Chapter 3
AN: I hope you guys realized the Harley/Joker pic that was up before was just a joke until we got further into the story... Like this chapter.
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The angry drunkards were more stubborn and salient than he thought. They also lasted longer and gathered up what they needed far quicker than any unorganized group. It made sense if he thought about it, they had to somehow band together to rob from the rich and their guards. He was on his own and an easier target. It was amazing that he even got into town without being robbed blind.
He needed to do some quick thinking and find some place to hide that they wouldn't find. He had unwittingly gotten himself into serious trouble just now.
They slid down a hillside and around a bend and then the horse reared back before stomping down on its front hooves again. He was thrown from his steed, something that wouldn't have happened if the saddle hadn't been compromised. He flew forward and when he fell and landed painfully, he was sure he was knocked out for a few precious minutes. When he opened his eyes again he wondered if the thieves had caught him and murdered him for the effort. The Queen would be disappointed she couldn't do it herself.
This was nothing like he'd seen before and definitely not what he'd seen briefly when they made that turn. He heard a neigh and turned to look, just a foot from him the world was drab and gray once more. The horse moved off to the side of the path and laid down behind a large rock. It would blend in perfectly with its surroundings, especially in this twilight.
He turned back around to look for a place to hide himself when his breath caught. If his surroundings were gorgeous, then he had no words for this sight. At a water's edge a young woman was gliding her finger across its surface and was completely enchanted by what she saw there. Fear suddenly gripped him, if the men found her she would be destined for a life like all those women in town. He did not want that for her. "You have to get out of here!" He shouted and her eyes lifted towards him in surprise.
He wasn't prepared for her reaction and she giggled. "Well hello to you too." She rose to her feet and she was a little thing even at her full height.
They were remarkable eyes. They were so pale a blue that they were silver and he found himself forgetting a lot of his fears as he looked at her. His eyes scanned her face in its cherub shape, found her lips full and the top one bow-shaped. Her ears were pointed, her nose small and like a button. Wait- her ears were pointed? His eyes jumped back to those. He knew exactly what she was now but he asked to be sure. "Are you an elf?"
She laughed and shook her head. "Not exactly." She waved to the place they were in. "Welcome to my home. It's not every day that someone is worthy."
"Aren't we going to be found?" He heard the thuds now of the horses and knew they were close, they had to leave immediately.
"Nobody can find this place who wishes to do harm to it or who resides here. If they're after you then they can't find it. They'll pass right through." She shrugged and beckoned him closer.
He wasn't sure about it, if she wasn't an elf then she could be any number of mystic creatures and not all of them were nice. Not even all elves. She shook her long gold hair out and if fanned around her in tumbling waves from the sea.
The area wasn't huge but it was peaceful and he found himself relaxing. He joined her at the small pond and looked down to see what she was looking at earlier. Fish as big as his hand swam around but they were jewels. They were neither fish he'd seen before or actual jewels but the fish were made out of those stones, like the humanoid before him. On closer inspection her skin was pearl-colored and even had a pink sheen to it, like it was an outer coating. Her eyes were sapphires but a rare color he'd never seen before and were darker when he got closer. Her lips were similar to her skin but were smooth like rubies. Her hair was literal spun gold. He wondered if he could touch it to make sure but she kept a good three feet away from him and was always facing him. He wondered if he made her nervous.
He had trouble pulling his thoughts away from her and on the immanent danger. "My horse-"
"Seems like she's fine where she is. If she had wanted to, she could have come in. Must not like me very much." Another laugh. "Though she did let you go through, must think you're safe with me."
The noise from the trackers got closer and closer and he looked back to watch them practically step on them and then they were gone. The noise grew faint as they continued on in an unknown direction.
"Like I told you, nobody can find this place who is trying to."
"That's not what you said. That's not what you said at all-"
"Well both fit." Her eyes danced with mischief, daring him to challenge her on this point. "And it's never in the same spot in your human world. Something to do with the Earth's rotation or some such dribble."
"It's drivel."
"Exactly. I'm so glad you see my point."
