Faithful Pebble
Part Ninety-Nine
"I drew my bow, but the knight laughed at me." Pebble bit her lip. Beneath her hood, her teeth snagged it sharply. "His voice was rich, uncommon and deep. His smile lowered my weapon. His beckon drew me closer. I approached him. Naively, I did so." She watched him, the wanderer. Before his continued silence, though, she turned away. Her shoulders hunched slightly. Her pride quivered in the dark. "He asked for my name. I didn't give it. He asked for my age. I didn't say. I hadn't spoken to anyone apart from Father and Mother, not even the people I pulled from the pits. I never gave them the chance and I didn't want to do so with the knight. I couldn't trust my voice around him, in front of him. But then, he laughed at me." Her voice lowered, it dipped and sank with the dying rays of the sun, "It was so rich, his laugh.
Pebble lowered her chin, closed her coarsely veiled eyes. Once more, she fidgeted with the screwdriver. "He took my bow from me," she said. "Then, he embraced me. He asked if I ever been kissed. Foolishly, I told him no.
Her hood billowed. "He asked if I wanted one. He said, the town was going to name him a hero on the morrow. He said, it was because he saved them from the big bad wolf.
Her head tilted. "I frowned at him. I didn't know what he meant. But then his hand caught my hood, the edge of the cloak my father once gave me, that my family wore to disguise us from the outside world. Wooden brown like the trees, thick for the snow, coarse and tough for the harsh terrain, it fell slowly when he pulled it off, unveiling me before his eyes.
"I remember them, his eyes, those eyes that father once warned me of. They were the same eyes my father gave my mother the last time he embraced her. They were the last thing I saw when suddenly the knight kissed me, when suddenly he pushed me over the well's rotten edge. I fell," Pebble whispered. "Head downwards, I sank. And then, he took my bow. And then, he strung it. He shot me. The arrow pierced my leg as he tossed my bow and the rest of my quiver about me, bathing me in my father's poison. I slept for a time after that and when I awoke, I was alone.
"I eventually heard the sound of an axe hitting a tree. I believe, the rest you know." Pebble sighed playing quietly with the screwdriver. After a moment, she lifted it. She moved as if to continue her work, but then she stopped. She noticed the silence. It dragged on tick-tick-ticking into the sunset, tock-tock-tocking through the meadow, disturbed only by the quelling chorus of the evening's dancing crickets, its subtle drifting breeze. She turned, Pebble. She stared looking at the back hunched away from her. It cloaked the man, her stranger, the wanderer.
He sat quietly on the steps of her porch, stared at something, ran something luminous between the crooks of his fingers. Pebble bit her lip. Quietly, she ambled to his side. She looked over his shoulder spying the diamond dragon twirling head over heels between his green and brown and curiously stout fingers. As she stared, his words filled the silence. "Did he do anything else?" the wanderer asked. His voice was soft. It gave nothing away, not a thought, opinion, or emotion. The girl shook her head bewildered.
"Are you lying?" he asked again, his words harder. "You lied to me before."
The girl blushed. She looked away. She shook her head.
He opened his mouth. Once more, he started to speak, but this time Pebble interrupted him. Eager to change the subject, eager to dispel the heavy feeling growing like weeds from amidst the meadow, she licked her lips and spoke. Quickly, she asked, "Why don't you believe in dragons?" She laughed. It was a hollow sound, empty and fake and cheap.
The wanderer started.
He looked at her.
- Calla