~A Wild Heart~
Chapter Fifteen
~~~ooooo~~~
"There's something I've been meaning to ask you," Aeris began. "A minor detail perhaps, but it's been on my mind quite a bit."
Cloud gave a small nod and waited for her to speak.
"It's really quite silly," she said, feeling a little embarrassed. "At least you'd probably think so, but..."
"I'm sure it's not," he said confidently. "Why don't you tell me what it is and we'll see what I make of it?"
"The fairy queen…"
"Yes? What about her?" he asked quickly, and eagerly, she thought.
"There are some stories that say she wears a white flower in her hair and it's how everyone knows who she is even when she's in disguise, because the flower is like no flower that grows on earth. But there are other stories that say she always wears a golden flower, which is also how people recognize her because it glows with a light that humans who have seen it swear comes from the sun itself." She gave him a look of confusion. "Which one is correct or are we wrong on both accounts?"
She watched him mull over his reply. "They're both right…and wrong."
"But how can that be?" Aeris asked, perplexed. "Does she wear both flowers then? Or is it something else? Does she switch back and forth between them?"
"She used to wear white in her hair. But it wasn't just a single flower or even a flower at all. It was made from snowflakes that had fallen from the sky. She now wears a golden flower in her hair. I believe the people in this land are familiar with the story of the flower's creation."
Aeris' lips parted with wonder.
He inclined his head slightly. "Yes, that part of the tale is true. In some parts of the world, humans relate the story of how she got the flower through poems. Other cultures have set it to music. They've been known to sing it, rather than just tell it."
"Sing it?" she echoed.
He nodded again. "There is magic in all speech and human language can be quite powerful when spoken and used properly by those who know how to bend them to their will. The ballad about how the queen got the white flower is one of my favorite stories and I've only ever heard it told in a small country across the ocean. The first time I heard it sung by a real storyteller, I could almost see myself standing in a field of white with snow drifting down all around me. I could feel each snowflake land upon me, hear the wind howling and blowing flurries of snow against me."
"'A snowstorm in winter,'" Aeris breathed. "That's what the stories say. But if that was a snowflake in her hair, then whenever she made them rain down, it would have been ice... Snow, not flowers."
He nodded. "The ones she makes aren't as cold and melt rather quickly. You should see when gold is falling out of the sky and you're dancing and eating amongst gold flowers that shimmer like sunlight. Mortals have a hard time seeing in the brightness even though she dulls the light somewhat so she saves them mainly for fairy celebrations." The corner of his mouth turned up faintly and the blue eyes darkened with warmth. "She likes to say that the color of her flower is just like my hair."
Aeris marveled at the revelation. "Does she keep company with common fairies often?"
"Common?"
"Common, like you," she explained. "Fairies who aren't royalty or of noble blood. Peasants, we would call them in the old days."
A blond brow lifted. "Fairies don't really make a distinction when it comes to who we keep company with. It is very hard to tell the nobility from the masses on any given day unless you knew them personally," he said. "She has never withheld herself from me or been too busy to give her time and attention to any fairy that wants to visit with her. I see her and talk to her every day."
The picture of the warm, kind queen he painted was nothing like the vengeful one that humans were more acquainted with. "She sounds wonderful."
"She is," he said with a touch of pride. "You would think so, too."
~~~ooooo~~~
Two days later, Aeris rose out of bed to find another lily at her window, basking in the barely visible light of the morning sun that was just beginning to rise in the east, smaller and more pale than it had been in the early days of summer. Smiling, she slipped it into the vase that contained an abundance of the wildflowers.
She got dressed and finished her morning routine, made her bed, then ate a breakfast of sausages and potatoes Tifa had set out for her, and hurried out to the barn. To her pleasant surprise, Zack and Tifa had watered the animals and milked the cow and were nowhere in sight. She made a mental note to thank them later and rushed out of the barn with the sheep and dogs.
~~~ooooo~~~
Dawn was just beginning to lighten the sky when she found a nice field far enough away from the closest farmhouse. She herded the sheep to the field and ran most of the way to their meeting spot.
