Khaeris Dawndancer

Fear Stays With You

She woke up with a gasp, shivering even under the heavy blankets. It was dark in her room. Moonlight came in through the gauzy curtains her aunt favored, painting all the edges of everything silver and white. Without color, the room looked flat. But it wasn't the deep, dark, heavy cold she'd been dreaming of moments prior. She sat up and tried to catch her breath, but the images kept come back. Her imagination ran her through everything again.

Water. They'd been under the lake. They'd heard explosive note of the impact, the crack of the ice, the panicked screams of the draft animals, and the ironically cheerful burbling of the air out of the vardo as it sunk quickly into the frigid water. The cold would have stolen their breath as they felt the vacuum of the descent. The pressure of the water on the doors made escape unlikely. The wagon had been ejected from shore by tons upon tons of snow that was now settling in a tumble of tree limbs, debris, and other wagons. The clan's camp had been wrecked.

In the weeks to come, she would go over the incident in her girlish mind. Come at it from every angle: her own, the draft rams caught up in the solid wave of snow, what her parents must have experienced...

Only two lives had been lost in the avalanche, but her life was forever changed and her mind forever scarred. Her parents had been caught in their vardo while she played on the lake shore with Kieran. And she could swear she could have been inside the wagon, too, from how her nightmares constructed the scene for her so regularly. How she experienced every nuanced detail. For whatever reason, her young and malleable mind clung to the water. It was a deep seated fear that would stay with her.