A Dragoneer's Silver Lining

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fourteen

"There will always be a haunting sense of serenity being alone in the forest. It was a feeling that wasn't easily distinguished, but the kind that you allow yourself to fall in to. Mainly it was because of the fear of getting lost into a leafy abyss. A potential that can distract anyone so easily from appreciating the real beauty that lay within the bosom of mother nature,"

Luina sighed, rising to her feet after trying to outline of a dragon’s paw embedded into the soil in front of her, “I guess that is the best way I could describe why I love being in the outdoors so much,”

"I have no idea what you just said," Scott finally replied, "but let's just hurry up,"

"It would be easier if you didn't make any more unnecessary movements, you know," said Luina, shrugging off Scott's hands that were clasping around her arm, "would you please stop that!"

Hugging his hands close to his chest, Scott bit his lips together before muttering his apologies, “it’s just that me and forests never go well together,” 

“Don’t worry,” she rolled her eyes, wiping sweat from her forehead with the back of her hand, “The forest isn’t going anywhere,”

“No I mean,” Scott finally gave up trying to explain. It’s just that because he had always been inside the kingdom and had never ventured out into nature itself, he had grown to love the convenience of a fast moving town.

“Don’t tell me you haven’t been to a forest before?” she let out a demeaning laugh that aimed for Scott’s ego.

Offended, he scoffed, “Of course I’ve been to a forest before!”

“You just don’t love nature?”

“Not really,” he rubbed his nape, taking all of the beads of sweat into his palm before he whipped his hand from it. He shuddered, “up to this day, I still couldn’t understand why, but I remember running around the forest lost as a little kid,”

“Too bad you were found, huh?” she went to another nearby try and knelt before a broken upturned root jutting out from the soil and decaying leaves.

“Hey,” he frowned, then spoke slowly as he racked his brains for bits of memories, “It’s not that I was found, I just ran into a random farmer’s field and began camping in his land of corn,”

“How amusing,” she dusted her hands before quickly crouching to another succeeding broken branch a few feet to her northeast.

“Camping was no fun, I tell you that,” he shuddered, remembering those nights he had to put up with creepy crawling intruders that usually crawled on almost every inch of skin he could remember.

“How old are you again when that happened?” she asked, pausing in her tracks 

Scott shrugged, “just very young, I can’t remember exactly how old I was. I was just very little then,”

“When you said camp,” she looked over her shoulder to catch a glimpse of him, “did you mean setting up a bonfire and a big live-able tent?”

“By camping,” he chuckled to himself, “I meant sleeping in a hollow base of this very big tree,”

“How long did that go for?”

“It’s didn’t last too long,” Scott stretched his arms high above his head and slightly flailed about in panic when his hand brushed against a stray branch. He calmed down when he realized it wasn’t some sort of snake trying to bite him. Thankfully, Luina wasn’t watching him then. Clearing his throat, he continued, “they found me the morning after,” 

“And then he returned you to your parents?”

“Nope,” said Scott, “ever since then I grew up living in the poor district of our Kingdom with the farmer’s servant, Faceless,”