The Time Of Running.
Prologue
(South of Sest.)
A full moon. A hand in mine. The taste of apples on a hot day. The smell of rain. Eyes so green it was impossible. A scream. Her again. Running so hard it hurts but I can't keep up. A glance back. The cliffs that aren't there. Those eyes again...
"Gah!" I'm not at the tops of those cliffs anymore. I'm in my cold room, the early morning sun fighting to get through my dense ripped curtains. It was so real this time, more so than ever before. I clutch my thin old sheets as if to check what is and isn't real, dream from reality. But I can't be sure, the feeling if pressing terror is so real I can't shake it.
Lyra groans and rolls over, her long lashes fluttering. As she fights the tendrils of sleep. Stretching out her arms she lazily opens one eye to look at me. I see her take in my face, I must look haggard.
"The dream again?" I open my mouth to answer but she rolls away. "Thought so." That all knowing, unbothered attitude is just one of the things I've come to accept us one of my twins traits. I don't have that. Everything seems to bother me and realisation dawns on Lyra a while before me. Even in appearances we are pole opposites.
Her big blue eyes and small pink lips are framed by long, thick black curls. Her body is thin, elegant my mother calls it, but she's so small, tiny. She doesn't tan either, no freckles, not unhealthily pale but almost like someone who lives indoors. Ridiculous when you think about how much time she spends outside. Jogging, jumping, climbing tree's and skipping.
My eyes aren't as big and they're almost black. So dark that Lyra says they creep her out. "monster!" she used to scream when we were younger. My dad used to say I'd grow out of them, I'm six and I still haven't do I guess I'll have monsters eyes forever. My hair doesn't curl, it stays flat and blonde on my head, just the way I like it. My body's generally longer than Lyra too. I tower over most children my age and everyone thinks I'm a lot older than six. I'm tanned, but no freckles. Probably because I'm in our room most of the time drawing. Our rooms full of them, they usually cheer me up but after my dream I'm frightened by the eyes from all corners of the room watching me.
"Calix!" I yell, Lyra sits up.
"What's up Trist?" I don't answer, I'm listening and sure enough I can hear him thudding down the corridor. My big bother, my hero. The door creaks worryingly as he barges in, his black eyes narrowed. He spots me, clutching my covers like a life line and relaxes his tense form.
"Bad dream?" he asks, I nod and hold my little arms out for a hug, as always he obliges. Cerys sighs and clambers out of our dilapidated bed which groans as her spindly legs are thrown over the side.
Calix pulls back to look at me. "Same as usual?" I nod as he pushes a strand if my hair off my face. I look more like Calix than I do Lyra. Same eyes, same hair colour (his always curls) and he says that we were the same height at that age. Calix is always looking out for me, bad dreams or Guards walking through town he protects me. My big brother is my hero.
"Trist it-" he breaks off, I hate the name Trist. It's just Lyra who calls me that, she's too stubborn to resort to my full name. "Tristan, it wasn't real you hear me? It's just a dream. Nothing from it is real."
"But...." I begin, Calix is always one to state fact, nothing unusual exists to him. Well except the Issaugotas, but no one dares talk about them. "it was like a memory, all jumbled up. Bits and prices from ages ago-" his face is set hard. Like said, nothing unusual is actually real to him.
So unlike Lyra, mum tells her story's from the days before Pakrolt and she always reacts them in our games.
"Ogre, Goblin, Demon, Spirit." she'd yell as we raced up and down the street, convinced that such creatures were right on our tails, and, "Pixies, Fairies, Angels, Sprites!" always got a few strange looks as she yell, pointing at the surrounding bushes.
