AN: Here we are, another chapter here.
Someone contacted me recently, asking me to really consider working on this one. I was very happy to hear that, and I was very much in the mood to work on it!
I hope you're still interested in reading. If you are, I hope you enjoy! If you do enjoy, please do consider leaving a comment to let me know!
111
Carol would have been embarrassed to try to explain the way she felt without first having time to sit down and gather the words she wanted to use, arranging them so that they made sense and didn't make her sound like some sort of a raving lunatic.
She was happy. She was excited. She felt invigorated in a way that she hadn't felt in a long time. In fact, she wasn't sure that she had ever felt quite like this.
For most of her life, Carol had practically been drowning in adrenaline.
She had survived Ed, even though every day had left her wading in a pool of adrenaline. Would she make him angry? Would the day be calm and uneventful? Would she have to protect her daughter? Would she fail to protect her? Would this be the day that her husband finally killed her and, if he did, what would happen to Sophia?
She had seen him dead, finally, but that had come only once she was caught up in a world where the animated dead were trying to consume her.
Admittedly, Carol had found the best part of herself in that world, but that part of her had been forged in the fire of her earlier abuse, strengthened by the fire of a world where death waited for them all at every turn, and had been nearly drowned in sorrow for the losses that she'd suffered.
And, all the while, she'd been drowning in the adrenaline that was a natural part of trying to survive without the chance for rest and recovery.
Now, Carol felt the adrenaline running through her veins, but it was so very different. The rush was different. The whole world around her was different. Colors looked quite unlike she'd ever seen them before—and she only half-believed that the change in everything she saw, and everything she was experiencing, came from whatever magic was at play.
Carol could breathe in a way that made the air coming into her lungs feel like the equivalent of the coolest, sweetest water that she could ever imagine drinking.
Breathing that air in fast, heavy gulps, she helped Jadzia knock the knight over the head while Laris distracted him. She helped move the impossibly heavy body to one of the stables. She helped strip the knight of his armor, and to calm the horse from its confusion once the squire had been incapacitated and placed with his boss. She helped Daryl dress in the heavy armor, and she led his horse to the competition area like the other squires were doing.
And, all the while, she'd had to fight back a sort of laughter that, bubbling in her chest, she knew would be inappropriate. Still, she couldn't help but feel it stirring within her.
There was danger all around them—people she imagined were something akin to royal security or guards—with broad-bladed, heavy battle axes and quivers packed full of bolts with jagged tips.
But it was the most wonderful danger to taste on her tongue, not that Carol would admit it.
She longed to give Daryl a kiss as he prepared to move his horse into place, but she remained aware enough of her surroundings—and their pretended roles—that she didn't dare to do that. She did wish him luck, though, quietly, and she reminded him that it might be best to make short work of this whole thing, if that were possible, because there was no way of telling how long they could count on the knight and his squire to remain incapacitated as they were.
From Carol's position, she could keep tabs on what was happening around her. She knew what Daryl was doing—he was doing pretty well, given that he'd never had any training in being an actual knight in shining armor—and she could keep tabs on what Jadzia was doing, as she tried to somewhat discreetly look for another way to get Kira off the platform where they had her seated, just in case it was somehow possible to rescue her without the necessity of Daryl managing to win the entire competition that was taking place.
Kira, as everyone except Jadzia referred to her, looked like she was not at all pleased with her predicament. She'd been loud about it, protesting that she wasn't a princess and didn't belong there, but it seemed as though everyone here was content to view her as simply irrational and hysterical. Furthermore, they almost seemed able to ignore her entirely—as though they couldn't hear her or understand what she was saying. The guards subdued her enough to make it clear that they weren't letting her leave simply because that's what she wanted, but they seemed to have very little interest in anything she said about not belonging where she'd found herself.
From Carol's position, she could also see Laris. The woman was doing her best to blend in with the crowd while, also, keeping Carol in sight. Laris's position was strategic. She could, from her position, see Quark who was responsible for letting them know when and if the knight and his squire might be coming—disgruntled as they would likely be—to lodge a complaint about what had happened to them.
