~A Wild Heart~
Chapter Thirteen
~~~ooooo~~~
As the waterline reached the quarter mark on the vase, Aeris righted the pitcher and quickly set it down on her dressing table. One by one, she carefully placed the flowers back inside the vase and rearranged them to her satisfaction.
Out in the family room, she saw a breakfast of bacon and toast set in front of her chair at the table. But it was the long strip of pale pink taffeta sitting beside her basket and bag that brought her to a stop.
She immediately knew who it was from. He must have purchased it when he made the trip into town with Tifa last time. She picked it up, touched by the thoughtful gesture; he had noticed that her hair ribbon had become worn and frayed and made her a gift of a new one.
But Aeris also knew it wasn't just any gift.
"Zack," she whispered.
The trailing ends of the ribbon fluttered from fingers that trembled.
Why? she agonized, staring down at the smooth, fine piece of cloth shimmering in the dim lighting of the only lamp lit in the room. Why had he waited until now to let her know how he really felt? Perhaps if he'd acted on his feelings sooner, there could have been a chance she would have developed the same feelings in return for him. If he hadn't waited so long. If none of this had happened. If she hadn't met Cloud...
Or was it as Tifa had said and she'd just chosen not to see? Was all his flattery and attention not simply in fun as she'd always assumed, but was, in fact, sincere on his part?
With shaking hands, she slipped the ribbon in front of the old bow in her hair and secured it before pulling the old threadbare piece of red satin free.
She cleared her plate, grabbed her hat and staff on the way out, and stepped out, hardly noticing the early morning chill. In the barn, she found Zack watering the mules and cows in the soft glow of the lantern while the dogs milled about in front of the sheep's pen, waiting for their shepherdess. At the sound of her footsteps, he glanced up and a pleased smile broke out on his face.
"Zack." Aeris turned her head around slightly, touched a hand to the shiny, pink ribbon in the brown curls. "Thank you. I've been meaning to ask Tifa to get me one but with everything else going on, it hasn't been at the top of my priorities. I didn't think anyone had noticed I needed a new one."
His smile widened. "It looks nice on you." A small frown creased his brow and sudden worry edged his voice. "Do you like it? I know it's not red, but..."
"It's one of my favorite colors," she reassured him. "And yes, I like the ribbon. Very much."
The frown smoothed itself out. "Good. I knew it was the right one as soon as I saw it. I've always liked the color on you."
Aeris blushed. "Thank you," she said again.
She took the empty pails at his feet and went out to the water pump. They worked together companionably, at ease with one another, filling the troughs for the animals. Once the task was completed, they parted ways, and Aeris went to fetch her sheep.
~~~ooooo~~~
A vicious yank on Aeris' hair sent pain shooting through her scalp as her eyes flew open.
She reached behind her instinctively, trying to tug her hair from the animal that had jumped on her in her sleep, vaguely aware of Cloud sitting up and shouting at somebody.
His hands joined hers, grabbing and wrenching the other ones away from her. Before she could blink, it had latched onto her hair again, pulling so hard, tears sprang to her eyes.
A feral-sounding growl came from above her, its hot breath on the back of her neck, and Aeris whimpered in fear. The fairy with her let out a ferocious snarl in response and the painful grip on her hair slackened, fell away.
She lifted dazed eyes to her attacker and saw a small body, unmistakably human in form, unclothed but for the leaves concealing certain areas of her anatomy, scurrying swiftly over the rocks in the stream. It cleaved through the rushes and safely on the bank on the other side, pivoted on her heels and pointing a finger at her, yelled out what sounded like a string of angry words in some strange language.
The young man beside Aeris responded sharply back but she couldn't understand a word he said either.
The small girl's chin jutted up defiantly as she planted her hands on her hips and shouted back at him. If that wasn't a tantrum the girl was displaying, Aeris didn't know what was. When he merely gazed back at her, his face expressionless once more, she stomped her foot, became even more worked up. Aeris watched, riveted by the sight of the girl gesturing and flailing her skinny arms wildly about, marveling that she didn't send the red flowers scattering from her straight black hair with her antics.
