Fire and Ice

Chapter 5: Iron Will

Day 9 Continued

There was darkness in the cavern. One couldn’t even see moonlight filtering through the small carved window high upon the wall. The ceiling was so high that one could barely see the top. When Willow was in this cavern, she had the eerie feeling that she was really small in this vast universe of darkness. She took a moment to take in her surroundings when she felt sharp, cold, biting ice. She also felt the impression that someone was behind her. Chills rose up in her spine. The presence felt familiar, too familiar. She turned her head to look to see Sherwood unconscious on the ground with Aelius looming above him.

            “I told you that you would regret not hearing me out.” Aelius said coldly. Ice gripped her heart and made her chest feel tight as Aelius’s icy eyes peered into hers.

            She jolted awake, hyperventilating up a storm. She was shaking like one of the elderly in her city. She tugged hard on the grass beneath her to keep her faculties. Aelius isn’t here now. He’s in Scene City. He’s away from you. He can’t hurt you anymore. Calm yourself, Willow. It’s ok. It was just a dream. Despite her consolations, she knew that she had these vivid dreams for a reason. She knew that Aelius would be coming for her. The thought didn’t fill her with any comfort by any means.

            Sherwood put his calm, comforting hand on her shoulder. “Are you alright, Willow?” He asked worriedly.

            “Yeah, it was just a dream.” She gritted her teeth and clenched her fists in anger.

            “I take it that this one is leaving you shaken up but in a different way than the previous one.” Sherwood said knowingly.

            “You have an insane amount of perception where I am concerned.” Willow said.

            “I don’t even know where it’s coming from.” He said with his eyes looking at her questioningly.

            “I don’t know either.” One thing that her dream of Aelius reminded her was that she can’t trust her heart. She had set her heart on Aelius for years and he always let her down. Who knows? Sherwood could be the same way. Sherwood was much different. He was much more humble, but she decided that she was going to be careful. She vowed as such when that snake, Maevy, took Aelius.

            Aelius was stupid and blind to not see what Willow saw in Maevy. She remembered how he yielded to her affections with a silly grin on his face and still looked back at Willow. He should’ve looked and see the difference in the two, but he couldn’t see others like Willow could. He is a Moon Elf anyway. All Moon Elves were caught up in pride. Willow was the only exception because she isolated herself. She broke the cycle of Moon Elf pride so therefore, she could see the real intentions in others for a majority of the time.

            She remembered how she felt when Aelius had the audacity to even try to make her come back to him. He acted as if he was irresistible, and that Willow would yield to his enticings without saying a word. He misjudged her. She had an iron will when it came to her heart. She built up those iron walls when Aelius fell prey to Maevy. Aelius deserved every word Willow said to him and more. She wished that she could’ve said what she really wanted to say to somehow make him feel the pain he caused her. If he felt the pain she felt, then he would drop dead in an instant.

            “Are you sure that you are ok?” Sherwood asked. There was no laughter in his eyes. He looked genuinely worried about her wellbeing. “You haven’t responded to me in the last five minutes and you have pulled out an entire section of grass.”