Chapter 4
Endymion woke to something prodding him in the side and he opened his eyes to see that beautifully shaped face over his. He jerked up with a start and his hands came out to grab her but she fluttered away from him before he could touch her. "You have to go." She hissed looking around the trees and not at him.
"Why?" Forgive him, he was still half asleep.
She opened her mouth then shut it again as she looked at him once more. A smile tugged at her mouth. "You're like that adorable cub I called you yesterday. All unsteady and not the bit ferocious. Trying to look scary but only pulling off cute."
He couldn't help it but his ego was instantly bolstered but at the same time he felt offended. "Excuse me?"
"You haven't done anything." Serenity sniffed the air. "Nope, nothing."
He laughed, he was seeing her in an entirely different light this morning. A good night's sleep would do that to a person. He felt less stressed out and could think more rationally. "That's not what I meant."
"You aren't old enough to be an adult tiger. You don't have that hunt in your eyes. It's what allowed you to be able to come here." Serenity pointed at the way he had come through yesterday. "It's time for you to go back to the pond."
He reluctantly listened to her and did as she said but she didn't lead the way, preferring for him to go first. Endymion could understand that unease. If she had stumbled upon his land he might not have taken to her so easily either. When he got back the fish were back and he turned to look at her and then looked at the fish once more. "One's missing."
"They feed the Borat. It will be back tomorrow. It was the last one taken."
"The Borat?"
A shoulder lifted then fell and Serenity grabbed a branch and pulled herself up onto it. She sat there swinging her legs and looking at him. "I've seen you before. Met you actually, once."
"You have?" Endymion couldn't recall coming to this place in his entire life.
"Oh yes, but we weren't here. We were some place else. You had fallen into the world much as you had done yesterday. You have forgotten, but then so had I. It is forgiven on your behalf, you wouldn't have understood then what you had found and so would not have sought it out. It probably seemed like your own world at that point. Indeed, you used to slip in and out of ours like us. When I met you I had been curious, wondering what you could possibly have been. It was then that I tasted your power. You are indeed different. Very different." She gave herself a small nod. Then her eyes moved to the rock which hide his horse and he turned to look at it too. Was it just him or had that rock seemed closer yesterday? By a good dozen or so yards?
"Why are we further away?"
"I told you. We move in different rhythms."
"I'm sick of this 'I told you' stuff." Endymion's good mood was suddenly abating. He didn't remember meeting her, he would have if he had. She wasn't one that would be easily forgotten and another world different than this?
"If you're so sick of it, then why do you keep asking the same questions? Or is it that you cannot remember the answers I have already given you? That would make a lot of sense." There was a sound, it sounded like the horse was laughing but horses didn't laugh. And his horse didn't laugh at him!
"But you haven't told me anything! You make vague comments that have nothing to do with what I've said and then later when I ask you a question you say you've already told me."
"And I have!" Serenity grabbed another branch above her head, using it to help her to her feet and she was getting riled up by this conversation. He watched her wondering once again if it was possible for her to fall off. "You just do not listen!"
"Why don't you use your wings? Why pull yourself upwards with your hands and branches when you have wings?"
"Because they- oh forget it!" She climbed the trees quickly, escaping him and his conversation. He supposed other people when they met her didn't argue with her only basking in what she said and trying to soak in whatever they could learn by osmosis while here and piece things together later. He was battling with her truths and questioning anything he didn't understand.
"Yes, run away little fairy, run run run away, far away." Endymion watched her go and then he decided to check out where the waterfall was. He hadn't seen it the day before and he was curious. But before he even took a few steps in that direction the ground seemed to thump with a thunder clap. He turned and looked around curious but only discovered what it was several minutes later as it got excruciatingly closer.
The band of murderous thieves were finally returning back to their camp. More than which had taken off and followed behind him. He swallowed, they must have been smarter than he gave them credit for because they must have split into two and had a group try to head him off. They probably would have succeeded if not for this reprieve.
They were making their way back to see if he'd manage to give them the slip some other way and he watched as they all went around his horse without seeing it. But it wasn't a black horse they were looking for, were they? He had dropped the white charm as soon as he realized he wouldn't be needing it himself while in here. Only one knew what color that horse was and who rode it and she wasn't looking for him here.
He gave a short laugh as all of the men left and he went searching once more for the waterfall, the Queen would think he'd gone some place safer, some place out of her realm. How would she have felt knowing he was coming inward to where the poison spread the most violently? She'd left a trail as she forged her way towards the castle. His father had just been too stupid to see it. How could he not? Even if blinded by lust or even misguided love, he had to see what was happening around them? Endymion had been shucked out before he could fully grasp what was going on. He bet the Queen regretted that now. Regretted a lot of things, chief amongst which was not killing him when he was a teenager. Even then she should have seen that he was proficient with a sword, excelled at daggers and was beyond decent at using a bow. Not to mention the horse that would only allow one rider and was a fierce companion in any struggle. Including the one he had to get away from his palace as it burned.
Women weren't to be trusted, it was one hard lesson after another that had been taught since an early age. His mother had promised to stay in his life but she died when he was ten. Barely a year had passed before his father married again. This one lasted for a few months before she was beheaded for witchcraft. All the while he was practicing the arts. He hadn't blamed himself for that one, there was no way she could have gotten mixed up in what he was doing. Anything she was blamed of was either her own doing or his father's need to be rid of a wife ill-suited to him.
