Green Eyes

“Ouhhh,” Selene groaned as she opened her eyes.

Where was she? As her brain slowly began to process the world again, Selene discovered that she was wrapped in some furs and lying next to a small fire on one side and a hard log on the other. Close by was the sound of crunching leaves.

“Welcome back to the world,” Jared’s even, calm voice greeted her from somewhere above.

Groaning again, she sat up against the log and looked around. Jared was a few feet away, stewing something in a pot over the fire. Selene shook her frizzy head, trying to clear the cobwebs and focused on Jared.

“What happened?” Selene asked blearily.

“What do you remember?” Jared returned the question.

Selene scowled as she racked her muddied brain to reconstruct her memories. Slowly the events of Beth Haven came back to her from Jael’s heroic sacrifice to her humiliating defeat at the hands of the Viceroy.

“I remember getting my butt kicked by Brutus,” she said with a twinge of anger. “After that things start getting fuzzy. I have some hazy idea of blowing up the wall, but that could be a dream too.”

“No, you did that,” Jared confirmed. “Destroyed a good chunk of the town in the process.”

“I did what?” Selene didn’t quite understand.

Jared described the explosion. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” he concluded with a shake of his head. “I can’t even think of anything to compare it to.”

“Don’t expect it again anytime soon,” Selene replied. “I’m still not really sure what I did and I certainly have no idea how to do it again.”

“Too bad,” Jared said wistfully. “A talent like that could be really useful.”

“Yeah, if it doesn’t kill us too,” Selene remarked dryly, her mind getting back to normal. “Where are we?”

“About a day and a half deep into the Harosheth Hagoyim,” Jared supplied.

“A day and a half?” Selene repeated. “How long was I out?”

“Almost two full days,” Jared answered. “That explosion you caused must’ve really drained you. Mara and I were getting worried that you might have gone into a coma. How do you feel?”

Selene rolled her head around and stretched. “Fine, for the most part,” she assessed. “I feel stiff as an iron rod and my back is a little sore, but I think I can stretch it out. I could use some water though, and I’m really hungry.”

“Not surprised,” Jared commented. “There’s some fresh water in your canteen over there,” he gestured behind her, “and supper should be ready in a few more minutes. If it’ll help you stretch out your muscles, you can go find Deborah and Mara and bring them here.”

Selene took a long drink of water, getting rid of the cotton balls and then stood to her feet. Her legs rebelled at the sudden use but Selene sternly got them to obey her again and after a few steps her muscles began to feel much better.

She found Mara and Deborah a hundred yards away going over some Form I moves. The older woman was teaching the six year-old how to block and redirect an opponent’s punch. For a moment Selene watched somewhat amused, remembering her own lessons from Jared nearly two months prior. Deborah appeared to be catching on pretty fast which either meant she was better student than Selene or Mara was a better teacher than Jared. She didn’t want to guess which.

“Miss Selene!” Deborah squealed delightfully as she caught sight of the Navi watching them. Abandoning her lessons, she ran up to her and wrapped her arms tightly around Selene’s waist.

“Oof,” Selene grunted as she was nearly tackled by the girl. “Careful,” she warned. “Miss Selene is still a little weak from her nap.”

“You were sleeping a long time,” Deborah observed.

“Yes, I was,” replied Selene. “But I’m awake now. Jared says that supper is almost ready and for us to come back to the camp.”

“Yah!” shouted Deborah exuberantly. “I want to eat!” Then without waiting for the adults, she made a beeline for the fire and their camp. Mara followed behind with Selene at a slow walk.

“How are you feeling?” the older woman questioned.

“Pretty good, all things considered,” Selene answered. “I just need to wake up a bit, that’s all. How are you doing, being a new mother and all?”

Mara allowed a slight grimace before reassuming her stoic expression. “It’s hard,” she admitted. “I mean everything happened so fast that I haven’t had a chance to even think about what I’m doing. One day I was just a warrior traveling with the Navi and literally the next I’m the guardian of a six year-old. How does one handle that?”