Her eyes were so mysterious and enchanting that he leaned closer, highly amused that she'd managed to back him into that statement. "If you're not an elf, what are you exactly?"
She tilted her head and her ear almost rested on her shoulder. "I didn't say I wasn't."
"But you said-"
"I said." She countered. "I said what exactly?"
He pulled back wondering how she kept managing to side-step him and distract him from what he was doing. He pushed himself back to his feet. When he looked at her, she was looking at him perplexed in return. "What's the matter?"
She shook her head to clear it and she gestured around to the mossy land and dark green plants. "Do you not like my land?" Flowers bloomed in a vibrant and variety of colors. What he heard now that he was listening for something other then the men who followed him, was a waterfall and knew it was what supplied her little pond and that it had to be somewhere deeper in her forests.
"It's amazing." He responded honestly.
"Then why leave it so soon with no assurance that you'll see it again?"
"Because I've been here once and I'm sure I'll come upon it again." He patted off the sections that had come into contact with the ground, but knowing it was pointless, he could easily just change or phase out those inconsistencies.
"You cannot find it if you're looking for it." She warned.
"Then I won't be looking for it." He countered and turned his eyes to look at her but found that she was closer than before.
Her eyes were reading his as if she didn't understand him. But then again how many humans did she encounter? Could she see them all go about their every days and figure she had a market on the human behavior? "If you leave here, no matter your intentions you will be trying to get back, no matter how subconsciously and you'll never manage it again."
"Is this your ploy? Lure men in and never let them leave?"
She laughed. "Haven't I told you-"
"Haven't you?" He cut in. "I feel like this game has been overplayed."
"Stop!" She was sounding a little less cheerful and a bit more desperate. "If I had the power to do you harm she would not have allowed you in. She is a fierce and possessive creature and no harm must come to her master. Her warrior spirit taunts me with the threat..." She shook her head and sat back to look at him again, her eyes retreating from the horse still hidden by the boulder outside of this little world. "I do not get many who are worthy passed my gate and I do not wish to ruin this one with a hasty retreat. The men will be coming back this way and you will be caught if you do not wait them out. It would be remiss of me to allow you back into that danger when you have been grated safe passage."
He turned to look at her once more and that pink was more than a tint now, it was a rosy glow. He liked it when she was passionate about something, it make her cold features come alive. She might have been beautiful but she was too much like a statue for his tastes. "All right, I shall stay until they have passed."
The woman nodded and settled back on her heels. "That is good. You are unlike any I have met before. It is refreshing."
"You have met many before?" He asked kneeling once more against the mossy growth.
"I have lived many long years and a few have ventured in. Most of what I know if what I see beyond my screen." She lifted a hand and waved at the entrance he had come through. "Some I miss." His eyes followed her hand, they were small like the rest of her, but they were elegant with perfectly oval fingernails and were painted pink with tiny purple jewels on the white tips.
"Amethysts." She answered his unspoken question and he regarded her suspiciously after that. She rolled her eyes at him and wagged her fingers. "You were staring at them. I cannot read your mind. I cannot do much of anything actually. Not like you."
"What can I do?"
"Quite a lot." She shrugged and went back to looking at the fish in her pond, they came up to her fingers and sucked on them before swimming off again.
"Why don't you answer any of my questions?"
"I do." She lifted her sapphire eyes up to his and he felt enchanted once more and he was relaxing under her spell.
"You don't." He argued.
"I just don't answer them the way you'd like me to." She held out her hand and he found his lifting off his lap towards hers. His horse neighed loudly at that very moment and he shook his head to clear it pulling his hand away as he did so. She looked surprised again. "A very strange man indeed." She rotated her hand and produced- nothing. He looked at her empty palm and narrowed his eyes trying to see if it was smaller than he was expecting and just wasn't seeing it.
She laughed that pretty sound that sounded like bells and pulled her hand away. "There's nothing there."
"I don't understand you."
"I'm not to be understood." She stood up and winked. "But it is time for me to leave you here. When they pass through again to return home then you may leave if you will it. If you don't, you can come seek me out further in the forest."
