Minstrel

Chapter #25 ~ Creak

The music flowed through the air and Creak imagined it made colorful, swirling patterns. It was beautiful. It was perfect. It was the life she wanted to hold onto forever and never let go of. It wasn't her reality, but in that second it really, truly felt real.

Her lips pressed against her cool mouthpiece and Creak blew into her baritone. It's deep tone filled the air. She wanted to play something cheerful and happy, but the notes wouldn't come. Instead her sound was sorrowful and full of pain. Deep and dark, filled with determination. She played loud, louder than she had ever dared to play. Who would find her? Who would dare to stop her?

'Riptide.' A voice in her head whispered, but Creak refused to believe it. He couldn't stop her. She wouldn't let him.

Eyes of ever changing color flashed behind her eyelids as she continued her song. He was beautiful beyond belief, but he was also toxic. Given the chance, Creak knew he would destroy everything she loved. Everything she continued to live for.

The trees caved in towards her sound and darkness closed in around her. Her melody dark and powerful, shook the earth beneath her.
Maybe the king did have something to fear in music. Used wrongfully it could destroy lives, but Creak knew that wasn't the music's fault.
The king had it wrong. Music wasn't his enemy; the people who used it against him were. And if Creak had to be one of those people she would be.

* * *

With a gasp Creak awoke in the mud-walled infirmary. When her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she realized that Floral wasn't there. She was all alone.

A soft snore had her jump out of her skin. No, she wasn't alone. In a shadowed corner a guard sat in watch, but he wasn't doing a very good job. If he was put there to protect her, Creak figured he wouldn't be very helpful asleep. Vern really needed better knights.

Smiling, Creak gently slid out of her bed. The poor knight many not have been helping Vern, but he's exhaustion would be useful to her.
Creak didn't want to stay in the infirmary. She didn't want to stay with the Ground Elves. She needed to move on. Staying with them would only put them in danger. Just as Riptide was toxic to her, she was toxic to everyone else. Vern had done enough for her. She didn't want to get her new best friend killed. He wouldn't be safe with her, but something in Creak made her feel like she wouldn't be selfless enough to let him go.

Slipping out into the night, Creak crept through the mud huts. She didn't know where she was going, but she knew she had to find a way out of the odd city. She had to find the rebel kingdom.

Strange, teardrop-shaped, glass lights glowed along the city's streets. Everything about the place felt more like a refugee camp than the capital of a kingdom of elves. It felt like the elves living there never left their homes. Creak rarely saw anyone and maybe that's because there was no one to see. Was the city mostly abandoned? Had it always been like this?

Creak shook her head. Certainly it had been better at one point. Vern had said the mud castle had once stood in glory. His parents hadn't been the rulers of a falling kingdom.

Then when did everything change? Creak wandered through the streets. She needed to leave, but she had to talk to Vern first. She was selfish. She always told herself she had left her brother to protect him, but really she had done it for herself. She couldn't bare to see the way he would look at her. The disappointment she would be forced to see in his eyes every time she looked at him.

Creak hated it, but there was no way to change the way she was. She was selfish and she couldn't leave her best friend behind. Without him she wouldn't make it to the rebel kingdom. Without him she would be lost.