~A Wild Heart~
Chapter Two
~~~ooooo~~~
Aeris stood at a fork in the old dirt road carved by covered wagons, carts, and all manners of conveyances and beasts of burden many years ago, watching her sheep at the stream. Quite a ways behind her was the wooden bridge that the first settlers had built and not too far from that was the well she'd spotted the old woman at a week ago.
A smile curved her lips as she tried to imagine what the hills must have looked liked in those days, and in times past, before people had arrived, when the land was untouched, untamed, more wild than it was now, when there were no farmhouses or barns or fences to mar the landscape and animals in greater numbers roamed the hills. Her eyes fell on the stream, noting with a sigh of relief as she did every day that the water flowed as strong and clear as ever here. Groundwater may be hard to come by, but the stream's water was clean enough for animals to drink, and even for people, if it came to that.
A sudden noise behind her startled her, the sound of something falling, breaking through the thicket just a few yards from where she was standing, and hitting the ground hard, and she spun about, expecting to see some kind of large animal in the underbrush. There was only the dark shadows of the forest but as she turned away, the shepherdess thought she heard a faint groan.
She looked back at the dogs who were also lapping water from the stream with the sheep and were too far away to have heard anything. Setting her basket and staff down as quietly as she could, she went toward the sound, treading softly, lightly on the grass, and peered into the underbrush.
Aeris gasped.
All her life she'd heard stories about the woodland folk that dwelled in the nearby forests, but like every other child who'd grown up on them, she'd thought them nothing more than fanciful tales. But one look at the stunning creature rolling over to sit up on the ground just out of the brambles and thorns of the bushes, and she knew him for what he was. He almost blended into the forest shadows despite the pale tone of his skin and the gold-blond hair that pointed in every direction.
He was also almost completely naked. Other than what looked like a loincloth made of some green leaf-like material, he wasn't wearing anything else.
He wiped his hands on the ground and carefully placed them back over his ribcage, and did not appear to notice her as she stood staring at him, utterly astounded.
"You're a fairy!" she finally burst out, still unable to believe her own eyes.
He glanced up, and she could see that he had startling blue eyes.
"You're real," she breathed. "Your kind is real!"
He tilted his head and nodded slowly.
"You-you can understand me?"
"Yes," he spoke, his voice soft and low, that brought to her mind the cool forest trees and rich, warm earth. "I understand you."
"You understand…" she repeated, scarcely able to form a coherent thought, let alone speak, although he didn't seem to share her awe at having come face to face with a human. But if memory served her right, her mind raced frantically, it was said that fairies were not given to emotions as humans were.
He sat up on his knees and it was then that she realized his breathing was coming in quick, shallow breaths. She took a step forward and let out a cry as she saw something dark ooze out from between the stained fingers he held over the lower part of his chest.
"You're hurt!"
"An arrow…" he breathed deeply. "Can't stay here. Humans will see me. No telling what they will do."
"An arrow?" she asked, horrified. "Someone shot at you?"
"Not me. A bear. A cub. I jumped in front of it."
She blinked. "What?"
"A hunter in the forest," he said, staggering to his feet. "He must have taken it for a deer or something. He knew he missed his shot, but he caught sight of me and came after me. He probably thought I was the animal getting away."
She made a sound in her throat.
"I must get back inside the forest." He took a few steps, almost stumbling over his own feet, and she saw that he was in more pain than he let on.
"Wait! Let me help you! Did you remove the arrow?"
He didn't appear to have heard her as he pushed his way through the bushes and trees. Without thinking, she went after him.
"Please! Let me see the wound! Maybe I can help."
"You can't."
A small bark came from behind her and they both turned to see that a furry brown face had followed them into the forest. The dog's tail was whipping back and forth in agitation in a fiery red blur, and she was looking at them with big questioning eyes.
"Lucy!" Aeris had forgotten about the flock. "I need you to go back to the sheep," she ordered, keeping her voice as firm as she could manage. "Take care of them for me. I'll be fine, I promise."
The dog whinnied.
"Lucy, please! Go back to Daisy and the sheep. Take them home."
The dog gave another bark and ran back the way they'd come.
"The arrow?" she asked the fairy who was looking a little dazed.
"I pulled it out…"
"May I see it? Your wound."
"What I need is inside the forest. I'm fading fast. I already waited too long, hiding up in the trees from him. I couldn't stay up in the air any longer...or even cling to the branches."
"What do you mean you're fading?" she asked as she followed him deeper into the woods. "Fairies don't die, do they?"
"Die, fade, they're the same thing." His voice was getting noticeably weaker. "Wounds sustained by human weapons can be fatal for us if we don't get them treated quickly."
"Tell me what you need and I'll get it for you."
He almost fell backwards on top of her, but she caught his arm and held him up.
"Get me to the stream," he rasped, trying not to lean his full weight against her. "Follow it until you see some mushrooms growing at the base of the trees by the banks."
Aeris hadn't really been inside the woods since she was a young child, but she knew that the stream was to their left.
She headed for the sound of the rushing water with him becoming heavier and heavier with each step.
~~~ooooo~~~
She watched over him resting in the bower formed by the branches of a giant ash tree. Apparently fairy bodies were quite different from those of humans—they responded to treatment differently, healing much faster and were capable of undoing a potentially fatal injury in a matter of minutes with the right remedy. A 'remedy' that she had no doubt was a combination of both the medicinal properties of the flower and fairy magic.
She studied the gentle rise and fall of his chest, each indrawn breath slow and even, and as steady as it was going out, and she drew in a deep breath of relief herself. Her worried gaze became admiring as her eyes swept up to the fairy's face, and fell on long, golden lashes that left crescent shadows on high cheekbones. Pale though he was from his ordeal, he was still so beautiful her heart ached just looking at him. She thought the stories didn't do him justice: he was far more beautiful than they told.
