Mnemosyne

Lunar Lilly Muse

Chapter 5: Freeze

"So, if now's not the right time, then when is?" Aletia asked, curious, as she went on walking beside Alliyah. They'd manage to escape work for the day by going out into the forest to play. Alliyah, the leader of this expeidition, was pinning her hopes on the thought that Master might not send someone to find them, since they had already been out there so long. He would wait the girls out, though, knowing that both of them would come running back home when the sun began to set. They hated the dark.

Alliyah ground the stem of a dandelion in her teeth, the bitter fluid that squeezed out reminding her of what the tea tasted like the last time she had tried to make it.

"I don't know." She said irritably, wishing that Aletia would stop asking her, as she didn't feel like talking. "But soon," She added as an afterthought. "We'll make those running away plans soon."

Aletia grabbed the collar of her cloak, nodding weakly.

Neither one knew when the urge to get out of their respective training began. It had started as a crawling sensation underneath their skin at the thought of another day among monks; and when the longing to go to a real school began overriding the enjoyment of the tutoring they had grown up with. Sooner or later, the thought of actually making a break for it became a part of their conciousness, and then there was no going back on it.

For now, though, this little "Play Hooky" tactic was as far as they would take their rebellion.

It was good enough.

Lost in thought, Alliyah didn't notice Aletia climbing up the steep side of a small bluff covered in big rocks. The smaller child called out, "See you in a minute! Wind's calling me over here!", and that was what snapped her out of her trance.

"H...hey! Aletia, get back here! Don't move!" She called, as if her words would be enough to freeze her in place. She scarbled over the other side of a boulder at the tob of the bluff anyway and was lost from sight. Alliyah tried to climb up after her, but couldn't manage the jagged, loose rocks in her heavy boots and long cloak. She tried, but she kept scraping and slipping and wasn't yet strong enough to have any real physical strength. She had to jump down, standing anxiously at the bottom of the incline, waiting for Aletia to return.

An hour passed, Alliyah began to feel cold in her cloak. It had seeped through the fabric and goat fur lining, and stayed trapped between the layers, keeping her body insulated by freezing air.

More time passed, but she couldn't tell how long. Cold wind began to blow, playing with her hair and chapping her exposed face. Staying outside for this long in late autumn had been a mistake, she decided.

A little over twenty minutes after she'd first begun waiting, she'd sat down on the frosty ground. Bigger mistake. The cold had seeped through her clothes and moved through her limbs, sapping their strength, so now she couldn't even get off of the ground. Quietly, she sighed, letting her chin fall to her chest, eyes closing...

Only minutes after that, Aletia's curly brown head poked over the top of the bluff. Not noticing her friend's odd stance, she started to scramble back down the rocks, calling down to Alliyah the whole time about the little waterfall Wind had showed her and how clear and mirrorlike the pond under it was and wouldn't it be perfect if they made that spot their personal sancturary?

"...I lost track of time there. So sorry I'm so late." She ended the story just as she reached Alliyah's side. When she didn't look up, or even acknowledge Aletia's prescence, the girl gave her a little prod, thinking that maybe she was asleep. Instead, Alliyah slumped backwards and fell over, exposing the real situation.

Aletia gasped, kneeling down to take her pale, bluish face into her hands. She slipped her own mittens onto Alliyah's chapped, dark red, frostbitten hands and pulled her head into her lap. She looked like a porcelain doll, with her white, white skin stretched tight across her weary bones and her chest stiff under Aletia's hands.

A doll. Aletia thought. In other words: helpless.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

The journey back to her own temple was a long one, and one that was hazy in Aletia's memory. If it wasn't for the girl in her arms and the Wind at her back, she never would have been able to make it back before sunset, and then they would have been stranded.

Even the arrival wasn't too clear. She remembered seeing a higher-up monk, waiting at the gate once he'd spotted her, ready to scold. And then, it was like someone had pressed the fast forward button, and she could only remember being carried into her room, and curling up, literally, in the mound of fuzzy blankets that had been placed on her usually bare sleeping mat. With warm soup circulating through her system, she fell right to sleep, the thought of Alliyah barely rising to the surface of her mind.

If only Alliyah had it so easy.

She lay awake half the night, even after her freezing temperature was elevated and remedied, shaking in her mat, kept half-awake, half-asleep by nightmares of little demons of wind with claws made of ice. Scratching her face, her limbs, her protective clothing, anywhere they could reach until they cut her open...

And when she awoke again the next morning, she had the exclusive pleasure of seeing her Master first thing, standing over her, glaring down. She started to murmur something about getting lost and near death experiences, but he wouldn't hear it. Called her a liar and a disgrace. Smacked her in her wounded face. And then uttered the words that, deep down, she knew she was going to hear because of this misadventure.

"...You're never going to see that girl again."