by K. M. Shea
I breathed in the fresh sent of pine and happily hummed as I set down my path. Three stone’s throws into the forest I hopped on top of a large rock and sat down, soaking in the beautiful sunlight that peeped in through the foliage. My sunbath was eventually interrupted by a snuffling, sneezing noise. Curious I peered over the edge of my rock and looked down on a short, chubby, stubby unicorn.
He was dapple grey, and his head would have barely reached my knee if I were to stand next to him. His mane and tail were creamy white, and his forelock was so bulky it covered up his eyes.
As I stared down at the miniature unicorn, he snorted at me, sending his thick forelock flying to reveal his bulging, big, chocolate brown eyes. He stamped a little hoof at me and tried to toss his neck in a macho way, his pearly horn gleaming.
I wasn’t much impressed by the manly display. He was cute, but by no stretch of the imagination was he handsome or beautiful.
“Well hi there!” I said with a smile as he made some nickering noises. “You’re so cute!” I said, sliding off my rock to pet him.
He snorted as I approached him, and again his bulging eyes were unveiled.
I giggled and ran my hands through his soft, silky mane. “You’re like a dog!” I cooed before marching further into the forest.
I walked down an unmarked path, slightly surprised when the little unicorn followed me. I laughed when he ran into the back of my legs, his horn pricking my back. He looked up and sneezed..
On an impulse I decided to name him. “Anything as cute as you are deserves a name,” I said, bending over to peer in his little face. “You look like… Tuggles! Because you tug at my heartstrings,” I reasoned.
Tuggles sniffed and released a high pitched whinny, trying out his new name.
Together we wandered around the forest for the better part of an hour before I returned to Azmaveth’s den.
Tuggles stood at the edge of the forest, sneezing and snorting at he watched me wave from the door. I opened one of the front doors and walked inside, running smack dab into Azmaveth, who smelled a lot like Ever Blossoms.
“Oh, hello,” Azmaveth said. Apparently we were just choosing to ignore last night’s fight. That suited me, but a finer part of my brain reminded me that we were ignoring conflict which wasn’t a very emotionally intelligent thing to do.
“What time is it?” I asked.
“Nearly the forth bell. Almost evening. Time for dinner,” he woefully reminded me as his stomach rumbled, shaking our cave.
“Ah, yes, I could set a watch by your stomach,” I said as I lovingly patted one of the scales on the side of his stomach as I passed him.
“By the way, what did you think of Kohath?” he asked, slowly following me.
I rolled my eyes. He probably got some stupid idea from that dumb book that I need a love life. “Whatever,” I said as I walked into the kitchen, Azmaveth still trailing after me.
“If you could change one thing about him, what would it be?” he asked. I looked up at him. If he got any more technical I could swear he was a scientist studying my habits.
“Azmaveth, shhh,” I shushed.
I threw together a quick meal and we ate in companionable silence. I would have been perfectly content to keep that silence, even after we finished eating, but of course Azmaveth had to ruin my plans.
“By the way Ahira,” he said in a tone that I hated. It always meant it was time to go get the—
“I believe you haven’t gotten the mail yet.”
See?
“Yes I did! There was nothing in there!” I chimed in.
“Impossible,” he scoffed. “I always get mail. You just checked too early!”
“I checked in the late morning, which is when it’s delivered!” I shot back.
“Go check again!” Azmaveth ordered.
“You and your PRIDE!” I complained.
Azmaveth nodded his head toward the door. With a groan I stumbled toward the cave entrance, opened the door, and purposely slammed it shut as loud as I could.
I walked toward the mail hole and I felt something soft press against my legs. I looked down and Tuggles sneezed at me. My anger melted as I looked at his adorable eyes. “You’re so CUTE!” I said as I bent over to hug him.
I released him moments later and Tuggles snorted and blushed, trying to look unphased.
I giggled and skipped down the road, Tuggles running after me as fast as his short legs could carry him.
I peered in the mail hole and, as I had known it would be, it was absolutely one hundred percent empty. I rolled my eyes at Azmaveth’s foolish beliefs and walked back to the cave. It was sunset, and I squinted in the faint light as I spotted a dark form by the door. If it wasn’t a prince it could only be one person.
“You again?” I snappishly asked as the torches just outside the cave lit up, illuminating Kohath. “What do you want now?” I rudely asked as I stomped up to him. Tuggles disappeared back into the forest. We were completely alone.