Another marriage and a woman who appealed to Endymion not on a personal level but as one who could rule a country wisely and well and might have good mothering genes in her if her actions towards Endymion was anything to go by. She'd died in childbirth and the baby had been stillborn. His father had been devastated, the child would have been a girl. The prophecy called for a girl and he wanted to be the one who brought it to fruition.
Publicly she'd been called a sin against god and he had seen it in his wisdom to end such problems. Privately Endymion saw his father destroyed and all because of a woman. Then this marriage. Years after the last and Endymion had been sure his father had sworn off marriages after three failed ones. Endymion had been a teenager and would soon rule in his stead. If or when his father stepped down, the throne would go to Endymion despite having a daughter somewhere in the line.
The King had rationally decided he couldn't be the one to fulfill the prophecy and decided to raise his son as much as he could once more. The Queen must have promised to have daughters, all healthy and strong. Words were whispered in the King's ear about ridding them of the problem that was logically in their way. Ironically, Endymion believed this one dabbled in the witchcraft that his father had accused of his second bride and she was good at it.
She had a daughter. The daughter was healthy and strong. It just depended on what slant you applied to that latter description. Then she had another daughter. Then a third and then the King was dead. Three years, three daughters. At least the king could die happy. And a woman had kept her promise.
Strange how the ones that shouldn't were the ones that did and so laid the ground work for a very slippery slope. The eldest daughter was now seven years old and had a tantrum on her like her mother. He could not attest to the other two.
The Queen while keeping a promise to his father had only caused Endymion more grief. It was like a promise broken to him from his father. But that promise had been broken long before then. That promise had been broken when his father let his mother die.
Then a thought stilled him as he climbed a hillside, the only hill he'd seen. There was one female who had told him only truths. He glanced back at where he had come. She was the first woman in a long time that he felt trust beginning to build in her favor. If only because he respected that she did not lie to him.
Then he tore his gaze away from the tall trees and wondered just how far this land went. He found his answer shortly as he ran into a barrier. It pushed him back not very nicely but at least it didn't hurt too much more than his pride and rear to learn he couldn't go where he wanted. A giggle sounded behind him. "Don't you know anything?"
He turned his head to look at her, the only one he'd found in this land besides the fish and the 'borat' but he hadn't seen that either. "Let me guess, you'll enlighten me now."
She pursed her lips and up here away from the trees she sparkled. The sun caught her and it bounced off her casting light in more directions than just the one the sun intended it to do. "If you're going to be like that, then no."
"Sorry, sorry Serenity, please don't run off again. I wanted to talk to you." He gestured behind him. "Why a waterfall but unable to get to it?"
"That's not part of this land." She let her eyes roam over the area he'd begun to explore. "What you've seen is what you get. I suppose I could have warned you but that way has not been possible for many years."
"You used to go that way?" There was a slight bob of her head. "But now you can't?" Another bob. "Something happened here to stop travel between the lands." This time it wasn't a question and a wry smile came to her lips.
"Thank you captain."
"Why would you assume I'm a captain?" He honestly didn't understand her at all.
"I didn't- never mind." She shook her head. "No, that way has been barred for many years now and travel between lands are more treacherous then ever before." She hesitated and then shook her head again. "Let's go back to the pond and then you can be on your way."
"You don't want me asking any more questions?"
Her clear eyes with only the slightest hint of blue looked at him and he wondered what she was thinking. "The more questions you ask the harder the answers will be and you will not want to leave. If I could I'd keep you here forever but there is a life out there you must complete. Time will not make much of a difference."
"You really don't like me do you?" He demanded but he found himself walking by her side back down the hill.
"It is not like or dislike that is the problem. I have seen what man will do if idle enough and it is not a fate I wish upon myself. I may be bored here but here I am safe. The borat is not interested in me."
"If you leave, are you then unable to come back in yourself? Because you are looking for it?"
"The fae do not adhere to the same rules. The fae, for the most part, are all the same and even our differences are not cause for harm or fear for each other." She frowned. "Though some fae choose to take a different path in life."
"Then why not leave and join the fae on the other side of that barrier?" He hadn't seen any, while he could see land further on, it was distorted and he wasn't sure it was what he thought he saw.
When her head shook it was like metal rubbing against each other but it was oddly soothing too. "I cannot. For some fae it is more dangerous out there than others."
"And for you it is dangerous?" He asked with a faint frown.
"For me it is the most dangerous." She nodded towards his horse who was pulling itself back to its feet and he wondered why it had not harmed it to lay for so long. No other horse had ever done so without serious consequences. "Go join your horse while you can still find her. Another night, two, and we will be too far away from it to walk and find again."
"Serenity-" He reached for her hand and he fully expected her to pull away but she let him lift it to his lips. "Thank you for offering me this safe passage. I will not forget you."
"It'd be better if you did." She returned mysteriously and started to pull her hand away.
His horse neighed in terror and caught the fairy's attention. He looked back at the horse as it charged full force into their world and heard the neigh turn into a word...
"No!" But it was too late he had already tied the string around her wrist without her noticing. He watched as it dissolved and he jerked in surprise and she went stumbling in reaction. He was trying to catch her from landing painfully but at the same time he couldn't tear his attention away from the new woman in their midst.
He was dry mouthed and his jaw worked on its own, or at least it hung open as he stared at the dark haired beauty. The look she gave him in return was of one very unhappy.