Elphame

The Woman in Armor

The wolf sat still for a long while. I was beginning to think he was dead. He began chuckling again. In that low menacing tone, the only time I had ever heard anything similar was demons in the movies. It truly sounded evil, and I wanted no part in it… I just wanted to go back home. “I will not bow down to anyone.” As he says this he stands up and stares into the woman’s eyes.

The only noticeable feature on her that wasn’t covered by armor, were her eyes. They were a very light blue, with specks of gold throughout them. Her eyes shone like crystals, and I did not know whether I should be scared by her, or intrigued. ‘Where did she come from?’…’Has she been following me?’ These questions are flooding through my mind, before I hear “Get behind me” coming from inside of the armor. Although she was a woman, she was fierce. I felt safe in her presence, and for some reason I could not shake the feeling that I knew her somehow. Pushing myself up off of the ground, I slowly walk behind her, not taking my eyes off of the wolf for a second.

“Why are you making this harder for yourself?” As his low growl reaches our ears, carried by the wind, the wolf has already began to move towards us. He is running full speed towards the woman, and I have to fight the urge to cover my eyes. I see a blur hurling towards her, but she does not move… she does not flinch. Instead, she stands very still and with one swift motion, I hear her blade rip through the air. A loud whimper rings through the air before the woman and the wolf fall to the ground with a loud thud. My feet instantly began running towards the incident, “are you okay?” I called out. Even though this woman had potentially been following me, she just risked her life to help me. “Yes” I hear her grunt out in response “Could you help get the wolf off of me?”

My hands grab a big patch of fur, and I grip so hard that folds of his skin are bunching up under my fingers. “I’ll push, you pull” She calls out, it sounds like she is having trouble breathing, so I know that we need to get this task done quickly.”Okay, let me know when” I respond, even though she could not see me, my head still shook vigorously when she made this request. “Now” I heard her call out as she began grunting from under the wolf. My arms used all of their strength to yank the wolf and free the mystery woman. The wolf moved inch by inch, but after several moments of us both moaning in exhaustion, the wolf slid off of her. His limp body fell to the ground, his head and limbs flopping around wherever his body took them. She stood up and dropped to her knees, she was breathing in and out rapidly as if she was hurt. “Are you okay?” I ask her again. She takes one more long breath in and says “Yes, it was just hard to breathe under him. He was heavy.” Her eyes glance over to the wolf lying on the ground. Her eyes have a complicated look in them. It was as if she felt guilty for taking his life.

“Hey” I call out in an understanding tone, “I know it probably doesn’t feel the best, but you did what was right and it was necessary. You only defended yourself and me.” I walk over and pat her on the armor covering her shoulder. “Thanks” she whispers back. My ears barely heard it. We sat like this for a moment, in silence…. being thankful for our lives, and trying to process the events that just took place. After a while, my voice broke the silence. “were you following me?” She glances at me over her shoulder, trying to do it in a way I would not notice. “I wasn’t “following you”” she makes her fingers into quotation marks when she says this. My face scrunches in confusion, if she was not following me, then what was it? “I will tell you about it when the time is right.” Her voice begins to fade as she says this, and before I can protest, she disappears again.

‘Great.’ I think to myself ‘Now, I am lost in the woods. Next to a dead wolf, who just tried to kill me… and the magical woman who appeared to save me, has now disappeared again.’ My hand lightly slaps against my forehead as I place my it in my palms. “So after saving me from a wolf, you just abandon me in the woods with no food or water?” I scream out loud. The frustration bubbles inside of me, and I glance down to see rocks scattered all along the forest floor. My knees bend, as I gather a few. I stand up and begin throwing them in all different directions, some hit trees, and some hit the ground. Once I finish throwing the rocks, I drop down to the ground underneath me and try to catch my breath. I just exerted a lot of energy, and my already dry mouth was beginning to crack. It felt like I was chewing on pieces of cotton. ‘I have to find water.’

As I am sitting on the ground, my fingers tangle themselves in the grass. I have the urge to put my fingers into the earth, so I do. My fingers dig into it, feeling the dirt and how it is connected to our earth. It is like I can feel all of the animals that have been recycled into it, and all of the animals that have come from it. I feel vibrations coming from the dirt, ‘That’s weird.’ My fingers feel around for a while longer, and I realize the vibrations lead in a certain direction. The ground began vibrating harder, and I could now feel the rhythm under my feet. In the distance, the sound of water roaring became louder. It sounded as if the water was screaming as it rushed by. There were trees and vines everywhere in this part of the forest. My eyes scanned through the trees that were so close together I would have to turn sideways to walk through them. There were vines wrapping from one tree to the next, almost as if the vines were setting blocks to keep people from entering. As I peered around my obstacles, in the distance I see a circle.

The circle appears like some type of door. The circle is formed by vines between two trees. It had long leaves and flowers flowing down, completely covering whatever was on the other side of it. The path to the circle seemed intimidating, but the sounds of the water were calling to my dehydrated body. I begin walking through the knee-length grass, and before I have even gotten 5 steps onto my path… I feel something slice against my leg. “Shit.” I say through gritted teeth. My leg pulls up in front of me, and I glance down to see that I am bleeding. For some reason, it looks like my blood has changed somehow. I hadn’t gotten cut since I was a child, but I do not remember ever seeing anything like this. I run my finger along my leg and collect some of the blood on my finger so I can examine it.

It is still red, but it seems to have a sparkly golden hue to it now. My blood looked more like a sparkly nail polish color than it did a vital fluid. Telling myself I must be delusional from the dehydration, I brush it off and decide to continue on. I come upon one of the vine blocks, and begin sticking my legs and arms between the series of vines trying to break through to the other side. After much struggle and effort, I finally make it through. There is what seems like miles of more long grass to walk through. The blades rub against my ankles and hands, stinging them occasionally when my skin passes by too fast against one. My body itches, and I cannot get the thought of bugs crawling on me out of my head. ‘It’s just the grass.’ I keep having to remind myself.

After what seems like forever, the circular vines are almost in reaching distance. As I approach it, the sound of the water becomes overwhelming. I can no longer hear the birds in the trees, or the moans of the wind through the trees. Everything seems silent and still. My hand reaches to push the flowers away, and sunlight begins beaming from inside of the circle. It hurt my eyes at first, almost blinding me. I try to focus my eyes, and try to blink away the yellow stars my eyes were now cursed with. After my eyes finally recover, I glance again to see what looks like a portal…