Cloud rose to his feet, his upper body leaning forward in a threatening manner and said something in a menacing tone. The girl beat a hasty retreat but as she disappeared into the foliage on the opposite bank, she yelled something back over her shoulder. His jaw clenched, but he remained unmoving beside her.
Aeris stared after the girl. "What was that about?"
"It was nothing."
"It looked like something to me. She didn't look very happy to see me."
"You're not a fairy."
He didn't have to say more than that.
Her head dropped. In silence and misery, she studied the grass growing in the peaceful meadow, ears closed to the soothing current of the stream moving leisurely southward. A moment later, she felt him squat down beside her.
"And I am glad for it."
The heaviness in her chest slowly dissipated. She chanced a glance up, met his eyes watching her. Whatever it was she saw in those fathomless blue depths, it reassured her. Her confidence restored, she ventured to broach the matter of the strange fairy. "She was... That is, she seemed rather angry."
Aeris thought she saw something akin to surprise flicker across his face, but it was gone as quickly as it had come. He gave a small nod. "Perhaps she's been watching the human world more often than she lets on."
"Who was she?"
"My cousin."
Her mouth fell open. "You have a cousin?"
"And an aunt and uncle, and even a mother and father, too." If he could get snippy, she was seeing it. She hid a smile. "I didn't grow out of a rock or a tree as humans would believe."
Aeris had to laugh. "No, we don't think either of those. We believe the hills give birth to fairies."
"I wouldn't be surprised if you really did believe that."
The laughter disappeared. She contemplated his face soberly. "We're not so very different, are we?" she asked, her tone pleading.
His eyes went back to the forest underbrush where his cousin had fled.
"We should go back."
"The sheep!" she gasped, remembering. She scrambled to her feet, nearly tripping over her own feet in her haste. "How could I have fallen asleep like that—!"
"Stop." Cloud's hands were on her arms, steadying her. "It was only a quick nap. Your sheep are perfectly fine." He reached out, touched a lock of hair tumbling over her shoulder. "You're taking part of the forest home with you."
Aeris thought he was referring to the bur he'd plucked from her hair, until she saw where he was looking. She flicked a glance down at her dress, and winced. "Tifa is not going to be happy with me." Her friend was used to her coming home with smudges on her clothes, usually of the dirt variety. She seldom complained unless they were green, as these were.
He passed his hand over the grass stains. "We can put them back where they belong." She watched in astonishment as the spots faded. He held his hand out. "Let's go, shall we?"
She smiled and gave him her hand.
~~~ooooo~~~
Aeris rounded the corner of the house and saw a haphazard pile of roughly hewn wood from a hickory tree that had been felled by some unseen force of nature in the forest months ago. Her eyes drifted to the wheelbarrow in the yard, mostly empty now but for a few neatly split logs. It had been brimming when she'd passed by earlier with the sheep and dogs on their way to the barn.
She watched, unobserved as the young farmer drove the axe through log after log, every fall of the axe swift, true, finding its mark, as woodchips flew through the air. He'd taken off his shirt and was wearing only his trousers; perspiration gleamed on his muscled chest and arms as he swung the heavy axe steadily with a strength that made it look easy.
Zack had always had his pick of the local farmgirls and Aeris could see why. With his raven black hair and deep blue eyes, he was very easy on the eyes. His friendly smile and cheerful, laid-back personality that had remain unaffected by the rigors of life in the country made him even more attractive. Still, she wondered when he'd grown from an extremely good-looking boy into the beautiful young man wielding the axe like it was part of his arm before her today. Tifa was right. He was definitely not a boy. He had become a man, and a very handsome one at that. He was big and tall with broad shoulders and thick muscles carved from a life of hard work on the farm.
Aeris thought of another young man, with hair fairer than the sun and eyes bluer than the sky, whose striking beauty captivated and drew her as surely as the wilderness he came from. He had a slightly leaner frame than the built man chopping wood in the yard, and not as tall. But his arms, legs, and chest were also hard with muscles, and his hands at times felt rougher on her skin than they appeared, all of which told her that he was neither a stranger to toil nor did he lead an idle existence, and he moved with a powerful fluidity and grace that most men only wished they could boast.
