~~*~~ Shyne walked slowly along the track to her home, her guard uniform rumpled and grubby from the days work. She hadn't been home for twenty four hours and was looking forward to a bath and a change of clothes. As she rounded the bend in the track, she saw a plume of smoke rising through the treeline. Something was wrong, very wrong. She could smell the acrid stench of burning. Perhaps it was a small bush fire? It was very close to home. Bile rose in her throat with a surge of dread that washed through her and made the hairs on the back of her neck prick and stand up. She took off then, her booted feet propelling her forward at a panicked run. She could almost hear the crackling of the wood. Shyne burst out into the yard of her home, the only home she had ever really owned herself, to watch it disintegrate into a pile of burning rubble. Old and made of wood, the patched up shack had gone up like dried tinder. "Nooooo!" her cries of anguish went unheard in the silence. She ran to the well for water, dragging up a bucket and attempting to put out the flames. Again and again she repeated the desperate, futile actions but it was no good. In the end all she could do was gaze in misery at the ruin of her 'place'. The fire had obviously raged through the night, it had died down now to a crackling whisper flickering over the smoking, blackened ruin. Everything she owned had gone up in flames, her clothes, her few meagre possessions. Everything she had left she was wearing on her back, apart from a couple of changes of clothes and one or two other things she'd left at Ethan's house in Drache. Suddenly, out of the corner of her eye, she caught a flicker of movement. Heard the sound of running feet. "Hey!" She leapt after the sound and ran, giving chase to the outline of a man through the trees. He looked oddly familiar, then very familiar. She couldn't be sure, the build was the same, colouring, similar clothes. Was it him? No it wasn't, he was too far away but she was sure it wasn't him. But perhaps he'd come to visit for some reason, and had seen the smoking ruin himself. Then why was he running away from her? He wouldn't, couldn't, have done this. Could he? Her breath rasped in her ear. She couldn't shout after him through her ragged breathing, her heart pounded in her chest with a heavy thud which almost seemed to pace the beat of her boots on the path. She was driven on in her chase with a need to find out what *he* was doing at her ruined home. If indeed it was the man the running figure resembled. And suddenly there was a wagon ahead, small and light with a driver ready to whisk him away. And the driver was also familiar to her but she wasn't close enough to be totally sure. The driver resembled someone she would never expect to see around here, and yet she could believe *he* might torch her house. But the other, how could she believe it of him? The runner dived into the wagon. And they were gone, speeding away from her with the rapid gait of the galloping horses. She couldn't possibly catch them now. Shyne sank to her knees in the grass and stared after them until the wagon was out of sight, her breathing rasping in her ears from the run. Then she buried her face in her hands and wept silent tears for the loss of the meagre things that she named hers. One word pounding in her thoughts. Why? ~~*~~ JaxyS :) OOC: Just a note, I hope this isn't confusing. Those who torched Shyne's home resemble people she knows. I haven't named them and this is to confuse her, not to implicate anyone. _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at http://profiles.msn.com. -- To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe dragontales" in the body of the message.
