{A Wattpad Featured Book}
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Her heart or her people. Only she can decide.
Hated, cursed, outcasted. It was Eleena Asterin's life ever since she was blamed to have betrayed her village. So when she is offered a task to earn back her honour and prid...
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Only a while ago the blackness was absolute, but now the mist was visible, silvery. Against this backdrop the trees were silhouettes, still as an oil painting and darker than raven feathers.
. ____________________ .
I had been surveying the parameters of the woodlands for a few hours now, and my perspective from the highest bough of an old tree had turned useless. The chilly morning breeze was cold and biting, blowing away any signs of potential tracks.
I had brought myself deeper into the woods than I usually risked, but hunger blurred my senses. My stomach was hollow and churning yet I pushed the feeling away, focusing on the main task ahead. That was all I could do, all that I had been able to do for these past hours: focus on hunting an animal, to keep my family and myself alive and fed. And now, with the heavy fog and gusting winds, I would be lucky to spot anything – especially if it is on a tree, scarcely able to see just a few feet ahead. Smothering a groan, I eased off the tree.
Twigs crunched under my fraying boots as I landed on my feet. I ground my teeth. Low visibility and now unnecessary noise, I didn't need to add anything more to that list.
The sky was now awash with streaks of pink and orange. I knew that if I didn't leave soon, I would have to maneuver my way back home in the dark, and with the carcass I saw a few months back, I shuddered, I didn't want to be the feast of a faerie.
Not that I was much to feast on. I'd turned gangly from all that retching and torturing, leaving me very much just skin and bones. Weaving as nimbly as I could between the trees, I unslung my bow and continued my way into the ever-thickening undergrowth.
I knew of a small brook nearby, cutting across the middle of a decently sized meadow. Hopefully, something would come by. Hopefully.
After what seemed like a few minutes of searching, I crouched behind a bundle of thickly woven brambles. The gaps between their thorns gave me a half-decent view of the misty clearing. The fog was lighter now, rather translucent than opaque. It only gave me a better advantage of making the kill.
I sighed quietly through my nose, digging the point of my bow into the soil. I couldn't help but admire the fresh colours that surrounded me. The emerald green of the grass and the clean white and warm yellow of the flowers. I savoured these moments, moments where I could escape reality and indulge in the thoughts of colour and tone and shape. I had often envisioned a day in which it was just me in my cottage where I would buy paint and charcoal and put those colours and tones on canvas, or even on bits and pieces of my furniture or the cottage's walls. I would have time and enough money to feed myself, and I would grow old with these wonderful shapes and designs surrounding me.
It was not likely to happen, perhaps ever. And so I was left with moments like this, adoring simple beautiful prospects in nature. I couldn't remember when was the last time I had done this – taking a few minutes to marvel things around me.
