Unto the Shadow (Completed)

(Ch.23) Fire Tickles

Ryder lowered her tired body to the floor of the clawfoot bathtub. Every part of her ached, and the thought of standing while she showered seemed like a new form of punishment. She pulled her knees up wrapping her arms around them. Closed her eyes and held her face up to the warm water.

This had become her favorite moment in the day, to be allowed to be alone, to not be thinking about the elements all around her, supposedly waiting to spring into action at her command. Nope, right now she could simply enjoy the warm water, that came from the working faucet.

Pure bliss, she thought and let out a deep sigh. Two weeks, she had been drowning in this absurd experience. Two God damn weeks.

As if the days weren't stressful enough, she was being bombarded by dreams at night. She wasn't even able to relax in her sleep. Most dreams she couldn't remember but others she remembered all too well.

Tairin began to stay with her at night. Which was innocent enough, both seeming distracted by their own thoughts. His warm body had become a beacon for her when the nightmares began to drag her down into their swirling depths. Unfortunately, the dreams were becoming stronger, and Tairin's 'heat beacon' was becoming lost in her storm. When she was trapped too deep in a nightmare her body thrashed in reality, and Tairin would have to shake her awake. She had given him permission to slap her if shaking didn't work, he had looked at her like she was crazy and tried to laugh it off as a joke. But she was not joking, a slap was nothing compared to the torment of the dreams.

During the day Ryder worked through sparring, and elemental lessons, neither seemed to be progressing. She was too tired to really care about learning how to use a sword, and she only had flickers of power during her elemental lessons, which she was grateful for. She had no desire to relive the explosion of chaos that had burst from her that first day with Jade. It had felt like her deepest, darkest, feelings had burst forth and were exposed to the world like a bare nerve. It had been painfully terrifying, while at the same time strangely liberating. To simply experience the emotions, and not be desperately trying to hide everything raging inside of her, to not be attempting to be perceived as normal. To simply exist in the state that she resided in, regardless of its nature.

When she had held the explosion of energy on the edge of destruction, in a state of numbness, she had thought she had heard whispers seeming to encourage her to lose what little hold she had left on herself. To let the voices be free to do what they knew she wanted. But she had held onto her humanity. Some deep embedded piece of her knew that giving into a momentary desire and discarding all consideration of consequence was not right. She had to be stronger than her unbridled emotions. With that thought the whispers had abandoned her. Everything evaporated, and she found herself cold and, in the mud. With no connection to anything, not even herself.

Ryder leaned back against the bathtub and pushed away her thoughts. Not wanting to analyze anything anymore. She let out a deep sigh and turned the faucet with her toes. A silly huff escaping her lips at the act of using her feet as hands, the way she had done when she was a little girl. I guess I really haven't changed that much, she thought. As she watched the steam rise and swirl above her she drifted off to sleep.

Ryder ran through the dense forest, her bare feet gripping the log as she jumped off of it. The trees braking to a clearing filled with a medieval battle.

She watched as men lost limbs, and others fell dead. Just when she thought she couldn't stand to see anymore; a soldier caught her eye. It was the way he moved, so fluid, as if the mud did not hold onto his feet the way it did for everyone else. He cut through his opponents, his grey blue eyes seeming to pierce the other soldier's souls before his blade did.