Chapter 135
"Are you ready?"
"No."
"Trust me, you'll be fine."
"Says you."
"Don't you trust me?"
Creeper glowered up at the human in annoyance and didn't answer.
"It's alright, Creeper, it's only a few inches deep."
"For you!"
"It's barely to your knees."
"I'm not getting in it."
"Creeper, I promised I'd teach you how. And you agreed to it!"
"That was then. I've changed my mind."
Avalina sensed the Horned King behind them right before he spoke.
"Do what she says, goblin, lest I throw you in."
Shivering, Creeper did as his master ordered, and Avalina couldn't help but feel sorry for him as he lowered himself stiffly
into the four inches of water that covered the bottom of a large watering trough the Invisibles had created for this very purpose, gripping the sides so hard he left clawmarks in the wood.
"Inform the Invisibles if there is anything you require," the Horned King told Avalina, before leaving. Any other time Avalina welcomed his company but this time she was glad he had left. The less stressed out Creeper was, the better, and she gave the lich a soft look of thanks as he departed, sensing he knew the need for his absence if this ever had a chance of working.
"Are you ok?" She asked Creeper once they were alone.
"No!" Creeper snapped, shivering as he dug his claws into the wood, "I am Not!"
"You need to take a deep breath and relax."
"How can I be relaxed in /here?/" Creeper asked angrily. "There's water everywhere!"
Avalina could see the terror in his eyes as his movements made the water lap against his legs and she gently placed a hand on his shoulder.
"It can't hurt you, Creeper," she told him softly, "You can touch the bottom, and your head will be well above the water even when sitting down. And I'm right here. You're not going to breathe in water. Unless you stick your face in it and inhale."
The humor was lost on Creeper.
"It's not funny!" He snapped, glaring.
Slightly taken aback by his statement, Avalina waited a moment before answering.
"Creeper, I promise, I won't let anything happen, ok? I'm going to help you, if you'd let me."
"You can help me /out/," Creeper said hopefully.
"I'm being serious."
"So am I."
Avalina sighed. "Creeper, do you think I'm going to let you drown?"
After a long silence Creeper huffed out his negative. "No."
"Then trust me. You'll be perfectly fine. Today we're just going to practice dog-paddling."
". . .What?"
Avalina giggled. "I'll show you."
The Horned King observed the pair behind the glass window that overlooked the courtyard, Avalina doing some odd little hand motions and Creeper seeming to copy them inside the water trough, except that he walked on his hands, the water deep enough he could buoy his body up with it. Avalina must have scolded him, because he glared at her and tried to do what she instructed.
The lich glanced over at the neat little braided rope holding the curtains up, pondering how Avalina had managed to bring out the goblin's useful traits that had never even hinted at existing before, and the Horned King, in his many years with the goblin, had never discovered. It was like they had appeared from thin air.
'Not that I ever bothered to search for them,' he mulled thoughtfully to himself.
He had noticed a change in the goblin. Despite their limited contact, he had noticed. Little things here and there, things he wouldn't have cared enough /to/ notice before. Creeper's interest in life in general. Since Avalina's arrival and since the lich had eased off the constant abuse, he had watched the goblin become more relaxed, more sociable with the girl and occasionally, almost polite.
The Horned King had stood outside the music room sometimes, listening to the goblin's clumsy hitting of the keys, followed by Avalina's smoother, more rhythmic notes, always leaving fifteen minutes before he himself was expected, so the goblin would not see him as he left.
Creeper wasn't really interested in music, he noted. Mostly, the goblin simply liked to make noise, and the keys provided just that. At least it kept him from doing something destructive, which he almost always did by accident. The Invisibles needed no help with that and the Horned King was certain they had turned the pastime into very nearly an art. Scarcely a day went by that they did not pull off some sort of disastrous event.
This morning it had been laying bare corncobs all over the floor and stairs directly in front of his chamber door. Unsuspecting, he had swept out of his chambers a bit more quickly than normal, the Invisible with him swinging open the door for him as per usual and therefore denying him anything to grab and correct his balance.
Said corncobs had given him a very swift, bumpy welcome before rolling him off the curve of the steps and forcing him to sink his claws into the stone to prevent collision with the ground floor. (several feet below) He had hung there from the steps in a most undignified way for several moments, only then aware that Avalina had rounded the corner an instant prior and seen the whole incident from beginning to end.
The still-moving corncobs had not helped matters, their momentum rolling them methodically off the steps to repeatedly bonk the lich in the head before dropping dismally to the floor.
