Xanderian woke from her sleep with a start, the Chamber of Stars silent and dark around her. She cast aside the silken sheets in the moonlight with a violent flourish, eyes wild, but there was no denying the truth…she was still alone in the large bed, her face wet with tears.
It had been a dream. Just a dream. One of so many. A dream forged from a memory.
“A dream...nothing more….” She said aloud and rose, padding barefoot across the cold stone of the Chamber to a flagon of clear wine on the map table. The moonlight danced over her pale skin as she drank deeply, letting the cool liquid serve to wash away the images…his smile, his eyes, his scent, his touch…but it could not. They lingered, impossible to deny.
With an impotent rage, she dashed the crystal goblet to the floor.
“No...that was no dream.” The words were hers, but the voice was not as she spun to see a fleeting reflection of a figure in the spilt wine…an elven womanchild, no older then she had been when she had left Imladris that first time. Her hair was long and braided back and the same midnight onyx as Xanderian’s, her exposed ears a bit more gently curved and less pointed but her skin the same milky white…yet her eyes…her eyes were a deep caramel brown. Brown.
Xanderian heard the voice again, like the whisper of an autumn breeze…her voice, but not her voice. “Find him. Find him…he is nearly whole.”
Xanderian turned like a flash, reaching for the sword she was not wearing on her bare hip but gasped as she met the brown eyes of the young elleth standing right behind her, gleaming, a creature made solely of moonlight and hope.
The brown eyes sparkled with a familiar mischief as the mirage spoke again, their noses practically touching. “Find him…Amil.”
Xanderian crumpled to the stone floor in a dead faint.
When she woke the shade was gone but she was still bathed in moonlight as little time had passed in reality, however for her soul, an eternity had passed since she had swooned. She was finally decided and there was no going back.
She quickly dressed and armed herself, taking several quivers before slipping Heartbreaker over her shoulder. The bow cooed lovingly to her, as if approving her newfound resolve, as if telling her it was about time.
The huntress stalked quickly through the silent House of Three Graces, all other denizens asleep or elsewhere, her soft boots hiding her passage. She let them all sleep but knew they would worry for her sudden disappearance. There was no choice for it, she had to move fast and silent...and alone. She paused in one doorway however, glancing in to see Finchley, asleep like a little girl in a tight ball on the bed that had once been his, covered in kittens and a woolen nightgown. In her fist was a half eaten turkey leg, now forgotten and tangled in her short hair.
For a moment Xan was tempted to embrace and wake the woman, to bring her on this hunt beside her. Surely it concerned her as much as it did Xanderian, if not more-so.…but she stopped herself. No, let her rest, safe under the Banshee’s watchful eye and the protection of the trees. Her quiet, pleasant life had already been shattered beyond repair by all that had transpired, by all the “might have been”s and “shouldn’t be”s. Her beloved adopted sister need not be troubled more yet…unless the news she returned with was good.
The thought of sisters reminded Rian of something and she concentrated to close her mind to Xandilif…this hunt was her’s and her’s alone, be it a success or a heartbreaking failure.
A few more moments and she was saddling her horse…and tying a second’s reins to her saddlehorn. She patted the nose of the spare steed which nickered softly, a gentle grey mare called Rain, who once long ago had borne Hawke back to Bree from imprisonment in Kheledul. “Sweet Elbereth, let her bear him again…” she whispered as she rode to the waiting ship to take her to the mainland. Her first goal was to return to the cliffside where he fell...to look for the signs she could not seek on that terrible day.
“No dream...” Xanderian muttered to herself, trying to remember the twinkle in those caramel brown eyes. “No dream…not anymore.”
