Of Dusk and Dawn

She had her shoulders hunched low, and her head swayed along with the caravan. Despondent, she brought her gaze back to her hands. Small, rough, and bloodied they were.

The ointments her 'dear' family had 'supplied' in her departure did nothing but give them a greasy smell.

It almost brought a smile to her face.

Alas, no such luck. The weather outside was unforgiving, the Sun low on the sky, and she couldn't bring herself to muster a single expression.

There was but the sunset and the hissing blizzard - all else faded away in the muddling snow fog.

"Lady Lyslenne!" A voice screamed from the front, and like a pebble being thrown in a still pond, she finally woke from her stupor.

The horses were in distress, she noticed.

"There's a situation." The man - who was it again, she couldn't remember - stated in a low voice.

For a brief moment, she entertained the idea of simply ignoring the chaos outside and staying there. Yet, like an old person getting out of bed, she forced herself to get up from her seat.

*

*

*

The caravan stood taut in the storm, and as she removed the caravan's blinds off to peek outside, she couldn't help but stare out in amazement.

Even with the Sun's bathing light, one couldn't see further than five feet ahead.

The fact that they still stood rooted to the road was, to say the very least, nothing short of a miracle.

Lyslenne furrowed her eyebrows at that, her mind lost somewhere in the storm. Her hand lightly caressed her belly then, an action left unnoticed, and she briefly wondered...

'Bandits... no, not in these weather conditions.'

She put a foot outside then, the action slow and measured as if showing respect to the snowstorm.

"What is it?" She asked in a curt voice.

"There's... a boy up ahead." The guard answered, hesitant.

... Her mind stopped still.

'A boy?' The hand caressing her belly shook, and the cold became worse, 'In the middle of the road?'

She moved almost on autopilot, eyes glancing upwards to the bleak sky in askance. No explanations were given, however.

Carefully, she made her way to the front, left arm shielding against the bashing winds. Her blonde hair swayed, her eyes widened, and the blizzard howled as she got to the scene.

The sunset's red glow rained from above, and the storm broke off for a brief moment, highlighting the minuscule body kneeling up ahead on the road.

Feet tinged black with the rot of gangrene and skin the pale palette of the landscape - he looked like a corpse, one left to rot in the road.

Nevertheless, like a beacon in the middle of the storm, he resembled a rock enduring the might of waves - unmoving, tireless. His eyes were closed, and his face was shadowed by the Sun's light, making one wonder if he breathed still.

Not Lyslenne, however.

'He's... still alive,' It came to her as naturally as her own name, 'but not for long.'

All out of a sudden, her body straightened up like a coiled spring, and sizzling energy welled up within her cold heart.

"Bring him inside." She commanded.

"But, my Lady-" A guard started.

"Do not make me repeat myself," Her sullen eyes locked onto the guard, golden amber suddenly resembling the snowstorm, "Do it."

Like that, she made her way back inside the caravan - shoulders taut and tensed. Now shut off to the surroundings, she didn't even come to notice the Sun finally hiding behind the mountains' crest.

In the distance, a stone statue of titanic proportions loomed, observing the scene. A sculpture, one that depicted a gorgeous woman. Long robes adorned her - in her hands, both Sun and Moon were held.

Of Dusk and Dawn, Azura watched from above her temple.

*

*

*

Sweat dripped down her brow despite the cold. Her previously bloodied hands were now drenched in it, and, distantly, the blizzard bashed against the caravan as if defied.

Lyslenne paid attention to none of it, however.

The stench of death dripped from the wooden carriage, like a black tar tainting everything it touched, and she just knew it in her - the boy was dying.

His pulse was low due to hypothermia. But due to gangrene, Lyslenne had to amputate the boy from knees to feet - a below-knee amputation - which only worsened his blood levels.

Sepsis had set in by this point - the body killing itself in an effort to resist the infections prompted by gangrene.

She'd tried it all by now, yet death seemed inevitable.

Just the fact that he still hanged on was a miracle by itself. A meager blood cot from hypothermia could prove to be lethal, after all, and yet the boy refused to die, clinging on by the thinnest thread he could find.

'So much tenacity... in such a small body.'

She held him by the arms, his lithe body resting up against hers. Slowly, she could feel his heartbeat growing cold, a quiet and dying symphony - one soon to be deafened by the howling blizzard outside.

Yet again, her hand came to caress her belly, a question - a cry for help - in her fraying mind.

'Am I to bury two children today?'

His breathing came and went in long intervals, making her wonder which one would be his last.

"Please," She pleaded in a low voice, "anyone."

There was no answer, though. Nothing but the cold of the night and the dying gasps of air of a young boy.

"I'm willing to do anything."

Suddenly, there was no more storm outside. No more noise. No more everything. Just a black, ever stretching void. Lyslenne immediately held on to the boy, her amber-colored eyes now a lonely flare in the dark.

"Very well." Echoed a feminine voice, its sound reverberating like boulders moving and entire civilizations rising and falling in the blink of an eye.

"The boy shall live."