Fenix and Jewellyn walked up to the base of the tree. He looked up at it's imposing height again. A tingle went up his spine. "You don't have to do this," Jewellyn whispered carefully. This prompted Fenix to reach for the first foothold. He was going to climb it after all. He had little trouble clambering up the footholds. Everyone watched, silently for now. He grasped for the last foothold and hauled himself up to the first branch and stood on it.
At this point Simon walked towards Jewellyn and grabbed her, dragging her back away from the tree, Jewellyn screamed, and screamed again. "Shutup," Simon yelled...and slapped her.
"Hey, Simon!" someone said from his gang. "You didn't say we were going to be hurting any girls!"
"Shut up, everyone! Shut up!" His face was all red and livid with rage. "I give the orders around here!" He dragged her further away.
Fenix, up in the tree, couldn't believe what he was seeing. He didn't give it any second thought really, leaving Jewellyn down there alone. He never figured that even Simon would stoop so low as to attack a girl. Fenix became frantic. Wanting to do something, he thought about jumping down, but that freezing paralysis had him in it's grip yet again.
One of the boys down below shouted, "Hey look! Over there!" he pointed over in an easterly direction towards the Tanglewood Forest.
Someone was advancing rapidly towards them on a jet black stallion.
Fenix looked and knew who it was right away.
Aine felt the sense and the general direction of serious trouble. It was in the general direction of that tree, again! Someone was up in the tree. Is that...? She doubted it was, but then again, who else could it be? Better to wait until I get closer to be sure. She had on some of her lighter riding gear this time, mostly dressed in brown leathers. Her blonde hair was cut very short this time, with no ponytail there at all. She was bent down as far as she could on Obsidian, thus reducing the wind resistance. She made good ground, and quickly at that.
Everyone watched as she drew near the tall tree. She looked up at the tree, incredulous as she realized it was indeed Fenix. She quickly noted that some brute over there had a woman in his grasp. What in Valdemar's name is going on here? she thought, not totally comprehending yet what was going on, but it didn't look good. She saw another gang of boys over by who she supposed was the ringleader.
She looked up at Fenix and grinned, "Hello my good friend, and what praytell are you doing up there now?" She saw that Fenix looked scared and he pointed in the general direction of Simon and...that woman, who appeared to be struggling. Realizing more of what was going on now, she dismounted Obsidian, looked up at Fenix and grinned again "Really Fenix, we must meet under more pleasant circumstances one of these days."
Everyone looked in her direction. Little did they know...
She hurried and ran over to where Simon was, and he wasn't handling Jewellyn nicely at all.
"Get out of here punk, and leave us alone! I suppose you're one of Fenix' weakling stooges! Beat it, if you know what's good for you!" Simon figured it was time to give the signal to the boys to move on in, thus putting an end to this guy's prodding. Simon continued to hold Jewellyn, but not for long.
Aine had reached the boiling point.
Things began to happen very rapidly. Aine quickly walked up to Simon, and to his sudden surprise, she grasped him by the collar and pulled him up off the ground with her right hand, and delivered a lightning fast, strong left hook right into his face. His face got mashed in a bit, and his head swung sharply to the right. Aine threw Simon to the ground with disgust. A fair amount of blood was flowing from his nose. The sneer he had on his face was gone. Jewellyn tried to roll out of the way as quickly as possible and yelled, "Behind you!"
Aine had already sprung to action, however. One of the other boys jumped on her back and clung to her and tried to bring her to the ground. She saw some of the other boys rushing towards her. She ran forward and twirled rapidly, using the outswung legs of the boy on her back as a weapon. She mowed three boys down in this fashion. Then, she quickly bent over, thus slamming the piggy-back rider to the ground in a cloud of dust. Some of the other boys, not quite realizing what they were up against, ran towards her, shouting. She quickly raised up her leg, and kicked one of the boys in the chin as he came upon her. One down. The other boy had what appeared to be a club in his hand.
Still up in the tree, Fenix yelled, "Look out!" Finally he decided to try and get down and slipped, thus falling straight on to one of the footholds, with only his testicles to break the fall. He clung to the main tree as much as he could. He moaned from the sheer pain and agony. His world turned grey, and he passed out, somehow still clinging on to a foothold above, with the other foothold supporting his crotch.
Aine prepared to meet her foe. The other boy ran towards her with rage on his face, preparing to deliver a debilitating blow to her with his club. He raised the club, almost right upon her. She crouched, grit her teeth, and at the last moment quickly dropped to the ground, and simultaneously thrust her lower leg and foot right up into the boys gut. There was an awful whoosh! sound as all the air the boy had rushed out of his throat. He fell to the ground and struggled with the wind being knocked right out of him.
Unknown to Aine at this time, Simon was crawling slowly towards her with a knife in his mouth, still bleeding profusely from the nose. Jewellyn however took him by surprise and conked him on the head with a heavy leather club that she found lying nearby. This time he was out for the count. She was shocked at what she had just done. She put her hands up to her face.
Another foolish boy, who had circled rapidly around Aine while she was still on the ground, jumped on her before she could get up. He was quickly surprised as he realized that he was a she. "You're only a girl!" he shouted.
"Do you have a problem with that?" Aine asked nonchalantly. Before he could answer, she quickly rolled him over and planted a hard fist right into his mouth. He too was out for the count now.
The whole area around the tree was littered with limp-bodied boys. Simon would have a headache for about three days now.
