Chapter 54

The Horned King's first thought when he regained consciousness and saw Avalina's face in front of him was fury.

Pure, hot fury.

If it wasn't for her, none of this would have happened.

The water being thrown in his face had weakened him severely, to the point he could barely stand without aid, even after several minutes. All through the rest, until he lost consciousness, his face had felt like it was inside a live fireplace.

Then the teleporting had worsened it.

Teleporting was not as effortless as it looked. Not by a long shot, and even for an undead, it was physically draining to do so, especially with the agony he had currently been in.

It definitely hadn't helped that those worthless Invisibles had given him the wrong directions and he had ended up completely on the other side of the forest, watching Avalina and the wolves pass by him three hundred yards away. So he had had to teleport Again, this time to the correct place. And just barely in time to keep Avalina from losing her life too.

Those things, coupled with the fierce wolf battle that had seemed to last forever, and then the loss of so much of his blood-like substance, had finally been enough to make him pass out.

He had expected the wolves to turn tail and run the instant he appeared, as all other living things did, but one look at their eyes had ended that assumption.

He had seen the madness there, that crazed lust for killing that had no end. The illness had robbed them of any and all natural instinct and reason, to the point they would attack anything that moved. Even something like him, that struck mortal fear into every living creature he came near.

The realization of finding himself not only back in the castle, but bandaged up, and Avalina tending him as well, had been a mild shock to say the least.

He had demanded to know why she had brought him back, but her only excuse was, "I couldn't just leave you there!"

He withheld a hmph of mild disgust. Mortals were so pathetic. Relying on their feelings more than anything else. But. . .the only feeling anyone ever felt for him before was hate.

And the idea of her bandaging him had angered him. At first. He didn't need some *mortal's* help!

Everything she said was completely true, although he had been a bit surprised that she hadn't known what water could do to him. If she had been lying he would have sensed it.

Still angry at her for getting him in this infuriating predicament, he had threatened to kill her. Threatened, he thought, mildly irritated at himself. Again. When was he actually going to carry this threat out? Like she had said herself, nothing was preventing him from doing so.

Looking down at her, he had realized that she was the first to ever argue with him, and get away with it. Anyone else would have been killed the instant he regained consciousness.

Making up his mind upon the conclusion that having her around was interesting and provided some form of entertainment, and that if he killed her now, everything he had gone through a few hours previously to save her life would have been for absolutely nothing. The Horned King did not believe in waste of any type, particularly when it pertained to him.

And so he had spared her. Again.

Neither of them had noticed the Invisible come up behind Avalina and slap a thick rag coated in something on her back.

The Horned King had watched in surprise as the events unfolded, the girl's head beside his leg on the couch, nearly in his lap, her hands fisting tightly into the folds of his robe as she screamed and screamed and screamed into the cushions, begging for it to stop.

He doubted she even knew what she was doing.

Angry at the Invisibles for interrupting, he had yanked the cloth off the girl's back, only to stop dead, his eyes widening as he took the damage in.

Her shirt was ripped to pieces, only a few strands holding it on at all, and underneath were bloody gashes that ran all the way from one side of her back and shoulders to the other, and they looked deep.

They were clearly made by wolf claws. It must have happened before he got there. Judging by the look of them, how she hadn't passed out from the pain yet was mildly surprising.

He had bitten back a growl and just barely kept his eyes from changing. The consolation that the entire wolf pack was now dead was the only thing that prevented him from calling in the Creeper for a little self-therapy.

The Invisible had then yanked the cloth from him and slapped it back on, telling him that it was something to pull any disease out of the wounds.

Avalina's screaming intensified doublefold now, and she was almost writhing by his side, screaming for it to stop, please.

He watched, but his eyes did not hold the malice they had been filled with a minute ago.

He understood all too well what she was experiencing. The flames of the Cauldron licked at his consciousness every single day, and the episode he had experienced a few hours ago (That she had brought on, coincidentally) had been the worst in a long time.

Not that he would ever go so far as to compare this with the horrors of the Black Cauldron, but he knew the feeling of being burned alive all too well.

He was not pitying her. . .oh no, the Horned King pitied no one, especially the people that caused him a lot of trouble. He mentally scoffed at such a notion. He enjoyed torturing people, not keeping torture from them.

But he understood her pain.

No, her agony. He understood her agony. But why wasn't he enjoying it like he normally would have? He had no answer to that.

Finally, the Invisible pulled the cloth off, and the girl's screaming stopped. Which was good, because his ears were beginning to ring.

The Horned King did not even realize until then that the tips of his fingers were lightly resting on her shoulder, almost in a comforting gesture, as if he was reassuring the girl that it was now over, until he felt her warmth seep through what little remained of her shirt.

Quickly, he withdrew, explaining the reason for the torture she had just suffered, as he did not expect the Invisibles to do so.

Carefully, the servants bandaged her, tossed a blanket over her shoulders and helped the sobbing girl stand up, helping her walk to her chambers. But right as she left the small ring of furniture near the fireplace, she had turned back.