Carol felt certain, somehow, that the guards wouldn't ignore the knight's complaints in the same way they were ignoring Kira's cries of injustice.
No matter how carefully Carol tried to keep an eye on everything that was happening—and everything she needed to observe to feel that she was doing everything possible to keep her people, since she couldn't help but consider them all her people, safe—but when things happened, they seemed to happen far too quickly for her to keep up.
As surely as if someone had fired a starting pistol, everything began to unravel at exactly the same time, somehow.
Laris ran toward Carol, shouting out her warning.
Quark was louder than Laris, though Carol couldn't see him in the crowd. When he began to yell, so did the knight and squire in question, and the crowd began to get spooked and stirred up like animals. Confusion broke out in the area where the knights were gathered, some waiting their turns and others taking part in events to eliminate them from the competition or move them forward to the next round.
And, somewhere where Carol could no longer see—mostly thanks to the confusion of people and horses—there was a scream, which most likely belonged to some member of the royal court, loudly informing whoever was listening that something had happened to the princess.
"Carol! Carol!"
Carol could hear Daryl calling, frantically, even above the noise of everything else. Her heart was drumming in her chest. She looked around, trying to focus, despite all the chaos and confusion that had broken out.
Then, she saw the relatively thin brown horse—one that wasn't laden with armor and was one of the many tied up and resting in case it might be needed for one thing or another.
She made her way over to the horse, cut the tether with a blade that she'd gotten from Laris earlier—something lifted off the knight, perhaps—and calmed the animal. When she felt certain that he trusted her enough—just enough—she threw a leg over and pulled herself into position on his back. He wasn't saddled, and she wasn't sure how that was going to work out for her, but beggars couldn't be choosers at all.
From her taller position, she could find Daryl in the crowd. His horse was practically crow-hopping, and Daryl wasn't exactly a talented rider. Still, the horse was a seasoned horse—that was simple to see—and Carol was sure that it would be easily under control if Daryl had some confidence and direction, since he was trying to turn the poor animal this way and that in search of her.
She nudged her horse, finding that he was quite responsive, and directed him through the crowd. She didn't want to trample anyone, but she was wondering if that might be impossible to avoid, since the crowd who had gathered to watch the entire thing, was now acting very much like a mass of squirrels with no real knowledge of where to go and no ability to make decisions.
Finally, Carol reached Daryl, bringing her horse as close to his as she could. Luckily, her horse wasn't averse to the other animal, and he allowed her to reach out and get a hold on Daryl's reins.
Daryl immediately calmed and, in many ways, so did the horse.
His visor was up. He was looking at her. She could sense his panic and, in an instant, she could also sense his calm.
"I'm here," she offered, the contagious sense of calm practically untangling the tension she'd felt in her chest earlier.
"This ain't gone a damn bit like we planned," Daryl said.
Carol laughed. For a moment—just a split second—she could have sworn that time literally froze. She felt like she had a second, just one second, to look around and see that everything, and everyone, had frozen exactly as they were. For this moment, only, she and Daryl were alone in a crowd that was as unmoving as stone.
But stranger things had happened.
Carol's heart beat fast, drumming along with the oddly exalted feeling she'd been dealing with for some time, and she smiled at him.
"Not a lot has gone like we planned, Pookie," she teased. "But—it hasn't stopped us, yet."
She felt his relief. She sensed it. She could have practically sworn that she tasted it—and then the madness began, again, around them.
"The hell do we do?" Daryl asked.
As though Guinan—or whoever it was in the universe that was putting the kaleidoscope pieces into play for them—heard him and sent a response, things took a slightly different turn. As there was a loud cacophony that rose above the noises already happening, Carol noticed another horse, also without armor, bolt out from the crowd and streak off toward an open field.
The guards, mobilizing themselves slowly in their heavy armor and riding horses that were weighed down with equally heavy armor, were starting to move to follow.
Carol slipped the knife out of her belt and cut what ties she could see on Daryl's horse. Daryl realized what she was doing and helped the animal shake free some of the pieces of armor that he was wearing, lightening the beast's load.
"There goes Jadzia and Kira," Carol said. "Let's find Quark and Laris, and we'll follow them."