Jewellyn walked over to Aine sitting on the ground, wondering who this mysterious savior was and asked her, "Are you alright? You really gave those the boys the business!"
Aine stood up, dusted herself off, and said, "Oh, that? that was no problem at all. I saw you were in danger and at first I thought, 'What in the blazes is Fenix doing up in that stupid tree when you were in trouble?' Then it dawned on me, I had to rescue him from that tree before, and I saw those other boys. I saw you were in trouble too. Did he do to you what I thought he was going to do?"
Jewellyn recalled the struggle with disgust. "No I struggled against him quite vigorously. He never...still, I feel awful and sickened by what he was trying to do." She was threatening to burst into tears.
Aine walked over to her and did a rare thing: She gave Jewellyn a big hug and said, "Of course you do. Who wouldn't?" The tears flowed from her quite freely now.
The crying subsided now for a bit. Jewellyn looked at Aine and said, "Did you see what I did to that awful Simon? He was actually trying to crawl towards you with a knife in his mouth."
"And you gave him the business right?" Aine asked, managing to smile despite the fact she was sore all over.
"At first, I thought I had killed him. I conked him in the head with that leather club. It made an awful thudding sound." She shuddered as she recalled the event. "But he was moving a little, and breathing too. I made sure of that."
Aine had to laugh a little at that. "Well good going," Aine said, "we can't let the bad guys get the upper hand now, can we? Oh I'm sorry," she realized she hadn't even introduced herself yet. "My name is Aine. At your service," she said smiling. She offered her hand to Jewellyn. "And you are?"
"Jewellyn," she said. They shook hands. "You sure came at the right time, thank you so much."
They both looked up at Fenix. Aine said, "Yeah I had to rescue him from that tree before," she said casually.
"Oh so you two have met before then? He never told me about that." Jewellyn said, feeling slightly disturbed for some reason she couldn't quite pin down yet.
Aine replied, "Well come to think of it, he never mentioned you either."
They both exchanged uneasy glances, again, not knowing quite why.
"Well," Aine said, "We'd better go help loverboy out of the tree there."
They both laughed at this and walked over to that tree. It appeared Fenix was coming around a bit. He looked dazedly around, then looked down at them, trying to focus his eyes. Then suddenly he realized. Oh, it's those two girls, Aine and Jewellyn, he thought. He felt a little uncomfortable too at this thought, not quite knowing why. He never mentioned one girl to the other as of yet, though.
"Well," Aine yelled, "are you going to come down or do we have to come up and get you?"
"It depends on the opinions of certain body parts of mine," he said, grinning a little. He tested his legs a bit, gently touched his crotch, which did feel a little tender, then announced, "I think I can. Only a few more footholds to go."
Jewellyn said, "Don't worry, we'll talk you down." They both looked at each other and giggled a little.
Fenix somehow managed to struggle down with their verbal assistance, and looked uneasily at both of them when he got down. He was feeling very sore again, and winced a little. "I see you two have ably handled this situation, " he said looking out at the downed boys scatterd around the grove, some of which were struggling to get up now. "So you two have introduced yourselves to each other, I suppose."
"Yeah and we did a lot of talking about you too." Aine said teasingly. Both of them looked at each other and winked.
Fenix shifted his feet, looking at the ground.
"Don't worry dear Fenix, its not as if we're involved in a love triangle, or something else silly like that," Jewellyn offered. They both laughed a little again.
Jewellyn thought she 'heard' Fenix again in her thoughts, though she didn't catch much of it this time.
Fenix looked at her and raised his eyebrows a bit and thought, I can almost imagine that happening though. Fenix and Jewellyn were great friends, maybe something could develop there, yet he felt entirely different around Aine. He felt things he never felt before around her. He always felt really good around her. She inspired him and knew that somehow, wherever they went, there would always be excitement just around the corner. He often found himself smiling about her; the things she said and did, when she wasn't around. He would daydream a little then and totally forget what he was doing...or what he was going to say.
Aine noticed it was getting near supper, yet she still didn't know where she was going to eat. This thought brought a heavy weight down upon her. How am I ever going to face them again, she thought. "I should get going. I am thinking about going to Haven. It is my wish to get into the Collegium someday. Maybe, someday, I can become one of the guard, or even a Herald if I get lucky and get chosen." Fenix and Jewellyn both perked up at the mention of Haven and the Collegium. Someday they too wanted to go there...thougeh they figured it was a longshot at best.
"Well good luck with that," said Jewellyn. "You certainly have a good start with those awesome fighting skills."
Aine smiled and offered to shake both of their hands. "Well, let's hope so," she replied. "Though they do have quite the high standards. Oh, and by the way, you two go to school at the orphanage in Beldorn, correct?" It really was only a matter of simple deduction.
They both nodded. Fenix thought about the upcoming school new-week. He thought though that school would soon be over and then...what? Jewellyn answered, "Yes we do."
"I will keep you both in mind, I am fairly certain you two have what it takes..." she said. She turned to go and mounted Obsidian who was apparently grazing nonchalantly all this time. They said their goodbyes and Aine rode off while Fenix and Jewellyn walked back home with some new things to think about..
They didn't all know it yet, but these 'chance' meetings were weaving new threads in the fabric of destiny. Love, struggle for survival, war, comedy, and tragedy would never be the same in their lives now that they had met. They thought perhaps that their lives were small and would have little impact on things...little did they know...
