Protagonist Bound

by Geanna Culbertson

  In hindsight, I reminded myself that this was a small price to pay for everything we were aiming to achieve with the mission at hand. Still, the idea of sharing my first kiss with a boy I barely tolerated while I was a frog was way less than ideal.

  I glared at Daniel with my giant eyes and threw in another “Ribbit!” to communicate my disapproval as he picked me up. He smirked in response and gave me a slight, clearly condescending kiss on the head. Then he dropped me like a sack of potatoes right as a magical flash of light returned me to my normal size.

  I didn’t see why he couldn’t have just set me down on the grass gently like he had with Frog SJ. No, he had to dump me in the dirt because apparently Frog Crisa was somehow more unbearable to touch. Human Crisa, as a result, landed on the ground with a thud.

  Disgruntled, I got up, adjusted the strap of my satchel, and dusted off the remaining feelings of slime and humiliation.

  My friends, of course, failed to notice Daniel’s lack of chivalry. So I had no one to lament to as he and I made our way through the woods that surrounded Lord Channing’s.

  “So, where’s our ride?” I heard Blue ask excitedly up ahead.

  “Come on, we’ll show you,” Jason responded.

  We walked through a thick forest of trees before coming upon a clearing. In the center stood a simple, crimson carriage with five Pegasi harnessed to it. I thought one looked familiar, and I was right. One of the two rear Pegasi was Sadie. She whinnied merrily when I reached her and nuzzled my hand in greeting.

  “Sadie is one of Lord Channing’s’ Pegasi?” I asked as I petted her mane.

  “Yeah,” Jason replied. “Adelaide didn’t have enough Pegasi for the tournament, so we brought some of our own.”

  I looked away so that Jason wouldn’t see me roll my eyes.

  It was so unfair that the boys had a copious supply of Pegasi at their school. The only magical animal we’d ever had at Lady Agnue’s was a talking goat a few years back. And he’d been promptly removed from the campus after only a month due to the many complaints received about him eating tapestries and some of the girls’ dresses.

  So again, I repeat myself: how unfair is it that the boys get flying horses while we get diddly squat?

  I didn’t recognize the other Pegasi in the line-up. Well, except for one. Also on the team of steeds was the black Pegasus that Daniel had ridden in the tournament. The creature glared at me as if it had been trained by the man himself to do so.

  SJ and Blue approached the other Pegasi attached to the carriage. Blue began scratching the ear of the steed in front of Sadie. After a moment, SJ cautiously tried to do the same. However, when her hand came within a few inches of the creature’s face, he whinnied abruptly and bucked a bit, stomping his feet and shaking his mane.

  SJ jumped back and pretended like the creature’s snub didn’t bother her, although Blue and I knew perfectly well that it did. How could it not, when every other animal alive treated her like a deity?

  “Not that this isn’t a great ride,” Blue said, trying to change the subject away from our friend’s awkward rejection, “but isn’t your school going to notice that you took five Pegasi and a carriage?”

  “Nah.” Jason shrugged. “We’ve got tons of these for all our tournament training and hero drills. Besides, the kids at our school come and go all the time for quests and stuff so I doubt they’ll even notice we’re gone. The better question is, won’t the three of you be in a lot of trouble when they realize you’re missing?”

  “Of course we’ll be in trouble,” I responded casually as I made my way over to the carriage. “But we’re in trouble most of time. At least Blue and I are anyways. I hardly think this is the time for us to start feeling bad about it though, wouldn’t you agree?”

  Everyone but Daniel and SJ proceeded to follow my lead into the carriage. He went to sit up front in the driver’s seat to steer our vehicle. She, meanwhile, took a few steps back and drew out her slingshot along with one of her portable potions—an orange one, which she explained contained a levitation concoction she’d brewed specifically for our travels.

  While five Pegasi were more than enough to lift a carriage, according to her prior research on air travel, most people also used an extra levitation potion to keep their vehicles airborne. That way the Pegasi’s jobs were easier because their main responsibility became steering and pulling the carriage forward, not lifting it and its various passengers off the ground in their entirety.

