The True Meaning of A Warrior

Chapter Seven: Evacuation (STELLA)

There was a moment of silence, before finally Mrs. Starcatcher broke it with an awkward question. "And you and Stella are coming with us, right?"
Zara jerked her head back, as if startled, but shook her head coolly enough. "No, we're going to rescue Eve, of course," she countered.

"By yourself?" her mother demanded. "No way-I know you have bows and arrows, Zara, but-"

"And light," I interrupted, before smoothing the hem of my rain-encrusted skirt and ushered to her, "continue, please." Meanwhile, the necklace glowed indignantly, lighting up the dark clearing as if waiting to prove itself.

Mrs. Starcatcher sighed only slightly and raged on: "And light, of course, but it's dangerous, and it's not good for you. Just the two of you-no way."

"You guys are going north," Zara argued, digging through her pack and pulling out a compass to indicate to her mother the four directions and where they were; which geography each arrow pointed towards. "We know where you're going. We'll catch up, and it'll be fine."

Mrs. Starcatcher crossed her arms, refusing to accept the compass. "I'm your mother, Zara. I can't let you do this alone."

I felt a slice of pain, sharp as a knife, run through my soul, drilling an empty void into it. My mother's face, eyes, and sparkling twinkles in her bright, ice-blue eyes flashed through my head, each memory streaking down like falling objects through space.

Suddenly, the rain was much colder than before. Much, much colder.

My back bent under the weight of the storm.

"I promise we'll be fine." Zara unlatched her mother's arms gently from their stubborn cross position, and pried her mother's palm out from their fists. She then placed the compass gently in the middle of her mom's hands and curled each of her mother's fingers around the compass' cold, wet and slick glass.

"Northwards," I struggled to say, to regain myself.

"We'll meet you there-and don't you try to stop us," Zara added, and then grabbed my elbow. Her cold fingers curled around my arm.

"No!" her mother cried, squeezing the compass so tight her knuckles turned white.

But in a second, she was dragging me away, and we were tromping through the soaked leaves that were drenched like water-filled sponges.

The rain beat mercilessly down on our bent-in-guilt backs.

Darkness and shadows crawled into my vision, as I lowered my head against the pounding rain and forged forwards, best I could. Drooping grasses pricked my jet-black leggings and withering flowers bent under the rain.

Finally, we made our way towards the caves, two lumpy dark shadows brimming the dark, following the winding secret path. The blood-red-petalled flower, the emptied hollow and log. I felt a shiver crawl down my spine at the small signs; once, they could have been meaningless, but not anymore.

"Like this." Zara's whisper brought us to halt in our procedure. I glanced at her movements, and copied them: crouched in the mud, behind a large, towering boulder. Two hands set on our weapons, just in case we needed to fight. Eyes squinting forwards.

My eyes, however, darted between Zara's cave and Eve's cave, and then back again; I tried my best not to slip in the slick mud.

Eventually, I decided to fixate my gaze on only Eve's cave, and pierced through it with my gaze, focusing hard. Eventually I thought of tapping my moonstone necklace, bending and attracting the rare shafts of light from the sky towards us.

As I sucked them towards me, they illuminated the hut, clearing up all the smudged, dark blurs from the rain. With that, I could definitely see more than one shadowed silhouette marching through the cave, and it also helped me hear the rumbling footsteps and furious shouts of struggle.