Swish...
She lost her balance and fell into the water, but as she was a good swimmer and her average apnea was up to ten minutes, this mishap did not give her any concern.
She swam calmly to the surface and after a while, her head emerged out of the water. She felt the breeze again but to her surprise, she was now standing up inside the water. She pushed back the fringes that covered her view in order to better examine the situation. All of a sudden, she realized that the set had completely changed. The ocean, as far as the eye can see on the horizon and the vast beaches on the other side had been replaced by two banks surrounded by forests. She swept her eyes around her and realized that she seemed to be in a river, some big rocks upstream and big sand towards the shore.
She could not believe it. How did she end up in a river when she was clearly in the ocean before a wave engulfed her? "Impossible," she said to herself. "The shock surely caused me a kind of hallucination!"
Lyria was standing up and the water reached her chest level. She said to herself, "if my sight and my touch deceive me, it would be difficult to deceive my tongue. I'm probably in the ocean and the taste of the water will prove that I'm right, it's just a passing hallucination. The bitterness of the seawater will surely wake me up". Although she was trying to remain composed, panic began to invade her.
She took a sip of water in her hand and swallowed it quickly, and again, to her surprise she realized that the water was refreshing. Feeling complete stupefaction, she raised her hands and violently hit the surface of the water, exclaiming "My God ... It's not possible! I must surely be dreaming! "
Not only had her screams broken the calm of the forest, causing some birds to fly in all directions, but they also attracted the attention of some people passing nearby.
One of the people then asked his companion if he heard the cries coming from the river. Of course, he heard it, though he did not want to pay attention to it. The first one continued, "who can make such a noise here?" The other replied with a bored expression, "what does it have to do with us? It is surely the cries of a person who could not bear the harsh realities of life ".
- "But remember that the place where these cries come from is currently the private bath of the royal family, and what is more, that one is reserved for men! How is it possible to hear a woman's scream there? "
- "It is surely a woman who wanted to spy on a member of the royal family in his bath," the companion retorted in a mocking and ironic tone, "but as she found no one, that explains her disappointment "
- "It takes great audacity to dare spy on the royal family ..."
But the companion was not so enthusiastic about the conversation, because a need to defecate had taken him for a long time now.
These two riders were returning from a mission from a neighboring country; they remained at the back of the troop to settle a few things.
Since the companion could no longer afford to postpone his natural needs, he took his leave and said:
- "What a great sense of righteousness! ... I will join the troupe first. As these shouts seem to be those of a woman, you would have no problem to deal with it alone if it interests you so much. On that note, we'll see each other at the barracks.
And with a kick, he booed his horse at a gallop.
The remaining horseman then descended from his horse, left this latter free to graze the grass, and advanced towards the origin of the screams.
He stopped a few meters from the river, hide behind a tree and curiously observed the person in the river. Indeed, there was something to be stupefied, given the show of monologue he was facing.
The girl in the water had her bare shoulders exposed. When she came out of the water after a long apnea, she gave way to a reflective monologue, turned in another direction and once again took a deep breath before going for another dive. This repetitive scene seriously began to tire the observer, and the latter stepped forward a little more to discern the subject of the monologue. To his amazement, he understood that the person was trying to return home and what seemed ridiculous to him was that the person thought she could get back by diving into the water. He chuckled and said to himself, "It seems true that the harsh reality of life has overwhelmed this girl."
On the other side, Lyria resurfaced on her n-th dive and still without result. Frustrated with her failed return attempts, she decided to stay underwater longer. The spy seeing that the monitored person had been underwater for far too long began to worry. A lot of bad thoughts ran through his head: "did she faint by exhaustion?... A sudden cramp might have prevented her from rising to the surface, ... and then anyway, it would be better to avoid that a person dies in this bath! It will not make one want to enjoy thoroughly in the future!"