The skies had been clear that morning, she should have known better. As the night began to fall upon her and that blasted tree she had been so lovingly beating to a pulp, so did the rain. One drop turned to two, quickly to ten and then the skies opened up and all hell was breaking loose. It was the kind of rain that soaked a person down to the very bone…..the very soul. Rain always did that to her, left her shivering, cold, and something else. Scared. The rain did what most humans could never do to her. She was regretting having not stopped at that farmhouse a number of miles back to ask to stay in their barn in exchange for some labor. The weather had been clear and she didn’t want to stop yet. Now, as the rain howled around her, she wished she had. Hindsight was twenty/twenty she knew.

Screams from a distant memory echoed in her mind. “No! No! Mama, Papa! Don’t go!” the screams she had heard a thousand times in her mind. Both in the awake world and the sleeping one. “NO!” she screeched against the wind, “NO! GO AWAY!” she tried desperately to use her magic, to create light, or fire, or anything to keep the rain at bay, to shut the voices out, even knowing it would fail. It was silly of her, and she knew it, only in times like now did she ever lose her composure. “WHY!” she shrieked, “WHY CAN’T IT WORK ALONE!!!!” Her words swallowed by the wind and rain never to be heard.

She slumped helplessly against the tree trunk, knowing as she had always known, that her magic only worked with him. The last person she wanted to think about right now. And the person she needed to think about most right now. This was all his fault. She scowled now, focusing her energy on that over the rain. If he hadn’t left the agency she never would have had to go on this stupid journey and she most certainly would not currently be soaking wet and thinking of things that were definitely best left forgotten. Yes, that’s right, it was all his fault.

She was just settling back into the tree trunk again, knowing she couldn’t sleep but also knowing that leaving the canopy of leaves was only going to mean she was more wet and more miserable when she saw it. Out in the distance there was a soft glow of candlelight. Candlelight? Here in the hills far away from society? Who could possibly be exploring the hills in this weather? But she already knew the answer to that question without it even needing to be asked. She could feel him even more then she could see him. She knew. She would always know. And it annoyed the snot out of her. That annoyance didn’t stop her feet from dashing of into the rain after that ball of light…..