Chapter 7: Accountability


The dim candlelight flickered over disheveled feathers, giving Sarah glimpses of the red spots that stained the white. They frightened her, those little spots, made her feel small and impotent. One of the goblins shut the cabin door behind her, leaving the two of them alone.

"You're hurt. You're bleeding." Her voice was quiet, clipped, her hands hovered over him where he lay on the table.

Good Lord, you act like I'm on my deathbed. It's just a dislocated arm. Wing. Whatever.

"I can fix that, right? What do people do, just pop it back into the socket?"

You don't do anything. Not until you calm down.

"I just want to help." she let her arms fall to her side in exasperation. "This is all my fault…"

I'm fine, woman! If you want to do something helpful, sit me upright. I feel ridiculous sprawled out like this.

She gently picked him up and set him on his feet, her eyes catching how he stiffened and winced.

"You don't look fine."

The sound of his laughter rolled through her mind, a low, rumbling chuckle that provoked her to irritation with remarkable alacrity.

"What's so funny?" her voice now no longer hushed, it was sharp and guarded and colored with something awfully close to a pout.

I never would have thought you would have been this worried about me.

Sarah scowled and took a step back from him, folding her arms over her chest defensively. "I just feel bad that you got hurt because of me. That's all."

Ah. I see. he said complacently. Then, after a pause, What were you doing out there?

"I was-" she paused, feeling suddenly foolish. "...I was looking for the goblins. I thought they might like to sleep in the cabin. It was cold out." her excuse seemed to her own ears to fall flat, but the owl just sat and stared at her. She thought maybe she should thank him, for saving her, but something held her back. His words echoed back to her from a fews days ago, "Haven't you ever been warned against thanking my kind?" She thought she understood him, a little. Actions spoke louder than words.

Them, but not me? I'm wounded. he said in an amused voice.

Her thoughtfulness and compassion amazed him. How could anyone be so kind, in such circumstances?

Sarah looked at him strangely. "You're not mad at me?"

What's done is done, precious thing. You don't plan on prancing off into the night alone again, do you?

She grimaced and looked away. "I should have listened when you said we were still in danger." she admitted begrudgingly, and much to his satisfaction. "What was that thing?"

A gargoyle of the Wastelands. It seems that whoever caused us all this trouble in the first place doesn't want us to return to the Underground.

"Does it give you any better idea about who might be behind all of this?" She would love to know who was responsible for the last few years of her life. Then she could hunt them down and punch them in the face, or bite them with her big wolfy teeth.

Not really. The Lord of the Wastelands is utterly unknown to me. However, now I know that it is him who has cursed us and stolen my throne. Only he has dominion over the gargoyles. Only he would have sent one.

The mention of the gargoyles brought her full attention back to him. "Do you think more will come after us?" she asked, gaze intent.

Possibly. We must stick together, and be alert. I believe gargoyles only travel in darkness, so we shall travel and hunt by day only.

She nodded, then frowned at the way his left wing hung at a crooked angle.

"If it's just a dislocated wing, then where did all the blood come from?"

His head twisted and rotated as he inspected himself, then he turned his black eyes back on her. It's not mine.

Sarah looked herself up and down, finding several small cuts and scrapes on her arms and hands. She had been so pumped with adrenaline that she hadn't noticed. The bleeding had stopped, but several of them needed cleaning.

"Oh. Okay then." she said, business-like in an attempt to maintain her own calm. "Will you let me fix your wing now?"

No, no, best wait until dawn. Putting the bone back in place will be far less complicated then.

She eyed him carefully, wondering if he was bluffing about his injuries. "Does it hurt?"

Would it make you feel better if I said no?

She smirked a little at his sarcasm, then pulled out the small wooden chair and sat down, weariness creeping into her bones. The silence thickened and seeped closer, and the dim candlelight seemed to grow dimmer still.

"You are very irritating, you know," she said suddenly in the sleepy gloom between them, "I can't tell whether you're a villain or not."

The was a long pause, and Sarah had begun to think she'd offended him, but when he finally spoke in her mind, his rich voice was incredulous and amused, and drenched with sarcasm and double meaning.

Please, fair maiden, tell how I have "irritated" you.

Sarah was unaffected. Something about him being ten inches tall and covered with fluffy feathers made her feel as though she could speak freely.

"The baby-stealing thing; definitely villainous, but on the other hand, you've saved me twice now. That's suspiciously heroic." She frowned at him critically, leaning back in the chair.

Three times, actually.

"Oh yeah?" she challenged.

You'll recall the cleaners.

Sarah paused for a moment before answering, deciding if she wanted to yell or not. She settled for mirroring his sarcasm. "Please, great Goblin King, tell me how that qualifies as 'saving me'." she fixed her gaze on him, a gaze that could have cut bedrock.

The false wall. It gave way. he explained in a bland voice.

Sarah saw red, and sat up straight in the chair. "How anyone could consider that saving-"

-It gave way, he interrupted forcefully, and not only saved you from the cleaners, but also led you away from other, far more deadly, perils of my Labyrinth. The whole scene was orchestrated for YOUR benefit! Had I wanted to destroy you, had I wanted to cause you harm, I would have done so by my OWN hand.

There was a stifling silence between them, and Sarah felt suffocated. He had helped her?

"Then why?" she asked serenely after a long, heated pause, "Why did you take Toby?"

He had been looking away all this time, empty avian gaze fixed disinterestedly on the window over Sarah's shoulder. His gaze flicked to her for a moment, and the dank, cold air seemed to glow with charged electricity; her skin became inexplicably warm, and her heart beat faster.

It wasn't him I wanted to keep.

He looked away and the dim returned, and Sarah knew better than to say any more. Her mind was reeling with the depth and dimensions of his words; her instinct was to be defiant and confrontational in response, but that would not do if she wanted to get any useful answers out of him. She was no longer fifteen, but a young woman of eighteen, and she had control over herself, if nothing else. And it was late, and they were, the both of them, spent.

Without a word, she got up and walked over to the bed, folding herself under the covers and submitting to sleep before allowing herself another thought.

He watched her out of the corner of his eye, taking note of how she no longer feared him.


Author's note:

Yeah, yeah, it's too freaking short, I know. This just felt like the right place to end the chapter. You all still love me, yes yes?

Please review! Reviews make me write faster :-D