Carol moved her horse in front of Daryl's. Since she was, of the two of them, a much stronger rider than Daryl, she used her horse to clear a path that made it easier for him to move through the crowd. She began to feel her chest tightening a little with panic.
What if they couldn't find their friends? Worse than that, what if they'd been trampled in the chaos? Carol realized that, even in such a small amount of time, she'd become rather attached to the people they were travelling with. She didn't want to lose them. She didn't want to see them hurt or dead. She trusted them, and they seemed like good people—she felt it, inside of her, in a way that she hadn't felt about people in a long time. She didn't want to see that gone from the world—from any world, for that matter.
What would they do when they did gather everyone—since she refused to believe that anyone could be lost? How would they escape?
She didn't have all the answers. She couldn't. Time wasn't slowing down, stopping, or even revealing itself to her.
But she did feel an immense sense of relief when she recognized the missing members of their cohort doing exactly what they could to try to survive the chaos.
Trailing a great distance behind the horse that was moving rapidly with Jadzia and Kira riding double, Laris and Quark were running on foot. Laris far out-paced Quark, and Carol put heels to her horse enough to dart past the Ferengi and catch up with the Romulan.
"We don't have time to waste," Carol said, stopping the horse only long enough to help pull Laris up behind her.
"Then, why are you wasting it?" Laris countered. "I'm on. Go!"
"You better hold on," Carol said.
Laris wrapped herself tightly around Carol—almost too tightly—but Carol didn't protest.
"You don't have to tell me twice," Laris said. "Let's go—they're gaining on us."
Carol glanced back over her shoulder just long enough to see that Laris hadn't lied. The armed guards from the palace were, in fact, gaining on them. Not far behind them, Daryl was coming with Quark, but it looked as though he'd barely given Quark enough time to get on the horse even halfway properly. The reason for that, likely, was that there was someone right on his tail who looked determined to try to stop them with one of the heavy battle axes. Daryl's horse wasn't the fastest, and the other horse was gaining on him.
Carol's heart sank.
"You game?" Carol asked, turning the horse.
"For what?" Laris asked.
"We'll buy them time," Carol said, making the decision for them, not that she believed Laris would protest.
"At least, if we die, we do so with honor," Laris offered.
"I'll take that," Carol responded, nudging the horse that was already working itself into a lather—none of the animals, she feared, would live through this, even if their riders did.
She had no weapon that was going to save them from the axe. All she could do was exactly what she did. She ran her horse directly at the guard's horse, hoping that her brave little mount, who had shown himself to be quite unflappable, would remain so and would either scare the other horse into turning the other way, or actually collide with it.
Either way, she would buy Daryl time.
And, if she lived, he would want to kill her when he got the chance, but she would welcome the argument to come, since it would mean they all lived to experience it.
Her horse, blind to fear or entirely without a will to live, did what she asked. It charged the other horse which turned abruptly and reared back to throw his rider. The guard went down, axe and all, as Carol turned the brown horse back and ran him in the same direction as Daryl and Jadzia.
She pretended that she couldn't hear anything that Daryl was yelling at her.
And then, she saw it. Like a beacon, she saw it.
She nudged the little brown horse, begging him for everything he had left and hoping that he would be rewarded in whatever afterlife waited for horses willing to run themselves to death for those they served. Maybe, she thought, his life would be spared because, perhaps, this piece of the kaleidoscope would somehow slip into some other place where he might only be a princess' faithful and loving plaything.
"Run for the rainbow!" Carol yelled, hoping Daryl and Jadzia both could hear her words. "The rainbow! Run for the rainbow!"
She heard them shouting—echoing her words. She heard Daryl shouting to Jadzia, making sure she understood. She heard him behind her. She knew he was just behind her—he would follow her through. She dug her fingers into the mane of the horse. She held her breath, aware of Laris's arms wrapped impossibly tight around her ribcage and the feeling of the woman's sweaty body pressed against her. She was aware of the roughness of the horse's hair and the sweat on her legs from the horse's back.
She drove him toward the rainbow—making one last request of him—and she closed her eyes.