There was peace...
Smell of earthy grass, floral and woodsy musk...
A soothing breeze...
Birds chirping, rustling sound of trees...
Neva slowly opened her eyes.
And she saw the grey and black branches snaking through swarm of wavering yellow leaves, and through the agapes, the beautiful azure sky with faint slow drifting clouds.
She just lay there, to breathe.
There was silence in her head.
A good tranquiled quietness.
Then through her pheriperal vision she found someone lying beside.
Neva turned dazedly...
And her eyes met with the familiar ones.
The ocean eyes that greeted her the first all the mornings in these past four years.
Ishmael caressed her face.
Neva gasped and sat up abruptly.
Confused and all muddled...
She frowned at him sitting up too.
She gripped her head between her hands.
Wasn't she with Rhett on the sofa?
No, she remembered waking up, unable to sleep and being out on the balcony.
And what after?
"Neva," Ishmael held her shoulder.
Neva harshly shoved his hand away.
"Don't touch me!"
They were sat over the pasture, underneath the shade of the green ash tree.
Yellow leaves falling softly on the ground—where new and moulding leaves were piled over, scent of bitter grasses and sweet florals wafting in her nose.
The birds twittering, soft whooshing sound made by the wind whispering through the tall grasses and wildflowers.
She was in a meadow.
A meadow!
Widened eyes looked at the lush green meadow all around her. A sweeping, wide ranging nature around her.
She glanced at Ishmael again.
Who was absorbing each of her detail, studying her expression, calculating her moves.
Her heart twisted, hammering fast and loud.
Oh God what happened?
"Neva," Ishmael reached to caress her face again.
Neva looked away.
Ishmael frowned.
A flicker of hurt in his eyes.
"Where am I?" Neva asked.
"Miraeth." Ishmael replied.
Neva immediately turned to him.
Astonishment in her warm cocoa pools.
"We're back home." He smiled.
He held her hand but she flinched away again.
He felt a pang. A gnawing in his chest.
"Tell me you haven't abandoned me Neva." Ishmael's voice was shaky.
"Tell me you longed for me. Tell me you still love me."
Neva didn't say anything.
Hot tears threatened to fall from her eyes.
"They forced you right?"
Still.
Not a word from her.
She did not even glance at him.
He harshly gripped her jaw.
"Answer me!"
Neva was forced to look at those black, stark eyes of his.
Ishmael's face was darkened.
She had never seen him this angry.
Neva's jaw hurt.
Her hands attempting to remove his hand.
He squeezed her cheeks further.
She closed her eyes, tears streaming down her face.
Ishmael gritted his teeth so hard that his jaw trembled.
He let her go roughly.
Neva's face was shoved sideways.
The soreness in her jaw lingered.
"Why? Did you remember?"
Neva only stared at the ground with the decaying grass... tears dropping on the ground.
Biting her lip to not let a sound escape.
"Speak Neva!"
She flinched.
"No," she choked out.
He sighed.
He cupped her cheeks and made her face him. "Look at me." He softly said.
"He lied to you."
She grabbed his wrists and shoved them away.
"It's you who's lied to me!" Neva glared at him. Her tears unceasingly falling.
Ishmael's gaze was tender. "All they want is my fall. You were manipulated."
"I wasn't!"
"You're confused. I don't blame you."
"I'm not a fool." Neva seethed.
Ishmael frowned. "Of course not."
"I want to go back! Take me back!"
There was a hint of pity in his dark brown eyes.
And Neva abhorred it. She abhored him.
"You're a horrible person."
All these years, he had been anything but honest to her. How was she so blind!
Ishmael turned to the scenery.
Straightened his long sinewy legs, flattened his palms on the ground.
He then leaned back, and faced the blue sky.
The autumn meadow in Miraeth was still lush and green.
This place was still very vivid in his mind.
He breathed in.
The sweetness from wildflowers, and musky scent of decomposing leaves. The gentle breeze blowing his hair. "Isn't it refreshing?"
"I never thought we would be back here after everything."
"Why did you bring me here?" Neva fisted the grass.
"You let them take my children away."
