"First One…wake up." I heard in the darkness, "First One…you need to wake up. I'm so sorry…This is all my fault…" It sounded like the Dryad, but I couldn't pinpoint who that was. "Wake up…Hey…wake up." The voice became closer, but it switched. It's now louder and deeper. "Prestin…hey…Prestin…Wake up Prestin!"
I gasped as my eyes flashed open, and then squinted at the sunlight peeking through the trees, the floating lights circling slowly around me. Troy was next to me, hand on my shoulder.
"Oh god, you're alive!" he said, staring at me for a moment before he put his head in his hands. Looking back over he asked, "What happened? Are you alright?"
I returned his stare as I slowed my breathing and looked around. Did he not see the lights everywhere? I shouldn't mention them, it would only worry him. Or he would think I'm crazy. I took a deep breath before sitting up and replying, "Yeah, I think I'm fine. I just—"
I tried to think back to what caused it, but I couldn't pinpoint it. I felt like I was on the verge of remembering something important.
"I just…" I tried again to think of a reason, but I couldn't and sighed, "I don't know."
Troy looked on with concern and stood up, "Well, you're fine now, right?"
I took a breath, "Yeah, I think so."
"Alright," Troy extended his hand to me, "then let's go back to town."
I took his hand and stood up, but now I had another problem. 'He wants to head back. I need to either stall for time or distract him in some way. They need more time to set things up.'
I decided to change my mind about the floating lights and ask him about them. 'It would at least give me some more time to figure out a way to keep him out here for a while longer.'
"Hey Troy, maybe it's just me, but do you see all these floating lights?"
He stopped in his tracks and turned around, "No, no I don't. Are you sure you're fine?"
"You really don't see these?" 'I hope that this will keep him occupied for a bit longer.' "They're everywhere. They're even in my hand."
I held out my hand to let the green orbs fall onto it, and in seconds a few dozen accumulated in my hand. "Are you telling me you can't see all these?"
"No, I can't." Troy began to strain his eyes at my hand, "Are you sure you're alright?"
"I think, I thought I was but now—" I put my hand to my head and dropped to one knee, "I think I need to rest for a while." 'Perfect, now they'll have all the time they need.'
"Alright, sit down, we'll rest here until you think you can make it back."
"Thanks Troy." I looked around the area with the lights, "There are a lot of strange flowers over there huh." I made it as an offhand comment, but I was hoping Troy would take the time to gather some of the flowers Mr. Smith wanted for dyes, and he did exactly that.
"Oh yeah, you said Mr. Smith needed dyes right. I'll go get some of the flowers, maybe we can grow some of them too."
Troy spent a few minutes gathering a variety of flowers, and I handed him my bag so he could store them. I looked at the sun and knew they would still need a bit more time, so I decided to stall further by fiddling with the amber rock.
When I took it out the green lights moved towards it, causing the stone to take on a similar glow before it faded a while later.
"Hey where'd you get that?" Troy said pointing to the amber.
"Not sure, I found it somewhere on the way here, but I can't remember where."
He smiled, "Do you know what the leaf is from?"
"No, I've never seen any like it before. Not sure how it ended up here."
We talked for a bit longer about the amber, and Troy mentioned that he really liked the concept of amber, saying that it is both a stone and alive with the ability to keep things the same forever. I think that's stretching things a bit, but I can't deny the analogy.
As the sun just started to duck behind the mountains, I slowly stood up. "I think I'm feeling well enough to go back."
On the way back, I asked Troy to keep what happened a secret, and I used the excuse of "not wanting anyone to worry," but told him, "If it happens again then I'll tell the others," so it didn't seem too suspicious.
As we got closer to the town, I tried to make my footsteps more and more quiet, so that once the town was in sight, I could sneak away and join everyone in the surprise.
I slowed down, and eventually stopped as Troy kept going forward at a normal pace and went to the left with the bag of flowers and minerals to sneak around into the side entrance of the town hall.
Opening the side door I asked, "Hey Mr. Smith, did I get you enough time?"
"Prestin," Mr. Smith was clearly worries, "what the hell took you so long?"
"So, too much time them?" 'I didn't mean to worry them, but I figured better safe than sorry.'
"Yes, that was too much time. We've been waiting for almost an hour!"
Mr. Smith was almost shouting, getting him a "shhhh" from everyone else.
"Come on now, you're gonna give us away." Mrs. Smith whispered, pinching Mr. Smith's cheek.
Ignoring his pain, Bravo added, "At least take one of the guards with you if you're gonna be gone so long. It'll make him less nervous."
"I guess so." 'I'll do that next time. Don't want to keep causing scenes—'
My thoughts were cut off by Conner hushing everyone, "Quiet, he's coming in."
Everyone went dead silent and ducked out of line of sight from the door as it opened. "Mr. Smith I'm back." Troy looked around, "Mr. Smith?"
Just as Troy was about to turn around to go look for him, we all jumped out and yelled "Surprise!"
Troy jumped a bit, before smiling and laughing. "Ah no wonder something seemed fishy about today." He turned fully around and asked, "Prestin, were you in on this? Prestin?"
"Yep, sure was." I spoke from the crowd.
"How did you?" He shook his head, "Never mind. So, the lights and headache were all to keep me away from town for longer then?"
"Yeah, sure was. Took a lot to convince you though." 'I'll just go with that for now, it's easier that way. Thanks for the out Troy.'
And with that, the festivities began. While I was gone, Maddie and Holly were gathering and preparing food, and Mr. Smith got some mead he had hidden away in the carts. The festivities were cut short after a while, due to a lack of things to do, but it was still long past mid-night. We ate, drank, and laughed about this and that, I don't really remember the exact details. I was a bit drunk and tired, but I remember falling asleep in the middle of the town hall with everyone else.