Sunrise

Chapter Eight: First Light

She couldn't remember ever seeing the sun rise.

Her casement faced west, for one thing, and even if it hadn't, she'd never been an early riser. What with the night noises and the uneasy spirit of the castle, Eilonwy was always restless, finally succumbing to exhaustion in the wee hours and then drifting, comatose, until mid-morning, when a surly serving-woman dumped her breakfast upon a stool outside her chamber and beat upon her door to wake her up.

Thus explained her surprise, when she opened her eyes, found herself damp and chilled with dew but otherwise feeling marvelous, and saw the sky over the eastern ridge just barely streaked with pink and pale gold, like the inside of a seashell.

The woods were utterly still; a stillness not as the shut-in silence of the dungeon cell but something vast and high and fresh, a slow breath before the world awoke. The air pulsed sweet and green and alive...she shut her eyes again and breathed with it, felt the life shimmering in the earth beneath and the trees around, thousands and thousands of filaments of light throbbing and intersecting. Oh, this was lovely, this...was wonderful; she'd never sleep indoors again. Well, unless it was raining. Or snowing. Or...well, not if she could help it, anyway.

Some sort of bedding would have been welcome though, she realized, as a good stretch revealed several places aching from their night on the unforgiving ground. Her foot bumped into something warm and soft; she looked down, startled, and saw that Gurgi had curled up in the leaves at her feet. When she moved he whimpered, and one...foreleg? arm?...pawed at the air. 

A movement from beneath a nearby tree caught her eye; Fflewddur was there, sitting on watch, and Gurgi's small noise had drawn his attention. When he saw she was awake he grinned.

"Almost morning," he whispered, pointing at the eastern sky. A single brilliant star hovered in the turquoise band above the rose-and-gold horizon.

She sat up and yawned. "How long have you been on watch? I could have taken a turn." He shrugged as though it didn't matter, but she knew none of them could have slept very long. It had already been the middle of the night when they'd settled down in the first place. "Go and rest a bit longer," she urged him. "I'll guard for a while."

"Oh, never mind me," he protested, as she rose stiffly and shook the dead leaves out of her gown. "A Fflam is alert! And I slept like a log. Besides, I can march for days on just a few hours' sleep..."

A muffled sound, like a hammer striking metal, seemed to emanate from a tree a few feet away - the one where he'd placed his harp for the night. Fflewddur cleared his throat. "Well. Come to think of it, another hour or so would be welcome. It was quite the night, wasn't it? Sleep well?"

"Fantastically." Eilonwy grinned at him, possessed with a sudden impulse to throw her arms around him and squeeze, which she shoved down quickly in consternation. How very odd. But he was so...so... ridiculously likeable. She was sincerely sorry about Gwydion, particularly now that she knew who he was, but she couldn't be sorry that the mistake had saved Fflewddur.

She set her back against the same tree he'd picked, facing east across their little camp, and propped the sword from the barrow next to her. Fflewddur folded his long limbs onto the turf, balled his cloak beneath his head, and once again all was still. The light was growing, silhouetting the three lumpy forms of those sleeping on the ground and a black lacing of alder trees behind them.

Eilonwy gazed at the brightening sky, all senses alert, marveling. How strange and wonderful that you could wake up in the same old dark place you'd lived in as long as memory, and begin the day the same way you'd begun thousands of days before... and in the next dawn you were watching the light kiss the earth as though for the first time, and knowing you'd never have to go back. An exquisite shiver ran down her back at the irrevocability of it.

To be sure, she had no idea where she was going from here. There had been a lot of talk, last night when Gurgi had arrived, about battle hosts massing, death-lords, kings with horns, and other ominous things. According to Taran, all was not well in the land, and there were urgent matters afoot...but still, particularly under those circumstances, one less evil enchantress skulking about in a castle was a good thing, wasn't it? She meant to be glad of that, at least, whatever else came about.

A bird twittered in the trees nearby and she held her breath, enraptured, as another answered it. The alder leaves rustled, whispering secrets. All around her hummed the life-surge of things growing and waking up, countless tiny breaths meshing in a silent morning song. Ears pricked, listening, she fancied she could almost hear the rhythm of a beating heart beneath the stillness, and presently grinned at herself; it was her own. She leaned against the embrace of the tree at her back, eyes upon the sky, and lost complete track of time.

The light grew stronger, ever so slowly, until there came a glorious moment when she could no longer look at the horizon for its brightness, and had to turn to know the sun rose, watching his golden light lay brilliance across the spaces between the trees, broken by long lavender shadows. Across the span of the forest, birds trilled into full chorus. She thought giddily that the whole world seemed to dance with joy, compelling, inviting, buoying her up until she could barely contain the impulse to dance along with it. She raised her arms in welcome to the sun, and twirled experimentally on one foot, before settling back against the tree, laughing at her own exuberance. Best not get too carried away. After all, she was supposed to be on watch, and if the others woke up and saw her doing that they'd think she'd gone mad.

The sleeping figures on the ground were growing more distinct in the light and she gazed at them all fondly. Fflewddur, who looked like nothing so much as a sprawling pile of patchwork rags, was snoring again. Gurgi had burrowed so far into a pile of dead leaves that only one furry shoulder was visible, itself so bestrewn with twigs and leaves that had she not known he was there she would have overlooked him entirely. Taran was stretched a little away from the others, lying prone with one arm thrown out and face pressed against the ground like a supplicant; a submissive posture that, somehow, twisted at her heart. He had no cover or cloak; he'd given her the only extra one in the saddlebags.

Well, she could fix that anyhow. Stepping as lightly as she could, she crossed the little glade toward him, flipped the woolen cloak from her shoulders, and laid it over him, holding her breath lest he catch her at it. But he never moved, not even a twitch; after his last few days, she reasoned, he ought to sleep like the dead, and goodness knew he'd earned it.

She studied his sleeping form thoughtfully, contemplating the events that had transpired since the moment she'd laid eyes on him yesterday. Such a little thing, to lose her bauble down a grate...and now this. A queer fancy struck her that her bauble had bounced away on purpose, as though by design. It was silly, perhaps, but didn't seem any less believable than the idea that everything had happened purely by chance. There was a strange sort of...deliberateness about the whole thing.

Well, however it had happened, here they were. Where would they go next? Where would she go? The vague idea of seeking shelter among strangers still lingered in her mind, but she found herself reluctant to imagine parting company with her new companions. Perhaps it was just the familiarity forced on them by the last few hours; whatever their faults and foibles, Fflewddur and Taran were now bound to her in shared experience, and for the first time in her memory she was actually enjoying the presence of other human beings, a sensation too novel and too pleasant to give up very soon. Well, she would wait and see. They were several days from anywhere, and there would be time on the journey to decide where it should take her in the end.

Taran twitched, mumbled something indecipherable, and rolled onto his side. Alarmed, Eilonwy dropped into an instinctive crouch, but he did not awaken. Now she could see his face, peaceful and quiet in sleep, completely devoid of the anxiety and turmoil it had borne nearly every moment since they'd met. It was blank, open, full of every possibility.

She thought of that crooked grin, and wondered what he looked like when he laughed.