  SJ fired the potion at our carriage and a tangerine cloud exploded around its base. As the gas subsided, we felt the vehicle rise off the ground. SJ boosted herself up on one of the back wheels and Jason offered her his hand, helping her inside.

  Using the reins, Daniel signaled the Pegasi that it was time to take off. They all whinnied—their nostrils emitting multi-colored puffs of smoke and their eyes beginning to glow either stunning silver or vivid cobalt. Moments later each produced his or her own set of glittering holographic wings and we were jolted against our seats by the force of their long-awaited rise.

  As we sped skywards I looked out the rear window at the school grounds we were leaving behind. Lady Agnue’s was still and dark across the river. Its towering shadow stained the gray and purple night almost as strikingly as I knew its walls had stained the majority of my life up ‘til this point.

  That place had been my home for years. It’d been the greatest influence on my choices and my character development. It, in an essence, had been my whole world—setting the parameters for my path and the lines I was supposed to color inside of for the rest of my story.

  Until now that is . . .

  Now I was beyond its grasp. Now I was moving out of its shadow. Now—the parameters, the lines, the walls—they were crumbling more with every added meter of distance I put between us. And soon enough, I knew they would never have the authority or the strength to contain me again.

  I glanced back at my friends for a second. Then—a small smile easing across my lips—I turned to face Lady Agnue’s one last time. With a strange sense of calm I watched it disappear behind the fog as we finally moved on.

  My Reluctant Truth

  erial road trips were fun at first, but after a couple of hours they were no better than regular ones (especially when you factored in how cold it got that high up in the clouds, and that changing wind patterns could be worse than speed bumps).

  Thankfully, Ravelli wasn’t too far from our schools; it was only about four kingdoms over.

  Most of us fell asleep at some point during the trip. I didn’t remember falling asleep myself, but I guess I had because one minute I was staring out at the stars as they whizzed by, the next I was trying to adjust to the light of the oncoming sunrise.

  I squinted and rubbed my eyes. Blue, Jason, and SJ were still out. Blue looked really cute with her hood pulled down over her eyes. SJ was sitting up way too straight for someone who was unconscious. And Jason was snoring, but no one seemed disturbed by it.

  I turned my attention back to the skyline. It was just ushering in the colors of daybreak. Pinks, oranges, and pastel shades of citrine stretched upwards with the sun rising behind them like a big egg yolk.

  Silently, I moved to the seat across from me and peered out the front window. Daniel was as alert as ever with the reins in his right hand. The metallic scabbard that held his sword was hanging from his shoulder and catching the light, as was the golden chain dangling from his left hand.

  The chain was attached to the same pocket watch he always seemed to be carrying around with him. I leaned over to try and see it better, but his body blocked its face from view—preventing me, yet again, from taking a closer look at it.

  I analyzed the dimensions of the window before me. It was directly behind the driver’s seat and took up a good portion of that side of the carriage with the exception of the actual bench area (about five feet by two feet in diameter). An impulse of curiosity getting the better of me, I decided to open the window and crawl out.


  Before Daniel could stop me, I had climbed through and sat down next to him. He brusquely stashed the pocket watch back into his jacket when he saw me coming—careful to keep it concealed as he did so.

  “What are you doing?” he asked, eyeing me suspiciously. “Gonna push me off the carriage or something?”

  “Oh, please,” I responded as I slid the window shut.

  “That’s not a no,” he countered.

  “Well, I like to keep my options open,” I replied.

  As I said this I realized that he was smiling at me. Not that normal cocky smirk, but an actual, genuine smile. Stranger yet, I realized I was smiling back. We both seemed to notice this irregularity at the same time though, and immediately buried our grins beneath irritable frowns.

  “I just needed to get some air,” I assured myself aloud.

  He nodded, but didn’t add any commentary.

