Stormchild: Emeline and the Forest Mage

8 Red Field

"A blood bath, dead corpses caked with blood and snow. That is all that war leaves us... and satisfied old men in their fineries."

~ Gordnath (The Soldier's diary) (Re-written by Agiös Denki in the 4th Year of Lord Gunsel Stêr's Time, The Season of the Lords)

Träumenil

    Emeline slept. She found herself once again on the road to Träumenil, the dusty one leading to a mystery dreamscape. She felt warm, which is saying something considering how cold it was that morning. The sun shone down on her shoulders, baking them with a satisfying glare of light. The air was hot and her coat was making her sweat, so she threw it off her shoulders. It drifted down onto the dusty road behind her and a puff of dust rose as it settled. The humidity made her feel sticky and uncomfortable, and the heat seeped into her cold bones speedily. She guessed she should start walking.

    Her steps sounded softly on the road, her boots knocking dust into the air behind her. She felt safer now than before because there was no haze or bog. Emeline sighed with relief and breathed in deeply as she walked. This road was familiar, without any strange things. A little breeze whipped tufts of her hair around her shoulders. Even the breeze was hot and sticky with humidity, and before long droplets of water sat on her arms and eyelashes. It reminded her that she actually liked winter.

    For a while she walked, and soon she wished for the icy breeze she and Avétk travelled through each night. The temperature made her very uncomfortable and took away the pleasure of the dream.

    Her feet hit the road rhythmically.

    Nothing seemed to be happening in the dreamscape. She paused, taking in her surroundings. There was nothing notable really, just the road.

    Her thoughts began to wander. She remembered her mother and the farm with affection. Her mother was probably just sitting down at their market stall in town about now, before the morning's crowd came in. She'd no doubt be crunching through an apple too. Beth would be fussing over the display of their goods. She'd always like to pack the vegetables in rows by kind, with equal spacing between them. Mother had always said it was pointless fussing, and that packing the vegetables into rows wasn't going to make it more likely that they would be sold.

    'Augustus!' she cried out suddenly, snapping out of her reverie as she spotted him. Her beautiful Lipizzaner stood in a field to the side of the road. The horse did not nibble at the stalks of wheat like he always had. He did not neigh, or snort and canter through the grass either. He stood ghostly still, watching her. Her heart flooded with fondness. Gussie!

    She turned off the road and made her way to him through the brushes and the long yellow grass. Augustus had been her favourite horse for a long time. He was the prettiest of their three horses. His white and grey dappled coat was a stark contrast to the pitch black of their two Friesians.

    He was slimmer, with smaller hooves than the stocky Friesians and could canter much faster than them too. The other two were mostly used to work the fields of their farm, but Augustus was their outride horse. It was also obvious that he was the friendliest of the three. Friesians were not the most social breed, to say the least. He had joined her and her mother many times on hunts and at the occasional social event, making for a great ride and a lovely companion.

    She swiped the yellow wheat away with her hands as she moved through it, trying not to trip and dirty herself. The wheat reached to her elbows like a yellow ocean of grass. The sticky breeze moved through the stalks, and they whispered and rustled softly. As she got nearer to Augustus, he began to fade. It was as though his presence waned, and he just disappeared, dissolving into the air. No!