“I don’t know,” Selene said quietly.

It was unusual to see either twin as something other than confident and in control and was a little disconcerting for the young Navi. But at the same time Selene could sympathize with Mara’s plight. Motherhood, Selene had been told, was one of the gravest and most important responsibilities a person could ever have and Mara had been given no warning at all or time. It was immediately and unceremoniously dumped on her. Even mothers who accidentally get pregnant have at least a few months to come to terms with their new life. Mara was not given that luxury.

“You’re one of the smartest people I know,” Selene told her friend as she processed all of this. “You’ll figure it out.”

“I don’t know,” Mara sighed unconfidently. “I’m not exactly mother-material to begin with and I don’t exactly have a lot of room for trial and error here.”

“I don’t know about that,” Selene countered, not entirely disagreeing with Mara not being mother material. This woman’s history was dripping in blood. “Kids are pretty forgiving and as long as you love them and try your best, things tend to work out.”

Selene wasn’t sure if she completely believed that. Her own father’s mistake of hiding Selene’s true identity from her had gotten him killed and now left her running for her life. But still it seemed like the right thing to say.

“I guess,” Mara said noncommittally. “It’s all I got, right?”

“Right,” Selene nodded in agreement. “How is she holding up?”

“She misses her mom,” Mara winced. “Deborah’s old enough and smart enough to understand that her mom is dead and isn’t coming back. She cries a lot at night.”

“All you can do is be there for her,” Selene advised, silently wondering what that meant. “And at least she is surrounded by people who understand what she’s going through.” That much was true: all of them were orphans, having lost their parents to horrific tragedies in the last 20 years.

“Yeah,” Mara nodded as they got back to the camp circle. “I’m also trying to teach her how to fight. I figure she needs something to distract her from the grief. I know it helped me.”

Selene’s stomach growled loudly as she smelled whatever it was Jared had been cooking.

“Hungry?” Mara asked.

“Starving,” Selene answered. “I haven’t eaten in two days.”

“Well it should be good,” Mara commented. “Jared is one of the best camp cooks I’ve ever met.” Was there anything these two didn’t do well?

“What’s the plan?” Selene asked several minutes later as she polished off her first bowl of soup, a potato-vegetable stew with some sort of meat thrown in, and reached for her second.

“Get through the Harosheth as unscathed as possible,” Jared succinctly answered as he poured her another bowl. Immediately she dug in. “That should keep us busy enough for the next month or so.”

“The next month?” Selene paused, her spoon halfway between her bowl and mouth. “It’s going to take us a month to get through the Harosheth?”

“If not more,” Jared said. “The forest is 600 miles long and 200 wide. That’s pretty big, in case you were wondering. If we were taking the roads and pushing ourselves hard, it would still take us a good two and a half to three weeks to get through. And we’ve got to avoid the roads.”

“Why?” Selene asked, already knowing the answer.

“Roads have people and soldiers,” Mara responded. “It is where Brutus and his minions will be looking for us. If we hike through the woods, we can disappear and make to Ammon safe and sound. Then we’re home free. If we stick to the roads, we’ll be in for a fight sooner or later. So we lose ourselves in the forest.”

“Of course the obvious drawback is that we might actually get lost, something that is not hard to do,” Jared, always the voice of optimism, added. “We’ll get out on the right side of course, but it could mean we’ll be here for a while.

“Right now, the plan is to head northeast for a while, away from the road and then arc back down to the road near Bashan, the first city on the Ammonite side,” Jared summarized. “That should keep us safe from the Kalashonians until we’re in Ammon.”

Selene couldn’t help feel a bit relieved to hear that. After being hunted like an animal for over two months, she was only a few days from safety. “How long to Bashan?” she questioned.

“Four to five weeks, if everything goes well,” Jared supplied. “We’ll be in Ammon long before that, of course. The bad news about the Harosheth being so big is that it takes forever to cross; the good news is that it is easy to disappear in. Don’t worry about Brutus and the Kalashonians: they’ll never find us in here.”

