Dawn

"Mother?"

Was it a dream? It was her voice... I wasn't sure if my mind played tricks or if it was real.

The answer came fast.

"What kind of sick game is this?" The woman shouted into the darkness. "Have you not inflicted enough pain to me? You want to make me lose my mind now?"

My heart's beats went faster and faster, and I inhaled deeply to overcome the frenetic emotions built into my chest. "Mother, it's me, Dawn."

The small noise of whatever she was doing stopped.

"My daughter is dead! DEAD!" she shouted again. Her shallow breath filled the empty darkness of the cold, damp space; I got on my feet and found my way to the bars that separated our cells.

"No, she is not dead. I am here."

"Why are you doing this?" she asked. "Do you enjoy tormenting me?"

"Mother, follow my voice. Come, feel my hand. It's warm, not cold. I am alive and there is no trick. Let me prove it to you!" I extended my arm through the bars, waiting.

An image flashed in front of my eyes of a strange water, where glowing ambers were dancing under the surface in a slow, sad tune. Two pairs of eyes stared at me and vanished in a blink. One red like an angry fire, one green like the moss of the trees.

"You say you are her, and you sound like her." she paused. "But my hands say a different thing. Under my nails I still keep the dirt of her grave."

I heard her steps closer. "Tell me something about her, and you might fool me."

On a cold night, nine winters ago, the sky broke and tears fell to the ground. The wind howled through the holed roof like a soul damned for eternity as I nested in my mother's safe embrace.

When the lone candle's flame went to sleep, we sat under the cover of each other's warmth. She smelled faintly like wood and smoke, a soothing scent for my senses.

The lightening filled the blackness of our hut thru the wooden wall's cracks and a hellish thunder filled my ears. I tightened my arms around mother and buried my face into her chest.

"Don't be afraid, child," she softly whispered. "Is just a storm, it will pass."

"I am not afraid of the storm, mother, I fear for the lost souls out there. The ones that don't have someone to keep them warm, like I have you."

She held me tight and kissed my head.

"Let's pray they found shelter to protect them from this bad stormy night."

"But mother, the night is not bad."

"Oh Dawn, the night is bad, the dark is bad. It's when the demons hunt."

"I'll tell you a secret, mother," I said in a low voice. "The night is when the day is tired and goes to sleep."

Her breath stopped its rhythmicity. The earth trembled with another blast of the weeping sky, and I thought the old roof will shatter and fall upon us.

"And the dark?"

"What do you want me to tell you? Ask anything."

"Why was my daughter afraid of the dark?"

"I am not."

Her pacing stopped. "She was."

But I knew better.

"Every girl is scared of the darkness. Why wouldn't she be?"

"Because the dark, mother, is just the light with its back turned."

"D- Dawn?" Her voice, more of a muffled cry, was barely hearable. "How can it be?"

I heard her steps closer and closer, till she found my hand with hers.

The door at the end of the corridor opened. Someone was coming.

"Do not say a word." She squeezed my hand while she whispered, then she let go.

"Do not say a word about what?" Someone asked in the dark. It was the voice of the man who I first meet when brought here. The one that threw me over his shoulder and told me to please the king. Their king... who I thought to be an animal.

The same king who held me to his chest and chased away the chills of coldness, replacing them with chills of... of what? My hand went to my lips. His lips on mine...

"What were you two talking?"

"No one forbade us to talk, prince.", mother said, defying. So he was a prince, the closest man to the king.

"About darkness!" I replied. I didn't want him to hurt mother. "And if we should be afraid of it or not."

"I doubt this one here is afraid of something. But you, you would be wise to fear."

He lit a torch and placed it on the wall opposite my cell. I turned my head to look upon mother for a brief moment, and she did the same.

"Alar!" the prince shouted while his eyes scanned every inch of the cell. The guard appeared in no time, bowing. "Lord?"

"Didn't your king gave you an order?" His hand went to the guard's neck and pushed him into the wall. "you know, he sent me here in this shithole to see if you did as told." Once released, Alar chocked and broke into a cough.

"I did nothing to them, lord."

"Well, that's exactly the problem. He told you to give that one," pointing towards me, "A fur. And I see no fur. I suppose if I ask her what she had to eat, she will not answer. Should I ask her?"

I closed my eyes and saw his face. That wild face, the harsh scar... and beyond them. Warmth. Gentleness. Protection.

When he opened the door, I was blinded by fear. But then, he held me in his arms, and I felt... sheltered. When he kissed me...

"Dawn!" the prince shouted. I opened my eyes and stared at him. He was sitting tall in the open cell door's frame.

"Yes?"

"Here!" he threw a fur on the floor and an apple on it. "I don't know what you did to him, girl!" With that, he turned and left.

The one called Alar, a sandy-haired man with thin, pointy nose, locked my cell. Before leaving, he looked at me through squeezed eyes, then at mother.

"It will not stay like this."

.....

"You can not tell them.", mother spoke in low voice while munching half an apple. "If you do, they will kill you."

"No, you are wrong. He will understand."

She froze. "Did he... touched you?"

"Touch me? He is not the beast you thought, he is different."