  For a while we sat there enjoying the beauty of the blushing sky. It was nice. The only visible thing beneath us was a valley of clouds so fluffy it could’ve been made of cotton balls. And the wind against my face was bliss. It was like pure freedom—a sensation that I couldn’t remember having felt since, well, ever.

  From time to time I glanced out of the corner of my eye at Daniel. He actually wasn’t quite so obnoxious to look at when he wasn’t talking, causing me to wonder if there was any truth to my friends’ claims that he wasn’t such a bad guy. Beyond this though, as I studied him, I wondered even more why he’d chosen me of all people to try and prove the opposite to.

  “Daniel,” I suddenly heard myself saying. “Why don’t you like me?”

  Wait, did I just ask that question out loud?

  What could possibly have possessed me to ask him that?

  He broke his gaze away from the horizon and tilted his chin in my direction, perplexed. “Who said I didn’t like you?”

  Now it was my turn to be confused. Like, a lot.

  “Um, you did,” I said bluntly. “The first day we met. I don’t really care or anything; people dislike me all the time. It sort of comes with the territory when you’re openly sarcastic and rebellious. But with you . . . I mean, you kind of seem to make it a point to get your dislike across, like it’s your own personal vendetta or something.”

  All right, I am either suffering from severe altitude sickness, or some type of rupture in my head. Because it is definitely not okay for me to be talking to him this openly!

  I’m not even sure I can classify that as talking—blabbering on is more like it.

  Daniel didn’t appear to notice how embarrassed I was over my forthcoming-ness, though. He seemed too preoccupied with the assertion I’d just made.

  He rubbed the back of his neck like he was trying to massage some type of honesty out.

  Eventually he made eye contact with me again. Then he uttered the two words I’d least expected to ever come out of him.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  I almost fell off the carriage from shock. “What?”

  Seriously, what?

  “It was messed up of me to just take one look at you and judge you off the bat like that,” Daniel continued. “You’re not that bad really, and of all people I definitely should’ve known better.”

  “Um, apology accepted I guess,” I said. “But that still doesn’t explain why you’ve been a total jerk to me since then.”

  “I don’t know what you want me to say, Knight,” he said. “I may not dislike you as a person, but being around you isn’t exactly my favorite pastime either. I mean you’re so . . . you’re just so . . .”

  He scowled and shook his head. “Look, have you ever met someone who just completely rubbed you the wrong way? Well, it’s kind of like that. You bug me. Plain and simple. That’s the best way I can describe it anyways. No offense.”

  Hmm. All this time I’d been so consumed with how much Daniel annoyed me, I hadn’t even considered the idea that maybe the feeling was mutual.

  To be honest, knowing that it was made me feel a bit better. Like maybe we were more even than I’d originally thought. Or at the very least maybe the unexplainable sense of self-doubt he seemed to instill in me was coincidental, not a reflection of some abnormal ability he possessed to see right through me.

  “You know what, Daniel,” I finally replied, “for the first time, no offense taken. Mutual irritation I can handle. I did share a room with Mauvrey for a year after all. And if I could get through that . . . Well, maybe there’s hope for us yet.”

  “Yeah,” Daniel said, not meeting my gaze. “Maybe.”

  It was strange. I couldn’t believe we’d actually reached some form of understanding. Until that moment I wouldn’t have considered that such a thing was even possible between us. Needless to say I should’ve dropped the conversation at that—called it quits while we were ahead. But no, I just had to go and open my big mouth again.

  “I gotta say, Daniel,” I found myself commenting after a beat, “it’s kind of nice to hear you be open about something for a change.”

  He raised his eyebrows suspiciously. “Meaning?”

  “Meaning you kind of keep to yourself.”

  “Don’t you do the same?” he asked.

  “No,” I said without even a hint of uncertainty.

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really. I’m pretty open about myself. I’m sure even you can attest to that.”

  Daniel sort of studied my face as if he was trying to ascertain whether or not to continue. In retrospect, it was definitely the type of introspection that I should’ve done on myself at least five times in the last few minutes. If I had, maybe I wouldn’t be in this situation now—positioned in just the right place of vulnerability for Daniel to drop the hammer that all of my doubts had long been leading me toward.

