Chicory Up: The Pixie Chronicles (41 page)

D
ICK FLEXED HIS WINGS. His shoulders protested the work. No worse than a three-hour football practice.

A tiny voice in the back of his head reminded him that he wasn’t seventeen anymore. His muscles didn’t like working that hard.

I have to do this,
he reminded himself,
for Thistle, for Hope, and our future.

New strength flushed through him along with his resolve and commitment. The wing thing got easier as he worked through stiff muscles.

He leaped upward, only half-surprised that he kept going as his wings grabbed air. Thistle leaped ahead of him, flying instinctively. He still had to think about it.

She grabbed an extra sword from a Dandelion and tossed him one, too. Great, he had to fight
AND
fly at the same time. “I can do this. I have to do this.”

“Give up, Thistle Down, you can’t win against me!” Snapdragon taunted. He thrust his sword forward. Lethal poison dripped from the tip.

But his arm wavered just a bit. The toxins gained potency in his system, robbing him of strength.

The medical portion of Dick’s brain noted that the purple-red fungus pockets on Snapdragon’s wings had grown to encompass most of the delicate tissue. Hardly any yellow or gold remained.

“Wanna make a bet?” Thistle called back. “Oh, wait a minute, betting is a Faery thing. Of course you’ll take a bet.
Before you do, look around you, you crazy mutant. Where’s your army? Where are the Faeries you work for? They’ve abandoned you. All of them. Just like they deserted Pixies when they went underhill. Just like they always do. I have friends. Real friends. They follow me out of love, no magic compulsion. Compulsion is a Faery trick.”

Sure enough, the only Pixies behind Snapdragon were a pathetic gaggle of wilted Dandelions. Long past their prime and ready to hibernate.

“Chicory offers a place within his tribe, to any of you who leave Snapdragon before blood is shed,” Leo announced.

The wilted troop perked up a bit.

“That’s a full place within the tribe, not just drifting around the edges like an outcast weed. We offer a nest
inside
the attic,” Dick confirmed.

“Um, Dick, have you discussed this with Chicory?” Dusty whispered. She didn’t seem at all surprised to see him shrunk to four inches tall and wearing only a kilt of flower petals.

But then, Dusty had always believed in magic: the magic of Pixies or the magic of a medical miracle that saved her life. It made no difference to her. Indeed, she represented the entire town in that mixture of belief.

“Watch out!” Chase bellowed.

Dick covered his ears and lost air. Something rattled loudly.

Chase drew back his arm and cast a spatula full of ice chunks at Snapdragon. He’d never thrown a better forward pass on the football field.

Snapdragon rose up on his tattered wings and looped around the spreading array of lethal ice.

Thistle darted away to Snapdragon’s other side. “Over here, you bully. You can’t battle both of us,” she sneered, diving in with her own sword pointed at the mutant Pixie’s heart.

Dick thrust himself forward at the same time.

Snapdragon dropped toward Dusty’s hair. The Dandelions whipped in, making a solid wall between the enemy and his prey.

Dick breathed a bit easier as he watched Dusty twirl away, jumping over rocks and downed branches with the grace and ease of the ballerina she always wanted to be.

Another pelting of ice brought confusion and shrieks. The limp Dandelions deserted the battlefield en masse.

“Rosie threw us out on
his
orders,” one of them whispered to Dick as he zoomed out. “No weeds sullying their pure tribe.”

“Pure, my wings,” Dick retorted. “He’s the one tainting the good name and pure blood of Pixie!”

“Incoming!” Chase warned. He shifted his stance for a new style of attack. Something hard and dark flew from his left hand at the same time more ice shot toward Snapdragon.

Dusty followed up with her own fist full of mud. Right left, left right, ice and dirt pelted Snapdragon. The last lingering Dandelions ducked away in every direction, leaving their flagging leader to face the barrage alone.

Still Snapdragon jabbed at Dick or Thistle, whoever ventured closer. His thrusts went wild, easily parried.

