14: Starry-Eyed Surprise
1083 Words
“What are we going to do with it, Seamus? This makes no sense whatsoever.”
“I’m certain that, when he wakes up, he’ll be just as confused as we are, based on what we’ve seen and heard since he and the girl arrived here.”
“What are we supposed to tell the Queen?”
“Relax a moment, Alastair. Worrying and panicking will not solve the problem or make him wake up any faster.”
“Stop referring to it like it’s one of us!”
Rhys opens his eyes to see who’s bickering nearby. He has an awful headache and feels fairly disoriented, a feeling that only increases at the sight of the two beings arguing over him. Both seem to be glowing and have butterfly-type wings; one has wings and hair in varying shades of green, the other has wings and hair of orange.
“What in blazes?” he exclaims, rubbing his eyes as though doing so might change the scene before him.
“Ah, you’re awake. That makes things easier,” the green one addresses Rhys.
“You’re a faerie.” Rhys doesn’t even believe his own words as they fall from his lips. The green being laughs, and it sounds like wind in the trees and a babbling brook. The orange one glares at Rhys with silent contempt.
“Not the easiest thing to wake up to, I imagine. No matter. How are you feeling?”
Rhys groans, massaging his temples. I must have hit my head hard when I fell, he muses.
“Better than he’ll feel when I’m done with him,” the orange being threatens.
“Alastair, please. There’s no need to jump to such extremes, not yet, anyway,” the green one responds calmly. He has a calming aura even for Rhys, who is very much considering panicking.
“How long have I been unconscious? Is my mother all right? Where is Saoirse?” he asks urgently.
“Not as long as I’d expect, after that spell from the harp,” the green one answers easily. “You’re a trooper. Don’t know anything about your mother, unless she and this ‘Saoirse’ are one and the same—”
“No, of course not. The girl who played the harp, that’s Saoirse. My mother—”
“Ah, the girl who played the harp. What’s your connection to her?”
“No connection, really. Met her this morning. If it’s still today. I’m not sure how time passes here, as compared to home.”
The green one laughs again, but the orange one—Alastair? Rhys wonders—seems less than amused.
“Stop messing about, ungrateful lout. What you claim cannot be; simply look at yourself and see. If there’s no link twixt you and she, then how can you transfigured be?” Alastair addresses Rhys irritably.
Rhys just looks at him with growing confusion.
“Don’t mind him,” the green one assures Rhys before turning his attention to Alastair. “If he was a human, I’d understand your games, but since he’s clearly not—”
“What in tarnation are you talking about?” Rhys demands hotly.
“Look at yourself in the river, and see.”
Rhys tries to stand up, but a wave of dizziness overtakes him and he sinks back to the ground. “Can you just tell me? I don’t feel…good.”
“I could, but you probably won’t believe me until you see for yourself. Sit and relax a minute. That spell usually takes a lot out of those it affects.”
“Spell?”
“The song Saoirse played on the harp is a spell, one that breaks illusions and shows the truth for all to see. We thought you were a human, before the song—”
“I am a human. I’ve lived my whole life as a human. I wound up here by mistake—”
“Aye, we know. We’ve been following you and the girl and the horse almost from the moment you arrived here.”
“Where is Saoirse? And Bergljot?”
A nicker behind Rhys makes him turn around, rather more quickly than might have been advisable, given his dizziness. Bergljot stands a short distance away, but her dappled grey coat has become positively silvery, her mane and tail are the purest of white, and a long, pearlescent horn spirals from her forehead.
“Lord have mercy,” Rhys whispers, unable to believe what he’s seeing.
“If the girl is Saoirse, that must be Bergljot,” the green being says, reclaiming a portion of Rhys’s attention. “Both are safe. Saoirse’s still at the harp. A couple of our friends are with her. What should we call you?”
“Rhys. And you are?”
“My name is Seamus. This here is Alastair.”
“Why have you been following us?”
“Humans aren’t supposed to be in the fae realm.”
“We didn’t come here on purpose. Why didn’t you just send us back through whatever door we stumbled through in the first place?”
“It wasn’t that simple. The two of you were very alert, and your friend…senses things, or so it seemed.”
“You reveal too much,” Alastair accuses Seamus.
“What do you mean? That spell gets rid of illusions. It doesn’t create them. He’s one of us,” Seamus retorts.
“There’s no way,” Rhys counters. This time he succeeds in standing up and walking unsteadily to the riverbank. However, he crashes back to the ground upon getting a good look at his reflection.
His hair has become dark blue, his makings of a beard are gone. Large, dark blue butterfly wings have sprouted from his back, and his skin has a silvery tint to it. His eyes, once warm brown, are now black as night.
The faerie spoke true. I’m one of them, Rhys realizes with a growing sense of dread.
- Writer
