Words drifted in and out of focus as Chiami woke slowly. Her head hurt terribly, and she felt somewhat ill, her skin prickling uncomfortably.      "...heat stroke...forest fire?" one voice murmured softly, or maybe loudly, Chiami couldn't make sense of the noises for a moment, as her ears insisted that they were being bombarded by alien sounds.      Another, deeper, thickly accented voice answered the query. "Iy do not know...brought h'r to ah hyooman camp...fiyr uhnd'r cuntroll, so...for wohrry..."      The two speakers seemed to be a ways away, with something separating them from her, as she could tell now that their voices were muffled. The young girl stirred, hoping to catch more of the conversation, or at least relieve her head of some of its pain. For a moment, she was confused why she didn't have free movement, and why she wasn't sleeping in the grass under the tree, for that matter. Whatever she was laid out on was soft and smooth, but cool to the touch. Or at least, cooler than she was.      The voices continued, and now she could hear a little better. "You don't think she started it, did you?" the first voice asked, sounding very worried and very feminine.      When the other voice responded, it sounded amused and male "Thehre is not ah burn on h'r, ohther thahn ah sliyght sunburn, thaht is. She coodn't possibly have aootrun that fiyr, so she cood not have set it." He paused, then commented thoughtfully "Though Iy can not for theh liyf uv me figyoor out whaht happen'd to her clotheen'. Don't you hyoomans have sum sort uv tahboo ahbaoot cuv'rin' yo'r bodees?"      A third voice joined in, another male, though softer of voice and more commanding of tone, with no accent that she could determine. "I hate to interrupt your enlightening discussion, but if you don't mind, I'd like to see if the girl is awake yet." Chiami heard the rustling of draperies and someone entered the room where she was supposedly sleeping. A cool hand was placed on her forehead, and she twitched involuntarily. "Yup, she's awake." The third voice said to someone who had just entered the room in their wake. Then, to Chiami he softened his tone and asked "Can you open your eyes for me?"      She later couldn't figure out why she had wanted to, since her head still hurt horribly, but she felt compelled to obey that voice. When her eyes opened for the first time, all she could see was a pair of dark eyes. For a moment, she was entranced, then sparks of light swam before her vision and she felt ill and had to close her eyes again.      The first voice hovered about her fretfully. "She'll live, won't she?" the woman seemed truly upset, which only served to confuse the poor girl.      Amused, the male voice responded with a light chuckle, and she grimaced. She felt awful; there was nothing to be amused at! But when he spoke, she understood, at least a little. "She needs some more bed rest and blankets, and perhaps some water, but yes; I believe that she'll be fit as a fiddle in half a day or so. The only danger of death from heatstroke is if it goes untreated. You should thank the sira that brought her in. He may well have saved her life. My only worry is her feet; they're very badly injured." Oh, so he must be a healer. Which might also explain the heat from her ankles down, intensified almost to pain on the soles of her feet.      "Come girl," he spoke to her again, placing a hand on her cheek, and this time it felt warmer, but then again, maybe that was just her imagination. "I need you to drink this," he said. No, he commanded. She could no more deny the authority in his voice than she could stop the sun from rising. Her eyes opened once more as a vessel of liquid was placed in her hands. She didn't ask what it was, but the man told her anyway. "It's water. Drink," he said again, and she did as she was told.      The water first cooled her mouth and throat as she drank, but then, as it reached her stomach, it warmed again, sending renewed strength to her extremities. Chiami tried her hardest to keep her eyes down, so that she wouldn't be caught in those intense eyes again, but she felt her gaze working its way up, curiosity overcoming any will she could have mustered.      He was dressed simply; dark brown or black leathern boots that looked soft and velvety were followed, as her eyes rose, by deep crimson pants of some fabric that looked just as soft. A gray tunic of the same material, only not as thick, was pinched in at the waist by a red-brown belt before widening out again at his shoulders, which looked muscular, as did his tanned arms. When her slow progression upwards finally revealed his face, she was surprised to see that it was older than she had thought at first, his hair silvery. However, his eyes still held a spark, their red-brown hue drawing her in.      