"Wait!" He was suddenly unsure if he wanted her to go. She paused as she backed into it. "Answer me one more question?"
"I will but choose your words wisely for you may not enjoy the answer."
"How have you come about the conclusions you have made about me?" It was such a sideways question, one that had nothing important in it and yet it seemed like the most important one he'd ever asked.
Her teeth were shown shortly and he was shocked by the whiteness of them. "Everything is stripped bare here, it is as it is. Nobody can hide what they really are, not even you, great wizard." She bowed her head in respect but then it seemed as if she was swallowed up by the darkness of the forest but she hadn't even moved a few steps.
He wanted to know where she was going and why she chose now to do so. He was already on his feet to follow her wanting to unravel the words she had spoken and demand that she clarify something held him still. He let her go and waited until the moment she said he'd have a choice. He looked down at the pond and the fish were gone and the surface was as still as glass. Though it wasn't very deep he could see his reflection and shock took over his face. He hadn't recalled doing that. His real self looked back at him.
Perhaps it had been the fall that surprised him to turn off that spell but something about her words registered and he wondered if that barrier had more to do with it. He looked back to his horse and was tempted to beckon her in. It was safer in here than it was out there and the men if they found her would serve her up as dinner if they didn't try to tame her first. But she was well hidden and it had been her choice not to come in.
He sank onto his bottom and stared down at the empty pond. If the girl wasn't an elf he couldn't understand yet what she was but she might be useful. If not with skills of her own then as a rare specimen that he could trade. Ripples started forming on the surface from nothing causing it. The longer he thought about his plans the more closely banded the ripples became and he heard the trees start to sway and the leaves rustling.
His thoughts turned to something else, waiting to hear the thump-thump-thump of the horses returning with their riders unable to find their visitor. The trees continued rustling even if they slowed slightly. He didn't hear the horses.
And it continued on for several hours. There was no sign of the horses returning this way. He was beginning to think the non-elf with all of her mysterious comments was just playing with him here too. How could she know if the horses and their riders would return at all this way? It was quite possible that they knew another way back to town and wrapped around the mountain bend they were on.
He thought about leaving just then and there but he wondered what was further in these woods. He still couldn't understand why the fish had vanished at the same time she had. Then again what had they been there for in the first place? What right had he to ask when he had half believed that she and her kind didn't really exist?
His father had said something to him once about how you could capture a fae but it had to be with string. Rope was too heavy and too cruel to do something like that with a delicate creature such as a fae. Then there were stories about the fae, evil man eating ones that could crush the bow of a ship in an instant. He didn't think rope was too strong for that one. But luck would have it, he had a string in the front of his shirt and he pulled it off, just in case.
The sun had set and he had to guide his way deeper with the moon's light. It broke through the branches of the trees and lit a path for him. He didn't know why but he just assumed forward would have been the best route. He was not mistaken.
He found her there, sitting high up in the trees, so dark they were to how light she was that it seemed as if she were sitting on the end of the moon. She was facing the curve and talking softly to it, he could not hear her words or know if it was speaking back. However he wouldn't be surprised if it were, not with all that he learned today.
He must have made a noise because the soft lilt of her voice cut off and she turned to him with almost unseeing eyes. As she turned, the moonlight highlighted what he could not see during the day. It caught the faint almost invisible edges of her wings and lit them up like a bright light on the water, or after a perfect snowfall with no clouds. They glittered beautifully and because of that he could see each and every tiny detail and exquisite scrawl. The lines almost looked tribal in nature but with its own very unique twist. The moon shone upon her like a spotlight allowing him to see everything and he meant everything. The onyx dress she had worn with disinterest before was now gone.
"You're a fairy?" His words were breathless and he couldn't be sure at first if she heard him. She just kept staring at him with those big blank eyes. The color didn't help, not from this distance at least, from this distance it looked like she had almost no eyes at all.
Then she frowned and the rubies of her lips looked hard and unbreakable. When she finally spoke it was only one word. "No."
