"Where is Mother?" Her voice was calm and delicate.
The chirping of the night made it a perfect bedtime.
"Your mother still has things to take care of child, I'm sure she would be with you by the morning" Nicoah caressed the child with a warm smile, as she laid in her bed. It had been a long day, and it was time the little one went to bed.
"Hmm... does that mean I would have to wait till the morning?" she said after seeming to have pondered on something?
"That would be so. Are you that eager to meet her?" Nicoah asked.
She nodded her little head gently "Would it be asking too much?"
Nicoah's lips parted in a smile "No child, but you know how things are with your mother, she has a lot of responsibilities, as you would some day."
"Maybe I should have been a princess" The little one said.
"Hmm... and why would you want to be a princess?" Nicoah asked. As little as the child might be, she said the most mysterious of things most times.
The child shrugged "I heard princesses go on hunts"
Nicoah chuckled "Whoever told you that"
"Isn't it true? I heard even the Queen makes it look like embroidery" she said as her eyes lit up with sparkles.
Nicoah laughed "And who said embroidery was easy?"
"Well, Lunai makes it look easy" her voice both innocent and sincere
"Your Nourice Lunai, makes everything look easy Jezreel"
"But the Queen goes on hunts doesn't she?"
Nicoah smacked her lips "Have you been eves dropping, again child?"
She looked innocent, her eyes wide with a 'who? me?' expression "It's not eves dropping if it just drops where I am. They were just admiring, where I was"
"Hmm... well if you put it that way, I guess you're right"
Jezreel smiled widely" Speaking of which, where is Lunai?" She asked.
"You don't enjoy my company?" Nicoah asked.
Jezreel smiled as she pulled up from the bed and tingled Nicoah's nose "There is no one that can find the company of the Great High Doyen Nicoah, unenjoyable"
Nicoah couldn't help but laugh, this child was blip-tongued, and she sometimes wonder if she really was a child.
"So you tingle my nose now?"
The smile on the child's face widened making her look almost naughty " But you tingle mine all the time"
Nicoah laughed "Yeah, right. Lunai is running an errand with Raphai, so you just have to stay in bed okay?"
She nodded with a smile. And underneath it was a grin, a mischievous one, that wasn't noticable.
Nicoah stood from bedsides the child's bed where she sat "I'll be leaving now, remain tucked in, okay?"
"You're leaving already?" Jezreel's face fell and she looked downcast.
" I have a few things to take care of, sleep tight" Nicoah stopped half way and turned to Jezreel, who's face was still all mel . "Have you had any of your visions of late?"
Jezreel took a deep breath, as she pondered a little before replying "I'm not sure"
Nicoah nodded "Hmm... Alright then, don't forget to let me know when you do, or your mother "
Jezreel smiled in response.
Seeing the child understood, Nicoah exited the room.
Jezreel took deep breaths, and the grin on her face bursted, looking outrightly evil.
Like hell she was going to say anything. Last time she did, no one let her leave the temple. And today was a perfect day. She had managed to lure her two Nourrices away, her mother was occupied for the night, and her lovely side mentor Nicoah had things to do. If nothing here said 'right opportunity' then she had no idea what else would, also High Doyen Rebi was out of town.
She could tell tonight was the night, she just had to wait a little bit before she made her move.
She had to see for herself this flame of ice she saw in her vision.
Going by what she saw, it should be somewhere between the meadow and the wild forest.
She slapped her head in frustration, as she started rethinking. The one problem she had now was how to get there.
Tsk.. it wasn't like it was in her backyard or something. She would have to sneak out the temple quietly, but that wasn't the issue, she wasn't too obvious to be easily spotted. The issue was getting to the place.
Sigh...it was a long walk, and her legs were definitely not made for such. Seemed her Nourice Lunai really was a bad influence, or not,but still.
After a while, she got down her bed, and made way for the outskirts of the Temple, using her body to her advantage, she avoided getting detected. Taking the back, she successfully made it out.
The moon in the night sky was clear.
Walking out the road she found a loading cart and hid her self amongst the goods.