"You didn't leave me a choice."
"You should have just let them be.
You were disgusted with being a mother to Naya and Isaiah anyway."
"How could you?" Neva was in disbelief.
He was playing mind games with her.
She did not recognise this man before her.
He looked at her seriously.
"Yes. I had your memories remove.
What of it?"
Her lips tightened.
Shaky eyeballs glaring at him.
She believed all that they had warned her about him.
But still it hurt. It hurt so much.
Perhaps, somewhere a small part of her still hoped he couldn't be this spiteful.
That he wasn't as vicious as they had portrayed him.
"Why?" She croaked.
"Why did you have to be so cruel?"
"I love you."
"You are wicked."
"I can't live without you." He paused for a short moment.
"I wanted to give you the world."
"I trusted you."
His eyes softened. "Neva,"
"I loved you."
Ishmael carefully took a shuddering Neva in his arms.
"No. I thought I did."
She was still, unmoving as he buried his face in the crook of her neck.
"You were never the man I believed you to be."
His gaze turned bleak.
"Come back to me.
Nothing has changed."
Neva struggled against his caging hold. Squirming as he only squeezed her in his tightened grip.
"I changed!" She blurted, still forcing him away with clenched fists on his chest.
"I had been happier than I ever was during these past four days with Rhett than I ever did with you."
"Did you?" He smiled painfully.
And his arms weakened.
He breathed out shakily as he let her push him away.
Neva moved back.
Hatred in her scarlet eyes.
She then stood up.
How could she escape now?
Rhett? Was he okay?
Was her family alright?
"I did not bring you here." Ishmael stated.
She didn't care to listen.
"I was still in Erriador looking for you."
"You—" "I see that you're both awake!"
Neva was cut off by a faraway, startling voice.
She turned to find a tall man waving at her from a distant.
He smiled and approached them, making way carefully as he walked through the tall pasture that rose to his knees.
Something green in his other hand.
Ishmael arose and slid Neva behind him.
His frame towering.
His face stern and brows puckered at the unfamiliar face.
Neva pursed her lips at him.
The man almost came running towards them now. He wore a worn, greying blue tunic, and he had brown leather sandals on his feet with cheap strings attached.
Who was this man?
Now that he was closer, she saw him a good–looking man, with the slightly tousled umber hued hair and fair skin. His eyes were hazel brown.
"Do you know him?" Neva asked.
"I don't." Ishmael replied.
He had a kutonet draped loosely around him, like the peasants, the inferior people of Miraeth dressed.
"I assumed you might be starving. I found you something to eat." He said, uncovering the food covered in the package of banana leaf.
Now Neva, who peeked to glimpse at him from behind Ishmael saw he had grapes, blackberries, apples and bread cloves and baked fish in a banana leaf.
"Who do you work for?" Ishmael asked.
He didn't have any weapons on him.
The last he remembered was him, isolated in a hotel room.
And suddenly he woke up beside Neva like a dream.
"Let us fill our stomach before we begin. Shall we?" He smiled and looked at Neva.
Neva glanced away.
The man sat himself on the ground. Then he looked up at Ishmael. "I shall relief all your burdens if you please just take a seat." He patted the ground before him.
Ishmael eyed him with suspicion.
This man had paradoxes written all over his kind face.
Ishmael sat down.
"It's fine. Stay behind." He said to her.
Neva instead sat beside him, moving a bit further away.
The man moved the bounty of meal in the middle. He plucked out a purple grape from a bunch and popped it in his mouth.
"So where do we start?" He hummed, chewing slowly, gazing up and deliberating.
Then he swallowed and faced them.
"Let me introduce myself. You can call me Jeriah."
"Who send you here?" Ishmael curtly asked.
"God." Jeriah replied.
Ishmael scoffed.
"What do you need?"
"I'm here to relay a message."
Ishmael frowned.
Jeriah turned to Neva. "I'm here to guide you to your purpose.
The chosen one.
You; who was predestined according to His purpose who works out all things in the wake of the counsel of His will."
The verse of Titus 1:1 in the Bible. Neva recalled.
But what did he mean?