Cursing the Invisibles through his fangs in every language imaginable (Save English, to spare Avalina the profanity) as their hysteria echoed off the old walls, the Horned King had been forced to climb down the steps for several yards before his boots could reach the ground, in lieu of simply dropping several feet to the floor.
To be honest, he couldn't decide which choice was more undignified.
Avalina had alternated between concern for his wellbeing and laughing completely silently for several long minutes, telling him through bouts of tearful mirth how funny he'd looked.
The lich could only imagine.
The Fates had given him the Invisibles for the sole purpose of sitting back and laughing at his misfortune, he was certain of it. It hadn't been so bad at first, as they'd had too much to do around the castle to make it halfway comfortable for a human being rather than an undead. But after that, they had quickly run out of productive things to do and their empty task-lists and insatiable need for uncoordinated chaos (that occasionally bordered on violence, as the example this morning proved) had completely taken over and it was one illogical thing after the other.
He doubted they were ever bored. Seeing inside their minds (assuming they even had any) would doubtless be as fascinating as it would be pointless.
However, being the strategist he was, the Horned King could not help but notice the meticulous perfection of each disaster they pulled. The location, severity and variety of each incident, he grudgingly admitted, was highly impressive. To date, they had never repeated an episode the same way twice. Glitter, confetti and various other shiny, highly irritating substances that were nigh-impossible to remove seemed to be their favorites, but their wide usage of said materials would be, if he were not almost always the victim, something to be admired.
If they were soldiers, they would either be the first to die, or the pride of an entire army.
Many of the items they used in their exploits the Horned King had never seen or heard of before, and the Invisibles were always incredibly vague as to where they had acquired them. But the lich was not blind. It seemed logical to reason that they, being connected to the Fates, could travel through various planes of existence (if there were any) and collect these objects for their own use. Traveling through time itself to the future to get such things might also be possible, but they never said anything confirming or denying the matter, leaving the Horned King to calculate all the probabilities himself.
They were deeply passionate about their work, the same way he had been passionate about world domination, and he grudgingly admired their endless drive and ruthless determination to make something work, no matter how difficult.
It reminded him of himself.
He could not help but feel faintly cheated. If he had ever been able to crack the dimensional barriers (or time-barriers or wherever it was their got their paraphernalia) and put some of these weapons the Invisibles so carelessly used for pointless pranks to his own use, he would have conquered the entire world a century or more ago, and possibly would never have needed that accursed Cauldron in the first place.
He stifled a growl. It would do no good to dwell on it now, and he forcefully pushed the thoughts away before he could mentally go through another 'Should-have-done-this-instead' trip. Such things were pointless to reflect upon anyhow. No one could change the past.
Not even him.
Staring down into the courtyard again at the goblin and the girl, he felt his brewing anger still, watching as the fitful sunlight, forcing itself through a thinner place in the murky clouds above his castle, shimmer ever so faintly off Avalina's waving, windtossed curls.
"Good boy Gethin!" Avalina shouted happily, giving a very light tug on the lead rope. "Now this way!"
The gwythaint complied, running alongside them as Avalina eased Mitternacht left in a smooth, cantering turn.
Avalina, Creeper, Mitternacht and the gwythaints had been in one of the meadows (which was large enough to be a magnificent field) since sunrise, alternating between playing, working, training and more playing together. The Horned King had given them leave of lessons today, as it felt like rain tomorrow and they would be stuck indoors then. So the pair had taken their midday meal with them, to save the trip back to the castle.
Training Gethin was almost like training a horse, Avalina had silently mused. A meat-eating, winged horse. Except that horses were prey-animals with prey-like instincts a lot of times, and gwythaints were the predators with a different mindset. So of course a different method of training was required.
Gethin, now almost two months old, was well accustomed to Mitternacht and would chase after the horse and his mother as they played their version of tag, his swiftly growing wings outstretched. Gethin had been constantly flapping his wings in a restless fashion of late, Creeper explaining that most gwythaints started learning to fly around this time, so they'd started helping prepare him.
Addie did a marvelous job herself, coasting along just close enough to the ground and far enough away Gethin couldn't reach her simply by running after her, trilling back encouragement to her offspring. On other occasions she would swoop down, grab him and take him high in the air, before releasing and letting him freefall before gracefully catching him in time.
Another exercise that seemed not to frustrate Gethin so much was Avalina riding Mitternacht and leading the gwythaint alongside with a lightweight thirty-foot lunge line, letting him flap his wings whenever he wished. After several weeks (and four braided halters later) he had finally learned to lead and not fight the rope, instead learning to obey it. Creeper had told Avalina Addie had been trained to lead and follow her master or rider long before the goblin ever entered the picture, so training a gwythaint from scratch was a new experience for him too.
