Free The Awakening by Gary Alan Wassner Page B

life I waited, and when I was overlooked and you were chosen instead, I felt unworthy and useless.” She straightened her shoulders and stood up tall. “Will you say to me now that you did not want to be what you are? That you would have accepted another role in life?”
    “It is not about wanting, Alemar. I adore Wayfair. He is everything to me. He is the most important thing in my life. I only wish to make you understand that each action is the result of every other action. None of us are separate from the rest, no matter how hard we may try to be so. Even Caeltin D’Are Agenathea acts in response to the events transpiring around him. We Chosen sense the flows, we feel the fabric as it weaves and we recognize the influences that urge us all forward. But even we cannot affect them significantly, for we can never see the totality at one time. We impact a small corner of the cloth, but the whole of the bolt is beyond our comprehension. The pattern appears so different when you gaze upon it close up from that which you see when you view it from afar.”
    Tell her of the mark, Alemar thought she heard him say, though in a voice quite different from his usual one.
    Crea paused.
    “You should not wish for a life like mine. It is full with accomplishment and rife with satisfaction, but it is a lonely one nevertheless. Surely I have companionship at all times, but here in Eleutheria I do not have the opportunity to commune often with others. What I have had to sacrifice is inconsequential in the greater scope of events, but you are destined for other things.”
    Explain to her, Crea. She must be enlightened , the elf Princess distinctly heard in a voice unlike any she had heard before today. In fact, she was not even sure that she heard it with her ears. It seemed more as if it emanated from within her head.
    “The trees are being threatened by a situation so discomfiting, so thoroughly ironic in nature, that it pains me to even discourse upon it. You though…”
    Get to the point, my friend. She does not need all of this prattle to understand the significance of what you have to say , the voice broke in to the Chosen’s sentence.
    “Who was that speaking?” Alemar finally asked, and she looked from side to side, perplexed by the sounds invading her mind.
    “Who was what?” Crea asked surprised.
    “That voice. I distinctly heard a voice other than yours interrupt you just a moment ago.”
    “There is no one else here but you and I, Princess. It is impossible unless you are hearing things,” he responded, more calmly than before.
    “I did not imagine it, Crea,” she said defiantly.
    Is it possible, my friend? the voice echoed again.
    “There— You heard that, did you not?” she questioned.
    “What exactly did you hear, Alemar?” the Chosen asked her seriously now.
    “I heard a voice say ‘Is it possible, my friend?’,” she replied without hesitation.
    May the First bless us all , it declared.
    Alemar searched from left to right with her eyes. Then she pivoted upon her delicate feet and looked in all directions, expecting to find a living being behind a bush or tree.
    “Where is he hiding and why must he conceal himself from us?” she asked.
    You will not find anyone to whom you can attribute the sounds, my dear , she heard echo within her head.
    “Please, Crea, what is happening? I am becoming frightened,” she said honestly, and consternation creased her pale forehead.
    “I wish I could tell you, Alemar. It seems that somehow you are hearing Wayfair speak to me, even though he did not allow this intentionally,” the tall man said.
    “The Lalas? I heard a Lalas speak?” she asked, astonished at the prospect.
    “Apparently so, Alemar. I cannot understand it myself. This is highly unusual.”
    Unusual? It is unheard of , Wayfair chimed in.
    The voice was so deep and so mellow that Alemar wanted to hear it over and over again. It brightened her with encouragement despite the words. Just the tone and