The girl looked back at Tomas with wide eyes as he waited for her response. She looked around her as if she was looking for something before looking back at him helplessly. A long moment of silence passed and it began to be awkward. He cleared his throat, effectively breaking the silence.

“You… can understand me, right?” he asked, wondering why she wasn’t responding. It was a simple enough question, after all. She nodded in reply, her fingers playing with the ends of her hair. He breathed a sigh of relief at that. “So, uh, what’s your name?” he tried again.

She shook her head, and his eyebrows knit together in confusion. Did she not have a name? Why wasn’t she answering him?

“Don’t you have a name?” She nodded. “What is it?” She shook her head again, and he blew out a breath. He didn’t understand. “Why won’t you say anything?”

This time she took a moment before making her response. Biting her lip for a moment, she gestured to her mouth, covering over it and shaking her head. His brow scrunched again, not sure he understood. Seeing his confusion, she repeated the gesture, covering her mouth and shaking her head again.

Then it dawned on him. “You can’t speak?” This time she nodded. He was stunned for a moment. “Why can’t you speak?”

Again she took a moment, thinking. Then, she lifted her shoulders in a shrugging motion. Next, she crossed her arms and rocked them back and forth as if holding a baby. Then she repeated it for him.

This time, he thought he’d understood. “You don’t know…? Since you were a baby?” She grinned and nodded. He took a moment to process this. He’d never met someone who couldn’t speak before; his own siblings had always been so talkative that it had never occurred to him that such a thing could happen.

While he processed the new information, he took his first really good look at the girl. Her hair was one of the first things that really stood out. A pale, silvery blonde color, it was like nothing he’d really seen before. He’d never met anyone with blonde hair before. Everyone in Pommern had dark hair.

“You’re from Lucerne, aren’t you?” he asked, his voice surprised. It was obvious now he’d thought about it; the pale skin, the blonde hair, her small frame. It all made sense.

She nodded, looking somewhat excited, confirming his thoughts. He’d never really met anyone from Lucerne before. He knew there were traders that would occasionally cross the border and sell things in the larger towns, but he lived out in the country; he only went into the local village to sell his goat’s milk and buy food for the family.

The girl motioned to him again. She gestured at the forest and then to him, a questioning look on her face. He shook his head, confused this time. What was she getting at?

Her lips quirked into a disappointed frown and she tried again. She pointed in the direction of the forest, then to herself this time before pointing to him. Almost as an afterthought, she pointed to her head.

He blinked a couple of times in confusion and shook his head. “I don’t understand what you’re trying to tell me.”

She huffed in frustration, and he felt the need to apologize. He’d spent most of his life helping people and animals, and here he was failing this girl.

“Um, look, do you have a place where you’re staying?” he asked hopefully. She glanced at the forest where she’d come from, but then shook her head. “Listen,” he began, looking at the sky. He had to get home soon. “How about you come home with me, and I’ll see if I can help you out. How does that sound?”

The girl bit her lip, looking unsure. He waited patiently, but she just looked at her feet, unresponding. He cleared his throat gently.

“I won’t hurt you,” he said, and her eyes turned up to meet his. She looked so innocent, her pale blue eyes boring into him. He swallowed before continuing. “I promise. Please, just let me help you.”

When he was younger, he’d always be helping animals, whether it be his goats, or even just a squirrel with an injured leg. His natural instinct was to help others, and when he was unable to, it was almost a physical pain to him. His father had often cautioned against that instinct. He’d said Tomas was sure to get himself hurt, that he’d get too attached and then end up failing to help them. He didn’t want him to get hurt.

But now, looking at the scared girl in front of him, all words of caution flew from his mind. He wanted to help her. She needed someone, and if he didn’t help her, who would? He was sure his mother wouldn’t mind, and his siblings would love the extra company. He was often too busy tending to the goats to play with them.

Finally, the girl nodded, and he could feel the tension leave his body in relief. He smiled at her, and she smiled back, her lips turning up in a soft curve. Idly, he wondered what her voice would sound like if she could speak. He was sure it would sound almost like a songbird, a sweet, melodic sound.

