After I gave myself some time to absorb it all, I decided to keep moving forward. What else could I do? He had flown away. I still couldn’t believe it. He had actually flown away from me. Plus I was back to being alone. It was also bothering me how he clearly knew a lot more than he was letting on. He must have been flying around the cave while I was sleeping. So his warning about the ‘they’ catching up to us had to be right. I still believed the ‘they’ was most likely my guards. I mean, who else? But at this point it did not matter. I had to keep moving like he had warned me to do before, even if he was now gone.
So I did just that. I kept walking down the path and even hastened my pace a bit. Somehow being alone again was making me quite nervous. It was weird how I hadn’t felt this way before I had met Calypso. But now...now I was moving fast without even meaning to. I also kept shaking just a bit. The shaking was not enough to stop me from moving, but it was still happening.
My actions continued to spiral the longer I walked, and my nervousness kept augmenting. At some point I started looking back every once in awhile. On top of that, without having someone else to talk to, I had nothing to distract me. Instead I just kept thinking, and over analyzing and worrying. Where in the world did he go? Why did he try to scare me like that? What would happen without him around?
It didn’t really occur to me to think about what he actually was until I had another dream. I had taken a rest after rushing along for some time and I had quickly fallen asleep. This dream, just like the last one, started up where the previous one had left off. The shadow bat was in front of me and that pulling force within me was strong again. I had felt that force within me ever since the previous dream, but only with this shadow thing directly in front of me did I feel such an intense pull from it.
“Where did you go?” I asked the dream shadow.
“You are still not asking the right questions,” this creature told me while looking me in the eyes. There was that same intensity.
“You mean something like what are you?”
“No. That you already know. You just need to remember.” What in the world did that mean? I just looked back at this shadow bat, my dream Calypso, without saying anything. “Remember, you were there. Remember!” The shadow told me while yelling, and then jumped at me in a flash.
I sprang up from my dream yet again. Damn! My neck was hurting from all this thrashing around, but it was my natural reaction from being so surprised. And this was quite a surprise. Oh that bat had a way of pulling things out of me somehow. And this time, the memory did come back to me. It had flung back into my mind so rapidly. Where had it been all this time?
The memory was of back when my mom was still alive. Actually it was right before she passed away. Yep, I was there when she died. How had I not remembered this? Why had I never asked about this previously? I cared about what had happened to her. I cared so much now, so why hadn’t I before this moment?
In this particular memory, we were outside the castle. My mom had brought me with her to visit her old village. We were traveling back by carriage laughing and talking the whole way. I was always laughing with her. That day I was a bit nervous about coming back home. Even then I barely was around my father, but at that time he especially intimidated me. It was not until I saw all the politics and tricks behind his behavior that the fear went away, not till I was older.
Then, all of a sudden the carriage stopped. We heard some shouts from the guards outside the carriage who were watching over us. My mother quickly pulled me to her, tucking me into her dress. I heard the carriage door open and quickly slam closed. I could still remember her words so clearly. Her tone at this time was surprisingly calm.
“Listen to me Eliana. Under no circumstances are you to get out of this carriage until I come back for you.” I looked up and quickly grabbed onto her. I still remember how her green eyes were locked with mine. They were one thing I had inherited from her, sparkling green eyes full of determination. I begged her not to leave, but she assured me she would be right back so eventually I let go. How could I have done that? In this very instant I felt so much regret about letting go.
The next clear part of my memory was hearing her voice, which was loud and commanding. She was giving orders. Then I heard a loud boom. At that point my worrying and curiosity had gotten the better of me, and I opened the carriage door slightly. There I could see her. She looked strong. She had some kind of giant metal thing in her hands and the guards were circling around her, listening to her, obeying her commands. She was just that kind of queen. But something was wrong. The expressions on the guards’ faces did not match hers. They looked completely terrified. So I leaned forward and looked farther out.
That is when I saw it. It was giant, and kind of looked like fog. Yet it was orange and black. Then I saw a pair of yellow piercing eyes. The creature kind of looked like a giant outstretched tiger. It was doing jumps and leaping at guards. I was so entranced by the scene in front of me that it took me a while to notice just how much I was shaking.
This was when my memory started to get blurry. I was so terrified at the time that I began to feel dizzy. I rested my arms against the door as I continued to look out, but the images before me were blending together. Yet now as I focused on this memory I could almost make out a woman standing behind this fog tiger. It was like they were working in unison somehow. My mother was demanding something, not from this tiger, but from this woman. Then my mother with the metal tool in her other hand pointed towards me. Almost instantly I felt the carriage start to move. I wanted to call out to her, but suddenly with a flash I saw my mother hit the floor. Then everything went dark.
Somehow I was able to get back to the castle, but how? I was not sure at all. Did anyone else survive? What happened to all those guards? Did this tiger survive? Who was that woman? All these questions started entering my mind and wouldn’t leave. How did I forget about all of this before? I knew my mom was dead, yet I questioned nothing. Who was I to do that to her, to forget? Well I would no longer. I couldn’t. All I could see now was her hitting the ground over and over again in my head.
I practically ran down the path after this last dream and recollection. It was all too much. Who could I trust at this point? Calypso, someone I actually wanted with me right now, was a creature just like that fog tiger. He showed me himself what his true form was. He came to me in dreams and tested me. How could I put all my faith in him? And yet this kingdom, my father and his men, they hid so much from me. They limited me, and control what I could know, what I could feel. How could I side with them? And so where did that leave me? Only trusting myself? That was not much of a plan. So I kept moving faster and faster.
Maybe Calypso was right. Maybe I did have reason to fear him. Maybe I had reason to fear everyone, but as I continued down the path it became more and more clear that I could not get through this alone. I only had a small idea of what I was really dealing with. With a creature like him in this cave, the exit had to be seriously guarded to keep him inside. And he definitely could be a fearsome beast like that fog tiger, but I had been with him for a while now and he had done nothing to harm me. So, taking this all into account, I decided what my next step would be. And for better or worse, I was going to stick with it.
“Calypso!” I yelled out to the cave in general. “I know you can hear me. Your bat senses must be tingling! Calypso!” That got me no response. I had to say more. “I am not scared of you! Come out!” Still nothing. “I will not be scared because I need you right now…like how you also need me.” I slowed my steps as I continued to yell. “You may be a weirdly powerful shadow creature, but I am not scared! And it has nothing to do with you…it’s me. I trust my judgment even if everything is warped at the moment. I can handle this. I am going to handle this. I have to. So come out!”
“You so sure?” I let out a quick sigh of relief. He was here! I looked around quickly but I did not see him, in man or bat form. “I am a traitor. I am a powerful devil.”
“If you are such an evil power and such a traitor, then why am I still here? Why have you not hurt me? Do not try to fool me. You may think this is all dependent on your will, but it isn’t.” I was spinning around, talking to the walls and trying to see where he was. “ In the end it comes down to what I need to do. I made the choice to follow you before and I am still choosing to do that now.” I turned one more time and there he was. He was back in his man form, and was as intimidatingly handsome as before.
“Are you sure princess?” He was raising one eyebrow at me.
“Jeez, taking so long. You know we have to keep moving.” And there it was again, that smile of his with just a hint of darkness.
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