And thanked him for saving her life.

Right before she finally passed out, no doubt from blood loss, pain, and exhaustion.

The Invisibles had caught her as she fell forward and carefully carried her up the steps to her room.

After they disappeared, he had remained in his position by the fire for some time, deep in thought.

She had thanked him. And it had been in earnest.

"Thank you."

No one had ever uttered those words to him. Ever. He had never done anything to anyone to deserve those words, much less receive them, in the entirety of his existence.

And yet she had.

The first time she had thanked him, after the shock of hearing it had worn off, he had dismissed it as mere habit on her part. For a peasant she seemed to have a rather decent upbringing, and thanking people for something she appreciated seemed to be natural for her, regardless to whom she was speaking. But this. . .

Thanking someone for saving your life was a whole lot deeper than thanking someone for more trivial things.

And Avalina had sincerely thanked him for just that.

Not only that, but she had apparently returned the favor for him as well.

She could have left him in the woods to die and gone home, to the place she seemed to think was so important and clearly craved to be more than anywhere else.

But she hadn't. She had taken him back to the castle, (Her prison, the last place she wanted to be) dressed his injuries, (of Prydain's most hated enemy, and also hers) despite the fact of who he was and the treatment he had dealt her since the day she arrived.

A part of him wanted to simply dismiss this as an act of fear, that she was afraid he would survive by himself somehow and come for her and her family, but a very small part of him whispered that it wasn't so.

"I couldn't just leave you there!" Her words echoed in his mind.

If that was correct, he mused, then he owed his current existence to Avalina. Without her aid he surely would have bled to death.

He blinked, stiffening slightly.

'I owe that girl nothing,' he thought in anger. 'If she had not tried to run away, none of this would have happened in the first place.'

'And why did she run away?' A small voice asked him, but he impatiently brushed it away.

He glanced down at himself, pulling up his sleeve to examine the neat bandaging underneath.

'But she brought me back,' he mused in mild puzzlement.

'Knowing what could await her for her actions. Why? It makes no sense. There was no logical reason for her to do what she did.'

He suddenly frowned as another thought came to him.

'And furthermore, *how* did she bring me back in the first place? Surely she couldn't have carried me back herself, especially not in her own physical state.'

He mentally scoffed at the notion of that slip of a girl carrying anything even remotely heavy.

'That means she would have had to use. . .'

His eyes narrowed.

'Her horse.'

After a few hours of forced bedrest from the Invisibles, Avalina went straight to the stable to care for Mitternacht, noticing the Horned King was no longer by the fire in the entrance room.

Mitternacht was still extremely agitated and anxious to be soothed and loved on at great length, which Avalina was only too happy to oblige to.

The first thing she had noticed was a thick white bandage stretching around the horse's girth and chest, another wrapped firmly around his left thigh. She hadn't noticed he was injured earlier, but if the Invisibles had done the same thing to him as they had to her own wounds. . .

Avalina shuddered at the horrible memory, making a mental note to have a firm talk with them about that. The last thing she wanted was to show any more weakness around the Horned King.

She didn't understand how he could be so cruel to her, save her life, and then go right back to his old behavior. Nothing he did made any sense. He was a monster.

But when he had stared at her earlier, right before her screaming had started (She was still irritated at the Invisibles over that) she had seen something different in those terrible eyes.

Something she had never seen there before, something she recognized but couldn't quite name.

And it puzzled her.

"You could have waited to throw that torture device on her until she got *Back* to her room and had some privacy!"

The second Invisible scolded.

"Yeah, that was totally unnecessary, doing it that way!"

The third said crossly.

"I thought you cared about her."

"Of course I do!" The first Invisible snapped angrily. "But we'd waited two hours, plus however old those wounds already were when she got here. We couldn't wait any longer without treating them!"

"Why didn't you at least let me give ol' Spike Head a dream trip first, huh? It would have been easy! Just one good whack behind the horns. . ."

Because knowing you, you would have killed him."

"Ha! You consider that a BAD thing?" The second scoffed.

"We wouldn't," the third said cheerfully, "We've got way too many beautiful, beautiful pranks left to play on him. . ."

Its voice had taken on a rather dreamy quality.

The fourth spoke up for the first time, directing its sentence at the first.

"Honestly, I would have waited a minute more before I started. Did you see the way they were looking at each other?"

"Yes!" The first said huffily. "Avalina looked like she wanted to just disappear, and the master was enjoying every second of it. I had to break the tension somehow."

"There's way better ways to do it than that!" The fourth exclaimed. "She embarrassed herself in front of the Horned King to top off everything else that's happened to her today."

"Did anyone else catch what else he did?" The second grinned.

"Oh, yeah!" The third sang joyfully. "ProgREEEEESSSS!"

"I think he was feeling sorry for her," the fourth said.

"Hmph!" The first snorted. "That monster doesn't care about anyone except himself."

