Chapter 8
The Prisoner of the Windmill
Donatello stood in a golden barley field. There were windmills all around him. The old kind, that have the cloth sails and spin around and around in a hypnotic fashion.
He looked around warily. The smell was like baking bread, but mixed in with it was that strange, desert scent that had come from the dark skinned girl in his first dream. the barely stalks brushed against his legs as he took a few tentative steps forward, listening to the creaking of the windmills.
Where was she?
Was she here?
"Hello?" he called cautiously.
"I'm here!"
The rich, exotic tone rang out, from inside one of the windmills.
Donatello began to sweat.
This was a nightmare.
There were thousands, if not millions of windmills.
"Where are you?" he called out desperately.
"Here!"
Suddenly, she began to sing and he could hear her, very near.
"You'll remember me when the west wind moves
Upon the fields of barley
You'll forget the sun in his jealous sky
As we walk in fields of gold
He raced on, listening carefully as her voice grew closer, rich and husky, beckoning him closer and closer…
Will you stay with me?
Will you be my love,
Among the fields of barely?
We'll forget the sun, in his jealous sky,
As we lie in fields of gold."
Her beautiful, gravelly tone guided him and he stood in front of the biggest windmill.
Her dark, exotic face peered at him from a window in the top of the windmill.
"Who are you?" he called.
She smiled sadly and spoke, her mouth forming words, but he couldn't hear her.
He swallowed hard and tried a different question.
"What are you doing in there?" he asked, feeling a little dumb.
Her voice came, like a desert wind.
"She shut me up here."
The bright, darkly eye-lashed amethyst eyes were sad and mourning.
"Who?" Donatello almost growled, realizing that someone held her prisoner.
"My enemy. She rules my life, my feelings, everything. So long as she is alive, I am a slave to her, a prisoner within my own heart."
"How can I help you?" Donatello asked, feeling frustrated by her riddling words, but unwilling to give a harsh reply.
She looked deep into his eyes…how she did that from so high above him, he had no idea, but she managed it, causing him to lose his breath, to feel so full of longing…
An image, from a storybook, a fairytale, came to him, and he murmured almost without thinking…
"Rapunzel…"
***
Donatello woke gradually.
His eyes registered on his ceiling, and he could feel his heart drumming in his chest.
"Rapunzel." he murmured softly again, smiling a little in bitterness.
Donatello sighed deeply.
Her enemy had her imprisoned…what kind of monster would lock up a girl in a windmill?
Or was it something deeper then that? Was there some metaphorical meaning to his dream?
Or was it just a dream? A longing in his heart?
Donatello felt his body burn with fire as he remembered her, leaning out, the sun seeming to disappear into her rich black hair, lighting up her dark skin, her violet eyes staring deep into his and her husky voice, singing of the sun in his jealous sky…