Following the road leading out of the city, she dropped out the cart along the way, then followed the river to the meadow, she stood at the exact place she saw in her vision, just between the meadow and the wild forest.
The night air was filled with sweet songs of crickets, the wind whispered through the trees the distant hooting of owls that echoed through the forest. Looking up, the crescent moon was bright.
Jezreel spread her arms as the gentle breeze swept over her, leaving her with a feeling of refreshment.
Just then her ears picked some strange sounds.
Curious, she followed the sound, and as she got closer, just before a massive boulder, the sound became clearer.
She could tell It was a fight, probably between two wildlings. But this was close to the meadow, from what she knew Lunai used to say, the wildlings kept away from the meadow, and stayed deeper in the wild forest.
Hmm...she started thinking, as much as she was here to see something this day, she was sure it wasn't two fighting predators.
Just as she began backing away, she heard a wolf cry,
"Awoo..." and with it came rhythmic thudding. The thudding was getting louder and closer, and quite fast too, the rustling of leaves could be heard also and with it; snapping twigs.
Knowing what this might mean, Jezreel was about to take heels, but the idea vanished from her head immediately and was replaced with--well-- nothing, she was blank.
Looking into the fierce eyes of the wolf --probably five times her size that just scaled the boulder that was separating her from their previous fight, and was heading straight for her, or at least so she thought--, caused her to stand stunned.
But with a closer look one could see that this wolf wasn't scaling the boulder cause it perceived that Jezreel was on the other side of it and wanted to snack on her or something, but was running for it's life. In it's eyes one could see fear.
But this little details meant nothing to Jezreel, as all she could see was a big beast about to pounce on her.
Beasts didn't have wings, and even if they did, this wolf did not, and it was aware of its situation. It had thought that, by scaling this boulder it would have a chance at escaping it's assailant, but now an uninvited pest, was standing stunned on it's landing path, of course it could pounce on it, but that would slow it down, and the crazy beast chasing after it was almost it's equal in speed, and any little delay would cause it to lose its life there and there, and it wasn't ready for that.
In order to avoid this pest on its path it had to ensure it landed away from it, and to do so, it had to scale over this uninvited pest along with the boulder it had just scaled. And thus it stretched itself to it's limit, and was about to succeed, it was already almost sighing in relief, but where in the world did it see such good luck or good luxury. As it landed, so did it's life end, slowly. Cause now it had two glimmering daggers plunged into it's throat. Of course it recognized these daggers, they belonged to the terror it was facing not long ago that it thought it could flee from.
Seeing that the wolf that had almost pounced on her was on the floor struggling with it's last breathes, Jezreel sighed in relief. At least she wasn't pounced on.
But her sigh of relief took a pause as it occurred to her that both she and the close to death wolf were not the only ones here, matter of fact, she was looking at the other party at the moment.
It was a slender figure, a tiny something. With the aid of the clear crescent moon, she could see the face: male, very young male of about six to seven years of age, the only other thing she could be sure of were his eyes, they were glowing blue under the night crescent moon.
This stranger, pulled his daggers from the punctured throat of his kill and the wolf stopped showing any signs of movement, it was now dead for sure.
Looking at this stranger with his daggers, Jezreel wasn't sure if he was friend or foe, but for some reasons, she didn't feel frightened, not that she was, at any point.
His gaze fell on her. They were cold, and devoid of any form of liveliness, as if they were the root of the end of all life.
With his gaze on her, he sized her, head to toe, in the amount of time it took for a spit to drop from ones mouth. Afterwards he averted his gaze and walked past her as if she never existed.
"Tsk..." For some reasons, that was a no no for Jezreel.
"What's a young child doing in the woods all by himself, and murdering a wolf to bout?" she asked.
Okay... Normally, it wasn't even his concern and he wouldn't even bother himself on any other day, but the audacity, who was she calling a child.
He turned again to be sure, it was the same person that he had just walked past that was talking to him.
The hell, does this child have any sense of self? The one calling him a young child was barely even much, he could tell it was definitely a she, considering her bright eyes and little feminine charm. Another thing he could tell for sure was that this she, before him was only over probably four years old if not three, the alacrity!