The Angel
Chapter 4
By: Trep092
Disclaimer: Is there anyone out there who actually thinks I own RA? I thought not.
A/N: Everyone who has reviewed/read/favourited/alerted is amazing!
Reviewers:
Lafd: Yeah the ninth book was good, different but good. Yes Will and Alyss will make an appearance.
Wildstar of Windclan: Your wish is my command! I hope you enjoy!
Cocoa85715: He will find him eventually, don't worry. The question is, will he be in time? Mwahaha. Yeah the Alex Rider books are awesome, you should read them if you get the chance.
Luvergirlof books: Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed it. Halt will find him eventually...
Now, back to our regularly scheduled Horace angst.
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His senses came back to him slowly. The first to return was his sense of smell. His sluggish brain recognized the smell of earth. It was a familiar smell to him, growing up in a farming community. Earth was what kept them all alive, providing grains, vegetables, grass for livestock, and, deep in the forest, sweet fruits. His Pa often told him, "if you treat the earth well son, it will do the same for you." There family was lucky. The earth treated them very well. Serwood was a community built on fertile land that rarely experienced drought.
His tongue flickered over his dry, cracked lips. He tasted dirt, but also a salty, metallic flavour that his muddled brain couldn't quite place.
He couldn't hear anything. All was silent. Why was he here, lying in the dirt? Where was his Ma and Pa?
He tried to open his eyes. They didn't seem to be working. He couldn't see anything. He began to panic.
It was as his breaths came out in the rapid shallow gasps of hyperventilation that he realized that he was lying on his stomach with his face pressed into the dirt. No wonder he couldn't see anything.
Quickly, he rolled over, and immediately regretted it. His awareness of the agonizing pain in his arm had been dulled, but it was now sharply, and torturously brought back to the forefront of his mind.
Darkness began to encroach upon the outer edges of his eyes, but he fought to stay conscious. If he was going to get out of his current situation, he'd need his wits about him.
Dimly, a half-forgotten memory came back to him. His Pa was sitting next to him as he got several cuts stitched up by the village's medicine woman. He had climbed a tall tree in the woods while his Ma and some other women and children gathered fruits and berries. He'd been startled when a bird on a nearby branch let out a loud screech causing him to lose his balance and plummet to the forest floor below. He hadn't been very high in the tree and so had walked away with only bruises, scratches and cuts.
As Marria the Medicine Woman, rubbed herb-smelling ointment on his various contusions, his Pa dropped a labour-hardened arm around his shoulders and smiled down at his young Son. "Ah boy, you're going to be trouble, mark my words. Who am I kidin'? You already cause enough trouble for ten littlin's. You have the spirit of your old Pa when he was young. Ah don't look at me like I'm Jarson." With the mention of the village's oldest inhabitant—a wizened old man with snow-white hair, and one remaining grey stump of a tooth—Horace giggled. "I was young once too you know. I know how the longing for adventure and grandeur burns in your soul, but there's no way to obtain it. Folks like us can never be knights and nobles. We must accept our lot in life and leave grandness to others who were born into it. Ah boy it will be hard for you, but you'll accept it one day. What is your old Pa rambling on about? You've still got plenty of time to be a wild youngster. May the angels look after you Son. I have a feeling you'll try their patients as much as you'll try your Ma's and mine. But don't frown so Son. No matter what we love you and the angels will always take care of you when you're in need."
He remembered frowning up at his Pa. He didn't believe that their destiny's were set in stone. He thought that he could be a knight even though he was a farmer's son.
The fact that his Pa had been like him, adventurous and troublesome, surprised him. His Pa was always so solid on his views of the world. Roles were fixed and not to be changed. He had always imagined his Pa ploughing fields and growing crops.
The warm memory of his Pa's love soothed and numbed some of the fierce pain raging through his little body. How long had he been down here? How long had the world been dark and without feeling? The round opening of the well above him revealed a sky that was much dimmer than it had been when he had plummeted into the earth.
He began to shiver. He noticed that the temperature had dropped significantly since the last time he was conscious. The encroaching dark scared him.
He let out a piteous moan. His firm hold on his emotions was slipping rapidly with the dying light and the dropping temperature.
"Paaaaaaaaaa!"
He curled tighter into a ball, ignoring the throbbing in his injured limb. He closed his eyes tight and said, "Please, I need an angel to help me."
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TBC
Ok, Ok I am so so so so so sorry about my six month absence. In my defence I spent two thirds of that time in a country where I didn't have access to a computer. I'm only just getting back into the swing of fan fiction writing again, so please forgive the horribleness of this chapter. Why don't you all tell me what blunt object you will use to kill me so I can avoid people wielding those objects in the future.