1 Between life and death.

Guinevere laughed out aloud as Rufus tugged at the fringes of her dress, the lupine creature beckoning on her to come and play with him. Although she had already engaged Rufus in a couple of minutes of play, the dog obviously wasn't satisfied and wanted more of her attention, and in the end, she was forced to give it to him.

"Fine, Rufus, but just know that I'm not going to be playing with you all afternoon. I have a couple of other things to do," Guinevere said as she picked up the round wooden saucer from Rufus' feet. With minimal effort, she drew back and then tossed it out, letting it fly.

"Alright boy, fetch it!" Guinevere called out to Rufus. Well not that she needed to anyway, for the dog was already well on its heels, running after the tossed saucer to go retrieve it. As she watched Rufus run off, her father's voice reached her ears. He was calling out to her from inside the house.

"Guinevere? Guinevere?!" He called out, the second being louder than the first.

"I'm coming father!" Guinevere called back out to him as she turned and hurried inside to meet him.

"I just wanted to remind you that we are almost out of water, just in case you totally forgot while you were busy playing with the dog." Kendryck told her.

"Oh snap, I almost forgot!" Guinevere exclaimed as she suddenly remembered that she had to go fetch some water from the river as the water they had at home had almost run out.

Kendryck Irving, Guinevere's father, was a man in his early fifties. A tall, rather well-built man, with a calm look and a disposition to match, he was the kind of man that one would mistake for being a carefree, unmarried bachelor, despite the fact that he had a mature daughter already.

Kendryck had gotten married to Ariana, Guinevere's mother, twenty-three years ago, and they had had Guinevere a year later. Less than two years after that, Ariana had conceived again, but unfortunately, the child, a boy, had died at birth. For some reason, after that, she was not able to conceive again. Still, she wasn't bitter about it or anything. As she always said, she was thankful to the gods for giving Guinevere to her as a gift, and if that was the only one she was going to get, then so be it. She was going to be content with that she had been given, and love and cherish it as best as she could. And that was exactly what she had done. She had done her best to show her daughter Guinevere all the love and care in the world. Together with Kendryck, they had both raised Guinevere up. Unfortunately, when Guinevere was sixteen, the family lost Ariana Irving. She had died of cancer. The loss came as a devastating shock to both father and daughter alike. For more than a year, they mourned the beloved woman. Now, six years later, the family had mostly gotten over it and moved on, although Kendryck had chosen to remain unmarried, for his own personal reasons.

Also, Guinevere was twenty-two now. And there was no doubt about it, she had grown up to be a very strong, charming woman indeed. Stunningly beautiful, with captivating blue eyes, blond hair, a well shaped nose and small lips, she looked like something straight from a dream. As if her facial beauty wasn't enough already, her body was what you might call a complete work of art! Tall, with a slender build, full bosoms, a small waist that gave way to her well curved hips and sizable behind, she looked like a goddess of beauty. Her father had commented on countless occasions that she looked almost exactly like Ariana when he first met her. Indeed, she had gotten most of her looks from her mother, including the blond hair and blue eyes, rather than her father's brown hair and hazel-brown eyes.

It was mid afternoon when Guinevere picked up the two wooden buckets, attached them to the wooden yoke and set out on the dirt road heading to the river, but that was not before tying down Rufus with his leash, to prevent him from running off again, as he had done on numerous occasions. As she made her way to the river, she contemplated on her plans for the rest of the day. The sun was already beginning to cast shadows on the ground as it steadily made its way towards the western sky. However, it was still high up in the sky, indicating that she had a lot of time until the evening. She took notice of this.

"Ahh, that's right, I'm meeting up with Prince Owen this evening. No worries though, there's still a lot of time until then. I guess I can take my time." She said to herself.

Guinevere got to the river not long afterwards. There was no one else there at the moment, just the way she liked it. She didn't want to go through the trouble of engaging in small talk with the other ladies and women at the river. Not that she had any issues with any of them, but Guinevere was a girl that loved to keep to herself. Although she was quite friendly and social, she also appreciated being alone on occasions, with just herself and her thoughts. Now was an example of such times. Also, Guinevere believed that getting overly familiar with others most likely than not brought about trouble.

She wasted no time in detaching the wooden buckets from the yoke. Bending down, she filled the both of them up with water. As she rose back up, her eyes casually drifted over to the other side of the river. Staring beyond the river bank, she fixed her stare on the woods just across the river. All of a sudden, she had this longing to just wander into the woods and take a leisurely walk there, as she had done on many occasions before.

Guinevere was a wild and adventurous spirit. She loved being uncaged, she loved being free. Even at a young age, she had always enjoyed the thrill of running off to places she didn't know, perhaps getting lost, getting into a bit of danger on some occasions and at the end of the day, find her way back home. She did get into quite a lot of trouble as a kid, with her father having to help her out at times. This spirit was one that she hadn't grown out of, in fact she had grown up with it.

Guinevere lifted up her buckets of water with the wooden yoke, made her way to a part of the river that was relatively easy to cross and, stepping across on the rocks that jutted out from the surface of the clear, flowing water like stepping stones, she made her way across to the other side. Once at the other side, she hid her buckets of water in the tall grass nearby, then began making her way down the narrow path that led into the woods.

