55 Passing the gate

Traveling from the village to the capital the next day was much more stressful for me than it had been on our trip thus far. Throughout most of our trip, coming across people had been more of the oddity than the norm. The number of travelers had been increasing as we got closer to the capital, but now that we were officially in the suburbs of the capital, the traffic was almost constant. There were several times that we had to stay behind a slow carriage or wagon because there were people heading the other direction and we could not make it past them.

At least for me, that was not the worst part. If we were in a forest or even a nice prairie I could have dealt with it. But the farm fields were making way for more and more small towns and large estates. Most of the estates took the nature out of their gardens, making them look perfectly manicured, greatly reducing the power I could draw from them. The power I was gathering was barely enough for me to function. There was almost nothing left I could work with. This made me very irritable. It reminded me of animals (humans and elves included) that did not get enough sleep.

My lack of patience left me fuming about everything. Leafia tried talking to me to help me relax, but it did not help much. It had to be almost over. We were so close to finding that idiot magician. With any luck I would be able to find Faun by the end of the day. Worst case it should only take one or two days now.

It was early afternoon by the time we made it to the outer wall of the capital. There was a long line of people trying to enter the city, but as we looked closer the line was only for those people with wagons. It must have been as Emily said. They were waiting in line to be taxed, but those without property with them were free to enter. The city gates were large enough to let two wagons go side by side and allow for some people to squeeze between them. It still took some time to enter the city, but that was due to the crowd rather than getting through customs. Finally we made our way to the front of the queuing mob.

As we crossed the threshold of the city, suddenly everything turned black. I could no longer tell which way was up or down as my mind spun. I vaguely heard a protest which I assumed was from my horse but I could not tell which way it came from. No of the sound was making any sense to my mind. Like an animal struggling for air, I reached out to find something to sustain myself. I quickly found a bright beautiful light that was full of life and grabbed onto it in desperation. Light rapidly rushed back to my eyes as the world righted itself. I found myself about to slide sideways off my horse. I grabbed firmly onto the saddle to keep from slipping off, but I had gone too far and the saddle began to slide with me. There was nothing between me and the hard paving stones below.

Part of my mind was telling me that it would be alright. A fall like this would do no more than bruise a dryad. But causing a scene as soon as I entered the city just hurt me inside. This also would cause people to question if I was really human. It would not be odd for a human to die from a fall like this. They would do good to come out with a few broken bones.

I closed my eyes as if not seeing the paving stones coming might just make them go away. Much sooner than I expected my shoulder hit the ground. After the briefest pause my mind began to race. Why was the stone so soft? It had a noticeable give to it. Not to mention my legs were still partially on the horse. This could not happen if I was lying on the ground.

Opening my eyes I saw that Istan had put his hand on my shoulder and was trying to push me back up. I quickly snapped out of my daze and righted myself with Istan's help. After I was back on my horse I mumbled, "Thank you," to him.

"Are you alright?" he asked me. The look on his face showed that he was greatly concerned for my welfare.

"I did not prepare myself before we entered the city." I said quietly. I was not sure how well he could hear me over the nose of the city. I had been sustaining myself with the limited power coming from the fields and gardens, even using the verge along the side of the road. When I entered the city, that power was cut off. I was left without any ability to function until I started sustaining myself from my internal reserves.

"We should get out of the road, we are blocking the pathway here. Can you move?" Istan asked, seeming torn. I imagined he was caught somewhere in between wanting to give me the time I needed to recover but not wanting to draw attention by blocking the path. I nodded and then quickly looked around. The people behind us were looking at us to see why we had not moved on yet. Irritation was already starting to appear on a few of their faces.

I quickly urged my horse to catch up to Emily and the others. "We should find a place to get organized. We also should try to find an inn for the night." I said as I drew even with them.

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Istan also caught up and asked again, "Are you really all right, F- Miss Laurel?" I just ignored his near misspeak.

"What's wrong? What happened?" Leafia asked in concern. It seems that she had looked back to see that we had fallen behind and had no idea anything had happened.

"I was still sustaining myself off the spiritual essence from the surrounding fields and gardens when we entered the city. As we passed through the gates the concentration of energy dropped lower than what I need to sustain myself." Everyone started to panic as they heard this.

"Are you going to be okay? What should we do?" Emily asked while Leafia nodded along with her.

"Should we get you some food?" Gray asked. Clearly he did not understand the differences between dryads and humans. Though food would slow down the drain in my powers, it was not as effective as sunlight and water. If I could shed this cloak, I should be able to produce enough energy on my own.

"We need to get you outside this city at once!" Istan practically shouted this and was about to grab the reins to my horse and lead the way.

"I will be fine for several days," I said calmly to stop the panic that was starting to rise in the others. "Let's find a place to stay and I promise to tell you more, but this is not the best place to be having this conversation." I looked around and saw that we were still getting some angry looks since we were taking up more of the path than was our right. I could only sheepishly smile at them. These mortals had a really hard time dealing with such a small setback.