Fantasyland 03 Fantastical (16 page)

“Cora?” Tor called and my hand shot up.

“Sh!” I hissed and listened.

There it was again.

“Pull back on the reins,” I ordered.

“Pardon?”

There it was; I heard it again!

“Pull back on the reins!” I shouted then
kept shouting, “Salem,
stop!
”

Noctorno pulled back on the reins and Salem
stopped.

“What do you sense? Danger?” Tor whispered
in my ear, his arm fiercely tight at my ribs.

“No,” I whispered back. “Aggie.”

Then I broke from his arm, slid off the side
of Salem, landed on my slippers and immediately darted around the
front of the horse and ran toward the trees.

“By the gods, Cora! Stop!”

I didn’t stop. Instead, I shouted, “Aggie!
Aggie, is that you?”

I kept running and heard the hooves of a
horse and the boots of a man behind me but I no longer heard the
chirps.

“
Aggie!
” I screamed then let out an,
“oof,” when my running was halted by an iron arm around my stomach
and I was hauled into a hard body. “Let me go!” I yelled, pushing
at his arm and pressing forward.

“Cora,” he ground out in my ear, “don’t ever
–”

“Chirp, chirp, chirp,” I heard faintly and I
knew it meant, “Cora, help me.”

Oh God.

I twisted in Tor’s arm to face him as he
dragged me toward Salem who’d run off the road with Tor and I.

“Tor!” I cried desperately, tipping my head
back to look at him, struggling against his arm and dragging my
feet to stop him from dragging me. “I hear Aggie.”

“Who?”

“Aggie!” I yelled.

Tor stopped and stared down at me. “Who’s
Aggie?”

“Aggie, Aggie, Agglethorpe! The bird!”

His brows shot together. “The what?”

“Bird!”

“Chirp,” which meant, “Help.”

“Tor! I think something’s wrong. We have to
do something!” I lifted my hands to his jaws, got up on tiptoe,
leaned in and begged, “Please!”

He stared into my eyes then he muttered,
“Gods,” let me go, grabbed my hand and jogged into the wood,
pulling me behind, Salem following on a trot.

“Aggie!” I called. “Chirp for us, sweetie,
so we know where you are.”

I listened. Nothing.

I lifted my hand, cupped my mouth at the
side and yelled, “Aggie, honey,
please.
Give us
something!”

Then I heard it, a close, weak chirp right
above us. I stopped, tugging on Tor’s hand making him stop and
Salem stopped with us. I looked up and saw the bright feathers of
Aggie about ten feet up in a tree.

“I see you!” I shouted, jumping up and down
and shaking Tor’s hand as I did. “I see you! Hang on, Tor’s going
to climb up and get you!”

“Chirp, chirp, chirp,” which meant, “Thank
the gods.”

“I’m going to what?” Tor asked at my side
and I turned my head to look up at him.

“You have to climb up and get him,” I
explained.

He looked up at the tree and then down at
me. “Who?”

“Aggie! That bird up there!” I cried,
pointing up to the tree. “He sounds weak, I think he’s wounded. You
have to go get him.”

Tor looked up into the tree again, squinted,
I noticed when he saw him because he squinted harder then he looked
down at me.

“You jest,” he stated.

“
Do I look like a jest?
” I shrieked,
throwing out an arm. “That’s Aggie! You have to save him!”

“Cora, that bird is half dead,” he informed
me evenly.

“Then that means he’s also half alive!” I
yelled.

He stared at me for a long moment then he
moved into me, pulling me into him with a gentle tug on my hand and
he lifted his other hand to curl his fingers around my neck.

“Sweets,” he said softly, “are you attached
to this animal?”

“Yes, no, uh… kind of. I’ve only met him
once but he was cute. Does it matter? He needs help.”

“You’ve only met him once?” Tor asked.

“Yes, the morning I woke up in this world.
He was in my room. He was there when the curse started. I’ve never
talked to a bird before, he was my first and, um… only, I guess.
But it was cool. You can’t talk to animals at home, I mean, you can
but they can’t talk back. He talks back. I mean, he
chirps
back but in a way where I understand him.”

“Of course,” he replied.

Awesome! He got it!

“So you have to have heard him too! He’s in
distress!”

His head tipped to the side. “No, Cora, I
can’t hear small birds. Women can hear small birds, rabbits, deer,
cats, mice and the like. Men can hear horses, dogs, wolves, birds
of prey, snakes and the like. I can’t hear him.”