“So what could go wrong then?” Selene wondered.

“Several things,” Mara answered. “It’s a forest after all and things happen in forests. There’s the wildlife, wolves, bears, and such. On the Ammonite side, there are several herds of unicorns which are particularly nasty. Then there’s the question of being able to find enough food; obviously we can’t carry enough supplies to get us through the whole Harosheth so we’ll have to do a lot of foraging. One of the horses could get hurt or one of us. Like I said, it’s the forest and things happen.”

“And there are the Amazons,” Jared added sourly.

“And the Amazons,” Mara agreed with a heavy sigh.

“The Amazons?” Selene furrowed her eyebrows.

“Hard to figure out what exactly they are,” Mara cocked her head thoughtfully. “Not really a tribe though they are similar. They think of themselves as one, anyway. More accurately they’re a band of thieves.”

“They were started about a hundred or so years ago,” Jared continued for his sister. “An Anorian woman named Ana was abused by her husband. Eventually she got up the courage to kill him and ran away into the Harosheth. She then started gathering fellow women who had been abused by men around her and they started an unofficial war on men. At least that’s the story they tell.”

“What do they really do?” Selene queried.

“Mostly just rob caravans heading through the forest,” Mara disdainfully answered. “Admittedly they’re quite good; in fact they’re a big reason that so many merchants prefer to use the Great River now, despite how dangerous and expensive water travel can be. Anyway, we should be fine. We’re a small group not traveling along the roads so they’ll probably ignore us.”

“And if they don’t?” Selene didn’t relish the thought of fighting a band of warrior-women.

“We’ll destroy them,” Jared declared coldly. “If the Kalashonian army can’t stand up against us, and so far it hasn’t, then these little girls certainly can’t.”

Selene didn’t appreciate the coldness in his voice but neither did she doubt him. Her defeat in Beth Haven aside, they did have a rather impressive track record so far. But she could also use a month free of violence; it was starting to wear on her soul.

Setting down her fifth and final bowl of stew, Selene stood and stretched. “I’m going to go practice,” she informed.

“Your powers?” Jared questioned with a touch of concern. “Is that wise so soon after recovering from using them the last time?”

“I’ve gotten lazy,” Selene countered. “Brutus reminded me exactly how far I have to go to be on his level. Jael died,” she added, refusing to look at Deborah, “because I wasn’t strong enough to face Brutus head on. I vow never to be that weak again. Next time I face him, I will be ready. And that means lots of work and lots of practice.”

“Fair enough,” Mara allowed with a shrug. “Just make sure not to overdo it because we’re not carrying you tomorrow.”

“Understood,” Selene nodded resolutely.

“It wouldn’t hurt to sharpen our skills too,” Jared added. “Battling the Bats wasn’t exactly a challenge. Care to spar?”

“Sure,” Mara shrugged. “I could definitely use the exercise.”

Selene ignored them as she wandered off to find a quiet place to practice. In a few moments she would hear the clashing of steel echoing through the woods, but she needed to focus on honing her skills and not worrying about theirs.

As she looked around, for the first time Selene got a good look at the forest in the late afternoon light. It was aptly named Harosheth Hagoyim, which Jared had told her literally meant “Forest of the Nations.” The forest was a rainbow of fauna. Trees of all kinds shaded the floor: oaks, firs, hemlocks, maples, aspens, pines, and a lot that she didn’t recognize. There was an assortment of ferns alongside tropical flowers.

Unfortunate that it was winter, she thought. The deciduous trees looked like ghosts of themselves without their leaves and the underbrush looked to be in hiding. On the whole, the Harosheth had a melancholy air that matched the season perfectly. But the Navi could tell that this place would be stunning in the spring and summer.

Shaking her head, Selene refocused herself. Daydreaming was one of her vices and it was that kind of lapse in concentration that got people killed. Both twins had repeated that mantra to her hundreds of times.

Selecting a spot, Selene cleared her mind and focused. Extending her hand, she began to light things on fire.

*******