"But you have wings. And you have pointed ears." He made a slight gesture towards her head but his eyes were still on her wings. Did they work or were they just for show? If they worked, was there flesh between or just the finest glossimer thread? Perhaps all of it was silk made by the finest worms in the world. He had to touch and find out for himself. They must have worked, they had gotten her up onto one of the highest boughs hadn't they?
An elf was rare, but a fairy was rarer still. She could go for a lot of money, but even more than that, a fairy might even give him safe passage through the Queen's land. Maybe even let him have an uninterrupted moment with the Queen. A fairy would be great leverage indeed. The ground trembled below his feet, the loose rocks on the path between them moved and she looked down at it in surprise.
Then her eyes snapped back at him and he realized what was wrong with her eyes, her pupils were the blue he had the hardest time in seeing. They weren't black like a human's and they didn't widen and contact either. "Stop it!" She covered her ears with her hands and took a shuddering step backwards. He was afraid she'd fall off that branch. "Please don't continue on that path. It will only lead to trouble. The world will destroy itself if you don't."
"The world will continue on as it always has."
"Not my world."
"Ok." He held up his hands in reassurance and it appeared as if he had nothing in them.
Her nose scrunched up and she turned away from him once more and he wanted to tell her to stop, that he wanted to see her wings for as long as he could. They were quite gorgeous. "What are you doing here?" She asked as she traced the shape of the moon with her hand. "It's almost gone." She added but he didn't think she was talking to him anymore.
"You told me to find you."
"After they returned back this way." She stretched out her wings, four in all and let them flutter as if she were shaking them off or warming them up. "They have not yet returned."
"It's been hours. I got bored and thought you weren't telling the truth."
Her lips curled upward. "I say a lot of things but truth is something I always tell. You weren't supposed to come until morning. This is very unprecedented."
"If you're not an elf, and not a fairy, then what are you?" Endymion demanded annoyed they'd gotten off subject but she just smiled some more.
"Something else." She turned her head to the side. "Your armor suits you, the shoulders look like tiger eyes. Whereas your eyes are like the cubs. The only blue on your whole person." His shoulder pads were black with golden inlays, it helped to hold up his brown cloak over the Tuscan jacket with red and silver details near the neck and down his bare chest. It was cool but it didn't get that cold yet.
"At the moment maybe." He agreed and she arched a gold eyebrow but he moved the conversation onward. "Come down here and talk to me logically. I don't like bending my head so far back to look at you."
"Then you should have come during the day." She arched backwards. "Or step further away."
"You did this, didn't you? I can't change my appearance."
"You shouldn't have to, but I control nothing here. Everyone is as they are." She shrugged. "You are yourself why would you want to present me with anyone else? No secrets here."
"Yet you continue to astound me with secrets. Please at least introduce yourself? My name is-" He thought about giving her a false name but in the end he knew it was right to tell her the truth. "My name is Endymion."
She jumped from one branch to another and he turned to follow her path. He jumped when he found her behind him upside down handing from a tree branch. "Endymion." She said the word allowing it around her tongue and becoming familiar with the new sounds. "Was that so hard?" Then she bolted upright again and fluttered off to higher ground. "You couldn't see my wings before?"
"No." Though he knew it wasn't really a question.
"They don't usually shine in the sunlight, only the moonlight. Even so it might happen by accident if it catches the right angle. So I didn't turn my back on you."
"I thought you just didn't trust me." Endymion countered and found her next to him once more. He took a deep breath and uttered his own prayer to keep calm with this woman. "God grant me serenity." She was looking at him oddly for that comment. "What?"
"Serenity." She repeated.
"What of it?" He ran a hand over his temples.
"Headache?" She sounded sympathetic but unlike a normal woman she didn't try to touch him to help relieve that pressure building up in his brain and he was sourly disappointed. He was still tempted to touch her wings but after their earlier conversation decided to put that out of his mind. He gave a small nod. "Then use your magic."
Then she was backing away again and he blinked and she was up in the trees once more.