Her walk, however, was interrupted when she noticed that the blowing wind was becoming stronger and stronger by the moment. In addition, the skies were beginning to darken. Looking up, she realized that dark clouds were beginning to cover the sky. Thunder could be heard from a distance as lightning began to flash in the sky. A storm was coming, and fast, and it looked like it would be a heavy one indeed.

Quickly, Guinevere did a U-turn and began hurrying out of the woods, looking to return to the river, get her buckets of water and rush back home in time to beat the incoming storm. But the storm was faster. Before she could make her way out of the woods, the rain had already begun to fall, prompting her to stop in her tracks and take shelter under a sycamore tree. As the rain gradually increased in intensity, she realized that she couldn't wait the rain out there, or else she would inevitably get drenched. That was when she began looking around frantically, trying to search out any better form of shelter around to run to. Fortunately, she found one. To her left, quite a distance away, hidden in the bushes, stood a small house. Thanking her stars she was able to spot such a place, she wasted no time in jumping out from under the tree and running all the way to where the house was as fast as she could, reaching her target in about two minutes. Taking shelter in the front veranda of the house, there she stood, waiting for the rain to cease. There was no way she could make it back home in this heavy downpour.

As she stood there, she took a good look at where she was, the house she was taking shelter at. The house was in rather good condition, not at all dilapidated, like she initially thought it would be. It almost looked as if someone actually lived there. "Nah, that can't be," she immediately reasoned, discarding her initial thought. "There's no way that anyone would be staying all by his or herself all the way out here in the woods, isolated, away from everybody else." She concluded. But just to be sure, as well as to satisfy her curiosity, she walked over to the front door and, after a brief moment of thinking about what the hell she was doing, knocked on it twice. There was no response. She then tried again a couple of more times, louder this time. Still, the response she got was the same – none. Finally, she concluded within herself that there was no one living here. Or if there was, the person had left there a long time ago. The latter option would explain why the house was still in good condition and, when she tried to force the door open in order to satisfy her curiosity, it wouldn't budge.

After waiting there for about thirty minutes, the rain finally subsided. That was when she finally emerged from the veranda and proceeded to walk back to the oak tree where she had initially taken shelter under and from there, she made her way out of the woods and back to the river.

The initially calm, peaceful flowing river was a powerful torrent by the time she arrived back at it. Thanks to the storm, the water had swollen, overflown its banks and was raging loudly. Guinevere sighed. She should have known that this would happen. Now, one way or the other, she would have to cross it.

Picking up her buckets of water from where she hid them, she balanced the yoke on her shoulders and approached the water, to the point where she crossed over from before, in order to cross over to the other side once again. It was not that the river didn't have a bridge, yes it did have one, but it was rather far off at another part of the river. Crossing over through this route, although very risky now because of the torrent, was way faster and easier, or so Guinevere thought. And so she decided on the latter. She would brave it all and cross here. A very daring move.

With the load on her shoulders, she took a few steps into the running water, then stretched her right leg out to one of the rocks which served as stepping stones. Although it was now completely submerged in water, it was still possible to see and reach. Fixing her right leg onto that rock, she took the next step and her left leg found the next rock beneath the surface of the water, and she fixed her foot there. Progress. Moving forward, she took yet another step, and her right leg this time found the next rock. The water was now up to her knees, but she was proud of herself. She was almost there; all she needed now was two more steps and she would be at the other side of the river, the part that used to be the bank. From there she could comfortably wade through until she was clear. As she attempted to take the next step, however, the strong river current swept her off her feet. She lost her footing and fell into the water.

The current violently carried her down the river with it. The more she struggled to get back on her feet and push her way out of the water, the more it forced her down as she tumbled and rolled down with the flow. Same went for her buckets of water, which were going down the river with her. At this point, Guinevere was terrified. If this current successfully carried her over to the deep part of the river, then she would be in serious danger. With that fear of dying pumping her body full of adrenaline, she abandoned her buckets and yoke and doubled her efforts as she desperately tried to force her way out of the water, by hook or by crook, but alas, she couldn't. The torrent would not allow her. It continued to force her back down as she tumbled and rolled in the water, inching ever closer to the deep side.

That was when she began to panic dreadfully. She began desperately shouting for help, hoping that perhaps, by any stroke of luck, someone would be around, hear her and then come to her rescue. But there was no one responding. As she continued to scream amidst coughing and spluttering, the currently succeeded in carrying her to the deep side. She found herself sinking down the water. The bottom of the water was nowhere within reach anymore.

As she tried to swim back up, the water current kept forcing her down below. She was gradually losing strength. Using every last bit of energy in her body, she made one last ditch attempt to save herself, but she was powerless against the river. She gasped for air, but found none. Instead, she was steadily taking in gulp after gulp of water. Eventually she lost all her strength and stopped struggling.

As she sank down the water, many thoughts flashed through her head at the same time. Was she going to die? Yes definitely, she was going to die here. So this meant that she was never going to see Rufus, or her father again. Ohh, her father. What is he going to do when he finds out that his only daughter had drowned? How would he cope with it? How about Owen? How would he react to her death? Would he cry for her? What about her friends, the people that knew her? What would they say and do? All these thoughts ran through her head in quick succession at that moment.

And then, as she gradually began losing consciousness, her eyes caught sight of something. Up above, she saw the figure of someone diving into the water after her. It was a man's figure. That was the last thing she was able to identify right before she passed out.