here is yet another excerpt :)
Clureax found her arm to still be stiff as she tried to throw the blue tunic over the clothes line outside Oshgah’s tent. Only a week had passed and yet the wound was well on its way to being healed. Clureax no longer felt the continual ache, though the memory of the sword slashing through her flesh burned hotly at the vanguard of her mind. Even as she thought of it at that moment she couldn’t help but cringe. The pain became intense and she found herself growing dizzy.
It took Clureax a very short while to seat herself on the ground next to a tree. The green swirling mass around her slowed to a more focused picture of leaves and trees. She took deep slow breaths in an attempt to calm herself down. The aching was returning as her body began to feel more connected and the light-weight feeling of before crashed with the reality of gravity. Clureax slumped even more heavily against the tree as exhaustion began to sink in.
The past couple days had passed slowly and painfully for Clureax. She found that sitting around and being waited on was a bore and that she would prefer to help Oshgah and Tyla with their daily tasks, or at least be able to help Perlobb clean weapons or even just to care for her stallion. She knew that the others had grown tired of instructing her to sit down and relax.
After a couple of minutes of sitting weightily against the tree, Clureax raised her weary body up, and not without difficulty, began to move away from the tents. She found herself wandering through the trees at a turtle’s pace, but then, where was there for her to go that required much speed?
As she roamed through the trees, Clureax couldn’t help but take in the grandeur of it all. The leaves held daintily to the outstretched branches. A breeze gently caressed the sails of the branches and caused them to dance in the air. Flowers and blades of grass nodded at her as she passed. The breeze occasionally strengthened and caused the grass to bow closer to the earth. Then it would calm and the grass would erect back to its former position. The river could be heard as it rushed by on the other side of the barricade of foliage. Taking a deep breath, Clureax reached her hand forward and pushed aside branches and slid through the curtain of trees. On the other side, her body relaxed as she took in the comforting sight of Waiting Beach.
Waiting Beach had been a place where Clureax would wait for her father when she was younger. She could see the Waiting Tree that stood on the edge of the beach close to the water’s edge. Its thick and gnarled trunk still held the same patterns of steps that she had journeyed up every day to wait for her saupsi. The trees seemed to form a protective wall around the sandy haven. Only one person could slide through at a time and they had to force their way through. From the river, it looked nearly impossible to get through.
There in the middle of the beach was Pond Rock. The rock had been eroded down in the center to form a perfect little pool. Whenever it rained, the little pool filled up. Birds could always be found bathing in the pool after a good rain. It still stood tall and resolute. It reached higher than Clureax and she had always loved climbing up it to see if any water had gathered in it after a good rain.
Clureax found her vision blurring as she stared at this sacred piece of ground. So many memories of her saupsi’s homecomings were filling her mind. She could remember all the times that he asked the oarsmen to row closer to the shore for him. He would dismount and wade the last two feet up the beach to meet up with Clureax. The rafts would continue onward to where the men would unload them from the water.
The reunions between Clureax and Saupsi had always been sweet. So much had to be said and so little time granted it. Clureax could still remember the way Saupsi always acted so interested in even the most boring of things. He would always bring her back a small gift and always he would say, “This little object cried out to me as I passed and told me of how it longed to meet the infamous Clureax! So I brought it home to see my little Clurry.” he would then smile and tuck the small object into her small child hands.
Clureax looked down at her hands and found that she had squeezed them tightly together at the memory. It caused her arm to hurt from the force with which she was squeezing. But she felt that if she loosened her grasp, all the memories would slip away and she would be left completely alone.
She suddenly shook her head and slowly unwound her tightly squeezed fingers. Again she could feel the dizziness of reality setting in and she weaved her way slowly to the fuzzy outline of Pond Rock. Upon reaching it, she lay down against it, completely exhausted. Her breathing was short and labored. She tilted her head back against the rock and slowly abandoned her aching body to sleep. But before her mind went completely unconscious to the world surrounding her, she gave a small pitiful cry, “I miss you Saupsi.” and then she closed her tear streaked eyes.
This was how Oshgah found her a short while later. The old woman’s heart broke at the vulnerability of a young girl who had been forced to grow up faster than she was supposed to. She wished that she could shield her from all of the secrets and the stories. The young girl didn’t need to know about a broken past. She didn’t need the weight of the lives of three hundred and fifty men on her shoulders either. She was just too young for all the responsibilities life had bestowed upon her. Not wanting the young girl to strain herself, Oshgah left to go and fetch Perlobb.