Andriele was lost. She had been trying to deny it to herself for over an hour now, but as the sun began to set through the trees she was wandering through, she was given very little choice but to face the reality that she had somehow, somewhere taken a very wrong turn at some point. She paused on the worn dirt path that she had been following and turned a slow circle, considering her options. She could either spend hours backtracking until she found the small township where she had received directions and go the right way, or she could continue along her current path. Glancing up into the leafy canopy overhead, she realized that, whichever she chose, for now, she would have to make camp.
The girl sighed and moved to the right of the path, stepping into the tree line and searching a few moments for an appropriate clearing. She could hear a small stream running nearby and she found a space about eight feet by eight feet in size that would suit her purposes for the night. Moving towards a rather large, thick-trunked oak, she let her battered leather rucksack slide from her right shoulder, down her arm to grasp the straps in a small but capable hand and she lifted it, hanging it on a broken branch about head height on the tree. She lifted both hands to push back the wide hood of the indigo-colored woolen cloak she wore, revealing a thick mass of bright auburn curls framing a pale, round face set with eyes the color of deep blue water. Those same hands tugged loose the black cord ties around her neck and she removed the ankle-length cloak with flair, hanging it on another branch.
She was dressed for traveling in feminine attire – a long sleeved sapphire dress of thick, durable cotton over a warm petticoat. She wore a black bodice laced up the front with silvery ribbons. On her feet she wore stockings and leather-soled ankle boots. She sat down on a fallen log and bent to untie the laces of them, slipping them off and issuing a soft sigh of relief. Sometimes the long days of constant walking made her feet feel as though they had swollen to three times their size and it was sheer pleasure to remove the boots for even an hour’s respite. She wiggled her toes inside her stockings and straightened once more after setting the boots aside. She lifted both arms straight up and arched her back, stretching to relax some of the other, random kinks and aches all the walking caused.
She used her right hand to push her long, waist-length curls back behind her ears, which were revealed to have long, delicate pointed tips at the top, indicative of an Elvin background, and looked around at the clearing for a few moments before rising again and moving back to her sack. Opening it, she removed a small wooden box that held tools for making a fire, two thick woolen blankets, a pewter flask and a small pouch tied with string that held food. She set them all on the ground and took one of the blankets and hung it over a low hanging branch, spreading it out and using four medium-sized rocks to hold the corners out, creating a makeshift tent. She took the other blanket, folded it in two and laid it out inside her modest shelter, intent on wrapping up in it later.
Over the next two hours, Andriele worked tirelessly to build a campfire and finish setting up her temporary home before resting near the cheery blaze she had nurtured with dried leaves and tiny twigs until it could hold bigger, hardier fuel, surrounding it with stones, and eating her supper – half a loaf of bread, an apple and a hunk of rich, creamy cheese. With the twilit night deepening from dark lavenders and hazy blues to a thick blackness unbroken even by stars due to the tree branches overhead, Andriele nibbled at the apple as she stared reflectively at the wildly dancing flames.
‘Tomorrow I’ll just continue along the path I was on…there’s certain to be a village close by and perhaps I shall find help there. If not, then at the very least there will be one less night spent out of doors and one more resting in a dry, warm bed.’
With that thought swirling through her mind, she tossed the apple core into the fire, banked it slightly and crawled into bed, wrapping herself warmly in the thick blanket, her left arm bent and tucked under her head as a pillow. She closed her eyes and tried to force herself into slumber, impatient for morning.
Sat Sep 09, 2017 10:56 am by 
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