completely innocent, harmless exploring |damen|

Because Saber’s attempt to find peace outside of her home but still in her district the other day had more or less…failed, completely, she had now decided to leave the district. She wasn’t foolish enough to just waltz up to the fence’s weak spots and dart through, though. Other districts might be so small that such a thing would work—there would be places near the fence where no one came or went, or at the very least where there were lulls in traffic. Not so in District Two, though. Not so at all. Everyone was always coming or going—well, so long as always meant whenever the sun was up. As long as the sun shone in the sky, the streets were packed with comers and goers, and you truly couldn’t find just a little corner for yourself no matter how hard you tried.

But when night came…Well, it would be wrong to say that no one was out at night, but compared to the traffic during the day time, it was as if someone had dropped a bomb over the District. There weren’t any rules about having to be inside at night, but it was the general feeling that it was better to be inside at night, when all the nightmares could come prowling out. Only a few of the citizens of District Two ventured out at night—Saber was, of course, not the only one, and she didn’t always come out like some of them did, but the numbers of the night walkers were very few indeed. Being different from the rest of the District…it wasn’t an easy thing to live with, even if the difference was something as small as liking to see the night sky.

Saber did not go out at night to see the moonlight, though. There were those out here who did that, of course, just came out to stargaze, but Saber wasn’t one of them. Whenever she came out at night, it was almost certainly because she needed to escape into the forest for a bit. She wasn’t some freak of nature that saw the forest as a second home, or god forbid, a parental unit. She knew there were those who thought like that, who considered the forest a sentient being on its own, but thankfully she was not one of them. Saber didn’t go to the forest because she felt a drive to be there, or felt like she truly belonged there. Fate had nothing to do with her desire to be enfolded into the forest’s dark embrace. Saber went into the forest on nights like these because she couldn’t stand the idiots she saw everyday anymore, and needed the peaceful quiet that the forest always gave her. Birds chirping, wolves howling, animals scratching and clawing and fighting? That noise was nothing to her, especially when compared to the horrible ruckus the humans made every single day.

Her lips quirked up in one of those incredibly rare, almost nonexistent, smiles as she scaled a small shop so that she could climb over the fence. It wasn’t always on, but one of the problems with leaving at night was that it was more likely to be on, simply because most of the animals liked to hunt at night, leaving the District at more of a risk of attacks than if it were day time. Or at least, that’s what they were told. Her parents told her that runaways were more likely to leave at night, and that was why the fence was more often on then. They didn’t know that she was one of the few that left at night, though she did always come back. A smirk—not a smile, a cruel, cold smirk—appeared on her face when she thought about how easily they were duped. How quick they were to think that their perfect peacekeeper-to-be was and how happy she was to be just like them. Her parents had no idea how much she hated them, or how often she considered the opportunity of running into the forest, and not coming back.

Of course, she did need to get into the forest before she could even think about whether or not she would return for the umpteenth time later on tonight. She had been perched on this rooftop for far too long, the chances of a peacekeeper spotting her were growing with every second that passed where she remained on the roof. With that thought motivating her, she backed up a bit and got a running start before launching herself up into the air—and for a few brilliant moments, the world was still and quiet, and her muscles relaxed as she flew through the air. Unfortunately for her, though, remaining like that would mean bruised ribs and possibly broken bones, she had to react in the next ten seconds or she would be crashing down to the earth, and no one would ignore that noise.

After allowing herself one last second of uninterrupted peace, she reluctantly opened her eyes and latched on to a branch that would have been out of her reach if she had waited perhaps another second, maybe two. Her shoulders screamed as her arms were practically wrenched from their sockets, but her face remained as still as stone and she managed to not make a noise—she was used to this by now. Eventually, she expected to be able to do it without her shoulders hurting at all. Not yet, though, as the abuse was still abnormal to her shoulders, and it didn’t happen often enough for them to become truly used to it. Eventually, though, they would.

When her shoulders finally stopped punishing her for the pain she had brought upon them, she pulled herself up and into the tree. It was comfortable up here amongst the leaves, where no one was bothering her and it was unlikely that anything would come near her. She was tempted to stay right there, to not move an inch and just stay in that little bubble of peace and quiet; but, unfortunately, she had had a goal in coming out here.

Having reminded herself of that, she perked up a bit and crawled down the tree until she had landed gently on the ground, her knees bent and her body crouched low to the ground to absorb the shock from the small fall. Saber stayed in that position for a few moments, breathing as quietly as she could as she listened to the forest—it wouldn’t do to be caught unawares right now, when she hadn’t gotten to where she had stashed one of the bows and quiver of arrows that her parents had let her borrow one day. If something came at her just then, she knew that she would have to play the coward and run up a tree, but at least she knew she could do that. She doubted too many of the district citizens were good at scaling trees.

No time to keep thinking about that, though, she had to get moving and keep moving—it wasn’t like training, where nothing could truly hurt or destroy her, and that was part of the reason why she liked coming out here so much. It was real, it made the blood pump through her veins ever faster, and it calmed her down even as it excited her. Were she the type to easily smile, Saber would undoubtedly be grinning as she ran through the forest in an almost completely silent fashion—but she was not the type to smile freely, and so her face was as still as could be as she moved through the forest, ducking and weaving under branches and past bushes, jumping over fallen trees as if she had gone this way a thousand times.

Oh, right, she had. Saber had almost worn a path into the forest floor here, as this was always the way she went when she was going to retrieve her weapons. Never did she leave them too close to the district, just in case someone were to find them on accident. No, Saber hid her weapons deeper inside the forest than most would have the guts to do; most were petrified of going too deep into the forest. Not all, there were still those who no doubt had the courage to venture in and could plausibly find and steal her weapons—but they would have to know exactly where to look. Sometimes Saber herself got a little confused when trying to find her weapons again, but that was usually only when a good amount of time had passed since she’d last come out.

Like now. She had allowed weeks to pass by since the last time she had ventured into the forest—no doubt that was why it had hurt so bad when she’d grabbed onto the tree limb—but she had been busy of late, her parents keeping a closer eye on her than usual, putting her through more rigorous training practices than usual. She had needed very much to come to the forest, but it simply had not been possible. Now, though, it was, and she was glad to once again be out here.

It took her a little while to get to where she knew she had left her weapons, and she could tell that the area had been undisturbed by human hands, but still her heart started racing as soon as she got there—what if someone had followed her out here that last time she’d been out, and had known how to cover it back up just like she always did? Her face showed no worry, but her hands trembled ever so slightly as she tore into the leaves and earth until she had unearthed her weapons. One soft sigh of relief, that was the first noise she had made since she had entered the forest. Slowly, almost lovingly, she wiped the dirt off of her bow, took each and every arrow out and checked them, and then made sure the inside of the quiver was sound and clean. Only then did she sling the quiver of arrows over her back and stand up, holding the bow in her hand.

Just in time too. She heard something—leaves rustling? a twig snapping?—but it was just after she had pulled her mind away from her weapons and back to reality, so she had only caught the end of the noise, just barely alerting her to the presence of something. Barely a second passed before she had her bow loaded and ready and her back to a tree, her eyes darting all about her. She wanted to climb, to get high up, but she didn’t know what—or who?—was out there, and she didn’t know what would then be considered an advantage, or a disadvantage.

1,815 words - - - - -
tag; Wolfe Cross - - - - -
notes; Well...that was longer than I meant for it to be...Sorry... - - - - -