Chapter 10

They travel hard, and several hours after nightfall they make camp. Their growing affection is obvious, but the compassion that flows from their hearts is truly what is allowing them to take comfort in each other.

As spring progresses the nights are staying warmer, so eventually they start pooling their bedding and laying it out in thicker comfort and sleeping on top of it, side-by-side.

Once again they have chosen their spot well, and they have camped next to a stream well hidden in amongst the underbrush of the woodlands. Now that Tracer is around a very pretty sweet-hearted girl, he has become self-conscious about any smells that might be emanating from him. Once again Tracer strips down to his undergarment shorts and is washing himself in the cool stream. Without shame, embarrassment or worry of danger, Katiely strips off the only clothing she has, which is her calf length brown peasant dress, and in all her glory comes into the stream with Tracer.

As she is swimming on her back Katiely says, "Tracer?"

"Yes, darling girl." Tracer responds, using the current of the stream to swim up it without moving forward. Tracer has always tried to stay in battle shape.

"I noticed that your lower right leg is hurt."

"Yeah, when I was fourteen I had a disease, and it made my leg thinner and my ankle a little more unstable. But it has never slowed me down. Maybe if it would have I wouldn't have gotten into so much trouble." Katiely laughs oh so prettily.

Tracer continues, because he feels he can talk with Katiely about anything and never be judged for it. "As a boy my dream was to be a great warrior. To stand up for the innocent and be a hero."

"You are my hero."

That stops him for a second, and then with a smile of genuine gratitude he swims closer to Katiely and kisses her on the cheek. Katiely's beautiful green eyes go big as she starts to feel feelings she's never felt before. Like a nervous doe, she smiles.

"Thank you, sweetheart, really. Anyway, you know well over half the people that get the disease die from it, and because of the fact that I survived it I thought I was truly meant for something special. You know what I mean, darling girl?"

"I truly do, Tracer."

"Then when I went to go fulfill my childhood dreams and become a soldier, I was told the very thing that I thought made me special was also going to keep me from being a soldier. The duplicity of it, or the lies of it, sent me spiraling down into darkness. I mean I was kind of wild anyway, but from that time forth I lost sight of who I was supposed to be. It's crazy. I'm still not sure what is going on half the time, but something has to be going right, because I found you."

Tracer goes and sits on the shallow shore of the stream, half on land half still in the water. Katiely positions herself in the middle of the ten foot wide stream, and uses her arms to keep herself stationary as she faces Tracer with only her head and shoulders sticking out of the water, and she begins to say, "I'm sorry, Tracer, that you have suffered so." Tracer's eyes fill with tears from the truth and strength of her compassion, and because he knows she has suffered also. For some odd reason, knowing that the two of them have suffered similarly, make them feel closer to each other.

With tears in her own eyes Katiely continues, "I thought because I was born to magic that I was put on this world to do special things, also. The world of magic was so beautiful and in touch with the world that I was so happy, that I was oblivious to the real nature of the world. I lived in a bubble of a dream world where love and laughter is all that existed in the world.

"Until that one fateful day when a dozen dark priests and a hundred soldiers came to my family's farm. I felt such malice emanating from them, that I was scared and went and hid in the house while my father went outside to talk with them. They didn't even give him time to open his mouth. They shot him with an arrow and then spread out and gathered up the rest of my family and the farm workers.

"They kept killing people one-by-one until I came out of my hiding place. I saw my mother and father dead on the ground and started to cry horribly. The leader of the dark priests told me if I came along peacefully, that my uncle, aunt, my two cousins, and a host of workers would be spared. So, I went with them.

"They took me from everything I ever knew, and kept me locked up for a long time until you came along and rescued me. It wasn't until nearly a half year later that the cruel General told me that as soon as we left the area, they killed everybody else and burned the house and barn."

Katiely starts crying, as if this is the first time she has truly given herself the permission to feel the deep horrible pain. Tracer pushes off from the shore and goes over to her and takes her into a big embrace and hugs her for a very long time, and lets her cry herself out.

As she is half floating there, half being cuddled into Tracer's lap in all her glory, she looks up at him with red eyes of suffering, something Tracer has seen more than once staring back at himself from a mirror or lake, and she continues, "I too, thought I was meant for something special because of my magic, but it turns out all of this nightmare is because I have magic and they want it for their own."

"No, darling girl! All of this is because there are people in this world who only want what they want and don't care about the suffering of others. I felt my destiny was to be in the middle of those forces, but it was not to be. But I tell you here and now, Katiely, that you are special girl, and none of this is in anyway your fault. You are a good sweet-hearted girl, and every minute I'm around you I'm a better person because of it."

As they are floating there in the middle of the stream staring into each other's eyes, by the bright moonlight, Katiely becomes keenly aware that she is naked and nestling into Tracer. She doesn't make to move right away, but her heart starts beating a little faster and her lower tummy starts feeling a little funny. Tracer, starting to feel a little subconscious himself as certain forces of nature want to express themselves, pulls back from Katiely, and then he smiles and kisses her tenderly on the cheek.

He clears his throat with a crooked smile and then says, "I guess we should think about getting to sleep so we can get an early start."

Katiely can't think of anything to say, so she just nods her pretty head. After she watches Tracer get out of the stream she says, "Just a few minutes more and then I'll get out."