“Is that the polite way to greet a person?” he teased as I peered around him and scowled.
His devilish smile deepened as the realization that he was standing between me and the cave entrance dawned on me. Unless the steward moved, which I highly doubted he ever would, I wouldn’t be able to get inside.
I backed up a few steps as he pushed off against the doors and walked closer to me. “You never answered my question!” I said, leaning away as he stopped directly in front of me.
“I was in the neighborhood.”
Like that was believable! There was a greater likelihood of Tuggles super-transforming into a large, beautiful unicorn and asking me to ride on his back.
“What do you want?” I asked in a sweeter tone, changing tactics.
Kohath did his best to look nonchalant but failed miserably. “I was talking with Azmaveth. He needs the feathers of a night griffon. He asked me to go get some for him, and I asked if I could bring you along,” he said with his cocky grin.
My eyes turned into slits. I started toward the forest muttering, “Azmaveth, you are dead to me! I’m never going to make another meal for you again!”
“Wait up!” Kohath shouted as he jogged to catch up to me. To my complete surprise he walked along side of me, reached out, and grabbed my hand.
I glanced from our hands that were clasped together to him. “Excuse me? What do you think you’re doing?” I asked.
Kohath smiled, his white teeth flashing as he led me into the forest, his hand still holding on to mine. “It’s dark and you, being a girl, probably can’t find your way around at night,” he said in a charming voice. It was almost like he hoped if he said it nicely I wouldn’t notice what offensive nonsense he was dribbling.
“One day a woman is going to murder you, and when that day comes I’m going to stand by and laugh,” I said as I pulled on my hand. He didn’t let go. I grumpily glared but followed him deeper into the forest.
I have to admit it. His night vision was far superior to mine. He kept me from tripping at least twice.
The Endless Forest was peaceful and calm, even though the sun had all but disappeared in the horizon. The night creatures were beginning to come out, and little lightning bugs glowed and flew around the forest.
Kohath broke the enchantment, however, by unconsciously rubbing his thumb against the back of my hand in a soothing movement. At least it would have been soothing if the thumb didn’t belong to a certain egotistical male.
“Night griffons are fairly common,” Kohath whispered in my ear, bothering me when his breath tickled my ear. “However, the bigger the griffon the better the feathers. So we’ll be searching for a while before we find a griffon that is worthy of Lord Azmaveth,” he informed me. I wondered if Kohath was the cause of Azmaveth’s vanity.
“Very well. When I get tired I’m going back with or without you,” I said.
“Feisty aren’t we?” he retorted with a smug grin.
When I groaned he ignored it and instead tromped for
ward, tugging me on by my hand. We stopped when we crept into a tiny meadow.
A small, scrawny, red griffon sat on the ground, watching us. It was clearly shuddering in terror, and it wasn’t much bigger than a house cat.
“Oh look, there’s your night griffon. Grab a feather and let’s go!” I urged.
“That’s not a night griffon. A night griffon is either white, black, or midnight blue. And like I said before, we need a big griffon!” Kohath argued, dragging me away from the meadow. As I glanced back one last time at the griffon I could see Tuggles standing next to him, blinking and snorting as he watched Kohath pull me away. I waved as Kohath, completely oblivious to the small unicorn, rambled about griffons.
For the next hour we peered into caves, tramped through streams, fell down a hill, and walked into so many meadows I lost count halfway through. We still hadn’t found the “perfectly perfect” griffon. And throughout this WHOLE trip Kohath bossed and dragged me around, still holding my hand.
I collapsed in the meadow. “That’s it, I can’t go another step,” I said as Kohath settled down by me.
“We’ll rest for three minutes and then we’ll get moving again,” he said. Did I mention that he bossed and dragged me around?
“Thank you, your highness,” I said, sarcasm dripping from my voice.
“You’re welcome precious!” Kohath replied with a grin as he leaned in closer to me. Disturbed, I leaned away.
I lifted my eyes to gaze up at the heavens and I felt a smile creep across my lips. Whenever I looked at the sky it always seemed to make my problems shrink. Amazingly enough it was working with the trouble that held my hand.
Or it appeared to, until the said problem opened up his big yap. “So, what’s new with you?”
Apparently he couldn’t stand peaceful silence.
I dropped my gaze and turned to face him with the idea that I would sock him in the nose when I saw a huge white blob land in the meadow behind him. “Dfkeagp!” I stammered as I pointed—with my free hand—to the huge, white night griffon that was settling down in the grass.