"That's not exactly how my magic works."
"You haven't tapped into it enough yet." She was bouncing around him and it was making him dizzy so he just sat down and waited her out.
"You said it you know?"
"Said what?" He laid down and just looked at her up in the trees. For some reason it didn't seem inappropriate that she was completely naked. It was almost like she was unsexed like this, that in this natural state she had no power over the male to think of her body in anything other than part of her. Sort of how animals were nude and nobody tried to clothe them no matter how much hair or lack of it they had.
"My name."
"What's your name?" He asked tired of playing this game, but she intrigued him too.
"You know."
"I know your name? What is it?" She laughed in response to his questions and she had this uncanny ability to leave him hanging with her short responses or without saying anything either. "When?"
"Just now." She swung down through the branches and landed on a bolder not too far from him and sat on it cross-legged. She stared at him as if he was intriguing too. But she'd seen humans before, a lot of them.
He thought back to all the words he'd said to her which frankly wasn't a lot and tried to find anything that could possibly be a name. He picked something obvious first and he was doubtful as he said it. "God?" She shook her head and the gold strands fluttered in the air, a few caught on her wing. They were similar to butterfly wings in shape. But those really pretty butterflies with long elegant streamers on the bottom and the tops were rounded but came out at a point and dragged out there too but not nearly as far with a small ball on each tip. They shimmered as she moved and it seemed as if the pattern on the wings were changing, like the lines were alive and shifting as she breathed and thought and whatever else she did. Almost like the scrawl were letters telling what he could not garner off her face or from her actual words.
"Crystal." She commented and he thought for a second that was her name. But she turned and one of her wings shook like a wagging eyebrow to share with him exactly what she meant. He wondered again if she could read his mind and she was just lying earlier about that skill. But she said she did not lie. Was that a lie?
This one was usually a boy's name. "Grant?" Her nose scrunched up again as if she felt betrayed by his response to giving him so much information about herself. Then he happened upon it. "Serenity?"
"Good job boyo." She responded flippant. "It only took you a few tries."
"You could have just told me." Endymion returned but she gave a shrug telling him exactly what she thought of the easy way. He took a breath, there were so many things he wanted to know and arguing with her was pointless. "I thought you couldn't use magic here."
"No." Serenity said simply. "You can't hide who you are here." Then she paused. "The Queen can't use magic here, not anymore."
"The Queen is magical?" He had always thought it was so but had never truly confirmed it, he had thought she was a sorceress and had put a spell on everyone.
"There's all kinds of magic." Serenity bobbed her head.
"Why can't you just give me a straight answer?" He demanded growing frustrated once more.
She made faces as if she was mocking him and trying to look stern but in a comical way. "What's the fun in that?"
"More fun than what we're doing now." He responded and she lifted a brow.
"I suppose you would see it that way. But nothing is gained by easy answers." She tilted her head around so she was looking at him sideways. Then she rotated it the other way. "Nope, don't see it."
"See what?"
"The way you see things." She shrugged and stood back up once more. "Go back to the pond, and I'll find you in the morning."
"Why didn't you want me to see your wings? Why the worry if it wasn't likely?" He called out to her before she could go anywhere.
She turned her head back to him but still intended to leave. "You know the answer and you've already said it to me." Then she pushed off and took flight, skimming high over the trees and away. He could try to follow her but she might just turn and double back. It was like trying to follow birds, only the best hunters knew how to do it well. He wasn't the best but he was getting better but these were magical lands and he didn't think the rules applied here in quite the same way.
Endymion sighed and settled into his spot some more. He could try and make a fire but he wasn't cold and this seemed as comfortable as any other spot. He looked up into a star-less sky. It was pitch black up there and he couldn't even blame it on the non-existent clouds. The only thing up there was the moon, even the trees were a darker black in the inky sky.
Then he fell asleep and it was the first time in years that he'd slept so soundly. There was nothing to disturb him, not even the rustle of the leaves. But it wasn't that too quiet that would set him on edge, it was just peaceful and he put it down to the beauty and safety of his surroundings.