Page 2 of A Dance of Water

White hair, blue eyes, pale skin, and the sun’s golden rays shimmering behind her against the water’s surface, mingling with the impressions of green from the leaves. She trailed her pointer finger up, dipping directly over the rippling image of the sun. She watched, transfixed, as tiny waves cascaded outward from her singular, harmless touch.

A thought came to her, then, so amusing that an out-of-place laugh bubbled up in her chest.

"Who—" she started.

Her voice broke with disuse, cracked and husky with sleep—had she been asleep?

Luella shook the fleeting thought away, no more than that of the drifting petals of a flower in the wind. Here one moment, gone the next. She forgot what she had even been thinking as she stared at the water.

She licked her lips and started over. "Who knew little old me could be so important?"

The water did not respond, but she swore the very air seemed to still from the words. The reflection of the sun grew blotted out from her touch, alone.

Just when she was going to dive into the water’s taunting depths—discover where it would lead, how long she could hold her breath before her lungs started to seize and her heart stalled—the enchanting haze that had befallen her was broken by the distant sound of leaves crunching.

Her intense fascination with the water dissipated like smoke as her head whipped up, her neck aching from the quickness of the action.

She saw nothing except the forest. Trees and more trees behind her, on either side of her. The sun shone high in the sky above her. And the untouched, pure blue of the lake before her.

It was cold against her hand, and something in that sharp bite of chill seemed to snap her out of her still reverie.

Luella’s limbs unfurled, and she stood. Her feet sank into the mud, and tiny waves lapped against her toes. Her feet were bare.

She closed her eyes briefly.

Warmth seeped out from the speckled darkness behind her lids, the ghost of touch and the scent of belonging. The tugging call of five invisible strings…

A hand against her skin, flashes of moments and words.

And she opened her eyes, the feelings leaving her bereft of their warmth. But not without it completely.

With her eyes open, Luella was still warm, a pleasant and cuddly sort of warmth that wrapped her up like she was in the embrace of a soft blanket. However, that tugging, almost uncomfortable, pull that made her feel as though she would be torn into different pieces—called in different directions—abated. It left her feeling strangely melancholy. It was a peculiar thing, to be taken somewhere different when her eyes blinked closed.

She found herself missing the brief moments when she felt nearly torn apart by that pulsing call radiating out from her soul.

Her hand pressed against her belly, her chin dipping to rest on her sternum as she stood by the water’s edge andfelt.

Memories trickled in slowly the longer her eyes were closed, and the rush of sights and scents cascaded over her.

Curling horns and tanned skin, whispered lullabies. Iron manacles and delicate chains. Lies. Wobbling lips and teary eyes. Treachery and pleas for forgiveness.

Golden hair and a golden crown. Red apples and redder blood. Onyx scales and glinting eyes. Taking, taking, taking everything she had ever known from her and forcing her into a cage of iron. Then, a cage of gold. And finally, a cage of utter lies.

A cloak and dagger. Gloved fingers tracing the curve of her cheek. Lips pressed against hers in a library of deep secrets and shadowed corners.

White hair, scars, and a perpetual half-smirk. Eyes like ice and hands like the coals of a fire. Minty, berry-tinted liquid cooling her tongue as it was forced down her throat…

The flash of fangs and the entreating knock of knuckles against the door of her mind.

And finally, it all clicked into place.

Bastian had brought her here.

Her lips parted at the thought, at the rush of feelings and memories that swept her under a drowning tide.

Bastian had to have brought her here… right?

She could not pause on the revelation for longer and examine its validity, for just like moments prior, that thrum of feeling turned to a hazed, fleeting dissolution.

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