The man chuckled and kneeled down by what she now recognized as a bed (and was pleased again that she remembered another word), placing a hand on the pale cream sheets. "Not what you expected, eh?" he seemed genuinely amused, though she couldn’t tell if he was talking about the water, or her reaction to his appearance.      She shook her head. It didn't really matter which he was talking about, neither were what she had expected.      At that point, the woman made herself known again, fluttering anxiously around her bed and kneeling beside the man. Her own off-white and brown clothing was subtly comforting to Chiami, though the girl couldn't imagine why. She smiled at the woman, if only to reassure her that indeed, she was not about to fall over dead, and it seemed to relieve a bit of her fretfulness.      "Where am I?" the girl asked, flickering back and forth between the man and woman. She didn't want to look at him too much, but she couldn't help it. Something about him just drew her attention. The woman answered, and her eyes turned to that visage, locking determinedly on her pale green eyes and freckled face, wreathed in a mass of long, curly brown hair that hung down almost to her waist.      "You're in a traveling camp of humans, somewhere near the southern edge of the third continent." She said, looking hopeful.      Chiami could only stare uncomprehendingly. Third continent? She paused, then asked "What's a continent?"      The man looked amused again, and the woman looked a bit distressed. "Um," she said, then, after another short pause, changed the subject. "Do you remember what happened before you blacked out?"      The girl nodded. "I was walking through the... um... the trees. Lots of trees." She still couldn't remember that word, though she knew there was a word for that group of trees she'd found herself in.      Smiling, the woman nodded encouragingly. "And before that?" she urged, "Do you remember how you got there?"      Chiami shook her head blankly.      Just about then the third voice chose to make an appearance, and Chiami eyed him curiously while the other two spoke off to the side. He seemed just as curious about her as she was of him, and the two studied each other for a while before he spoke again, and she realized that she recognized the accent, though she couldn't quite place it with a memory. Just a random bit of information that decided to float to the surface.      "You do not reemehmb'r ehnytheen', do you? Whe'r yoo'r frum, yoo'r naym...?" he trailed off because she was nodding her head emphatically to his last question. She did remember her name. And she remembered some other things, too... but there were so many missing pieces that it seemed as though the memories were like tiny islands in a huge sea of forgetfulness.      "My name is Chiami," she said, and the woman and man turned back to her, the former looking hopeful and happy, the latter looking thoughtful. She wondered why. But then again, if he was a doctor, he might be trying to figure out what's happened to her memory and why she remembered some things and not others. That's what she would do, anyway. She continued talking to the other man, who had taken a seat next to her on the bed, his white clothing and hair, and pale skin and eyes seemed to blend right in with the sheets, she thought. She wondered how anyone could be so light. "And I can remember some things, just not very many. I know what a tree is, and the sun, and... and I know that this is a bed..." she left out that she'd had to re-learn how to walk on her way to the edge of the trees.      The woman was nodding encouragingly, a broad smile lighting her face. The man in red and gray watched on, what she imagined to be a clinical curiosity in his eyes. The other man watched her intently, and she wondered why. He sort of made her nervous.      He blinked and ducked his head sheepishly, looking away for a moment, almost as though he'd heard her thoughts. Which, for all she knew, he could have. Whatever the case, he stood and bowed to her. "I shood be on my way," he said, and she thought she heard a tint of regret in his voice. She started to say he could stay, but he shook his head and bowed to the other two, then headed for the opening through which he had come. There he paused, turned to gaze back at her, ice blue eyes piercing. "Iy am Haaji'hashmel. Light Ween', to yoo'r tun'." With that, and another bow, he was gone.      Chiami was sorry she'd thought those things now. She must remember not to think so loudly in the future.      The man in red looked amused again, and they all heard the beating of great feathered wings outside. Well, the girl heard them but didn't recognize what they were, even though the sound was familiar to her for some reason. Both of her caretakers left also shortly after that, and she was left to herself again to wonder what was happening. Back | Next