Raven refuses to rest. I can tell he is struggling to walk. Even in the dim moonlight, I can see he is in pain. He hobbles next to me, looking at his grotesque hands, turning them over and over again. 'Does my appearance frighten you M'lady?' he asks me, again.
'For the last time Raven Sir, no! I have seen much worse than the likes of you,' I say, touching him lightly on his arm, but having to reach my arm right up to do so.
'I do love hearing your voice again, M'lady, if you don't mind my saying so.' Raven finally puts his hands down and just walks. Even with him limping, I have to walk briskly to keep up with his huge strides.
'I am enjoying speaking again,' I say. And I am. At the time, it didn't faze me that I couldn't talk. Back in the other place, people talked all the time but rarely seemed to say anything of importance. I never missed it because I never had it.
My memories have begun to leak back to me, trickling through my subconscious like the beginnings of a waterfall. I remember my ship much more vividly than before. I remember the creaking of its hull on the waves, the sounds of its sails in the winds, the feel of its deck beneath my bare feet.
I have even found other memories of great battles with sea serpents. Hunting for treasure on dangerous, beast-infested islands. Islands made of sharp, blackened rocks and caves that you could get lost in for a lifetime and beyond. Memories of wars, fighting in the water alongside Merpeople. Of long nights on the shore, sand beneath my toes and a fire burning, my crew singing songs of our battles and times at sea.
More than ever now, I long for home. Now that it is more than just a dream or a feeling, now that home is so close. The only things that I can't remember are myself, Raven and the Lady of the Land. I definitely feel a connection to Raven, but that is it, he is just missing from all my memories. Puzzle pieces lost.
'Raven?' I ask in my new voice.
'Yes, M'lady?' he says, wincing a little.
'Do you remember much of our life before now?' I ask, trying not to give away anything of my own lack of memories.
'To be honest, M'lady, not much. Although, I remember you.' He looked down at me with his strange blue-grey eyes that are illuminated by the dim moonlight. 'I knew that I had to find you. I felt it like it was the most important thing in the world to me.'
I look up at the towering beast lumbering beside me. I hold up my hand in the dark, it is still tiny, like a six-year-olds. Raven looks at it a moment, looks at his own taloned mitt and then takes mine. It is swallowed up in the mass of claws, scales, and feathers, but it is warm.
We walk a little longer. 'How are you feeling?' I ask.
'Better M'lady,' he says. He walks heavily as if he is drunk.
'I think it is best if we stop, we both need to rest and we cannot see a thing anyway, save ourselves,' I say and stop walking. Letting my hand fall out of his.
'Seeing as though there have been no signs of shelter anywhere, what better place than here?' Raven says.
I sit down on the soft grass, suddenly feeling how tired I actually am. It is a mild night and I guess that shelter is not really necessary anyway. I lie down and feel my eyelids are heavy and my legs are sore.
Despite the mild night, I find myself shivering on the grass. I try bundling myself into a ball, but my small child's frame does not hold its own heat well.
I feel the movement behind me before I hear his voice in my ear. 'You are cold M'lady?' Without seeing him in front of me, I can almost put a face to his voice. The face he used to have. The memory of him is so close, like a word on the tip of my tongue.
'Yes,' I say, not bothering to deny it.
I see his shadow loom over me and then feel his soft downy arm wrap under my body. I feel him embrace me and pull me in close to him, enclosing me completely in his patterned feathers.
'I'm not hurting you, M'lady?' I hear him say, but I cannot answer him, I am already falling asleep.
I awake to a peculiar sight. The same watermelon colored sky as this land has had since I arrived, but this time it is illuminating a vast expanse white desert. The pink light glints and sparkles off the distant ground, far below me.
In my sleepy state, this image just doesn't make sense to me. Where is the ground that we were lying upon? Am I flying with Raven? Am I still dreaming?
I feel Raven stirring and then he begins to roll towards me just as I work it out. Just as I work out where we had stopped for the night.
'Raven! Stop!' I call out to him trying to grab onto the grassy ledge of the cliff face. I watch as large chunks of earth come loose and plummet down the cliff side. My body goes rigid as I try to resist the long drop.
Suddenly, I am rolled out of the way, everything is blanked out by black feathers. Once we reach a distance that Raven deems safe, he holds me out in his arms, his stormy eyes searching me. 'M'lady! I ... I am so sorry!'
