Chapter 18
"Stop,
I said, or I'll shoot both of you!"
Pandora
and Crystal frowned in amusement at the brownie on the tree stump in their
path. He was a small, ratty scrap of being, the largest thing about him being
the slight shadow he cast in Crystal's light. Even the bit of rabbit skin he
had about himself seemed to be too big for his dirty little body. But he
certainly seemed determined enough as he aimed his tiny bow and arrow directly
up at them.
"How
cute," murmured Pandora.
"How
obnoxious," Crystal returned.
"I
am not cute!" he snapped, aiming at Pandora. "Or...or that
other thing you said."
"Obnoxious,"
repeated Crystal. "And, yes, you are. Only someone completely stupid or
terribly obnoxious would hold us up from our business with a useless weapon
like that."
"Let's
just go around him," smiled Pandora. "We're going to go around you
now," she announced to him, with a condescending little wave.
"I
warned you!" he cried, then let his arrow fly. It struck Pandora's
shoulder and she jumped slightly as if pricked by a needle. She looked from him
to the little arrow, which was barely the length of her longest fingernail,
then dropped to the ground.
"Pandora?"
gasped Crystal. "Come on, stop it, that couldn't have hurt..."
Crystal flew to the half-nymph and pulled the little arrow from her arm. The
smallest of cuts was left in her arm.
The
brownie jumped from his spot on the stump to Pandora's waist, an incredible
leap for one so small. "Hah!" he mocked, standing astride her in
Liliputian victory. "I stopped her, I dropped her, she's mine!"
He
had seemed older and bigger from a distance, but Crystal could now see this
brownie was just a child (and a small one at that). Most brownies stood about a
head shorter than most fairies, which was still a head taller than most
sprites. But this brownie was obviously quite young (no more than 7 or 8 years
old) and quite short, although his ego seemed to make up for much of that.
Crystal flew up to him and angrily shoved the arrow in his face. "What did
you do?" she demanded.
"Hey,
watch it with that thing!" he said, jerking back.
"Did
you poison the tip of this thing?"
"Well..."
he began, and Crystal placed the tip of it near his throat. This was not how he
had expected his first prisoner to act. After downing her friend with his
special knockout juice arrow, he had truly expected the sprite to beg for his
tender mercies. As this did not happen (and she looked a lot bigger close up),
he felt compelled to answer her. "I, uh...yeah?" he stammered.
Realizing he was losing ground, he tried to recover. "So? She's not dead.
She's human and it's only quie petal juice and a little gemweed; she'll wake up
in a couple of minutes."
"You
idiot!" shrieked Crystal. "She's not human, she's half-nymph!"
"Oh."
He paused. "Then it'll take a couple of hours, then. Maybe a couple of years,"
he added under his breath.
Crystal
fumed, snapping the makeshift poisoned arrow in half as she did. The brownie
looked up at her with a maddeningly defiant glare and folded his arms across
his chest. She could see no reason why he shouldn't die on the spot. Killing
him, however, was not going to get Pandora awake and Crystal knew that as well
as he did.
The
brownie, seeing her irritation, smirked a little. "Now, if you want me to
put any effort into bringing her back around..." he began.
Crystal
threw the arrow pieces aside and grabbed him by the arm. "Look, you better
come up with some way to fix this, you knothead, or..."
"Or
what?" he snapped, shrugging out of her grasp.
"Or..."
Crystal was stuck for reply for a moment, then she smiled as the perfect
response hit her. "Or the protector of this nymph will eat you in less
than an eighth of a gulp."
The
brownie gave her a skeptical frown. "Eat me?" he echoed.
"What is he, some kinda..."
"Ogre,"
finished Crystal.
"Ogre?"
"Yeah.
They do that kinda thing without even thinking twice," said Crystal
evilly.
"Oh,
yeah, well how do I even know that he really exists? You could be making the
whole thing up!"
"True,"
nodded Crystal, pacing in a small circle around him. "I could be
making this whole thing up. Or there could actually be an enormous bloodthirsty
ogre somewhere in the immediate area searching for his nymph, whom he treasures
like the last meal he had. Must've been at least a week since his seen her...or
his last meal." She leaned around from behind him to gesture size with her
hands and added, "Big hands. Big teeth. Big guy. Biiiiig appetite."
The
brownie swallowed hard. Any bravado he may have been building up slowly began
to crumble beneath him. The ogre appetite was not one to be trifled with.
