The sound of steps echoed over the slopes of the Maethe Woodland, and the arrows of Gwainedhel resounded with new fury as the combined work of feet, fingers and strings directed by the commanding haste of his hand, which thundered arrow after arrow, made a determined effort to cut off the flight of a wounded owl.
But all his efforts were in vain. By the time the last bolt stuck to the poplar's trunk, the tip stuck well past the bark, the owl, faster than a gust of wind, had already left it and had entered a path to the unknown darkness.
"Stop! ...Stop I say!" shouted Gwainedhel. "My head on a pit before you escape!”
The ranger halted, the depths of his throat a boiling fire and, after his sore muscles slowly lowered the bow about his legs, his motion fell in a thick cloak of silence.
"Darn it!" he teared it off then, and slammed a fist to the wounded tree. Teeth gritting, the flow of conscience continued to run. "That was so close. If it had just turned a few inches-- just a few inches!" He and looked down to his body, and his tilting lamp besides his rear. "I can't let that heap of cash go. Shit, I'm running out of oil..."
He resolved to charge a row of swearings to upper beings he didn't even believe in, but then it a fresh and liquid smell came to entertain his nostrils. He peeked forward, the trail looked black and hollow like a wolf's throat. He took the lamp on his hand and the bow by the grip of his other and, hoping the light would endure, he stepped forward and crept into the dusk.
He kept walking for ten minutes or fifteen and he found himself by the shores of a river. The whole place was pretty big and clearer and open to the night sky, which was already starting to show purple shades for a new daybreak. Further beyond, he spotted the owl from before on the top of a pointy rock, prunning its leaking blood under the wing. But just a little below, a big white slump rested upon the water.
Then the white slump stood up and unfolded into the sight of a fine-boned girl, perchance a woman. She was very, very beautiful and her skin shimmered as if dressed by a veil of moonlight. No tresses nor wet blonde hair fell upon her shoulders to cover her breasts, because it was very short and dark as the feather of a mockingbird, and within her long lashes her teal eyes shone like two engraved gemstones.
Gwainedhel shuddered as she witnessed her bathing. Normal thoughts barely formed in his mind before they were replaced with twisted barbacues his body grilled in his appetite. His saliva turned chalk and cardboard-y, drippling into his throat as stingy juicy venom. He saw as she squished her sponge around the shoulder, then the other shoulder, all the way to the chest and down past the abdomen, to more obscure corners... It had become so insane, it was almost hypnotic. She worshipped her figure with the likes of a sacred shrine. The more he stared the more he sucked in, and the more he walked into temptation…
And then she stopped.
She turned around. She wasn't-- looking at him, was she? No, she was. The gleam in these beady teal eyes accused him, almost forbidden, almost invitingly. He wasn’t able to pin what did that exactly mean, yet her lips spread into a mellifluous smirk.
She swaddled out of the water, the surrounding cloud turning to moss. Giggling, she tiptoed to the bushes and disappeared behind the poplars.
***
There was no Why,
there was no Where,
where is his bride-to-be?
There was no Who,
there was no With.
These questions were not Quick.
For Gwain's just the WHAT:
he saw, he wished, he did.
Where did it come from?
Who knew, who knew!
Not Daphne on the run
nor Hyacinth's disc
could escape from the wind.
***
Hairs on the air as he leaped and galloped and his feet were replaced for wings. Now the one burned, and the other fled from the others’ call, taking him in the depths of the woods where he would definitely lose himself. As the light sparkle that stirs the flame in the campfire; or does the same with the torch, that hungrily consumes the sap and opens the way through the dark path, so the elf was altered by the flames, all his being ablaze for these boiling blinding passions. He sees the feet and he pressures the mood. He sees the feet and he turns. He sees the wrist and swings the hand to grasp nothing but a handful of nothingness. He praises her figure, her hair, her eyes, her everything (specially the eyes). Ahh, if she wasn’t so obstinate! But there she flees like a breath of air, and resists any sort of loving calling.
He would have ran more as the beloved disappeared of sight, in the blink of an eye, leaving him in a state of dumbfoundness and disoriented bewitchement. The fires wired his body, rage flooding his temples, and he stormed to the only way he deemed immediate within reach. But the young lover didn’t think much at this point, as his sense of self had been consumed to ashes. He pushed branches and vine, he pushed them harder and faster, and kicked several bushes to clear his way of annoying obstacles. Tree's arms soon abandoned the top of his head and opened a big round sky.
Black and purple was still the imperative of the composition, making the atmosphere pretty grim. But now, see the aurora begin to peek at the west, peer over the doors and have the first rose streaks over a weather-beaten chariot sunk at the moss’ floor. For instance, the chariot had an axle of rusted steel, that to the game of lights could’ve been old gold; and another old gold chariot pole, wheels with clunky rims, and circles of iron or silver spokes. Along the ancient dry wood and the absence of horses, which were nowhere to be found, a coat of arms glowed with forgotten brilliance amidst its state of decay.
On the top of the chariot, a third person remained (or second, as Gwainedhel didn’t even see the person at the other side of the clearing). They sat in the middle, on the actual rider's spot, and Gwainedhel thought, "could it be her?” but he was unable to make up a clear answer as the stranger had this ghastly cloak wrapped all around their person. Yet the cloaked figure still instilled a certain charm. A deep exhalation pumped from the hood -- a rumbling, alluring rasp emerging from the inners of their mind:
"Wilt thou not ride, thou gentle warrior?"
Gwainedhel, taken a moment to discern the meaning behind these words, sluggishly approached the cart and pulled himself in, just like a smitten lovesick servant.
