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Olivia was soon lost making her way through the maze of boulevards and avenues until she found herself staring up at a behemoth wall, nearly a hundred feet high and half that thick, with a gate cut into the stone and two massive oak doors thrown open. It was one of the gates of Abriciel.
She walked tentatively into the gaping black hole of the tunnel and found her courage mounting with every step. She stepped out onto the road and looked up at the stars, to delirious for her mind to catch up to the moment. Olivia started skipping down the road and away from the city that had been her prison.
The sun began to creep over the horizon turning the ink black night sky to a cascade of red and orange before slowly settling into a dull pale blue. The farmers heading into Abriciel walked along beside their banging and clattering carts. The noise, the light, and the sudden realization of what she had done made Olivia frightened. Every kindly man on his way into the city to sell his grain became a slaver to her eyes, a slaver bound and determined to drag her back to Lyria. She had to get off the road.
She cut away from the road when no one was watching, she was good at making herself invisible, and started traipsing through the forest with no idea where she was or where she was going. For awhile it was delightful for her, hiking across the rough terrain, looking around the trees, and bouncing down the gentle hills, she loved the smell of the pines and dirt, but sometime around midday she started getting hungry. She ignored it at first but soon she could not pretend any longer not to hear the growl of her belly. For the first time she started to feel not like an adventurer but like a lost little girl. She picked up the pace, hoping to find a village or a farm. After a few more hours, with the sun slowly picking its way across the sky, she panicked and started running around, yelling and crying in frustration, until she finally fell down next to a little pine sprout. She cupped her head in her hands and began to cry.
"Why are you crying?" a deep baritone asked her curiously.
Olivia shot her head up looking around startled, but she still could not see anyone around her. "Who's there?" she demanded in a meek voice.
"Don't be scared child." The reassuring deep voice promised her. There was a shake in the leaves overhead and a satyr dropped to the ground from a nearby tree. His goat legs were thick and powerful but his torso was slight and slender. His bronze skin and dark eyes almost hauntingly strange to her. His hair was shaved along the sides with a strip down the middle that grew long in the back where he braided it, his bow and quiver strapped to his back casually. He wore a del, a thin cotton wrap, so thin she marveled how the man was not freezing. She looked down at her own shabby nightgown and cloak, her bare feet now blackened with dirt and grime and blushed.
"Who are you?" she asked again, this time much quieter. When the satyr continued to simply gaze at her with interest she decided to try one more time.