Whoa. Weird.

I wanted to hear more about that but just
not at that particular moment.

“Okay, well, I can and he needs help,” I
told him.

“Was this bird your pet?”

“Uh, I don’t think so. He flew in from
outside.

He pulled in breath through his nostrils.
Then he got closer and his fingers curled deeper into my neck.

Then he said, “Love, you can talk to the
wild animals but you can’t form attachments to them.”

“What on earth?
Why?
” I
exclaimed.

His face dipped closer to mine. “Because, my
sweet, they’re wild and this,” he jerked his chin up slightly,
“happens and you have to let it happen.”

I took a step back and declared, “Oh no I
don’t!”

“Cora –”

“Please, Tor, I’m asking you to climb up
that tree and save Aggie.”

“Love –”

“Please!” I cried.

“You shouldn’t –”

“I’ll kiss you,” I bartered.

“It’s not about a kiss, it’s about nature.
This is nature happening and you cannot intervene.”

I glared up at him. Then I pulled free and
stomped to the tree, stating, “Fine!
I’ll
climb up and get
him.”

I didn’t get within three feet of the tree
trunk before my hips were captured in big hands and I was pulled
back.

I struggled forward. “Don’t try to stop
me.”

“Woman, you are not climbing up a gods
damned tree!”

I looked over my shoulder at him. “You wanna
bet?”

He yanked me back and I collided with his
hard body. “Yes, I’ll bet.”

Oh dear. I wasn’t going to win this
fight.

So I tried a different tactic and cried
pleadingly, “Tor!”

He stared down at me. I tried to stare up at
him beseechingly.

Surprisingly, I won.

He let me go and strode to the tree,
grumbling, “When we get home, remind me to speak to my physician
about the state of my sanity.”

“Thank you, honey,” I called quietly.

He stopped at the trunk and cut his eyes to
me. “You owe me.”

Oh shit.

“I’ll pay,” I promised.

“You bet your beautiful arse you will,” he
muttered then he climbed the tree like he was a ten year old boy
yesterday and did it five times daily. Then he climbed down just as
agilely all the while cradling the tiny Aggie in one hand.

I rushed to him and bent my head to an Aggie
who didn’t look too good.

“Oh Aggie,” I whispered.

“Chirp,” meaning, “Cora.”

“Baby, we got you,” I told the bird.

“Cora,” Tor called and I tilted my head to
look up at him not noticing I had the fingers of one hand wrapped
around the wrist of his hand holding Aggie and the other hand
resting on the wall of his chest. “His wing is mangled. Beyond
repair.”

“Oh God,” I breathed.

“You and Salem need to go to the road, I’ll
take care of Aggie,” he continued and I blinked.

“Take care of him?”

“He’s in pain. He’s been up in that tree for
awhile, no water, no food. He’s not half dead, he’s mostly dead. I
need to take care of him.”

I tilted my head to the side. “Take care of
him how?

“Take away his pain.”

Oh no. I was pretty sure I knew what he was
saying.

“Are you saying –?”

He must have read the horror on my face for
he answered swiftly and gently, “Yes.”

“Tor, no.”

“It’s the right thing to do.”

“We’ll find a vet.”

“Pardon?”

“A vet, a veterinarian. A doctor for
animals.”

“I know what a vet is, love, what I was
trying to ask without saying it is, are you mad?”

I stepped back. “I’m not mad! Maybe
something can be done.”

“Something
can
be done and if you
would go with Salem to the road, I could do it and put this
creature out of its misery.”

“Chirp” came from Aggie which unfortunately
meant “chirp”. Therefore, no clue what Aggie thought of this
conversation and his impending euthanasia at the hands of a hot
prince warrior.

“Tor –” I whispered.

“Sweets, go.”

I shook my head. “We can get him water.
Food. Maybe he’ll perk up.”

“Sweets…
go.
”

I stepped into him and put my hand back on
his chest. Leaning in and up, I begged again, “
Please.
”

His eyes moved over my face before he said
quietly, “I give in, we do this bird no favors.”

Oh my God. Was he going to relent?

“We can nurse him back to health. Get him
some seed, water, then to a vet the first chance we get,” I
suggested.

His jaw clenched.

