The Sprite
Part 13
Sunlight awoke Neena from a sleep so sound,
she wasn't even sure she was sleeping. She hadn't been in the habit of rising
very early as of late (since chasing fairyhunters
around meant catching them unaware at night), so she wasn't surprised to find
the sun overhead. She was surprised to find Adrian gone and herself lying in
the curve of a tulip. She frowned, wondering where he might be and how she'd
gotten into the flower, then tried to remember the
past 24 hours. She remembered the first kiss and all the subsequent lovemaking,
but she also remembered talking to him for hours as the moon passed overhead
and almost to dawn about traps and ways to get in and out of them. She
understood now why he was the best in the guild…he had a lot of instinctive
knowledge when it came to hunting sprites. She also understood other reasons
that he might be considered extremely good at what he did, she thought,
remembering their trysts without using her magic. It had truly been an eventful
24 hours.
24 hours?, she
thought, worrying.
Almost as if on cue,
Neena
stared at him as if he'd grown a second head. "Are you outta
your mind?"
"What?"
"You're STILL going to fairyhunt?"
"Well, yeah, babe, it's my job!"
he frowned. "I mean, I'm not catching you, just…other sprites." He looked
away, as if the logic baffled him for a moment, but did not say any more.
"I don't believe this! That IS me in
that cage! I'm a SPRITE,
"What the HELL, Neena?" he
bellowed. "That's MONEY you just let loose!"
"Is that all I am?" she snapped
back. "Money?"
He faltered slightly. "No-ooo, you're different…!"
"How? Because you DID me?"
"Oh, come on, Neena, you know it's not
like that…"
"Oh, really? Then tell me what it's like. Explain to me how you
can let ME stay free, but capture and sell other fae…explain
that!"
She paused for a second, a bit thrown off by
her own honesty last night. Was she really that taken with this guy that she
was dropping these secrets about her life like nothing? "That was
different…" she replied, her voice low.
"How? Because I'm a human and you're a
sprite? That just makes you worse, selling your own kind!"
Neena gasped, looking at him.
Without another word, she turned and flew.
Even when she heard him call her name, she did not looked back, didn't even
pause until she'd gotten all the way home.
She slipped in the front door much the way
she'd slipped out, then picked up her ball and began to throw it again. Why?,
she thought. Why did I even bother? Why did I get involved? Why did I listen
to him? Why did I go out there? Why did I let him see me? Why did I kiss him?
Why did it all feel so good and so RIGHT…?
The ball ricocheted back at her each time,
bringing no answers, just itself. She threw it once
more and looked up in surprise as two giant fingers grabbed it before it hit
the wall. It wasn't until that very moment she remembered that her amulet was
still with
"I realize that, lass…not stopping you
from having it." He dropped it into her lap as he sat down on the bed next
to the pillow her little body was occupying. She fluttered a little warily as
he shifted the pillow over some to sit without tilting the pillow into the dip
he was making in her regular sized bed. "So…had quite a night, did ye?"
She shrugged without answering and he nodded in silence. "Meet up with
those fairy hunters I mentioned, eh?"
"Maybe," she muttered sullenly.
"Maybe," he echoed. "Well,
let’s see if we can’t narrow down what happened, then. A cocky little sprite
zipped into the camp of a set of hunters who’re a bit more than she thought
they might be and nearly got herself into a permanent
fix. Sound about right?" Neena didn’t answer and he continued. "But
that’s not quite ALL, is it? Something else happened, otherwise, we’dve been getting the full scoop on your exploits the
moment your mouth started working right. What could have happened, hmm?"
Without warning,
Neena gaped in horrified shock. How the
hell…? Immediately, she began to defend herself, realizing the entire story
had somehow leaked out. "I did not! He was the one all touching me, I
didn’t fall for anything or anybody and even if I did, it’s not like some big
thing where I love him or something and how do YOU know anything about it, anyway?"
Neena gave in,
slumping again…he was bound to get it out of her sooner or later. "Nothing
happened. Broke in…saw the guy, wrecked his stuff, he woke…we said some stuff
to each other…then I got away. Been messing up his traps ever since. Nothing else."
"Nothing else? Ye've been gone nearly two
days and there's nothing else?"
"How do you know I didn’t just LOSE
it?" she demanded.
""Cause if that were true, you’d
already have forked out the money for another…you HATE to be sprite sized all
the time, lass. Quite peculiar for a fae, but ‘tis
so. Ya must know where it is and think you can still
get it back. Which means HE’S got it. And something
else, too, looks like."
"What?"
"Your heart, Neena,"
He looked at her for an uncomfortably long
time while she sat stunned at all the revelations before her. At last, he
pulled out his pipe and began stoking it with tobacco and a deep sigh.
Neena began again in a low voice. "I
didn’t mean to…just…he was real nice to me and…I didn’t know what to do.
They’re never NICE. They’re never even AWAKE."
"I know,
lass…but a fairy kiss when you’re thinking of something besides your work is gonna give a man quite a wallop of mating magic, y’know? I’m not saying that’s all, because no sprite magic
I’ve ever known has driven a man to distraction for a week’s time, but I’m
willing ta bet that’s part of what started the whole
thing. I surely don’t know why ye’ve chosen a fairy
hunter of all things, but chose him ye have and there’s not much I can do about
that." For a moment he smoked in silence, Neena sitting morosely next to
him, then he looked up again, a bit more thoughtfully.
"Although that’s not entirely true either, then."
He stood up and tapped the pipe outside the window, then nodded to her.
"Tell Naomi I’m off for a bit…talk a walk about
for a few hours. She’ll not want to know where, even if she should ask, so I’ll
trust ye to be as good a liar as ye’ve
always been. Stay here and don’t let anyone in, understand?"
Neena nodded, vaguely and visibly distracted
as she watched the Highlander strap on his claymore and his leather chestplate. "Uh,
He looked back at her with a bit of a smile
on his face at her worry. "Don’t worry, lass. I might NOT have to cleave
your beau in two! Stay here and mind the house." And with that said, he
turned and trudged off into the forest, straight toward where
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