She Was Only A Dream - Part Six

Petals bent beneath her fingertips as she traversed into the world beyond dreams. Silver streaked her body, leaving waving fronds of stardust upon the hem of her skirts. Her feet were guided by a path taken only once, her steps careful as they sank into the earth to match every place the girl had touched.

The wind caressed her face, brushing back pale waves with its mirthful kisses. It was a magic too gentle to bottle, a rush of calm acceptance in a world which she did not belong. Maelynn’s head remained bowed, bent toward the trail leading her through the waving flowers, but her heart soared in a rhythm separate from the fall of her chest. It leapt at the cold, alighted upon smooth petals to beam up at the moon, flew like wings from her back, lifting up and up as it took in the place it recognized but could not remember.

Here, it was as if every touch lingered, every thought floated, and every moment stretched just a little to give her time to take it all in. This world held her carefully, with a tenderness her own had never spared. Not as if it feared she should break, but as if she were worth handling softly, as if the very breath in her lungs were a precious thing worth sweeping into the stars.

Then, like sands trapped in a tide destined to pull back to sea, the footprints began to wash away. Silver bled into the brown, running in streams against the earth until they dissolved into glittering dust that the breeze carried away.

No path lay before her now, no direction clear in the pooling moonlight. The arch of the flowers grew around her, rippling in waves of sweet spice and dew, filling her lungs until they wished to burst from trying to hold it all too close.

With her feet stalled and her way misplaced, Maelynn turned her gaze to the shifting skies. She became lost in the enthralling ripples of purple, the clouds soft enough to lie on and tangible enough to hold. In the sweep of the heavens, she was simply another star, left floating as the light reached out to envelop her.

Only, this light spoke. Not in anything so real as words or concrete as meaning, but in the language of long held sighs and wistful glances, of stolen moments returned, meaning rekindled, and hope grown, not diminished.

It spoke of a time she did not remember and a choice she could not understand. It whispered in her ear of chances lost and tears turned crystalline, until she could hardly bear to listen.

It was then that the stars sent her their messenger, wrapped in shadows and mist. The bird flew as her heart had once done, its claws tipped with the silver of the flowers and its head crowned with the touch of the earth. Wings, vast and undefined, beat at the trembling air around her head, taking with it the unbearable echo of the past. With its cry, the muddling intrigue of the night was torn, lifting her free from the grasp of the flowers she now lay among, and so she rose, drawn toward the strange beast that moved with an intention she herself could not possess.

The field felt the moment it lost her and parted, relinquishing its hold on her mind as the way became clear once more, the path Ismere had walked gone but not lost. In the place of the shimmering trail, her guide moved, talons clenched as it led her out of the trap to which she had nearly been lost.

With the creature flying overhead, Maelynn followed, her feet guided once more toward the girl from her memories, only this time with a sureness she had lacked before.

She would not hesitate a second time.

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