"Yes, he is different. He has the self-control I never saw in a beast like him, that's why he is more dangerous." Her hand grabbed mine. "Did he touch you, child? I will kill him!"

"Yes, he touched me. He put his arms around me and carried me to warmth. He touched my feet and stopped when I told him to stop. And then, mother, he laughed when I told him that a kiss could get me pregnant. Why did he laughed?"

"Oh my sweet baby, did you really told him this? Wait... He kissed you? Oh, I swear I will-"

I interrupted her. "You will not! You told me before they are beasts. Do you remember the last time when you took me to the market? Do you remember the woman they said she favored a 'beast'? I remember. I remember how they hit her with rocks and called her names. I remember the drops of blood she left behind when she ran away alone while they laughed. So I am asking you, mother, who is the beast?"

She looked at me long, like she couldn't remember what to say. Or she simply didn't know.

"You gave me your knowledge, skills to survive and all your love. You dressed me, feed me, and taught me letters and numbers. You thought you protect me by keeping me away, I know that, but I need to do my own mistakes now."

Tears felt down her face as her eyes went to the ground.

"Mother, don't cry..."

She whipped her wet cheeks with the sleeve of her dress, then lift her face to me and smiled.

"These are happy tears, Dawn. You grew up into a beautiful lass, on the outside and on the inside. I always knew the day will come when the little bird will fly away, is what every mother dreads. But just looking at you- I feel so proud!"

We embraced through the cold bars of our confinement. My hand chased away her tears and I kissed her forehead, like she used to do so many times.

"You will always be my mother, and I will always be your daughter. No one can take that from us."

I pulled my hands back and whipped my own tears. "How did you got here, why they keep you locked?"

"Is a long story." She said while the torch's light went smaller and smaller, till faded. I could not see her face anymore, I couldn't see anything, but I could feel the heaviness in her voice.

"It doesn't matter, mother. Soon the King will decide the punishment. After we are punished, we are free." I said confidently.

"Is not that simple, my sweet child. My punishment is already been decided. But you- why are you here?"

Tiny drops fell on my skin as I opened my eyes. Looking around, an unsettling feeling grew inside. I was in a grave. How I ended up here- I had no knowledge, but I had to get out. Hard task, the hole was deep and the earth tough. The rain poured faster, and that was my only advantage. I dug a hole and waited. When it was filled, I dug into the wall of the pit with my hands, throwing water over the scratches I made to soften the ground so I could dig further, till my foot could fit into it. My boots were slippery, so I discarded them and continued to make holes upper and upper, climbing each one of it, until I could crawl myself to the surface.

Home was not home anymore. A pile of ashes of the place it once sheltered me stood there, smoke rising from time to time. My heart crumbled as I approached. There was nothing left, only despair. Where was she? I took a stick and searched carefully, praying to the Sun and the Moon that she won't be here.

"I found a trail of blood, mother, and I followed. It lead to the river and I hoped to find you on the other side. I walked to the valley and down to the old bridge, but no one was there to ask. So I crossed, and they caught me. Now, well... I am waiting His punishment for trespassing."

"You crossed the bridge and you saw no guard there? That's not trespassing. If the guards weren't at duty, It's their fault, not yours. I was brought here by five of them, so that must've been the opening."

"I will not tell that to the king. He will send me back to Midland, and I am not going without you."

"Only the Stone awaits for me. There is no escape. But you have your life forward."

"Don't say that..." I whispered. "We will escape. We need a plan."

"Dawn, you must understand..."

"We need a plan!" I raised my voice to cover mother's. I realized how I nearly shouted, and I apologized. "We leave together. I'll have it no other way. So what are your charges, mother?"

"Being a... dawner."

"But you are not!"

"You can not be associated with me. You know that. Why did he take your necklace?"

"What? He didn't. Is still on my neck." My hand went to my chest and my fingers rubbed the metal through the fabric.

I had so many things I wanted to ask her, but for now- we had urgent matters to focus on.

"Are you sure? It was just like yours." Her finger tapped the wall, something she would do every time she focused. "How are you alive? What do you remember?"

What do I remember? "There was a man... I hid in the bushes as he left, and then I came inside. I was going to ask... The brew mother, your brew!"

"I talk to you here and now, but my mind can not understand. You died, girl. And I ripped my hair off, and screamed, and prayed, but you were still dead. How is this possible?"

"I was not dead. He told me that."

"Who told you that?" mother inquired.

"I don't know. I can't remember."

"It was the Sun. I am sure of it!" she stated. "He, blessed be His name, He answered my prayers."

'Only death can pay for life.'

Those words sounded loud in my head and my heart raced.

The tapping stopped.

"I understand it now!" She exclaimed and laughed. "I remembered! It was there, all along. Everything Hara wrote is true!"

She grabbed my hand and pulled me closer, whispering in my ear. Whispers of old, whispers of new, whispers of loss, whispers of true.

"This can not be!" I said. She was not making any sense, but something was nudging at the back of my mind.

"Yes, it is. You are her! I always knew you are special, I just didn't know HOW special."

I pulled my hand from her grasp and pushed the fur through the bars, so she could get warm as well.

"We will need a very good plan!"

.....