Going back around to the long side of the meadow, Avalina kept Mitternacht's pace steady, watching Gethin. She didn't want him to become overworked. Addie had already had a couple sessions with him today.
Addie and Creeper were currently taking a break, flying around aimlessly overhead. Gethin had finally learned that Addie wasn't going to leave him and cooperated with Avalina easily.
Gethin flapped his wings again, three times in quick succession, before leaping a couple feet off the ground and pumping twice. However, he couldn't stay up for more than a couple seconds, and landed with a soft grunt, keeping pace with the horse.
Her heart jumping in excitement, Avalina loosened the line a little bit more as Gethin leaped up and tried again. He had been more determined today than before, and the fire in his green-gold eyes sparked in intensity.
Leaping up with all his strength, he pumped his wings fiercely, the grass below him flattening from the wind.
Whomp-whomp-whomp-whomp!
And he rose. And rose! Avalina stared in excited amazement, making sure to not tug the rope by mistake and throw the gwythaint off-balance as Gethin pumped constantly with everything he had, rising by the second.
At the grand altitude of nearly eight feet, the breeze brushed by, helping the gwythaint buoy himself slightly, and he coasted, pumping slightly less, for nearly twenty feet before landing and running to keep up with the horse, already preparing for another go. It was obvious he had had enough of staying grounded.
Avalina checked Mitternacht's speed slightly, knowing Gethin would have to use more energy to get up in the air than running by the horse, and Mitternacht instantly slowed a bit to accommodate them.
Gethin leaped up again, pumping hard, and rose much easier than before, this time coasting a little over ten feet above the ground and managing to stay airborne for almost twice the distance he had earlier. But now his breath was far more labored and he eased carefully to the earth, staggering a bit from the impact.
Avalina whoa'd Mitternacht and dismounted, running to Gethin.
"Oh, good boy, Gethin!" She praised, scratching his neck. "You're such a good boy!"
Gethin, panting very hard, nuzzled her in return, just as Addie and Creeper landed a few feet away.
"Did you see that?" Avalina nearly shouted. "He flew! Just for a little ways, but he flew!"
"I saw," Creeper answered, walking Addie over. "Addie here was watchin' him the whole time."
Addie affectionately nuzzled Avalina and was rewarded with a gentle scratch, before sniffing Mitternacht's muzzle politely in greeting. The horse, sensing now was not the time for play, merely sniffed the gwythaint back.
"But I think he's had enough for today," the goblin continued. "We don't want him to hurt himself. It's about time to feed them, anyway."
Nodding in agreement, Avalina passed Gethin's lead-line to Creeper, noticing the sun was rather low in the sky.
"You ain't comin'?" he rasped, noticing she made no move to mount.
"I'll be along shortly," she told him, smiling.
After a moment, understanding dawned on Creeper's face and he nodded, walking Addie and Gethin back to the castle. Addie normally detested walking but tolerated it for Gethin's sake.
After they were gone, Avalina walked over to a tree-cluster, loosening Mitternacht's girths and removing his bridle before sitting down in the shade. Leaning against a tree with a soft sigh, she watched the sun inch steadily down. It was too late for birdsong but she had heard some early this morning before Creeper and the gwythaints arrived.
An hour passed and the sun set, but there was still more than enough light to see by as the world slowly grew dusky.
Mitternacht grazed quietly a few feet away, the crickets and other night-insects beginning their song, and Avalina closed her eyes, listening. The breeze whispered in the treetops overhead, and it sounded almost like the woods at home. So peaceful and comforting...she felt so happy she wanted to sing, but refrained, unwilling to interrupt the earth's natural spring-time melody.
She could have sat there forever, just drinking everything in and thanking the Fates a thousand times over for all of this, but she knew her friends at the castle would be missing her before too long. It would be time for the nighttime meal soon, and she wanted to take her time caring for Mitternacht before going inside.
Reluctantly getting up, she walked over to Mitternacht and swung up, not bothering to put his bridle back on, and Mitternacht instantly headed for the castle, the swishing grass and crickets the only sounds to be heard in the twilight.
First off, thank you guys so much for all the reviews! =D They mean so much to me! *parties* And I got another Favoriter and Follower! *triple-parties* Today's gonna be AWESOME! =D
To Olmo: I got the idea for Gethin's name from some sort of Celtic/Gaelic/old Welsh type of website that had a ton of different names and meanings on there. =) I can't remember the title exactly but if I ever run across it again I'll send the link to you. =) They have a bunch of epic names on there! =D
To everyone else: Don't worry, all your questions shall be answered as the story progresses! XD Thank all of you so much for the reviews, it really means a lot to me! =D