[Aylwen Dreamsong]

It had been too long.

Cartil had lost all hope of being rescued or escaping his prison. Had everyone back at Alphirion and Swan Wood forgotten him? Had they even realized that he was missing? Perhaps they forgot him long ago. The elves had told him they would be back to help save him...but now Cartil was unsure that he had not simply imagined the meeting.

He was stuck in the Wild King's tent. It stank, it stank of many things that Cartil could identify but wished he could not. Cartil could no longer feel his legs or his arms, but it mattered not to him anymore. He longed for fresh air, but at that point Cartil knew that wishes were useless and frivolous.

Cartil began to wonder if Jesslyn was alive. He wondered if Laurel or Thagon and Leena or Herebrand and everyone else had survived. Cartil wondered if he was the only one left, and actually chuckled at the thought. There was naught he could do either way. Cartil longed for the sound of someone's familiar voice, he longed for tangible proof that everyone and everything would turn out fine.

Despite all of his wishes, Cartil had given up.

~*~

Jesslyn couldn't sleep.

How could she? How could she honestly sleep with her brother either dead or dying? Of course, Jesslyn didn't know if such was the case, but why else would Laurel have hidden his whereabouts? Something bad must have happened to him, otherwise Cartil would have been there at Jesslyn's bedside, and the girl knew it in her heart. He wasn't there, and in Jesslyn's mind that meant that he was somewhere in trouble.

The nurses and healers had other people to worry about than Jesslyn apparently, for they left her after they were convinced of her feigned sleep. Jesslyn sat up, swaying for a moment with the dizzyness that swamped her. When she had recovered from the effects of her head wound, Jesslyn darted from her cot and began to sneak her way to a back door. She had to do something to help her brother! Jesslyn wanted to know he was fine, though a nagging voice in the back of her mind told her it was pointless to look. She didn't know where he was, only that he was in trouble.

Jesslyn sprinted out of the back door, running into the Swan Woods. She let the stray branches hit her face and body, and didn't bother dusting herself off when she fell into the mud. Jesslyn's crazed frenzy to find Cartil was fueled by both her head injury and her knowledge of what her parents and family would do knowing Cartil was dead or could have been alive. Jesslyn could see their faces, she could see them mourning Cartil and blaming her. Jesslyn could see them wishing that it had been her instead of Cartil.

She couldn't let that happen. Then again, Jesslyn also didn't know where Cartil was to begin with. For almost an hour Jesslyn crawled and ran around in the forest behind the healing house, but never really going more than a mile away from it. At one point Jesslyn came out of the forest in plain view of Laurel. But then Laurel walked back into the healing house. Jesslyn didn't bother to stop and worry about Laurel seeing or not seeing her, and continued to run off into the woods to find Cartil.

[ August 02, 2003: Message edited by: Aylwen Dreamsong ]