"That's what he keeps telling himself, anyway," the third said. "I see dem signs!"

The second laughed, before putting on a foreign accent and nodding sharply in approval. "You have learned well, young grasshopper. HM!"

"I wonder how in the world she got him back here," the first marveled. "I don''t know how she managed to hold him on all the way here!"

"I'd like to know how she got him on the *horse*!" The third said.

"That thing was a shaking, raging wreck when we took care of him. How she even got him within a hundred yards of ol' Spike Head is a miracle."

"How we got him bandaged up is a miracle, after the way he fought us!"

"How *she's* alive at all is a miracle, especially since you gave him the wrong directions!"

"I circled the area he needed to be on the map!"

"More like colored it in! It was the size of a blasted spoon. Avalina doesn't know how lucky she is to be alive, with you two idiots giving the Horned King directions."

"We could have sped everything up and helped her out a whole lot more if we weren't bound only to this castle and the courtyard."

"Which is totally not fair."

"Speaking of not fair, you and I have a show to watch!"

"Oh, right!"

And with that, the two Invisibles were gone.

"Heaven knows what they're up to now," the first groaned.

"Were you able to hide the mead from Creeper this time?" The fourth asked, trying to distract the other.

"I just threw it all out," the first said wearily. "Nobody drinks it anyway, and its not worth the trouble it causes."

"How long did it take for him to come out of it?"

A while. You'd be surprised at how much the little bugger can consume without passing out."

"Speaking of the little bugger, where is he now?"

"As long as he stays out of sight, I'm happy."

A croaky warbling noise sounded from the passage that led to the kitchen, obviously intoxicated.

"You're a mean one, Mister Grinch. (HIC!)

You really aaaaaare, a (HIC!) heeeeeeeel!

You're as cuddly as a cactus, you're as charming as an eel, Mister Griii-INCH! (HIC!)"

The two Invisibles sat silently, listening to the Creeper-And-Alchohol combo.

"You're a bad banana with a (HEEK!) greeeeaaassy black peeeeel!"

". . . . . .I thought you said you got it all."

". . . . . .I did. At least, I thought I did. Where the heck did he get that!"

"Don't look at me! I haven't been snitching him any! And before you ask, I know the others wouldn't either. They don't like the treatment he gets from the master anyway. They wouldn't set him up like this."

A short gasp.

"Can you imagine what the master would think if he heard this?"

". . . .Let's find out!"

"NO!" We're going to shut him up, tie him up, and gag him somewhere til it wears off! Help me!"

"I want him to finish the song first!"

They both paused for a moment, listening to the drunken warbling that was gradually getting closer.

"You're a foul one, Mister Grinch. (HIC!)

You're a naaasty, waaaaaasty SkUnK! (HIC!)"

"Absolutely not. I refuse to let Avalina hear this abomination. She's been through more than enough for one day. We'll lock him in the gwythaint's stable til it wears off."

Sounds good to me. But only if I get to watch."

"Oh for heaven's sake. Those two are rubbing off on you too much-"

"Shush!" The other said excitedly. "This is my favorite line!"

"..."

"The three words that HIC!) best describe you are (Hack!) as follows, and I quote, (HIC!)

Stink! (Hic!) Stank! (Heek!) Stunk! (HEEKLE!)

As the Horned King ascended his the steps to his chambers, he was so deep in thought over what had happened earlier, he didn't notice his door until he was right in front of it.

A huge poster was plastered from top to bottom, covering every inch of the wood, filled with bright colors, ridiculous various shapes and something that looked like a messy child's drawing of odd looking horses. Across the top of the poster were the words,

"I love FLUFFY RAINBOW UNICORNS! They make me so HAPPY-HAPPY, dude! ^_^"

The Horned King's deeply contemplative mood instantly disappeared, and his hands clenched together tightly. This had not been a good day at all so far, and the servants seemed determined to keep it that way.

Ripping the poster down, he wadded it up and threw it on the burning torch by his door in a fury, before marching inside his chambers, looking forward to some peace and quiet. . .

Paper wads and streamers of every color lay an inch thick on every available surface, coating his room in a blinding blast of colors.

Above his throne, right above his reach, was a banner in the same colors as the rest, with the words,

"WELCOME HOME SPIKE HEAD!"

Emblazoned proudly across it. It waved at him cheerfully in greeting as he pushed the door open.

His temper snapped. Eyes flashing blood red, he marched out of the room (Stepping all over that detestable paper that had decided to follow him out) he called those Invisibles everything under the sun as he roared through the hall.

"CURSE YOU!"

The insane cackling in the room below him only infuriated him more, knowing there was not a single thing he could do about it.

LOL! Those Invisibles. . .they'd drive anyone crazy! XD Don't forget to leave a review or something to let me know you enjoyed the chapter:)

The drunk Creeper was inspired by Faerydame and a Horned King video on Youtube with the Grinch's theme song on it XD. You should totally go and watch it! LOL