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Old 05-14-2004, 08:19 AM   #205
Nerindel
Spirited Weaver of Fates
 
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Join Date: Apr 2003
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Sorona

Sorona circled once then twice before, she left the Maenwaith in her cave. She repeated the word “Maenwaith!” letting it roll comfortably off her tongue; it had come to her the minute the leopard had transformed before her very eyes into a young desert woman. The transformation had not surprised her as she knew it should have, instead it had brought a warm familiarity. The young Maenwaith’s gold-flecked eyes brought with it yet another long buried memory, the image of two young women, one resembling closely the Maenwaith before her and the other a little taller with darker hair dancing and laughing merrily at the others happy song, both free and unburdened. However, that memory brought with it a deep and regretful sorrow, which ached her heart. She now found herself glancing at her feathered outstretched wings. ‘Was I once that dark haired carefree young woman? Were this woman and her people the ones she was to find?’

She had tried to explain who she was and why she was here to the young woman in the cave, but having not spoken to anyone but birds for nearly two decades it had proved near impossible. The words had come out in a jumble of eagle squawks, distant resurfacing desert tongues and several other tongues she had learned to understand during her travels in the northlands. Nevertheless, she thought she had managed to convey at least her name and that she was not a threat if nothing else. The young woman, who at first had seemed guarded and wary, had relaxed and she had found herself desperately wanting to tell her about the dream and the young merchant in the city, hoping to unburden herself and return north to the comfort of the mountains? But the longer she had stayed in the cave the more her own caution had set in; after all, she did not know this woman no matter what memories she roused in her.

“No” Sorona thought shaking her feathered head, as she flew. “This is silly it is a dream nothing more!” She scolded herself, “there are no…….” her words trailed to a terrified gasp, as in the hazy heat straight ahead on the eastern horizon a city rose into view, the city in her dreams! Without another thought, she wheeled around, nervously glancing up into the blue skies as if half expecting a dark shadow to pass at that instant blocking out the light of the sun. She headed back in the direction of the Maenwaith Woman, Rama she had named herself. The young woman had spoken of her clan, inviting her to journey with her. There at least will be others, elders perhaps who would better understand and know what to make of her dreams, she thought.

“If even they believe me!” she muttered to herself

As she sped in the direction that Rama had told her she would be travelling, she found herself more than once wondering if she was losing all grasp of reality. What if the city had simply been a mirage brought on by her confusion and anxiety after all she had just been thinking of it and there it was! Too much of a coincidence to be real, she thought. But the rest the memories and the familiarity they seemed so real that she decided to stay her course to whatever may be or was? Nothing was clear but some how she knew that she must find answers and this woman was her only real link to the hazy past that was surfacing in her mind.

~*~

It was well past noon by the time she found the woman and to her mild surprise, she was not alone, accompanying the desert rider upon great lumbering desert ships were two others. “Not desert people,” she mused, seeing the discomfort of the second rider and they seemed a lot taller even on camelback than the other desert dwellers she had seen. For an instant as she watched the riders, she thought she saw something else, a dark spot dropping from the sky and then it was gone. She hurried on and turned a graceful arch above the riders, giving a high-pitched “Kee-kee-kee” to let Rama know she was there.

The woman raised her head shielding her eyes with her hand and Sorona gave a friendly incline of her head as she passed again, this time noting that the other two riders where men, as they too raise their heads to look upwards. Their grey eyes watching her for a while as she silently glided on the warm currents above them. ‘North men’ she pondered thoughtfully. She felt as if pieces of an intricate puzzle were being laid before her and she could not see how to fit them together. The out of place Umbarian merchants, this young Maenwaith and her Northern companions, the city… She shuddered as the memory of the dream rose again to the forefront of her mind.

She shook the image away and concentrated on trying to remember something that would help her to fit all the pieces of this puzzle together.
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