  “You’re open about the way other people see you,” Daniel began slowly, “but, not about how you really see yourself. That’s why what I said to you that night we went to Fairy Godmother HQ bothered you so much. I could tell. I’m guessing the same thing probably happens whenever Lady Agnue, or Mauvrey, or anyone else calls you out in a really personal way. Part of you knows they’re wrong about who they think you are, and has no problem protesting it. But in the end what they say still upsets you because you’re not able to fully convince yourself of why they’re wrong about you. Am I right?”

  Uh, come again?

  I was totally stunned. Like, Mauvrey-winning-the-rodeo stunned.

  Why would he? How did he? I mean, what?

  I was frozen now. I felt utterly infuriated and undermined and unsettled and . . . it was all because of Daniel.

  I immediately had the urge to argue with his very blunt analysis of me. At the same time, I found that I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Much as the understanding killed me, something in the pit of my stomach suddenly gave way to the feeling that he may have been right.

  When he, or any of my other natural enemies tried to tell me who I was, I always felt confident enough to instantly protest their views. However, in the aftermath (especially lately), their words echoed in my head and rattled my insecurities—forcing me to ask myself for a form of self-assurance that should’ve come naturally if I was as internally sure of my character as my assertions to other people suggested. But, it didn’t. Because, I guess . . . I wasn’t.

  I placed my fingers to my temples like SJ did in hopes of pushing out the merciless self-analysis.

  So much for my short-lived hope that Daniel’s tendency to read me like a book was merely coincidental phenomenon. For whatever the reason, he really did possess a practically supernatural ability for getting inside my head and forcing me to face parts of myself that I would’ve preferred to pretend weren’t there.

  “How do you do that?” I sighed after a minute had passed.

  “Do what?” Daniel asked.

  I looked away from him in begrudging embarrassment. “Know just what to say to get to me,” I admitted.

  “Don’t flatter yourself,”
he scoffed. “You’re not that complicated.”

  “Daniel . . .” I said, frustration edging my tone.

  He paused. “Knight, maybe we just have more in common than you think, all right?”

  “Yeah, okay,” was the only sarcastic response I could muster to such an ambiguous statement.

  I began to fiddle with the hem of the dark green dress I had on over my leggings. The brown pleats in the skirt matched the color of my trusty combat boots. I tried to focus on counting their twisted laces in an effort to block out the thoughts swirling in my head, but to no avail. Daniel’s voice was practically a part of my conscious now—unwanted, but unable to be completely silenced nonetheless.

  What had I been thinking, I thought to myself bitterly. Like he and I could ever be in close proximity to one another without chaos ensuing.

  His assertion that we might have more in common than I thought was ridiculous. Frankly, I sincerely doubted that we had anything in common. The very idea that we shared even a single characteristic was absurd. We were nothing alike. Starting with the fact that he was a total jerk-face, and I was not.

  Still . . . I couldn’t help but ponder what he’d meant. If I truly irritated him in the way he claimed, why would he not only acknowledge, but also confess to such a shameful realization? What did he believe we had in common that could’ve been important enough for him to deem worth admitting to like that?

  One look at him and I wondered if there was even a point in asking. I suppose I had to try but, based on his track record, I garnered my hopes of getting anything out of him were pretty dismal.

  Ugh. Why does he always have to answer with those cryptic one-liners? A bit of elaboration from time to time would be nice. I mean, hello, I’m not some kind of oracle.

  “Okay, Daniel,” I said, disrupting the silence once more with a slight change of subject. “You seem to think you know a whole lot about me. I’m not saying you’re right about half the junk you’ve said. But, I’m going to give you a courtesy you’ve never given me and actually ask you a few questions before I make any more snap judgments about you. It’ll be like a little experiment. I ask you something, and you try to give me a straightforward, non-mysterious answer. Got it?”