She smiled as she saw him step out of the forest and hastened forward, but her smile faded when he suddenly moved back into the shadows, and she couldn't make him out anymore.
"Cloud?"
Aeris felt the hair rise at the back of her neck. She turned around, eyes widening at the sight of the figure that was storming down the hill after her.
Zack's face was black with fury but he did not utter so much as a word until he reached her. "So that's him."
"Zack?" she asked, feeling as disoriented as though she'd just awakened from some strange dream and couldn't quite figure out where she was or how she got there.
"My gods, Aeris! He… He's not even a human!"
"H-how did you—? Did you follow me here? Were you following me the whole way?"
"I knew you were up to something," Zack said accusingly. "You were in such a hurry to leave again. But this! I never thought, never imagined—he's a fairy! A fairy! Are you out of your mind?"
"Don't do this," she said, trying to remain calm despite the trembling all over her body. She'd never seen him in such a rage before. "Don't say something you'll regret."
"Something I'll—" he sputtered. "I'm not the one who'll regret this. You've gotten mixed up with a fairy!"
"Zack—"
"How could you, Aeris? How could you do this?"
"Because I wanted to!" she said loudly, suddenly as angry as he. "Because I love him!" He recoiled at that and she took a deep, steadying breath, and forced herself to lower her voice. "I'm sorry, Zack, but I do," she continued gently to soften some of the blow. "I—"
"You don't know what you're saying," he said abruptly. "You've been bewitched by him! You're not thinking with your head."
"No, Zack, you're the one who doesn't know what you're talking about. You don't know him. Until this moment, you didn't even really believe in fairies, did you?"
"I know his kind!" Zack's voice rose in volume. "They're pranksters, tricksters of the worst kind, creatures of the wild! Their lot has never done anything good for man but create one mischief after another. They make our livestock sick and spoil our crops, snatch our children from their beds, and turn us into dung beetles! They spell nothing but trouble for us!"
"You see, you're repeating stories you've heard," Aeris said quickly, seeing her chance to get a word in edgewise as he paused for breath. "That's not how they are at all. They're people, too. Just like us."
"They are not like us. Whatever else they are, that's the one thing they're not. They do not have emotions. You may not want to believe the tales but you saw him and so did I. Those eyes are not natural, and those ears! And," he stated with an almost furious kind of glee, "he wasn't wearing clothes! The stories got that right. They're heathens. They run around naked. They have no sense of propriety or decency—"
"Clothes have nothing to do with propriety for their kind. They are nature spirits. For them, it is unnatural to cover up their bodies—"
"The point," Zack snarled, "is not everything we've heard about them is false. What makes you think the part about them not having emotions isn't also true? They don't feel like we do. That's why they cause us so much grief. They don't know what it's like. They come out, tease us, and stir up all kinds of trouble then leave us to stumble blindly about, trying to fix the problems they create while they laugh at us. For all we know, they're the reason why the wells have dried up! This drought was probably their doing!"
"I know that's not true!"
"You think you know him. You saw how he ran off the moment he saw me and left you to face me on your own. What kind of a man would do that?" he asked, shooting a scornful look at the trees nearby. "I saw him. And I know what I saw. He is not human." He glanced back at the forest, eyes searching the underbrush, but she knew he couldn't see the fairy. "Why don't you just come out? I know you're there."
"Don't," she said, quiet anger in her voice. "Leave him alone. He doesn't have to answer to you or anyone."
Zack ignored her. "Be a man and own up to your actions." His nostrils flared. "Don't skulk in the shadows. Or are you ashamed you were caught with a human girl? Is she not good enough for you? Will the other fairies disapprove of her and ridicule you?"
Something moved in the darkness of the forest and her heart skipped a beat as a familiar voice spoke, low and soft, soothing her raw nerves, before he stepped into view. "I thought I would give the two of you a chance to talk and sort things out."
"Give us a chance to talk and sort things out," Zack parroted furiously. "More like cowering and hiding in the safety of the shadows while she takes the heat. You're just like the rest of your kind. You stir up trouble then run away and leave us to deal with your mess. Is sneaking around the only thing fairies are good for?"
