Part VIII

Taffi closed her eyes, but the blow never came instead she felt herself being picked up and the wind hit her face and her hair whip round and she turned to face, Gruffi?

She looked shocked and surprised at first then looked over her shoulder and saw they were quickly descending to the ground below. She turned to face him and looked at him confused then said, "Why did you save me? I thought you disliked me"

"I do," he said looking down at her, "but even though I don't like you I'm not going to let you get killed"

Taffi stared blankly for a moment taking in what he'd just said then smiled up at him and hugged him and whispered in his ear "Thank you"

Her actions took him by surprise but he continued to concentrate on getting away from Ramsin's castle. He closely followed the other's then finally stopped in a clearing quite a distance from the castle.

As soon as Gusto landed he placed Jasmin on the ground and began checking her over for injuries. He couldn't surpress a smile grace his features when Jasmin stirred and looked up at him and smiled weakly.

All the other Gummi's landed except for Taffi and Gruffi who weren't far behind and immediately rushed towards Jasmin and began fussing over her and trying to ease the pain from her most recently inflicted injuries. Jasmin didn't try to stop them although moaned and whimpered to let them know when they were hurting her. She eventually felt herself slipping into unconsciousness and smiled she felt happy to have her friends around her and knew she would be safe.

Gruffi landed with Taffi still in his arms, he glanced down at her and was she was staring up at him and smiling. He returned it and just stared down at her afterwards then Jasmin's whimpering made them look up. Gruffi quickly put Taffi down hoping no one saw what had just happened after all he did dislike Taffi didn't he?

Taffi looked at Gruffi over her shoulder gave him a quick smile then scampered off to Jasmin. She leant down by her side and saw that she was unconscious with Gusto by her side holding her hand.

The rest of the journey back to the Glen was uneventful so it was obvious to Taffi that Ramsin's sorceress was letting them go and Jasmin remained unconscious until they got back to the Glen.

It had now been three days since they'd arrived back at the Glen and Jasmin was still unconscious and Gusto had refused to leave her and remained awake by her side waiting for her to wake up.

Taffi had slept nearly all the time since they arrived back at the Glen exhausted from all the travelling and mostly sleepless nights. Taffi crawled out of bed and slipped on a white dress that she carried around in her pack. It had no sleeves just thin straps and the top hugged her body while the bottom fanned out slightly swaying with her every move. She walked out of the room and headed down the corridor into the Great Hall. Upon entering she saw Sunni and Tummi talking by the fire and Grammi laying food on the table. Looking quickly round the room she could see that no one else was in the room so she walked off down another corridor towards Jasmin's room. She wandered down the corridor looking around not really taking notice of anything then she ran into something hard and fell to the floor. She was flat on her back laid out on the floor squinting she opened her eyes to see what or who she'd run into. Gazing up she saw Gruffi looking down at her.

"You okay?" he asked.

"Yeah" she replied getting to her feet.

An awkward silence passed between the two as they just stared at one another not saying anything then Taffi heard voices coming down the corridor.

"I'm going to see Jasmin," she said brushing past him.

Gruffi looked after her fleeing form and sighed then headed out of one of the Glen's many exits.

Taffi quickly walked the rest of the way not meeting anyone on the way. She thought over how they rescued Jasmin and how awkward things had gotten between her and Gruffi.

She reached the door and opened it, Gusto was by Jasmin's bedside his head rested on her bed, he'd fallen asleep. Jasmin was moving and then eventually opened her eyes to look at Taffi.

"Jasmin" said Taffi excitedly.

"Shhh…..!" said Jasmin pressing a finger to her lips.

"Huh, what?" asked Taffi.

"Gusto's asleep" replied Jasmin looking down at Gusto.

"So wake him up," said Taffi clearly missing the point why she needed to be quiet.

"No" said Jasmin turning to look at Taffi again "He has been up a long time with me he deserves to sleep".

"Hmm…I guess" replied Taffi pulling up a chair and sitting next to Jasmin.

Jasmin laid back down in bed still looking at Taffi studying her something had changed about her friend but she didn't know whether it was good or not.

"What's the matter?" she said finally.

"Nothing" replied Taffi.

"Liar" said Jasmin "You always were a rotten liar, so come on what's up?"

"Nothing I can't handle" said Taffi smiling reassuringly at Jasmin.

Jasmin was about to reply when Gusto stirred beside her and looked up.

"Jasmin, your awake" he said sleepily.

Jasmin smiled down at him then looked at Taffi. Taffi took the hint and got up and left leaving the two alone to talk.

Gruffi went outside the Glen after Taffi had ran into him, he picked up his axe and began chopping wood but it was no good no matter what he did the thoughts of Taffi never left him.

Annoying things crept into his mind like why wasn't she mated by now and having a family then on occasions he'd taken to comparing himself and her together but just shook his head and carried on chopping wood. He was really going to have to do something about this maybe talking to Taffi alone might help and see how she felt.

Throughout the rest of the day Jasmin and Gusto stayed in Jasmin's bedroom talking although in the evening they did venture out to watch the sunset after tea. The rest of the Gummi's were busying themselves about the Glen while the cubs went and played with their human friends Cavin and Calla.

Taffi though had gone out of the Glen and sat upon a cliff it was now sunset and she was all on her own. She sat down on the grass and stared at the setting sun thinking about what had happened over the last two weeks and especially the last few days. Three weeks ago she thought Jasmin was dead then Cubbi had found her and taken her to her, she had disliked Gruffi then. Then Jasmin had been captured and she still disliked him and on the journey to rescue her. Then when she thought she was going to die he shows up and complicates everything. Followed then by constantly running into him and how he looked at her everytime he saw her, why could she not stop thinking about him?

She sighed loudly then shivered and realised the sun had set taking all its warm with it. The wind blew playing with her hair that had been left down her face held a sad expression she had never felt like this about anyone so why was he so different. A single, pure, crystal tear slid down her cheek she felt so helpless about this situation she had been feeling helpless a lot lately, which isn't something she usually experienced. Realisation was dawning on her though that made her realise why she felt so helpless she had fallen into one of nature's oldest traps, love.

The sound of laughter made Taffi look up and turn in its direction Gusto and Jasmin were running past hand in hand obviously having fun. Taffi smiled then stood up and began walking away in the opposite direction. She couldn't explain why but everything around her looked dreamy and peaceful and yet a pang in her heart told her something was missing. She began thinking once again over the events of recent times and began asking questions like Why him?or How so suddenly?and Why now?

Then her thoughts reached back to when she was a cub and she longed to see her mother again, but like Jasmin her mother had been killed the night when Ramsin came. She wandered round the forest not really caring where she went as long as she was walking then she began quietly humming to herself a song she'd heard long ago.

Night came soon for Taffi and she sat in one of the chairs occasionally glancing over at Gruffi while listening to one of Zummi's stories. Her thoughts were distracted and instead of really listening to the story she just kept thinking over possibilities of them being together. She came to the conclusion that she was hopelessly in love, but she didn't know whether he shared that feeling so she remained silent. In no time at all Zummi had finished his story, but her troubled mind kept asking the same question which she desperately seeked an answer to Does he love me?

Everyone began to depart the room slowly so rubbing her sore, stinging eyes she rose out of her chair and decided to go to bed and get some sleep if she could. That is if her thoughts once again didn't wander onto one particular gummi.

TBC…

Please R&R!!!

Sorry this has like taken forever, but I thought I lost all of my work of this fic when my computer went down, but no matter, I shall hopefully be able to continue on with this fic in the future.