My hand slid up his chest to curl my fingers
around his neck. “Tor, please, he’s Aggie. The first being I saw in
this world was Rosa, the second, Aggie. I don’t have a sister at
home and I had Rosa for about ten minutes before she was gone.
Aggie was swept away in the wind when the vickrants came. They both
can’t be gone. I couldn’t bear it. It may sound crazy but he’s
important to me. I can’t do anything to help Rosa but maybe I can
do something to help Aggie. Help me help him.
Please.
”

Okay, truth be told, I was laying it on a
bit thick but the reason this bird had been stuck up in a tree for
days was because I had inadvertently started a curse that struck up
a wind that caught this little creature in it so it was all my
fault his wing was mangled (kind of).

Tor held my eyes then he lifted his hand and
cupped my jaw.

Then he murmured, “Go get the waterskin.
Let’s get this bird hydrated.”

He relented!

Goodie!

I smiled brightly at him, lifted up on my
toes, pushed in (careful not to further crush Aggie) at the same
time my hand slid to the back of his neck and pulled down. He bent
and I touched my mouth to his.

I pulled back an inch and looked in his
beautiful eyes.

“Thank you, honey,” I whispered, watched his
eyes light but I had things to do so I didn’t dawdle.

I let him go and raced to Salem to get the
waterskin thinking as I did it that maybe Prince Noctorno Hawthorne
wasn’t all that bad.

Bellebryn

“Sweets, wake up.”

I shifted physically but in my unconscious I
executed a lazy breaststroke toward consciousness, decided I liked
the warm, safe waters I was in, gave up and floated.

Tor’s deep voice again penetrated my
slumber. “Cora, we’re almost home.”

That
got my attention and my eyes
fluttered open.

I was turned fully to the side in Tor’s
saddle, snug between his legs and up against his chest, my cheek
pressed deep, his arm cradling me, my arm cradling a recuperating
Aggie.

I tipped my head back, sliding my cheek
against his chest, saw the underside of his strong, stubbled jaw
tilt down and his beautiful light blue eyes hit mine.

“Hey,” I whispered.

“Hullo, sleepy,” he whispered back.

My stomach melted.

Mm.

I gave him a small smile. He returned a
gorgeous one.

My stomach melted more.

Mm.

“We’re nearly there?” I asked and he jerked
his chin slightly up and replied, “Turn and see.”

I started to turn, thinking that I wished we
weren’t nearly to his castle.

It had taken not three days to get there,
but four.

This was because we stopped at a large
village with a veterinarian who looked at Aggie, did his best to
set Aggie’s wing, gave us some medicinal herbal drops, a kind of
rudimentary eye dropper we could use to give Aggie water and some
tiny balls made of suet and crushed seeds that we could give Aggie
to eat.

Even with this, Aggie had not made a turn
for the better until that morning. He took his drops, he took his
water, he gamely swallowed down the suet balls but he hovered at
death’s door until that very morning when we woke to see him
hopping around and chirping, partly, but not fully, back to his old
self.

It had also taken us four days because Tor
stopped in other villages and a small town. He did this so we could
eat in pubs or, when we were in the town, a surprisingly rather
cosmopolitan café that had great pastries. He also did this in the
evenings so we could rent rooms in inns in order to have a soft bed
to sleep in at night and, major bonus, hot baths (heavenly).

And in the town, he bought me another
outfit. It was much the same as the first except the material was
of better quality. The skirt and vest were pale blue with beautiful
turquoise, silver and green embroidery around the hem of the skirt
and all over vest and a flowy cream top that had intricate lace
around the bottom of the sleeves. The petticoats were cream and
dripped at the bottom with the same lace that adorned the sleeves
of the blouse. And the satin slippers were green but had blue bows
at the toes the color of the dress.

The whole ensemble was awesome.

The dressmaker, thrilled beyond belief to be
outfitting who she thought was the future queen, upon hearing (from
me, I was being chatty) that we were roughing it, also gave me a
comb made out of bone, a brush that looked basic but its bristles
were firm and felt freaking great on my scalp and turquoise satin
ribbon to use in my hair, all at no charge. I thanked her with a
hug and kiss on the cheek which bought me a short lecture later on
princess behavior from Tor but I didn’t care. I was thrilled beyond
belief to be able to comb my hair, it was nice to have something to
hold it away from my face and the ribbon looked great threaded
through my dark locks so if I wanted to hug someone because they
did me a kindness, I was a princess and I felt I should be able
to.