'Were we next to that all night?' I ask. I can still hear the tip-tapping of rocks scattering down the cliff side. We sit up and look around. Like everything seems to be in this land, the cliff stretches on forever, in both directions. 'I don't know how we could have missed this.'
'I don't know M'lady,' says Raven, as he stands up next to me.
He helps me to my feet and I follow his gaze. We look out over the white, glistening surface below. The wind is still and I can smell the pungent smell and taste that the dry salt bed gives off. It burns my face and eyes. But, then I notice, it is not the smell, I am simply sad. I know what this place is and I know what it used to be.
This was my ocean and this is where my ocean died.
'This used to be the ocean, didn't it?' I ask Raven. I feel torn apart. Sorrow hollows itself a home inside me. This was my baby, my child, I created it out of my own body, and that witch killed it. Big salty tears stream down my face as I mourn for my daughter, the Sea.
I look up at Raven to find a face that mirrors my own sorrow. I look back at my dead child, now a baron wasteland of shimmering salt crystals. 'Without you M'lady, it is nothing. Without you, there is no ocean, no streams nor waterfalls, no rain nor mist. Without you, our home has dried up.'
I think about what the fairy had said to me, about what she had called me. Queen of the Sea, giver of Earth Blood. Tears run out of my eyes in the same silver streams that had covered my skin. They run down my body and trickle off the ends of my fingertips and find their way over the edge of the cliff.
I take a step towards the cliff and feel Ravens humongous, clawed hand on my chest. 'No, M'lady,' he says.
I simply hold out my hand and he lets me move forward. As I get closer to the edge, I notice a sign that I swear was not there before. A little painted sign, similar to the one I had seen at the beginning of the stairs. It says 'Labyrinth.' I look sidelong down the cliff wall and I can see it. The cliff does not simply go straight down but is interlaced with a network of horizontal rock walls. It is a maze.
Raven joins me by my side. 'I think the only way is down M'lady,' says Raven.
I manage a little laugh at his obvious comment. 'I fear that you are right Raven Sir.' I sit down on the side of the cliff and dangle my feet over, loosening more stones off the edge. 'Give me your hands Raven.' He hesitates. 'C'mon man! Hands!' I order, like the captain I am meant to be. 'You can just lower me to the ledge below, we can begin making our way down, going from wall to wall.'
Raven gives me his hands and plants his feet firmly on the ground. He holds my arms tightly, his claws dig into my skin, but I try not to bring his attention to it. I dangle for a moment above the first rung of the labyrinth, unable to touch the ground. 'You are going to have to drop me Raven.'
'No, M'lady. The walls look too thin and ...' Raven protests.
'Drop Me!' I say louder, his claws cutting a little deeper as he struggles to hold onto me.
'No, M'lady, I cannot,' Raven says.
'Drop me now, that's an order, Sir,' I say.
Raven lets go of just one of my arms and then the other. I drop down to the ledge, landing on my hands and knees. The wall makes a low groaning and a small crack appears where the ledge joins the wall. I gain my balance in a crouching position, waiting for the rock ledge to stop creaking, not wanting to make any sudden movements.
I move to the side, making room for Raven. 'C'mon, I think it's safe.'
Raven lowers himself down easily, but the ledge groans angrily again. I feel the wall suddenly shift downwards and we both hold our arms out to steady ourselves. 'I think it is best if we move,' says Raven.
'Okay, maybe you should go first this time,' I say, gesturing to the next step only a few feet in front of us. I look down as Raven lowers himself on to the next level, it is still a little drop even for him, but not as much as it was for me. Once landed, he holds out his wing-like arms to catch me. I can feel in the way that he holds me, that he is trying his hardest not to scratch me, but it cannot be helped.
At first, the labyrinth seems to just weave backward and forwards, straight down, no corridors or long pathways at all. We have only made it five ledges down when we hear it, a loud crack from above, like the rumble of a thunderstorm. A scattering of stones skips past us. We both look up to see the first ledge we landed on, break off from the wall. We look at one another and rush to get down the next slab.
The large block of stone, a good five foot long and two foot thick comes tumbling down, crashing into the one below it, like immense dominoes. It only takes a moment, but now the next one is also hurtling down towards us.
We jump down, from ledge to ledge, trying to find an escape. The sound is a deafening roar and closing in. Rocks spray and spill all around us. I hold my hand on the wall to steady myself for the next decent and I can feel the vibration of the avalanche as it comes closer.
I feel the explosion as the debris hits the slab above, the shock rips through my body and I feel Raven's arms wrap around me, completely enclosing me in darkness.