Legend of Ara - Chapter Six.

It seemed like hours passed, but Ara couldn't tell. Time just seemed to merge into each other, she even swore she fell asleep at one point, it was so dark inside the tree that she had to distract herself with dreams to stop her fearing what she couldn't see. There was commotion outside a lot of the time, at one point she even heard a woman screaming and she just prayed it wasn't Loré. Her being in the dark also gave her a lot of time to mull over her thoughts about the prophecy. The were parts of her that wanted to climb right up that ladder and take all of the men on with a single sword. The fact that she had been predicted to do it, gave her the confidence to actually do it. But she knew that was completely stupid and ludicrous, she would more than likely be captured and killed. Besides, the prophecy told of her raising an army, just one girl was not an army no matter how strongly she felt.
It seemed she was getting lost inside her own thoughts, inside her own mind. Maybe it was the mix of fear, and anger, and worry, that drove her insane for that short amount of time, yet she still managed to keep completely silent as to not blow her cover. She was dozing off again when she heard the sound of a bang and a scraping sound up above. She froze still and her eyes widened, had they found her? They'd found her hadn't they. And this tree had no other way out, she was trapped. She was as good as dead.
"Ara?"
Aeron's heavenly voice echoed down the blackness, a stream of light danced on the inside of the tree from the opening of the door. She sighed a huge great sigh of relief.
"They are gone now, you are safe, you were hidden well" He said, "Climb up again"
Ara scampered up the ladder as fast as she could, eager to escape the black abyss which had trapped her for the unknown amount of time she'd been there. When she reached the top Aeron pulled her in and shut the door and pushed the heavy table back into place before turning to her and holding her by the shoulders.
"Are you okay?" he asked, looking and sounding slightly concerned.
"I am alive." Ara replied.
"Oh, Ara! You must be so hungry, they were here for so long, here, I started making this for you." Loré's kind voice came from the other side of the room. She had been heating a stew over the fire and ladled some into a bowl and handed her it. Ara hadn't eaten hot food since she'd been at the castle, so this really was a treat. She ate the food like a hungry lion, as if she hadn't eaten for days.
"They won't be back for a while now, they seem to be doing circuits of the villages and towns around the land. They searched so thoroughly, just I guess not thoroughly enough. They didn't find the one thing they were looking for. And this also leaves you a bit of time now, to build up, you know? The villagers here all know you are here now. And they all are sworn to secrecy of course. But it means that an army can begin to be formed, we can send out messages to the villages surrounding, and more and more people will come. Believe me. Later tonight we are to have a meeting, and you are going to be there."
They finished the food and sat back, looking at the candles on the table and sitting in silent thoughts. Ara was certainly nervous about this, she didn't know the villagers, she didn't know how they'd react, what if some of them didn't want an army. All of these doubts filled her head over and over, spilling over her mind, until she had to just block it all out. It was something she had to do. It was important.
Aeron started a conversation about the army. "I want to join." He said. "I want to be there, at the front, with you. Fighting them."
Ara didn't quite know how to take this. Obviously she couldn't say no, why would she say no? She was going to be much less of a fighter than he was. Yet there was that tiny part of her that couldn't bear the thought of his beauty being taken away in a battle. But it was important to him. Even his own mother had told her how important it was to him. She couldn't take it away from him. He wanted it as bad as she did.
"You will be there, Aeron. You will."