DREAMS

Being in some environment where what I can only describe as exceedingly 'arrogant nothing could go wrong Victorian hunter' types were hunting lions - until of course 'something went wrong' and the lions were able to get at the hunters and viciously destroy them. As the last 'hunter' was getting pursued and killed (I may have tried to get him to try fleeing), those of us us seeing this (simply nearby, not participating in the hunting) decided it was well past time to leave the hunting area - I was one who was saying let's go - we left by entering a house from one door, then leaving that house by another exit that opened onto an area outside the 'park', after grabbing some supplies. My companions seemd to be large energetic gamboling cats (mostly black); I think I assumed I was one of them, too. Maybe we were shifters. I recall grabbing what looked to me like 'sieves' and some smaller disks. I didn't see why we should take these things; I have no pack to carry them in and so discarded the 'sieves', just hanging onto the easier to carry disks. Someone else was also there then, more humanoid. We set off, leaving the house. The assumption seemed to be that like the Drashig from the Doctor Who 'Carnival of Monsters' serial, the 'lions' would follow us relenetlessly, just for having been in their area, hence our fleeing. Our party set out,; I saw a long line of people trekking along down a grassy slope. Quite a little caravan (well, on foot).
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Freedom

He shipped the oars when they were well away from shoal water, and stepped the mast. The boat looked very small, now that she was inside it and the sea was outside it.

He put up the sail. All the gear had a look of long, hard use, though the dull red sail was patched with great care and the boat was clean and trim as could be. They were like their master: they had gone far, and had not been treated gently.

"Now," he said, "now we're away, now we're clear, we're clean gone, Tenar. Do you feel it?"

She did feel it. A dark hand had let go its lifelong hold upon her heart. But she did not feel joy, as she had in the mountains. She put her head down in her arms and cried, and her cheeks were salt and wet. She cried for the waste of her years in bondage to a useless evil. She wept in pain, because she was free.

What she had begun to learn was the weight of liberty. Freedom is a heavy load, a great and strange burden to undertake. It is not easy. It is not a gift given, but a choice made, and the choice may be a hard one. The road goes upwards towards the light; but the laden traveler may never reach the end of it.

Ged let her cry, and said no word of comfort; nor when she was done with tears and sat looking back towards the low blue land of Atuan, did he speak. His face was stern and alert, as if he were alone; he saw to the sail and the steering, quick and silent, looking always ahead.


From: The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula K. LeGuinn