Syllea closes the door to Eira’s house and quietly steps down the stairs. “Sigurd?” she calls softly.
The tall, strong spirit boy appears from behind Eira’s house. “I didn’t realize you saw me.” He replied coolly as he walked over to her.
“I saw your tail through the window.”
“Ah, well that would do it,” he replies with a smile.
“Aye,” she chuckles.
As he walks over to her, he gently places an arm around her shoulders. “You seem joyful. Any reason why?”
At the touch, Syl tenses ever so slightly in surprise. Sigurd, suddenly realizing what he was doing quickly took his arm off Syl and gave a good three steps away. “You didn’t have to move.” She mutters in slight disappointment, but ignores it and goes to tell him why she was so happy. “Well, I got to see a baby. Though Miss Eira wouldn’t let me hold him. Then Father told me today that I can have the last puppy in Dunwine’s litter!”
Sigurd watches Syl’s face light up as she talks of both the puppy and the baby. He smiles and has the sudden urge to hold her close again. He frowns, but quickly covers it when he catches Syl looking at him. “That sounds wonderful Miss Syllea.”
She smiles softly at Sigurd, then pauses looking around. “What is it?” Sigurd asks.
Syl stays still a moment longer before blinking and looking towards him. “You don’t hear them?” she asks in a whisper.
“Hear what?”
“The voices. The cries of children as they finally are taken by their illnesses. The yell of a man in war. It always stops when Father is near me though, which is odd,” she looks to him expectantly, waiting for his reply.
Sigurd stares at her, concern filling his big ice blue eyes. He just shakes his head, though does not give her an exact answer. Instead, he changes the conversation. “Are you heading home?”
Syl shakes her head, “No. My parents are busy, so I am kind of on my own until later tonight.”
Sigurd looks down at her as they walk away from Eira’s house. Her black hair bounces up and down on her shoulders in a way that he found rather attractive. As they continued walking, he noticed the concentrated pinch of her red lips as she listened to the noises around her. A smile started to tug at his lips, but it quickly disappeared as she looked up to him. Though she had noticed and a smirk crosses her face. “Someone’s catching feelings for me!” she teases.
“Don’t flatter yourself Miss Syllea. I am here to make sure you stay out of trouble and nothing more,” he replies, keeping his eyes forward as they continue to walk. He now realized that she was heading to her tree of lost ones.
Syl rolls her eyes but does not comment. They walk in silence until they reach her tree of Lost Ones. She instantly flops down at the base and rests her head against it. It wasn’t as cold as it had been, and only a small cool breeze rustled the trees.
She was wearing her mother’s dress and the cloak made from a snow beast. She pulled her cloak close to her and smiled up at Sigurd. “Are you going to sit or what?”
Sigurd shakes his head and goes to sit by Syl. “Now what?” he asks, pushing a strand of his messy brown hair out of his eyes.
Syllea shrugs and scoots closer to Sigurd. For once, he doesn’t move even though every inch of his body tells him to. When he stays put Syl goes to rest her head on his shoulder and he wraps an arm around her. “Tell me a story,” she whispers as her eyes flutter shut.
He looks down at her and a sad smile pulls at his lips. He sighs at her request, and gives her a short tale, “Once there was a young girl and a boy. They loved each other but knew that no matter what they couldn’t be together. Everything kept them apart: family, nature, the stars. So, they decided to settle for the next best thing…friendship. It would never be enough to fill the hole in their hearts, but how could they ever be more?”
He spoke the end of the story in a whisper, thinking the girl had already fallen asleep as her breathing was even and slow. “Everyone with the intent to love…will love in the end,” she mutters in a sleepy tone.
Sigurd’s smile becomes even sadder, quietly thinking she was wrong. Though his reply is, “Perhaps your right Miss Syllea.”
Syl fell asleep soon after, her body cuddled up to Sigurd’s for warmth.
“Nooo!” Syllea screams. Pushing off the white wolf that was wrapped around her. She turns around and throws up into the grass. Sigurd is quickly no longer a wolf as he rushes to her and wraps his toned, muscled arms around the trembling girl. She melts into his embrace and falls to the ground: Sigurd softening her fall. Sobs and screams tear out of the teen girl’s lips.
“Syllea, what is it. Tell me,” Sigurd pleads. He pales in fear as he watches her.
She looks up to him, her eyes red, dirt on her cheeks and leaves in her hair, from spending the night outside. “I…a woman had a dagger drove into her stomach. She screamed and cried begging for mercy…” Syllea trembles again as she says the next part, “I was the woman…and…my parent’s killer was the one driving a dagger into me. The pain was so real, and the terror. It was so real…” she repeats as sobs take her over again. One of her arms was wrapped around her stomach; Sigurd assumed it was where she had been stabbed in her dreams.
“Ssh, it’s alright. It was just a dream. I am right here,” he whispers into her hair as she buried her face in his chest.
They stay like that for a long time, his fear never waning even after Syl’s sobs had ceased and she sit still in his embrace. Suddenly, she looks up to Sigurd, terror in her eyes, and whispers, “Don’t let him come for me.”
And that's when he noticed it...a small tear in her dress, right on her stomach where her arm had been a moment ago. "Please let it have already been there." he thinks to himself.