Together, Dick and Thistle drove him closer and closer to Chase and Dusty and their lethal ice chest.

A dirt clod struck Snapdragon squarely between the wings.

He halted in midair, gasping.

“What a pitiful sight,” Dick mused, half aloud. “Much as I hate to do this to any creature, I need to put you out of your misery. Like a rabid dog or a cat gutted by a raccoon.” He dove fast and furious, aiming his sword at his enemy’s heart.

“Put him out of
our
misery, you mean,” Thistle echoed.

As one, they descended upon the startled Snapdragon. Their swords sank deep into his chest at the same moment, between heartbeats.

Before Dick could grasp the enormity of having killed another sentient being, Dusty lunged beneath them and scooped Snapdragon into her butterfly net. With a deft flick, she deposited the tiny corpse into the ice chest. Chase kicked the lid shut.

And it was over.

“We’ll turn him over to animal control so that they can lift the ban on daytime activities.” Chase grinned hugely. “Wonder what they’ll really see when they do an autopsy?”

Dick almost fell out of the sky, exhausted, winded, triumphant, and sick-at-heart. He had killed someone.

Thistle held out her hand to Dick, settling lightly beside him on a comforting, but cold and wet, tuft. “I never lost your ring. It stayed with me, a constant reminder that we love each other and whatever happened here in Pixie, you and I belong together. I had a job to do. That’s the real reason I left. Not because of you and Hope. I want Hope to be a part of our family. A big, important part.” She smiled, feeling a bit shy at the possibility that something could still go terribly wrong.

Her awareness of the humans watching and listening faded. She needed to concentrate on Dick and only Dick.

“And I appreciate it. I had a job to do first, to truly find my daughter and learn to love her.” He took Thistle’s hand and kissed the ring. “Now how do we get back to our human bodies? There are things we have to talk about, decisions we have to make. And I imagine Chicory is looking a bit strange at six feet tall with blue hair and skin.” He drew in a deep lungful of air. She watched his exhaustion fade to mere tiredness, saw the moment his heart settled into a steady rhythm.

Thistle giggled. “Chicory will last a bit longer.” She looked up, trying to figure out how to reverse the magic that had brought them both to Pixie but must now reject them.

Even as she watched, her tribe crept out of their hiding places. They scurried about, looking to each other for direction. Gradually, Foxglove the younger took control, sending them about their daily forays seeking food and fun.

Thistle smiled. She knew one of them would evolve into leadership without her. She just had to let them do it. Probably, Foxglove had been directing them all along and they only pretended to follow Alder.

She was a sensible one, not terribly aggressive, but practical.
She’d see that a treaty got signed and the Patriarch Oak would once again be neutral territory, open to all Pixies.

A broad brown leaf broke loose from the Patriarch Oak and drifted down to land on the pond. It floated in a circle for a moment before the gentle current caught it and dragged it slowly, but relentlessly toward the waterfall where it must tumble from the quiet, timeless peace of the wood into the mortal chaos of humankind below.

“As I climbed the steps from down below,” Thistle said slowly, carefully, “I shrank. So maybe we must fall down to grow big.” She grinned hugely, anticipating the best of all Pixie magic, a mating flight.

Still holding her hand, Dick looked up at the towering oak. When he turned his attention back to her, he rested his forehead against hers. “Um, I’m more than a bit tired, not used to flying and all. Getting up there would be the end of me. I’d not have enough left to get us down safely.”

Thistle placed two fingers into her mouth and blew a long shrieking whistle. A male varied thrush responded with an inquiring chirrup before landing on top of the flat rock. He turned his head right and left, catching them in his strange gaze. The bright stripes of orange and black along his back and wings rippled and fluttered with minute shifts of his wings.

“You should have a net made of vines to hold you while he lifts you to your bower,” Dusty said. She crouched beside the rock.

