A Twist of Tales (On Hold)

16. Aaravon

AARAVON

Finding this man called Anselm turned out to be harder than I thought. The map Ma mentioned in her letter didn't really help either. It only pointed out where he was supposed to live, but it didn't tell me how I was supposed to get there.

It had been two weeks since I decided to finally go looking for this man, who apparently had all the answers to questions I didn't even ask.

When I told Gordon about my plans, he was more than glad to know that I finally picked up my life again and found something to do, even if it was just looking for some old man. He and Tully helped me to prepare myself for the journey. They packed up food that would last for a week, after that I would have to figure out on my own how to survive.

There was a river I had been following for the past few days without really knowing if it would lead me to the right place. The only good thing about it was that I didn't have to worry about finding water to drink. Once all the food was gone I started to hunt rabbits or cast for fish.

It had been difficult at first. I wasn't used to have nothing to depend on but my skills. But once I got the hang out of it, it became easier and easier for me to have a warm meal once a day.

The past two weeks had been the loneliest weeks I could remember so far. With no one to talk to but a horse, my mind started to wander off to old memories. A particular one that I didn't even remember kept appearing. It was about the woman with dark blonde hair.

In this memory I seemed to be only three or four years old. We were both standing in a garden filled with all kinds of roses. The woman sat on a stone bench while I played with small stones at her feet. She was smiling down at me when a dark shadow appeared in front of me. I turned around and saw a tall man standing behind me, his hands reaching out to pick me up.

At this point the memory was cut off, almost like someone erased the rest of it. Whenever I would think about that memory, a feeling of safety and warmth would overcome me. I didn't remember ever meeting one of them after my accident, but nevertheless I couldn't help feeling that I had met them before. At times like this I wished I wouldn't have that accident, where I lost all my memories. I wished that I would at least remember their names. But I didn't.

I let out a long sigh. There was no point in thinking about what could have been. The only person who could have told me who they were was dead.

Bringing Piper to a halt I descended from her and looked around. Not too far away, I spotted a small clearing where I decided that I would stay for tonight. The sun had already started to set and I had yet to eat something.

Leading Piper to the clearing, I tied her to a tree where she would have enough to eat. Once I had made sure that she couldn't free herself I walked further into the forest searching for loose branches on the ground that would serve me as a fire.

After I had gathered enough wood for a night, I walked back to the clearing. Piper only looked up once when she heard my approaching footsteps before going back to picking at the grass at her hooves.

While I was searching for stones to make a bonfire with, I had a strange feeling that something was off. It almost felt like something or someone was watching me. But every time I would turn around I would only see trees. After a while I decided that it was probably just some animal. After all the time I had spent now it the forest I wasn't going to let something like that frighten me. So instead of going looking what that animal was, I decided to ignore the strange feeling and went back to putting up a bonfire.

That night I couldn't sleep, I kept on tossing around on the cold and hard ground. I didn't know if it was my imagination playing tricks on me or if it was just the wind, but I couldn't have sworn that I had heard a branch break not too far away from where Piper was standing.

At first I didn't pay much attention to it, but when I heard a third one break I grew suspicious. Maybe it wasn't the wind or my imagination, maybe there was really someone out there.

I heard something rustle behind me, where Piper was standing, followed by a low shriek.

Without hesitating, I jumped up and turned around to where the noise had come from. It was too dark to make out the person's face, but I could tell that he was trying to steal something from me.

Startled by the sound I made when I jumped up the person turned around. We looked at each other for a slight second, both not knowing what to do. Then, as if he suddenly remembered what he was doing, the person quickly turned around and ran off.

I didn't hesitate and followed him as fast as possible, trying to catch up.

It almost seemed impossible to catch up to him. I was about to give up, but then the man tripped over a root and fell to the ground. He tried to stand up again, but it was already too late. I had managed to catch up to him.

As he tried to run away, I caught him by his left shoulder. Forcing him to turn around, I raised my hand, ready to hit him the face, but halted once my eyes landed on the stranger's face.

"You're a girl?" I asked out loud, surprised that the intruder wasn't a man, but a woman.

She looked at me with emerald green eyes that were wide open from shock. Realizing that I wasn't going to punch her, she didn't waste a moment to hit me straight in the face. Both, surprised and taken back by her action, I let go of her and before I knew it, she had already turned around and ran away from me.

"Wait!" I called after her as I tried to catch up to her once more. This time she didn't run as fast as she did before, she must have hurt her leg when she fell. It didn't take me long to catch up to her. I reached out my hand and got a hold of her shoulder again.

She tried to hit me in the face, but this time I was prepared for it and managed to get a hold of her hand first. She tried again, but it was no use. I was stronger and taller than her, the only reason why she was able to punch me in the face the first time was because she took me by surprise.

"Let go of me!" she demanded, trying to free her hands.

"What were you trying to do back there?" I asked her, unfazed by her attempts.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"What were you trying to steal from me?" I asked her, anger rising inside of me. Girl or not, stealing was wrong. And I wasn't going to let her off that easily.

"Fine," she spat out angrily and stopped moving.

I hesitated to let go of her, not sure if she would try to run away again. After a moment I eventually released her from my grip and waited for her to explain herself.

"Look, it's nothing personal, really. I was just looking for something to eat, I didn't mean to steal anything of value," she said.

I stared at her for a moment, trying to figure out if she was telling the truth. Letting out a sigh, I ran a hand through my hair. "I have some leftovers; you can have them if you want."

"Really?" she asked me, clearly surprised by my offer.

"Yes, but only if you promise not to pull off something like that again."

"I promise, I won't try anything like that again. I hope I didn't hit you to hurt earlier," she said with a sheepish smile.

"I doubt that it will bruise."

"Hey, I could have hit you harder if I wanted to," she tried to defend herself.

I let out a laugh, but didn't respond and instead turned around. "Come on, let's go back before you stumble over a root again."

She mumbled something to herself about it being my fault before following me back to the bonfire.

"My name's Aaravon by the way, but you can call me Aaron." I looked over to her with raised brows, waiting for her to tell me her name. She hesitated for a moment before a slight smile appeared on her face.

"You can call me Kate."