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Quince gasped and jumped up to her feet as she emerged from her memory. This was happening to her all the time now; her memories would take over and she would collapse randomly; luckily her parents hadn't seen that happen before. If they saw her collapse, and she was lucky, they would bring her to stand before the Emporium and she would have a four day trial to test whether or not she was a Foreseer. If she was unlucky, her parents would send her to the Guardians and she would likely be enslaved. She shuddered and looked up at the sun to see how much time had passed. It was almost mid-day. Her parents would be worried; she had to hurry.
She climbed up the willow tree and stopped on one of the highest branches, testing each one to make sure it was strong enough to hold her weight. She scanned the forest below, thinking about how much she absolutely despised Herkan. Every day, he pushed her to the breaking point. Every day, she sprang out at him when he least expected it and brought him down. It was a tiring process, she thought, and if she could ever escape from this world... well, she would find a way.
She shook her head and continued to search the forest until she found the small smoke pillar from the east in the forest, signaling that it was safe for her to go to camp. She was about to swing back down the branches to head to camp when the great fence in the distance caught her eye. She had always yearned to go over it, to see what was on the other side... She stopped that train of thought abruptly, and swung down to the ground, crouching and rolling so as to not break her legs from the blunt force of falling.
She could never, ever, ever go outside the walls. The fencing that surrounded her home was the only safety in her life. She could not give up that safety; her dad had given up his life so that she could be safe. She felt another memory coming but she violently shook her head. No more memories, she thought. No more distractions.
She started sprinting through the forest as fast as she could, dodging around trees and underbrush. She was just about to make a mighty leap over a giant log when she heard a stick crack behind her. Her heart jumped into her throat and she leapt up into the air, landing on the log instead of jumping over it, and whirled around, unsheathing her hidden daggers.
"SHOW YOURSELF!" She roared, angling her daggers threateningly. "COME OUT OR I'LL HUNT YOU DOWN!!!" Quince roared and put on a fierce expression, but on the inside, she was shriveling up in fear. She glanced over to the left, cursing her missing eye. She then jumped down from the log and something shot out of the bushes. She reflexively spun around and stabbed it, and then stopped herself dumbly when she saw what it was.
"Did I really just get myself so worked up over a... rabbit?" she said out loud, then laughed at herself. She could be so jumpy sometimes; she didn't know where the instinct came from, but she always jumped at every sound, every movement. Perhaps it was from before she had lost all her memories... she picked up the dead rabbit, sealing up the place where she had cut it so that its blood wouldn't get everywhere, then tossed it into the empty, folded up bag that she kept concealed beneath her jacket. "I guess I know what I'll be having for dinner tonight." she said out loud, then cringed from her own joke. She would bring the rabbit back to camp to help feed the 50 rebels who lived in this camp.
The next camps were all about 15 miles away, so Quince didn't go to any of the other camps much. This was camp Scorpion; the one where her brothers used to live was 15 miles to the east and called Fort Maine. It was the center of all of the camps; the fort held most of the supplies that the rebels used on their missions. This camp that she was at right now was camp Agave - this was where her mother lived, and where she most often went. She traveled camps a lot; This camp was about a mile away from training with Herkan, who was one of the main rebel instructors, and he was the old champion of the rebels before he had gotten a wound on his left leg that made it that he would limp for the rest of his life.
