The Faithful Ones

Part 2- Chapter 17

Raine blinked as sat up, looking around. Sky was cloudless and blue above, and it would be a wonderful day to sing and run with Mel again. Raine thought over the past year or so. Her six friends had been set four tasks and met Mel in the process, who'd set the tasks and saved their lives Raine and her friends each had Spirit's Glitter on their right wrist and in their hair, and over the course of their journeying they'd become closer friends than anyone expected. Everyone else had woken by now, and soon they'd be ready to keep moving.
"For love and light, we stand together, forever strong!" they called. It seemed every day dawned in the same way and yet nothing was the same. When they sang their voices echoed across the land. Every day brought them closer to the Dwarvern Caverns, which they'd decided to travel to again since Raine, Rose, Sunny, Salma, Freya, Matthew, and Blaze had made many friends there.

Mel often told stories about her Creator. This one, she said, her Creator had told. A farmer went out to sow his seeds. Some fell on the path and the birds ate them, some fell on rocky ground and grew quickly but withered when the sun got too hot, some fell where thorns grew and were choked, and some fell on good ground and produced fruit.
"The seed is a message and the ground is the people who hear it," Mel explained.
"That's a strange way of telling someone something," Salma said.
"I suppose. He also said that the reason He told stories was that people wouldn't understand otherwise because they just couldn't in their ways of thinking." The stories Mel told were similar to the ones Nimue had told months ago, Raine thought.

Raine told Nimue about the glowing cave in the Caverns ans asked her about the tune she used to hum to Raine when she was upset.
"There's a spirit in that cave, as I'm sure you noticed. The songs could be the same, but I can't quite remember it, so you'll have to take me when we get there," the Water Spirit said.
"I'll show you," promised Raine.
"We're at the hills!" called Sunny and Raine looked ahead. Indeed, they were at the hills, which were just as beautiful as they remembered. Mel and Nimue hadn't seen them yet though, of course, so Raine took care to show them her favourite heights and valleys.

The night was blue and indigo, and the stars shone a bright pearl-white, brighter than the pale silver moon. The campfire gleamed, chasing the shadows of night away, drawing dancing and laughing shadows closer to its warmth. When sleep called louder to the shadows they rolled under their blankets and talked for a while longer as the fire died until one by one everyone was asleep. When the brightest star rose in the morning, everyone awakened to begin their travelling again. Choosing words to fit as she went, Mel made up a song.
"The sun is bright,/ warm is its light,/ and joy in my heart does bloom./ Oh I could run a thousand years,/ even so far as the moon./ The wind carries a thousand voices,/ and it will carry mine/ with joy ever burning in us/ for we are free." The others joined in once Mel had sorted out the words and tune, and at one point they stopped singing to run and only slowed down for midmeal and a rest. Raine and Rose filled the water-skins and after eating the group swan for a short time.

"How don't you melt when you're near a fire?" asked Matthew.
"Well your skin gets hot if you get too close, or if you touch the fire it burns you. It's the same for me, only I would boil and steam, and it'd take a day or so to heal," the Spirit answered.
"What's the promise we made long ago, when we understood so much less?" Raine had been mulling over the words of the song from the glowing cave.
"That you would follow where true hope is not yet, wherever that wild path goes, to be led by one ever on the move where they would go to light fires in sleeping heart." Well, the group had followed Mel and they'd lit fires in their once-sleeping hearts, but that made the promise only half kept --although they had their whole lives to keep the promise, so there was no hurry. Raine remembered the day they'd agreed to promise that. It had been late winter, the tIme when winds began to warm ever so slightly, when they carry whispers of magic.

Raine dreamed that the campfire grew into a wildfire surrounding her. She woke to the half-light of night before dawn.
"It's alright, everything's ok," murmured Mel, who'd woken just before Raine. She took a deep breath and calmed down, remembering that she was safe with Mel. And, really, fire was rather beautiful once she got past her fear, in its mesmerising flickering that seemed to form shapes and faces. She just had to stop her mind building the flames higher into a nightmare or memory. The best memories were of singing of dancing, so that's what she usually did when she got scared.

Rose was doing Sunny's hair, Mel sat with them plaiting her own, and Salma listened to the conversation. They discussed the books about children and a lion. Raine sat with Freya, Matthew, Blaze, and the Spirit, just watching the clouds, lost in thought, as they lost their pinkness and the stars came out. Raine got up to stir the stew bubbling over the fire, and declared it ready. They'd kept walking until two fingers' width between the sun and horizon, so it was later than usual. Everyone was excited to see the dwarves again, and they'd arrive in half a moon. The days seemed longer, full of anticipation and knowing what they'd find at the Caverns. The natural border between Westheath and Northesa loomed ahead, tall and beautiful.

The crescent moon, a tiny slice of light now, pulled the friends closer and closer to the dwarvern Caverns until at last the tunnels welcomed them in. The days had grown colder and it was a relief to enter somewhere warm and out of the wind. Sunny bid the sun a friendly farewell for the time being, since they would likely not see it again for at least a moon. Zadut and Taigat-Zhëtzen weren't there so they headed straight to see Gatûkai-Zhëtzen.