"Oh, yeah?" he replied, looking slightly desperate. "Well,
what's to stop this protector of hers from making you into his late
supper?"
"You
as an appetizer," Crystal chuckled, still pacing.
"Well...well,
I could be outta here in less than..."
"If
he didn't find you," said Crystal seriously, stopping next to him, "I
would."
The
brownie's eyes widened considerably.
"Maybe
I should just call him now..." said Crystal, turning as if to yell into
the darkness.
"Okay,
okay!" protested the brownie, holding his hands up in surrender. "You
don't have to get all bent outta shape over it; I'll fix her."
"Just
what I need; some seven-year-old brownie brat solving my problems."
grumbled Crystal, fluttering down to Pandora's shoulder.
"Hey,
I am not 6, you moth-winged old bag; I'm practically 13!" snapped the
brownie angrily jumping down to face her.
Crystal
smirked at him in spite of herself. He was certainly the hotheaded little
thing. "You look 7."
"I'm
not!"
"Okay,
get a grip, ya midget, and get her awake; we aren't made of time, here,"
sighed Crystal, being intentionally irritating.
The
brownie gave her a dirty look, then began searching for something around him.
"Had it here a second ago," he murmured to himself, jumping to the
ground.
"Had
what?" asked Crystal, peering around.
"Antidote,"
came the brief reply, then the brownie leapt like a circus flea from the ground
to Pandora to the stump and continued his search.
"What?"
Crystal demanded. "You lost it?"
"Kinda
looks that way, don't it?"
"You
knothead!"
"That's
what they call me," said the brownie.
"Then
consider yourself aptly named," said Crystal, turning to look on the
ground.
"I've
always hated it," said the brownie. Crystal was about to return with
another sarcastic comment when she looked up and saw his face. Something deep
in the back of his eyes, something that bore resemblance to hurt feelings, but
was so far back as to almost go unnoticed, made her reconsider the statement.
Obnoxious he might be, but he was, after all, still a kid. Looking around again
in silence, she saw the little leather pouch caught in the bark of the aging
stump. She flew up to get it, then alighted next to him.
"This
it?" she asked, holding it up. He snatched it from her.
"'Bout
time," he mumbled, jumping down to Pandora again.
Crystal
glared at him. Child he may be, but the most obnoxious child I've ever met!,
she thought angrily. "You need a severe beating, uh...whoever you
are!" she snapped. "Who are you, anyway?"
"I'm
obviously a brownie, stupid," he retorted, sprinkling a little quie pollen
from his bag onto the tiny cut his arrow had made.
"Where
are your parents?"
"Don't
have any."
"What's
your name?"
"Don't
need one."
"You
do if you don't like the name 'Knothead'." The look on the brownie's face
was enough to suggest that he definitely preferred any alternative labelings.
"You look like a...like a..." Crystal paused. "You look like
nothing but a dabble of brownie to me." she shrugged.
She'd
meant it to rile him, but he looked interested. "Dabble," he said,
turning this over in his mind. "Dabble. Dab. Dab is good. I like
Dab."
"Oh,
puh-leez!" groaned Crystal, but the name did suit him perfectly. She made
no further protest.
"It'll
take about 20 minutes or so for this to take effect," said Dab, sitting
back on his heels.
"We
don't have 20 minutes!" gasped Crystal.
"What's
your hurry?" asked Dab.
"We're
trying to get the High Priestess of Alkin to warn them," began Crystal.
She then proceeded to tell Dab about her adventures since she'd met Pandora,
including the bout with Kathryn. Slowly, his general cockiness began to melt
away into a more age appropriate eagerness and awe.
"Whoa!"
he breathed when she had finished. "You guys have been seriously busy. I
never get to do anything like that."
"What
do you do?" asked Crystal.
"Nothing,
really," he admitted. "Used to live in a village not far from here,
but I kinda had to move out after I upset our leader."
"Upset
him?"
"Her.
Vixen. She got mad 'cause I called her something. I've been living out here
ever since."
"She
sounds like an oversensitive witch to throw you out over something you
said," said Crystal.
"Oh,
yeah. That's what I called her," said Dabble, nodding his head.
"Well, it sounded like that, anyway."
Crystal
laughed. "You really are obnoxious!"
"Yeah?"
he laughed with her.
"Yeah,"
said Crystal. "But it's not so bad after you get used to it."
Dabble
opened his mouth to reply, but as he did, Magbert, Lokey and Ian burst into the
area. Ian took one look at Pandora's body on the ground and immediately began
to clench his fists.