encounter

He clenched his fist suddenly, and touched his brow with his knuckles. Badly he wanted to know freedom--choice--the power of knowledge and control. They had never known it, the children of Isaak Romany. Only when they left home and wandered in Braedoch Forest had they held the illusion of being their own. They had only to come home to remember that other forces shadowed their lives; that another power controlled them. Maeron Duard, their guardian, had watched them with a strange malice even as he raised them.

And then the banishment... and instead of becoming free, Taerith felt more bound than ever. He had not chosen to be here. He did not know what he wanted now. Something else was pushing his life, and he did not know where.

He rose and wandered in the field, letting his booted feet sink in the furrows. He strode back and forth and in circles, and it occured to him that all his pacing was nothing more than a bitter metaphor for his own life. Suddenly angry, he stopped and dropped to his knees on the soft earth. He looked up to the sky and shook his head. Empty skies... there were no answers there.

Suddenly a movement caught his eye. Something was flying in the air above, just beyond a wisp of cloud that the sun was slowly burning away.

* * *

Chapter Six of Taerith is up! Come, read, comment.