He shook the thought away; her voice didn’t matter right now. What mattered was getting home before nighttime. He’d already dawdled enough.

Adjusting the strap of his bag on his shoulder, he smiled at her again. “Well, let’s go, then. I live just a few hours walk that way,” he said, pointing off into the distance.

The girl nodded, a pleasant smile on her face. She followed as he strode back towards the road, out of the tall grass. As they walked, he realized something, and he turned to her.

“Since I don’t know your name, I’m going to need something to call you, now won’t I?” he said. She just looked at him shyly. “Any ideas?”

She thought for a moment, but then shook her head. He chewed on the inside of his lip, thinking. Looking for inspiration, he glanced over her. The immediate impression was that she was very pale. White, even. Her dress only added to the effect, despite it’s muddied bottom. But that didn’t really help him much in the way of names. It wasn’t as if he could call her ‘White’.

Her body was small, thin in a way that was very elegant. The way she carried herself looked as if she could fly away at a moments notice, and he was brought back to his previous thought about her voice. A bird. He could name her after a bird.

Suddenly he thought of a dove he had once cared for when it had injured it’s wing and he’d found it out by the edge of the field. He remembered caring for it, and how it had been so elegant, even with it’s wing injured as it was, and the soft coos it had made when he would stroke it’s head. More specifically, he remembered how his mother had told him of white doves. The one he’d been caring for was a grey color, but his mother had told him of rare white doves that she had seen before, how they’d been sold at market for high prices.

That was it, he decided. She’d be a dove. He looked at her as she stared off into the distance, her face so sweet and innocent. She was only a couple of years younger than him, he thought, maybe around sixteen or so. She walked lightly, almost as if she was dancing. It was perfect, he decided.

“How about ‘Dove’?” he asked, breaking the peace between them. Her eyes turned toward him again. She tilted her head to one side, and then smiled. She nodded. “Dove it is, then,” he said with a smile verging on a grin.

She looked at the ground again, shyly. He wasn’t sure what else there was to say, so he stayed silent, looking ahead again. The sun was reaching it’s fingers for the horizon, and he hurried his pace, hoping Dove could keep up. He didn’t want to be out after dark any more than he figured she did.

The road was fairly straight, but he knew they’d have to stray from it’s safety once they got far enough. It didn’t reach all the way to his home. The small farmer’s cottage lay about a half mile off the road, far enough that it was a fairly isolated location. Admittedly, the road they were currently travelling was not heavily trafficked in the first place which only served to make his home more isolated than it otherwise would have been.

He hoped they reached his home soon enough for dinner. From the looks of his travelling companion, she could use a good meal. He wondered about why her hands had been tied; whatever the reason, he doubted the perpetrator had good intentions in doing so.

His eyes wandered to her wrists. They were rubbed raw, meaning the coarse rope had been there for a goodly amount of time. He found himself getting a bit upset at the thought; why would anyone want to do that to another person? What good did it do them to cause a girl like her pain?

Noticing she was rubbing at the redness, he scratched the back of his head and spoke up. “You should really stop rubbing at that.” She looked up in surprise, stopping the rubbing motion. “It’ll make it worse.”

She still looked surprised, but nodded. He’d had a goat once that did the same thing; when it had an injury, it couldn’t stop rubbing at it. Eventually, it got an infection from reopening it’s wound and it had died. The same principle could be applied to rubbing her raw wrists; even if it didn’t make it worse, it certainly wouldn’t make it any better.

“I’m sure my mother will have something you can put on it when we get to my place.” Dove simply nodded in reply. His mother had an ointment for everything it seemed. She knew her plants well, and would often go out picking herbs and making them into mixtures. He didn’t understand any of it, but it worked, and so he didn’t complain.

They walked on in silence after that. There was no real way of carrying on a conversation, after all, and he was comfortable in the silence. These walks into the village were some of the only quiet moments he got.

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A/N New POV! Haha, tell me what you think, okay? How do you like Tomas so far? Please vote, comment, give me feedback :) I post this for you, you know, not me. Lovels!xx