“Not necessary for so short a flight,” Thistle said with confidence. “This guy is an old friend. He helped me once before.” She laughed again at how eagerly the bird had flown Milkweed in her net on a long and diverse path to her wedding. A wedding that had been delayed so long it never took place. She hoped she hadn’t cursed her own wedding with her side trip back into Pixie.

Not wanting to think about that yet, she climbed aboard the bird’s back between neck and wing. Dick scrambled up behind her, desperately holding tight around her waist.

A few sharp wingbeats brought them to the upper reaches of the old oak tree. Thistle eagerly jumped free of
the bird and grabbed onto a twig that supported one of the last leaves of the season. Dick followed her, more falling than scrambling. She caught his arm and steadied him.

He looked over the edge of their tiny branch. “That’s a long way down.” He gulped. His transparent wings stilled. His breathing grew rapid and shallow.

“That’s why a mating flight is so special,” she replied. “It takes courage, commitment, and trust. And calm. Breathe deeply and think about a soft and gentle ending rather than the wild and precipitous beginning.”

“That’s what getting married is all about.” He held her close and kissed her long and hard.

Electric tingles sprang from the diamond-and-amethyst ring up her arms to her head and down to her feet. She shivered in delight.

“Let’s do this before I chicken out,” he said, looking into her eyes rather than down the great distance of the oak’s challenge.

Thistle turned within the circle of his arms, making sure to flatten her wings. “This is all up to you, love. I can’t help you. But I trust you. Come what may, we make this flight together. We end it together, joined for all time.”

Thistle squeaked as Dick filled her body and her soul with his love.

“Say good-bye to Pixie,” she said in wonder as they stepped off the topmost branch into the air.

An updraft caught them, driving them upward. Wisely, Dick let it take them where it would, away from the entrapment of the spreading branches. “Use the lift to steady your wings,” she coaxed.

He did.

All too soon, the air released them. They dropped dramatically. Thistle’s heart formed a huge lump in her throat. She resisted the urge to break free and save herself. She had to trust him.

Then he remembered to set his wings to working. Their descent slowed. They had a few moments to relish the glory of spiraling flight while joined in the intimacy of mating.

He buried his face in her hair, breathing heavily as he strained to maintain and control their flight.

His wings began to fail and the ground rushed toward them at an alarming rate. But suddenly it didn’t seem as far away as it should.

Dick’s sweating hands shifted for a better grip. “If we die, we die together,” he grunted through clenched teeth.

New sensations of wonder filled Thistle as she realized he’d grabbed hold of her by her swelling breasts. Her Pixie slenderness curved and grew. And so did his.

Complete and fulfilled, they tumbled the last short distance to land abruptly in the mud at the verge of the pond at the feet of Dusty and Chase.

“It… that was so beautiful,” Dusty gasped in wonder.

“They call it making love for a reason,” Chase answered, dropping a kiss on her nose. “With the right person, for the right reasons, love grows exponentially each time.”

Thistle breathed deeply, relishing the sensation of soft leaf litter and damp earth beneath her cheek and the warmth of Dick’s arms enfolding her naked body against his. “Love. We made love and watched it grow so big Pixie bodies couldn’t contain it anymore.”

“Ahem,” Chase cleared his throat.

Thistle risked opening her eyes enough to see his face flush deep red as he turned around. Dusty followed suit. The two looked at each other with deep longing, then swiveled their heads away. As one, they shed their coats. Dusty’s fell atop Thistle. Dick clutched Chase’s as he shivered with cold. Now that the afterglow of love faded, Thistle, too, felt the chill of a late October morning.

“You two, take my truck,” Chase said, holding his keys out to them, behind his back. “We’ll walk.” He grabbed Dusty’s hand and started off along the path toward the museum.

“Are we really married by Pixie law?” Dick whispered in Thistle’s ear. He nuzzled her neck as he spoke.

“Yes,” she breathed in satisfaction.

“Good, because I’m never letting you leave me again.”

“What about human rituals?”