The stories also said fairies were immortal beings with magic more powerful than any human invention could ever be. But this fairy had almost been killed by a human weapon today. At the thought, Aeris forced herself to look away from him and returned to her task.
The mushrooms weren't a very far walk from where they entered the forest but with a wounded fairy whose tenuous hold on life was increasingly weak, it seemed to take an excruciatingly long time until she'd found them. Not that she could have missed them. They grew all around the enormous trunks of ancient trees and were easily the size of a man's hand, and they glowed with some inner light source, making their bright purple color and pink dots even more conspicuous against the black foliage in the background. She'd never been this deep in the forest and had no idea such magnificent colors grew in the woods. But it was the flowers growing beneath and around the opaque mushroom caps that he'd been after, small, delicate, and lit a bright cyan from within as well as from the light of the moon and the stars that could be seen through the gaps in the canopy all along the banks of the stream. He'd been nearly catatonic and she could understand neither his mumbling nor gesturing so he'd tried to pick the tiny blue flowers and smash the small handful he'd gathered on a boulder with his fist, struggling with every breath, his movements lethargic and painfully slow. She'd watched helplessly, then followed his example, quickly picking the flowers and crushing them on a boulder with another rock, and putting it over the bleeding wound.
To her astonishment, the juice from the flowers appeared to be suctioned from the flowers by the wound, and they'd shriveled right before her very eyes as their light slowly went out.
Holding the crushed flowers over his ribcage, he'd stumbled to the massive trunk of the biggest ash tree Aeris had ever seen, where he sank down onto the grass and went to sleep guarded by its gnarled roots. She'd kept watch anxiously, and as his breathing slowly eased and became less harsh, she went back to collecting more flowers.
She'd quickly smashed another handful and carefully scooped it up with a lily pad she'd plucked from the stream, making sure she'd scraped all the liquid there was from the rock, and replaced the dried ones on his chest while he slept.
"You should go."
Her head snapped up from yet another batch of flowers she was pounding to a pulp and the steady sound of a rock hammering in the woods ceased abruptly but its echoes continued to be heard off in the distance. The darkening forest had begun to make her work harder to see, even with the glow of the mushrooms and the flowers themselves providing her light.
"Will you be all right?" Night was falling fast, and Zack and Tifa were likely sick with worry by now. But she couldn't leave him if there was still the slightest possibility that he might need her help. "You won't…fade?"
"No." His voice was noticeably stronger now. "Thanks to you, I won't." He paused briefly. "Follow the stream. It will take you out of the forest."
"I know." Aeris scooped up the flowers she'd been working on and got to her feet. "I can find my way out." She couldn't really explain it but she didn't feel the least bit nervous about the woods as she should. She only knew that with him in the forest, she felt as safe in it as she did in her own room at the farmhouse.
"Most humans can't find their way in here," he said. "They always get lost."
"I won't. I'm not afraid of the forest."
"Good."
"I hope this is enough," she said, suddenly shy. "I couldn't really see what I was doing."
He swept the dried flowers from his chest and as he took her humble offering of sticky, mashed flowers from her, she leaned down to peer at the wound. It had grown a lot smaller and looked like it would seal completely soon.
"Thank you."
She nodded, and backed away from the ash tree. "I hope everything will be all right."
With one last look at his face, she turned and walked reluctantly from the clearing.
~~~ooooo~~~
Aeris followed the sparkling, moonlit stream, concentrating on the uneven ground and darting an occasional glance around at the trees. The forest had always felt full of magic, and never more so than on this night. The very air thrummed with it, and the silver moon and night sounds of the forest only magnified the feeling.
She came out of the woods near the same spot she took the sheep by almost every day and seeing her basket and staff still on the ground where she'd left them earlier, gathered them up and hurried homeward. Moments later, she was climbing the hill at the edge of the forest where their farm sat upon and saw that there was a light coming from the barn.
"Aeris!" A black-haired girl came running out of the barn. "What happened to you? Lucy and Daisy came back with the sheep without you! Zack took them out with him to look for you but it got too dark, and he came back to get a lantern—"
"Is he still inside the house?" At the other girl's nod, she started quickly for the house to catch Zack, and Tifa followed behind her. "I'm sorry for worrying you. Are all of the sheep safe and accounted for?"
"Yes, and the dogs have both been fed but they're restless and refusing to settle down. They keep running around the house, whining and looking for you."
Thank goodness for the dogs, she thought tiredly. Sheep weren't exactly known for their intelligence, but sheepdogs were and Aeris had always thought Lucy and Daisy were smarter and more protective than most dogs. With that and the bond between canine and sheep, it appeared the flock had been brought safely home, no thanks to her.
"I'm fine. I found…" she trailed off for a moment, wondering how much to tell her friend. "Someone had been hurt near the forest. I was trying to help him and I'm afraid time got away from me."
"Near the… Aeris, tell me you didn't go inside the forest! And at this time of night?"
"He was hurt, Tifa," she said quietly.
"You could have been lost forever!" The farm girl sighed. "As long as you're back safe, I suppose. Who was he? Did you walk him home?"
"He wasn't from one of the nearby farms," Aeris said evasively, and squirmed uncomfortably at what amounted to a little white lie. She stopped with her hand on the door handle, and turned back to face her. "But I made sure he was all right and could continue on his way before I parted ways with him. Don't worry, he just…needed some rest. He was mostly stunned by his fall, but he'll be fine."
Before Tifa could question her further, she took a deep breath, reminded herself to act normal, and opened the door. After all, finding a wounded man might not be a common occurrence out in the hills but neither was it all that out of the ordinary.
But Aeris knew she would never be the same again.