THREE #4
Time was hard for me with my life in two different worlds. I knew Drake had been there for as long as I had been alive. Likely longer. But how long that was in Green years, I wasn't sure.
Drake let out a sound that was a laugh, but humorless.
"I don't know either," he admitted. "There has been no way to gauge the passing of time.
I lost track of the seasons at the beginning, when my body wasn't used to the unyielding heat, cold, work, beatings.
I don't know how many summers had passed me by without taking note of them. It's been a long time, though."
In our time, a 'long time' could mean hundreds of years.
Hundreds of years of torment, of misery.
And not just the physical pain he eventually learned how to mentally overcome, to manage.
Somehow. But the other things. Like if he wasn't the last of his kind, if he had left behind a clan, he had no idea where they were, if they were still alive, if others had lived to suffer the same fate he did.
Did he leave behind a wife? Children? His parents? Little sisters or brothers?
I burned to ask the questions, but found my tongue fat with uncertainty.
I had been scolded for being too curious, for asking too many questions, told no one wanted to share the innermost details of their lives, that it was none of my business to learn someone else's business.
My mother had bared her teeth, staining the tips with the berry tint to her lips, claiming I had picked up too many human habits, that only lesser creatures felt the need to be so curious - because they were too stupid to simply understand how things were.
I kept my lips pressed together, holding in my curiosity, reminding myself that I could be whoever I wanted to be as soon as I stepped foot in the human realm. If I wanted to ask questions, I could ask questions. Until my throat went raw and my brain got overheated.
"Ugh," I grumbled when a gust of wind whipped the already raw skin of my face, racking me with a full-body shiver.
Drake moved in front of me, blocking the worst of the wind with his wide back, looking down at me with an apology in his eyes.
As though the weather was his doing. "This will be pure misery, but it is good for us," he told me as another gust made sheets of snow cascade down from the limbs of the tree at our side.
My eyes must have held the question I had in my mind because he shrugged.
"It will cover our footsteps. There will be no tracks for them to follow.
They may still be able to track us, depending on who they have employed to do the task, but it will be harder without footsteps.
And this wind will cast our scent all over the woods.
They will be looking in circles. Hopefully for long enough that we can find the veil and slip out. "
"Well, at least it has a bright side," I told him, feeling my teeth start to chatter in the back, trying to grind them together to keep it from being audible.
"If we head over to that small cliff right there," he went on, holding out an arm until my gaze followed. "We can build a little temporary shelter to keep the wind from getting in our bones."
It was already in my bones, but I wasn't about to complain about it. I also was sure I would be all but useless trying to build a shelter, but I kept quiet about that as well, knowing that with a little guidance, I could at least hand him things or tie things.
"Sounds like a plan," I agreed, falling into step with him as he turned, huddling close at his side, allowing his body to block a small amount of the wind.
"I'm going to need to go find some pine branches. Shouldn't be hard. They should be falling off left and right in this. You stay here where you can get a little break from the wind. I won't be more than a few minutes."
My stomach dropped at the idea of being alone, a ridiculous thing considering my original plan was to go on my own, my plan still was to live on my own.
But that was in the human realm.
This was The Green.
And, sure, the humans had bad guys too, people evil through to their souls who enjoyed all sorts of terrible things, inflicting all sorts of pain.
But those people paled in comparison to some of the fae, ones who would drain you just because they liked to cover themselves in blood, ones who would enslave you just to use you day in and day out until you broke... and even after that.
There was evil lurking here, even in the relative peace in the Light.
"Alright," I agreed, giving him a nod when I was sure my voice didn't come off confident enough. "I will stay here and try not to freeze.
"I won't go far," he promised. "I should be close enough to hear you if you call for me."
"Okay."
"Okay," he agreed, hesitating a moment longer before finally turning his back on me, and walking away.
The wind slapped at the side of my face, making me miss the mass of his body, the way it so effortlessly kept the wind from biting into my skin, slipping under layers of thick clothing.
I turned my back on the open forest, facing the rock.
It would turn out to be a huge mistake.