"What rubbish is this?" Ishmael spat through gritted teeth.
His patience was running out.
He had to get them out as soon as possible.
Lest they wanted to be prisoned here for the rest of their life.
Then, Ishmael's hardened features slowly maimed.
No one could find them here.
Neva was with him.
It would be just as before when they were children.
Lack of sovereignty did not sound awful if he would be all she had.
If she would be all his again.
"You are the chosen one, Neva.
You will lead the people of Miraeth from out their misery."
Neva's heart flipped.
What in the world?
What chosen one?
And of course, it didn't surprise her that he did knew her name?
"I–I don't understand." Neva grew afraid.
Jeriah smiled. "In redeeming the chosen people of Miraeth will you serve your true purpose."
"Get up. We have to leave."
Ishmael gripped her arm and made her stand along with him.
"Your memories will return through dreams and visions with each ensuing days in Miraeth." Jeriah declared as Ishmael started away with Neva from the green ash tree.
They were now bared to the bright sun.
Neva felt a shiver run down her spine.
When she squinted from the brightness, and glanced over her shoulder, she saw him smiling up at her.
And she knew; knew he was not a normal man.
She had this sweltering, bursting urge to listen to him.
To believe him.
To let him guide her.
So Neva broke free from Ishmael's grip and made to walk back under the shade of the green ash tree.
Ishmael grabbed her shoulder and made her turn to him again.
"You don't believe him. Do you?" He frowned.
"Why do you care?" She retorted.
Jeriah welcomed her as she now sat accross him.
She'd be damned to have faith in a stranger in this situation. But she will be betraying herself if she chose Ishmael over any other.
"I choose to listen." Neva firmly stated.
"But I have my own questions. Will they be answered?"
Jeriah nodded. "You will be heartened with all your hesitations."
Neva sighed in relief.
Ishmael now she sensed, stood behind her.
"What is it that you want me to do?'' She asked.
Jeriah smiled.
"The people of Miraeth had long been enslaved by an emperor who dethroned the true royalties. His aim is to sever the only way to the truth and life.
He had been gradually tempting the humans into condemning themselves.
And you, my dear; along the chosen companions shall revive the lost faith of the humanity."
Neva just sat there, frozen.
"You will get all your answers down this path."
"But why me?" She felt her chest squeeze.
She was suddenly struck by the reality of him.
She cannot take upon this objective Jeriah had put forth.
"I'm weak. I'm not smart. And I can't leave my children behind."
"You're very, very wrong about yourself. And who said you have to leave behind your children.
You will need the strong foundation that your family is.
Your reason is grave. You will be scorned. You will be wounded.
But it is meaningful. And the Lord will always be with you."
Neva swallowed.
She looked down at her hands placed on her lap.
Was she dreaming? Was it a dream?
"I can't." Neva murmured.
"It's only you. All that you've gained through life had shaped you for this.
Leviathan is becoming restless.
This plague is only the beginning."
Neva looked up at him.
He was talking about Ruhd. "Who's Leviathan?"
"The emperor of Miraeth."
"He's tried you. And he will do everything in his possesion to weaken you."
"Enough!" Ishmael cut in.
"You've swayed her enough." He was bitter, his face was blackened.
And Neva saw a hint of fear in his cold eyes.
"You'll wake in your home.
If you don't decide until tonight; fear the unthinkable." Jeriah said.
"No wait. I can't. Please I can't." Neva shook her head.
Her mouth had shrivelled up, her lips dry. And she was shivering, panicking.
She can't shoulder it, she can never uphold such immense responsibility.
"Do not be afraid."
"She doesn't know what you're casting her upon." Ishmael clenched his fists.
His heart was hammering loudly in his ears.
For all that he was unaware of this stupidity; he knew it, his soul screamed at him, if Neva did follow him; he will lose her for forever.
"It is you who will lead her back to Miraeth." Jeriah said to Ishmael.
"The truth will be revealed."
Neva only heard the shallow whispers of Jeriah, weaved with the whooshing of wind through the trees and the wildflowers.
Before her eyes went black.
And she felt herself falling on her side.