//------------------------------// // Chapter 4 // Story: The Regime // by Wheller //------------------------------// Chapter 4 That night, she dreamed. Carmine found herself standing in the village square, It late into the night. It looked as if it was exactly the same as it was when she left, but it felt different somehow. She wanted to move around, to explore the village. Was she homesick already? Maybe. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t turn her head even. It was as if some invisible force was forcing her to look on. Staring at a simple looking house before her. In the light of the full moon, she saw a figure moving, shambling slowly towards her. A cloaked figure almost glided over the cobblestone streets, making no noise as it walked. No, walked wasn’t the right word. The figure’s legs were not moving; it was simply gliding over the surface scant millimetres off the ground. That was when she noticed, that in one outstretched foreleg, the figure was holding a wrapped bundle. She wanted to scream, cry out for help from anyone who listened, but she could not make a sound. She was screaming in her mind, calling out for anyone to help her. Ryswell the kind Trade master, Martel the bard, even Flint the fire maker she would accept. But she could make no noise. She wasn’t sure why she felt so much danger from this creature, it had demonstrated no intent of any kind; it just radiated fear from it. It was so unnatural in the way it moved, in only a way that a creature of dream could. The cloaked figure stopped, and rotated a sharp ninety degrees. It was still hovering just above the ground, but it was no longer moving towards her. She felt relief, knowing that momentarily, at least, she was out of danger from the shambling figure. Or she did until she discovered why it had done so. The figure approached the door of the house in her field of view, and set the bundle on the doorstep. She could feel her eyes widen in panic. No, don’t! Her demand fell on deaf ears. The figure reached up to the door and knocked on it. It knocked four times. Slowly, deliberately. Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump! Panic began to set in in Carmine. She knew what was happening. She tried to call out; tried to get the figure’s attention. She wanted it to stop! The door to the house opened with a blinding flash of light, and she screamed in absolute terror. … Carmine found herself sitting up. Drenched in cold sweat. The Traders were all to their hooves, scanning around the clearing for any threats to their person. Carmine realised that she must have screamed out loud, and woke them. She was breathing heavily, and for a moment she didn’t really know why. Then she remembered. It was the nightmare she’d just experienced. She frowned at the others, as they all looked at her. Some of them even looked annoyed they'd been awoken by nothing. She must have looked to them as a jumpy filly who was afraid of the dark. Carmine bit her lip as Martel knelt down beside her. ‘Are you alright?’ he asked. ‘I—’ she interrupted herself, opening and closing her mouth a few times. She tried to find an explanation, but none could come to her that didn't sound absolutely ridiculous. Martel shook his head, and gave her a hug. She hugged him back tightly. ‘It was just a nightmare,’ she said. She noticed Ryswell walking towards them, with a pained expression on his face, and a slight limp. Her eyes went wide. ‘Ryswell! What happened to you?!’ she asked. Ryswell blushed and rubbed the back of his head, and his muzzle scrunched up. ‘I took a little tumble is all. I was out scouting and I heard you scream; I ran back here to see what was going on; but I tripped on a root and took a little tumble,’ he admitted. She realised in that instant something was wrong. Ryswell was lying. She was far too polite to call him out on it, not in front of everyone—but why did he lie? What reason could he have to lie to her and his closest friends? She thought about it for a few moments and wondered if he had been doing something he thought she might disapprove of. She put the thought out of her mind. Now was not the time to accuse Ryswell of anything. The other members of their troop had settled back down on their bedrolls. Carmine felt guilty for waking them, she wanted to say something; anything to let them know that they had not made a mistake in taking a scared little filly on their adventure. She had nothing to say, though. No words would come to her that made any sense. So she just laid down quietly and tried to go back to sleep. … Morning could not come soon enough, and when she woke, she found both Ryswell and Martel standing guard over her. She smiled warmly at the two stallions and sat up. ‘Good morning,’ she said. ‘Good morning,’ they said in unison back to her. ‘You had a rough night Carmine,’ Ryswell added. She nodded her head. Though she wasn’t sure why at this point. She could scarcely remember the dream’s details anymore. Only that it had filled her with absolute terror. ‘I don’t recall the dream,’ she said finally. ‘That may be a good thing in this regard,’ Martel said. ‘Considering you woke up screaming.’ She shivered and nodded her head, before quietly rising to her hooves and rolling up her bedroll, placing it in her saddlebags without another word. She wasn’t really in the mood to chat with the others right now. They seemed to catch on quick and gave her the needed space. It was awfully cold out. It was early October, the beginning of spring in the Regime. The October rains were sure to be on them soon. She looked up at dark clouds overhead. She knew full well what they meant, both in the literal, and figurative senses. It made her long for home. She’d only left yesterday, but it felt as if it had been much longer. She had never been away from home before on her own, at least not with practical strangers. She would love nothing more than to curl up in the corner of her father’s workshop and watch him work while the heat from the forge draped over her like a warm blanket. She shook her head, discarding these thoughts of going home. It was hardly as if she was going to stay away forever. She would be returning home to her father at the conclusion of the Trade. After she had met her changeling. She thought about the changelings for a good long while. She had so many things she wanted to know from them. It was generally thought (despite there being no proof, no one from her village had ever seen a changeling after all.) that the changelings knew about every little thing that happened in their realm. They would have the answers she sought. She could feel it in her bones. Ryswell fell into step alongside her, he noticed her brooding. ‘What are you thinking about, Miss Carmine?’ he asked. She looked up, having barely registered the question. ‘What?’ she asked, looking at him and blinking. ‘What is on your mind,’ he asked again. Carmine knew that she wasn’t going to get her way out of this. ‘I—I suppose you want the full story?’ she asked. Ryswell nodded his head. Carmine sighed, and looked away, back towards the tree line of the forest that lined the cobblestone road. ‘I never knew my mother,’ she admitted. ‘In truth, neither did my father, he met her during the celebration of the Winter Solstice fifteen Junes ago, and after that night she vanished. ‘Then the next year, on the night of the June Solstice, she reappeared just long enough to deposit me on my father’s doorstep in our village. My father told me how clearly he could remember that day. A slow knock on the door. It knocked four times, and when he got to the door, there I was. Wrapped up in a little bundle no more than a few weeks old. My mother dropped me on his doorstep like a sack of flour, and vanished without a trace,’ she finished, she had noticed that she began to cry, tears streaming down her cheeks. Ryswell frowned. Their caravan had come to a halt as young Carmine had told the story. he put his hoof on her cheek and turned her head to look at him. ‘I am so sorry to hear that,’ he said. ‘Thank you, Ryswell,’ she said and wiped the tears from her eyes. ‘So I think that you can understand why I want to meet a changeling. I don’t know how, but I know that the Changeling Queen knows—or at the very least—can find out what became of my mother. I have a question to ask her, you see.’ ‘And what is that?’ Ryswell asked, cocking his head to the side. ‘Why?’