Follow
The white sails billowed in the sea-salt wind, ropes creaking with the effort to keep the boat beside the dock. The ship – bigger than she’d ever seen on the lakes or rivers near home – strained and leaped in the choppy water, as if trying to break free. Like a nervous horse sensing a coming storm.
Or had the storm already gone?
She turned to the talking of people striding down the walkway, but their voices came to her as distant echoes, blurring and bouncing between one another till she felt dizzy from it. Even as they drew closer, they were no clearer, and so instead she watched. And reached out.
Five of them, four human and one dwarf. Each of them bearing their own worries, but none more so than the tall, blond man whose shoulders bowed with them.
Between them, they carried a stretch of canvas taut with a heavy weight. Then she realized it was a body. No, not a body, but a person. She could feel their mind, just a little, like running her fingers over the ragged edge of a torn shirt. But even that little felt… familiar.
She reached further, waiting for a memory to jar loose in her own mind. Dark brown hair, green eyes, the round ears and lighter skin of a Meadow woman. With each new detail the fog of the dream lifted, and she could nearly recall. A hand tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear as she stirred from sleep. A kind smile, a calming hush, as the woman straightened and quietly stepped away.
“You are safe now, Vela.”
Now she remembered. It was not the first time she’d dreamt of her.
She watched the ship leave, drifting away to the horizon, to paths she could not follow.
“Vela,” another voice called. “Vela.”
She grumbled, digging her face deeper into her blanket.
A hand rubbed her shoulder with a soft laugh. “Come, my little anamŵen,” the voice – Lliras – said. “It’s time to wake. We must continue yesterday’s lessons on the Builders.”
“Don’t wanna,” she huffed. “I was having a dream. A special dream.”
“Another one?” he said, and at her mumbled assent he hummed in thought. “I wonder… It is said that some mind hunters can track their quarry even in dreams. Maybe you’ve taken to your own wanderings?”
Vela finally looked up, blinking blearily against the light coming from the door. It was open a crack, just enough to let the morning sun in. Lliras knelt beside her bed with his ever-patient smile. Her ears twitched at the chirping of birds outside, and she sat up with a yawn and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. Already the sorrow of the dream, of the blond man and the torn woman, was fading from memory.
“What’s that mean?” she asked.
“It means,” he said, arching a thin, elven brow, “you may become a great mind hunter someday, as well as a great leader. Even more so with your strong soul.” Then he added, “But only after your lessons.”
Lliras chuckled as he stood. “Some food first, though, hm?”
