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76th of Fall, 495 AV
Alaia was curled up in the chair before her desk; her feet perched on the edge of the seat with her knees to her chest as she brushed her comb through long gilded tresses. Her chin rested comfortably between the bumps of her knees as she let her mind wander. The nights were always long to the young Konti, endless it seemed and tonight wasn’t any different. She could hear the tide ebbing and flowing with the cool breeze that lazily fell through her window; she just wanted to be outside with her feet in the water looking up at the stars. Unfortunately it was bed time according to her mother and she knew her sisters were long asleep by the silence that radiated through their family home. Having four sisters didn’t exactly lead to a quiet life, being the youngest in most houses usually would mean the loudest and also the first to bed – in Alaia’s family it was different, she was the quietest and always the last to sleep and first to wake.
Leth’s light cast a silver glow upon her room illuminating the plain white decorations and making her neatly folded sheets almost seem like a welcoming cloud. The brush slid through her hair with ease after several strokes to calm the abuse of the windswept waves after a day outside. The chimes past and the young girl remained in her trance-like state letting her mind calm and her senses dull until she finally uncurled from the chair and placed down her brush. Standing her white nightgown shifted and fell to her ankles, the cotton breathing in the cool night air. With a few steps she crossed the room and slid under her fresh sheets and letting her long hair spill across the pillows, pulling the blankets up to her chin she closed her eyes and let out a slow breath. She practiced this slow breathing for only a few chimes before her mind began to feel heavy and without even realizing she was pulled into the depths of her dreams.
One moment she could feel the cool pillow against her cheek and almost taste the sea in the air and then her world was blazing hot and she couldn’t smell the ocean anymore or feel her pillow….
Sweat beaded on her brow as the familiar sounds of the jungle chased her through thick under brush, her feet pressed into the moist dirt and decomposing leaves while her heart pounded evenly in her chest. Thrill bled through her veins like poison and she felt her mouth curl into a predatory smile, lips sticking to her gums briefly in the process. She was thirsty, thirsty for water but she was also thirsty for the meal that was dashing through the forest in leaps and bounds. Her prey was clumsy as it ran, its fear staining the forest like a brand calling out to every predator in the general area.
A floating bird call echoed through the sunbathed leaves and her own throat vibrated a snarling response that mimicked a growl from their revered tigers. They were herding the prey and closing in fast, she could hear the others now and she felt her hand grip at the spear as if it were simply an extension of her powerful arm. Her mouth watered and her feet pushed harder into the ground vaulting her over a fallen trunk and that’s when she spotted him, he was beautiful. The fear in his eyes as he glanced back at her galloping body was delicious and she raised her arm ready to throw the spear into him while the others circled around the other side of him just in case she missed….She didn’t plan on missing.
His large eyes filled her vision like black discs and just before her weapon pierced him the scene gave way to another …