FAILED!

She felt her heart skip a beat when he said that. She could feel her heart beating in her mouth. There was this nonphysical pain she felt when it skipped. Not out of fear but out of something, something unexplainable.

  She felt as if that word was being referred to her with the way he said it. As if he knew something and was speaking to her indirectly. But she knew that wasn't the real truth at all. She has been so stressed with all these trips and kissing you then to finding the next clue. Or even fighting against Beebah. Never in her life to has she been this stressed. Not having her complete sleep and falling into her cozy bed,  gisting with her brother or her sister. She IS stressed. It is true when they say "THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE HOME".

   Except for being stressed, she has been so cautious about her every move. She can't afford to make mistakes anymore like the last time she kissed him or the time she hurt herself with a knife thinking it'll help teleport her back to her own Earth. When the Shaman already did so. But right now she won't make such stupid mistakes again. The last mistake was still acceptable but the first one was unspeakable.

  She can't still believe she was that dumb. Well, it's better to let bygones be bygone because right now she has to be sharp and follow her instincts. Maybe not all the time but still she has to follow her sensible instincts. If the instinct is right she'll know. She's pretty sure she'll know, she just feels it in her guts.

  Talk about strategy, what exactly is her strategy? " Making the prince fall for her?". That isn't solid enough. There must be something... something like that dream she had before they left the inn. That dream is trying to point to something. It doesn't seem like the present. Maybe the future or.

  Maybe there was something in that particular area she missed. She shut her eyes still holding the reins with Zamiel's hands on hers. She shut them tighter trying to remember the scene. Maybe imagining it will trigger something or anything. She shut her eyes tighter earning wrinkles at the side of her eyes.

  *****

   " To ride a horse you have to move with the flow as if merging with the horse....You have to feel it". She heard his voice vibrate behind her, waking her up from her second imaginary world.

  "It?". She asked what her ear could capture. Returning her attention ere it was in the first place - With Zamiel. She sat silently waiting for a reply while the horse trot ahead making her sitting posture sway right left, up, and down. 

  " You need to be stable and steady on a horse. Ride it".  He replied longer than expected. Maybe that was what she thought since she wasn't paying attention to him before she came back from her imaginary world.

  Wait did he say ride?!. 

 "Hm?". She mumbled as if he wasn't clear with what he said.

  "Ride the horse". He replied obliviously, thinking she didn't hear him. He detached his hands away from hers the instant he responded to her  "question", putting his hands to himself. He folded his hands in front of his chest like an angry man while staring at her head from behind. He omitted quite some space for her to do the riding or maybe because he kept his hands to himself and doesn't want to distract her with his hands.

  She shut her eyes into that peaceful darkness, trying to calm her nerves down. She revealed her eyes, opening her lids before taking a silent deep breath. She stared at her hands where she held the reins. She stared at it like an enemy, an unconquerable beast that she has to slay. Talking about the slaying, how is she supposed to ride the horse? Should she raise the reins like a skipping rope as they usually do in movies? No that would be stupid, she was supposed to ride it not let it run. She stared at her taking an extra deep breath.

   She just sat there holding the reins. Holding was still better, it was as if she just placed her hands on the reins, it doesn't feel settled at all. She felt somehow restless just placing her hands on the reins not knowing what to do. As if that wasn't enough, the horse's movement kept on making her sway right and left with the way it walked, she felt the opposite of balance. She never thought riding a horse would be this hard.

Thinking about how those actors did in movies, how they move along with the horse's movement without falling or moving around on the horse's back. She remembered how they rode it, holding on to the horse's rein like a leashed animal and they are to control it with the leash. But she can't go around pulling the reins when it's not misbehaving. She's not a fool not to know pulling a horse's rein causes destruction, maybe not destruction but it's not very lively to the eye.

   *****

    She felt herself swaying right and left and she's pretty sure...no, hundred percent sure she'll fall off the horse's back sooner or later if Zamiel doesn't intervene.

   She felt lighter in the chest. It was as if she had a heavy weight on her chest before but didn't realize it until it was lifted by someone. She couldn't explain these fees. It felt like those times when she mistakenly destroys her mother's most treasured values and in the end, her mother instead says nothing and reacts the opposite. That was the same feeling she felt, maybe not exactly but close enough. That will, for now, she doesn't have the strength racking her brain to figure out the feeling.

  *******

   At the last moment when she thought it was over when she assumed the deed as been done and all hope was lost. He finally intervenes, she felt as if someone breathed life into her. As though she lacked oxygen or maybe she hasn't been releasing enough carbon dioxide nor has she been taking in enough oxygen. Except for that, she felt as if she was saved by a superhero. Like when you fall off a skyscraper, and you brace yourself for the fall to die then a superhero comes in to save you, it's then that you realize you weren't breathing.

  She felt her eyes sting, welling up with tears, due to the sudden intrusion of the breeze. She let go of the reins, letting him take over. She stared down at her hand trying as hard as she could not to blink, knowing too well it'll result in tears falling from her eyes. Her eyes stung the more with the breeze occupying it the more. She had no choice she can't stand it anymore, it burns. She finally shut her eyes, releasing a little trickle of tears flowing down her cheeks. It was not much, the tears couldn't make it past her lips area.

   She imagined him staring down at her head from behind, maybe he was. What was he supposed to do, stare at the side or what? She felt embarrassed, more than embarrassed about what happened. She can't imagine how she looked like riding the horse, sitting on it like a statue, or swaying right and left with the horse's back.

  Uugghh!. She can't believe she embarrassed herself and he had to save her. What if he didn't interfere with it,  what then?.

 ("Why is he quiet? Maybe he doesn't want me to feel embarrassed. Uugghh, I can't believe he even has to act like nothing happened so as not to... Hugh").

  "Now do you understand what I'm saying?". She heard him finally speak after all the silence. It was as if he was trying to make it simmer before speaking. And when he spoke, he had to ask a question. A rhetorical one at that. At least it was rhetorical which doesn't require an answer.

  "That's what I was trying to imply... It takes time". He added with a smooth calming voice which calmed her also. His voice sounded so smooth like a lullaby. It felt like the ocean's breeze, calm and cool to the soul. It was unexplainable, like an antidote to tension - Jazz music. Like jazz, that's how it felt to her. 

   Most of the time, when she feels sad or depressed or has any sort of negative emotions, she usually listens to jazz to soothe her tense self.

  She is calm and untensed as if she was hypnotized, it felt as though a rush of calm breeze or spirit passed by making her nerves settle down like waves or tides settling back into the ocean. She leaned her back behind to rest her aching spine on his chest, which she just realized was aching. She didn't even realize she has been sitting straight or her back hurt this bad. She felt a warm feeling wash over her. It was as if she just received a message as soon as she landed her back on his chest. She felt warm and secure just by resting all her body on him.