A Comfort
A/N: So, here it is, a little late because I'm on holiday with only a very faint WLAN signal from the next block that keeps dying on me: The next chapter of Flight of Death. Enjoy! Thanks also to my reviewers: Maia of the Moon, Kiaga, heatherlynn, and Laramie. Here's your lettuce jelly! Now, on with the chapter!
The dying rays of the sun glanced off Ela's hair, making the short, roughly cut black curls shine a little – a rare occurrence, for she almost never had the presence of mind to wash it, or the inclination to; she regarded such frivolous uses of precious water to be somewhat silly and inconsequential. Still, her hair shone now with the shade of coppery light that seemed almost to be a characteristic of the city. Somehow, the warm, dying glow seemed to personify Turbansk's temperament perfectly; it was one of the things that had instantly appealed to Hem from the very first time he'd been there. The sense that everybody cared about you, and that you were safe from anything, abounded in the city. Not that he felt it now, of course; but that had been his very first impressions of the great city, and if he was inclined to, then he would still be able to feel it now: the spirit of Turbansk keeping a silent, benevolent watch over her children .
Ela had finished her duties at the market in her capacity as apprentice to a seamstress, helping the old lady to sell her goods and tidying up the cart after her. It had been a relatively normal day, too; her time spent helping the seamstress, Mistress Dambe, was a time she loathed, being a free spirit, a street child by birth. She'd been adopted by a kindly but lowly peasant family, but although they had tried to bring her up as well as they could, there still resided in her the temptation to bite that had been drummed into her by the harsh life she had lived as an orphan on the streets. On this particular day, interesting things had, yet again, failed to happen. The only event even slightly worthy of note had been the sudden overturning of the cart, early in the morning, by an obviously distressed, obviously foreign boy. She shook her head; crying like a baby in public, and not uttering a word of apology after disturbing people's property? Anyone could see that he hadn't any manners. It had taken her an age – a distinctly uncomfortable one – to repack everything into the cart, and it had ruined her fine woollen dress. It wasn't that she cared particularly – but the housekeeper would, and no one ever crossed Mistress Lens…not if they wanted to escape alive, at least.
She won't mind, she thought. I mean, I've just returned from service in the city! Hopefully, she'll be so glad to see me that she won't even notice the dirt till I leave again next week! She knew that this was, at best, overly optimistic, and, at worst, idiotic; but she was euphoric at the thought of being home again, even if it was only for a short time. The farm that was all the home she'd ever had was just outside the great, fabled city gates, a sweet place that, though plain and somewhat ramshackle, was a great place to the young, almost naïve (despite her trying early years) girl. Now, only a few paces from the gates, she fancied she could already smell the soft violet scent of the little farmhouse, and she began to skip vivaciously and hastily down the barrenly empty road, eyes closed to the world, threadbare satchel swinging wildly, hair flying out behind her in an almost incomprehensibly blatant picture of pure delight –
Until she stumbled headlong over a small clump of person lying prone by the side of the road just beyond the gate. The collision knocked all the soaring happiness and hope out of her mind like a shot bird, as well as the air, and for a few stretching moments her brain scrambled to catch up with the certainly unexpected event which had just occurred. Just as she began to comprehend it fully, she sprang up, horrified at the potential damage she might have done to the baby – only to realize that what she had taken as such was, in fact, a boy only a few years younger than herself. Smiling gently at his folly in lying beside a dirty road at such an hour, she bent down and brushed aside a few locks of black hair from his eyes – and stopped dead. It was the boy from the market. It had to be. Though she had only seen him for a few fleeting seconds that morning, she had noted the dark olive skin and unruly long hair. Besides, he still had tear drops on his face. Who else in the city would have collapsed by the side of the road crying, but a foreigner? The citizens of Turbansk were brought up to be dignified when in emotional pain…
When Hem woke, it was with a great difficulty, as if some strange god had wished to keep him there in his realm, for some dark purpose he could, perhaps unfortunately, guess at. And it seemed that no sooner had he escaped from that strangeness than he was somehow taken to another one, for when he pried open his unwilling eyes it was into the face of a Turbanskian girl that he gazed. Or perhaps woman? She seemed to be in that awkward state between the two…and the surprise in his own eyes was reflected perfectly in her disconcertingly warm, liquid brown ones. In fact, all in all, some aspects of the situation were oddly parallel to that in which he had met Zelika…For some reason that he could not even begin to guess at, he did not shy away from the mention of her name, even in his mind.
"Er, he-llo?' he ventured finally, almost timidly, he thought furiously. The extreme awkwardness of the setup was getting to him. The mysterious apparition brought her head up sharply, similarly embarrassed, raised her thin arms, and began to defend herself.
"I'm dreadfully sorry! I did not mean to, um, infringe on your, um, p-p…" Here the unknown girl seemed to give up on trying to defend her actions, and settled for going red instead. This was fine by Hem, who was in no mood for idle banter now that his prior embarrassment had worn off.
And so they sat side by side on the dusty road, and watched the dying sun drift slowly beneath the horizon, seeming as reluctant as Hem to let go of the day. He felt the blackness rise within him once again. Shaken off temporarily by the arrival of the girl, the gloom surrounded him and threatened to choke him within its noxious, deadly, cloying sweetness…
"You know, I've never really thought about it much."
"Huh?" Hem started and turned to face the strange girl – but she did not face him. Her face was lifted towards the golden light, catching the last rays of the sun, and her somehow fragile eyelids were closed, unfeminine short eyelashes tracing twin delicate arcs above her cheekbones. A small smile had materialized on her lips, and the blush was almost completely gone.
"About why we're happy. I mean, it's not like there's a reason to be, what with all the horrible, horrible things going on in this world…But we are. Or most of us are, anyway." She opened her eyes and darted a quick, almost unbearably perceptive glance towards the startled boy. Luckily for him, she closed them again and continued, "And I think that it's…because we need to be. We need to be, for all those who love us, and for ourselves. Because if we're not happy, then we're not ourselves. And we need to be ourselves. It's how the world works, I guess."
Hem was staring at her by now. Why was this strange girl randomly giving him a sermon on happiness? He hadn't asked for it or anything and he was pretty sure that all the evidence of his crying had gone…
She leapt up with a start, and picked up her satchel with the kind of iron strength only ever born of extreme haste and necessity. Utterly bewildered, Hem cried out in spite of himself, "Where are you going?!"
The girl looked downwards, startled out of the madness that seemed to have come over her. "I need to go. The gates are closing, and I can't get locked out! I'm sorry for intruding on you and saying all that weird stuff. Something just sort of…came over me. Sorry a thousand times!" She bowed quickly, turned with an amazing speed that Hem would not have thought possible, and ran at full pelt down the hill towards the gates.
He watched her go, still shell-shocked by the complete strangeness of their encounter, but with an odd sort of peace in his heart. As he turned to trudge back up the hill, and the last rays of the sun disappeared fully, a new sensation crossed his mind – hope. It was a feeling he had been so unaccustomed to over the last few weeks that he barely registered its existence, turning his thoughts instead to ridiculing the strange girl's theory. It seemed somewhat idiotic to him, something thought up in half a second…
There was a long way to go to the top of the hill, just as there was a long way for any mere suggestion of happiness to go to the top of his mind, but if he, and it, took it one step at a time, then they might just get there.
A/N: Meh. Well, that's it! Personally, it's my least favourite chapter so far, and I think Ela's POV wasn't great, but that's me. Review and tell me what you think, and get lettuce filled chocolates! Oh yes, Wolf Bakeries are moving up into the world of fine chocolates… ~NSTaN