"That's enough firewood to last us the whole winter, wouldn't you say?" she remarked, causing the axe to fly harmlessly past the thick block of hickory and sink into the tree stump with a loud thud. "How about taking a break?" Her eyes turned to the horizon, where a rare golden sunset blazed across the entire western sky. The days were becoming shorter, the evenings cooler. "Or just calling it a day? Dinner will be ready soon."
Leaving the axe partially buried in the base of the tree trunk that had been cut down several years ago and had served as a chopping block since, Zack looked up, brushed the damp hair back from his forehead. "Why not," he said, breathing hard. "I don't suppose we'll freeze tonight if I stop for the day." He took the canteen she held out to him with a smile of thanks and took a long swig.
"I'm positive we won't." Aeris picked up a pail sitting by the pump and worked her way around the chickens pecking at the ground, collecting branches and woodchips for kindling that lay strewn about the yard.
Zack chucked the few remaining logs that had fallen from the stump into the wheelbarrow and proceeded to drain her canteen, leaving just enough water to wet his hands and run them through his hair. He replaced the cork, and gave a nod toward the barn. "Are the girls with Tifa?"
She crossed the yard to the woodpile where she carefully poured the contents of the pail on top. "They snuck into the house behind you just now," she said, returning the pail to where she'd found it and exchanging it for her basket and staff.
"And they didn't even say hello to me?" His expression turned sour. "She must be sneaking them treats."
"They were all over you when we got back," Aeris reminded him. She raised a brow at him. "But she was feeding them scraps from last night's dinner."
"What?!" He looked outraged.
"Yep." Aeris nodded vigorously, struggling not to laugh at the expression on his face. "And bones too. Big ones."
"I knew it!" Black eyebrows drew together in a fierce scowl. "I knew she was hiding the good ones. And she says I indulge them."
"You do," she said wryly. Truthfully, they all did. There was even a fairy who'd been brought to heel under the dogs' spell and fed them treats from his own tables.
He retrieved his shirt from the handle on the wheelbarrow. "How was your day?" he asked, working his arms into the sleeves.
Aeris did not miss the abrupt change in topic, but decided to let it pass. "The usual." Noting the sudden carefully blank expression on his face, she added on impulse, "Although one of the rams did try to horn his way between me and his dam. I think he thought I was encroaching on his territory."
The smile she'd wanted to see appeared. "That's all?" he chuckled, his eyes twinkling. "The other rams didn't try to lead the rest of the ewes astray while you were busy with the first one and wasn't looking?"
"Only you would do that, Zack." She laughed. "Not all males think as you do."
He didn't laugh with her. "I only do that with one female," he said quietly.
This was where Aeris would have normally asked which farmer's daughter was the new one he had his eyes on, but the way he was looking at her suddenly made her question whether she wanted to hear the answer. She thought that there was something to what Tifa had said. It seemed that Zack did look at her differently than the way he looked at the other girls. His manners were also more gentle, his voice softer when he spoke to her, and there was something else, too. A rather hopeful, wistful undertone to it that she'd never noticed before. It had always been that way, she suddenly realized.
Uneasy at the direction her thoughts had taken, she averted her eyes, cutting their banter short. A slow movement out of the corner of her eyes drew her attention to the roof where wispy tendrils of gray smoke rose in lazy spirals from the chimney into the sky. Aeris could smell the fat dripping from the meat cooking on the spit inside the house, imagined she could hear it sizzle as it hit the fire below, see the flames burst.
"I can do with a little something to eat," she said, returning her eyes to his face. "Care to join me?"
He looked disappointed she hadn't countered with a playful rejoinder. "You know Tifa's going to say you're spoiling your appetite right before dinner."
"Why do you think I'm asking you?" she asked lightly. "You're going to distract her while I sneak something out of the kitchen. She told me this morning she planned on baking strawberry scones today."
Zack nodded, but his smile was not as bright as usual. "Fine. But you have to help me get the chickens into the coop first."
Aeris grinned. "Deal."