed." She stopped laughing. Her eyes fluttered. "How very interesting."

The wanderer eased away from her a little at a time. He shrugged and then his shoulders slouched and then they curled and then drooped away as if their slight weight grew heavier by the second. His fingers gripped his bag. They tightened enough to drain them of their color. The green and brown faded as the sun's rays brightened turning his fingers whiter than the light, lighter than the dawn and its accusing glare.

"And yet," she continued softly, suddenly bored, suddenly disinterested, "it is not so interesting. It's not like I didn't know where you were or where you were headed or the location that soldier had pointed you. There is very little I don't know, but you know that already." She closed her eyes in thought, then stepped away. She moved to lean against a nearby tree and the wanderer watched her wearily. His gaze couldn't help it. It clung to her like bees to honey, like a rabbit to his warren. His heart ached at the vision of her. His mouth grew dry. In vain, the man licked his lips. He strove to straighten his back as his mind raced, as his thoughts ambled to take advantage of the time. It was short, he knew, shorter than he wanted.

"You… you're already here?" he stated more than asked.

The girl looked back at him with something akin to contempt. "That's a silly question," she replied darkly. She turned towards him and put her hands behind her head. She ambled about the clearing casually. "I'm always here. There is no place where I am and no place where I am not. It is in my nature."

"But not like this." The wanderer pushed her carefully. He hitched up his bag. "It's still early yet. Have—" He paused. "Have you made your decision?"

The girl smiled at him, the man twice her size. She meandered to his side until she stood before him, until she had to arch her neck to meet his gaze. She put her hands behind her back in a quaint gesture that announced politeness and yet not, contriteness and yet not quite. "Have you made yours?" she asked. When the wanderer paused, her smile once again widened.

The wanderer stuttered. "Should I? What have they done? I don't see."

Suddenly, her smile faded. She inched closer until her toes pointed and her nose was near level to his. "No," she said ponderously, quietly, studiously. "You don't see, do you?" She sighed as she sank to her heels, as she walked away. "But you will. The decision is yours." Off handedly, she added, whispered really into the early morning breeze. "And I… I won't alter the time."

In seconds, the sun brightened to blinding and in seconds, it faded leaving the wanderer alone once more in the dark. He looked quickly about edger to spy the blue dress, the wavy wheaten hair even though he knew he wouldn't find them, even though he knew, deep in his heart, he longed to never see them again. He knew he would, though. They always appeared. He would always find them staring back at him laughing in the dark.

The wanderer sighed. The wanderer loosened his grip on his sac and began to walk forward. The path passed quickly. The flowers, the trees and their broken shadows sailed solemnly by until they parted revealing the world, the sun and a new town tucked nosily beneath his feet. It looked clumsy, grey and cluttered like a stack of pots and dirt. He smiled wearily when he spied the tiny hut he was looking for. Even miles away, he could see the silver decorated sign sway lazily in the breeze. Its gleam was a welcome sight. He stepped forward eagerly, almost too eagerly upon the unknown path ignoring the yellowed signs clamoring for his attention. Those he purposely abandoned causing their crimson dragons to pierce their mocking glares, to rake their silver sharp claws into his back. Their sting didn't linger as long as her words, his words, their words. "The decision is yours," she had said. Those cut deeper than death.

- Calla