Aeris inhaled sharply. She could see a muscle tick faintly in the fairy's jaw, the blue eyes growing paler, like shards of ice and despite her own growing antagonism, she knew a sudden fear for Zack who was too incensed to notice anything amiss.
But when Cloud spoke, his voice held no trace of anger. "Think what you will. You've already made up your mind about us and nothing I say or do will change it. But it is her choice to make whether or not she believes as you do."
Zack's eyes burned with rage. "Fine, then. Make a choice, Aeris. Him or us. Fairy or human. Will you turn your back on your own people?"
Aeris turned shocked eyes to him. "I won't," she cried vehemently. "I won't choose! You can't make me. You have no right."
"I should go." The bright, piercing eyes that humans found so unnerving were on her. "I'm only making things worse."
Aeris opened her mouth but Zack beat her to it. "Go," he ordered. "Go! Let her see what a coward you are and have no more doubts about you."
"Zack," she begged, trying to fight back tears. "Stop this, please!"
"I will go." The fairy's eyes were positively glacial. "But I will go because of her, not you."
"As long as you go," Zack snapped. "That's good enough for me."
Cloud's jaw clenched but he simply turned to look at her. She stared back at him and it seemed to her that he wanted to say something to her, but he only lifted a hand toward her face. She barely felt his fingers graze her cheek, and then he was gone.
For a long moment, Aeris was too stunned to speak.
At last she turned to her housemate. "Are you happy now?" she whispered.
From the look on Zack's face, he was neither happy nor furious anymore. "Aeris," he said hoarsely.
"No." She closed her eyes, and drew in a deep, painful breath. "Not right now."
Tears blurred her vision as she stumbled away and made her way back to the pasture where she'd left her flock.
~~~ooooo~~~
Tifa heard the sound of heavy footsteps dragging up toward the house from outside the open door and wondered which one of her housemates had come back for their lunch.
A teasing smile sprang readily to her lips as she flipped her hair back and whirled around, but the ribbing she'd been about to give whoever it was died in her throat. Zack's face was ashen.
She would've thought he'd consumed poison but she'd packed his lunch this morning with extreme care and he was as healthy as a bull.
"What is it, Zack?" she asked fearfully as he crossed the room and dropped down into his chair. "What on earth has happened?"
He swallowed and said shortly, "Nothing, Tifa."
Tifa had a horrible feeling she knew the cause of his misery. "It's Aeris, isn't it?" she pressed. "It's about her."
She set the broom against the wall and joined him at the table.
"Don't ask if you don't want to know."
"You found out," she said dully. "You found out she's been seeing a boy."
"You knew?" Zack looked so anguished, Tifa couldn't continue holding his gaze and had to look down at the table. "By gods, Tifa, you knew, and you didn't tell me?"
"I... I didn't know for certain," she tried to explain. To her surprise, she found herself fidgeting with her fingers now that her hands had nothing to do. "But I saw the signs. I guessed. But she wouldn't tell me anything when I asked, only enough for me to conclude that she's been meeting someone."
"Do you know who it is?"
She shook her head. "I met and talked to all the boys on the farms, and I still have no clue which one it is."
He laughed. "It's none of them."
Tifa looked at him, utterly confused. "How can it be none of them? It can't be anyone else but a boy from around here. The closest town is half a day's walk from here." Tifa could hear herself babbling, but couldn't seem to put a stop to it. "She wouldn't be able to find the time to see him and also take care of the sheep then get back home in time and—"
"Oh, he's from around here all right," Zack chuckled humorlessly. "In fact, he lives right in the forest. She's been meeting him in secret for gods know how long..." He made some sort of unidentifiable sound in his throat.
"No one lives in the forest—"
"A fairy, Tifa."
She thought her ears were deceiving her. She laughed. "Forgive me, Zack. I know this isn't funny. But I thought I heard you say fairy."
"I did." He looked so hurt and betrayed that Tifa knew as ridiculous as it sounded, he had to believe what he was saying.
"Zack," she said gently. "That can't be."
"But it is, Tifa. I know how it sounds, but it's true. It's real. The stories are real. I saw him with my own eyes." Zack shivered. "They're real."
What could she say? What on earth was she supposed to say to that?