“Huh?” Kohath said as he turned around and stared at the great griffon. “Okay, he hasn’t seen us yet, which is a good thing because night griffons tend to get a little violent,” he whispered as he lay down and flipped over onto his stomach, effectively pulling me on top of him. I rolled off his back and righted myself when he released my hand for the moment. As soon as I was situated he snatched my hand back and parted the grass with his other hand to stare at our target.
It was enormous! Kohath, Aaron, and I could have all ridden him together with extra room to spare! He was preening himself, completely oblivious to our presence as he ran his yellow beak through his fine, white feathers.
“Okay, how are we going to do this?” I asked. I always liked a good plan.
“Um…I’ll try attacking him with magic,” Kohath decided.
That didn’t sound like a very good plan.
“I don’t think that’s a very good idea, WAIT!” I hissed as Kohath completely ignored me and threw a flaming fireball at the griffon.
The griffon saw it and screeched. Instantly a white wall of light surrounded the griffon, effectively shielding him from the flames.
“What a brilliant plan! I can’t believe it didn’t work!” I sarcastically observed, poking my head up over the grass. The griffon saw me and shrieked again.
“What are you nuts?” Kohath said pulling me back down into the grass. “Now you’ve given our position away!” he angrily whispered.
“Oh, and your idea to torch him didn’t do that already?” I huffed as the griffon stood up and started to walk over to us.
Kohath stood, heaving me up with him, and starting running. The griffon screeched and plodded after us as Kohath switched escape plans. He released my hand, ran at the griffon, jumped on his head, and leaped very, very high into the sky.
Kohath did a flip in mid air as he soared back down to Earth. He tried to grab a tuff full of feathers from the griffon’s wings, but the griffon batted him away with a paw. Not at all disappointed with his failure, Kohath continued to do all sorts of interesting/difficult but useless moves. He did lots of high jumps, backflips, and cartwheels, not that any of them helped at all.
After it finally seemed to occur to him that this wasn’t going to work, Kohath unsheathed his sword and battled the griffon for about twenty minutes. After a particularly impressive blend of parries and blows, Kohath and the griffon stopped, panting heavily.
I glanced up at the night sky and broke away from my spot, moving toward the squabbling duo.
Kohath was bent over, breathing hard, and the griffon had collapsed on the ground. Kohath would probably best the griffon in another twenty minutes, but I wasn’t exactly willing to wait that long. I passed Kohath and continued towards the griffon.
“Ahira, he’s not safe!” Kohath panted as he stumbled after me. I ignored him and walked up to the griffon.
“Good evening. Look, we don’t want to fight, we just need some of your feathers!” I told the griffon with the upmost politeness.
The griffon looked clearly unimpressed.
I smiled as I sifted through stable memories. Drat my mother for not letting me go visit animals more! I recalled the words of a particularly young boy who worked in the mews. He told me skinship and common knowledge was very important to animals when he made me introduce myself to the hawks under his care.
If it was good enough for hawks I could only hope it would be good enough for griffins. “My name is Ahira,” said with a smile, raising a hand in hopes that he might sniff me or something.
Instead, to my utter surprise, the griffon froze before bowing and untucking his wings. Carefully the griffon groomed a few feathers from his wings and let them fall to the grassy ground before nudging them in my direction.
I made a mental note that the young hawker boy deserved a cookie, and carefully bowed at the griffin before bending over to wrap the feathers up in my white apron.
“Thank you ever so much, kind griffon,” I said with my best courtly manners.
I curtsied before making a quick getaway, passing by Kohath. “Let’s go Mr. Hot stuff,” I barked as I walked toward the edge of the meadow.
“Oh, so you think I’m handsome,” Kohath called, sounding extremely pleased with himself. I groaned and turned around to glare at him, catching sight of an odd situation.
The white griffon was still in the meadow. He was looking down at Tuggles with something akin to reverence. Tuggles was watching me, tossing his head when I met his gaze.
I smiled and turned back around, Kohath’s stupid comment forgotten. Sadly, within a few minutes Kohath got his second wind. He ran up to me and reclaimed my hand.
We returned to the cave at all speed and without any problems.
“Thank you for coming with me,” Kohath generously said, as if I was the one saying thank you to him.
“Hm,” I said as I walked past him, reaching for the door.
“Aren’t you going to say your welcome?” Kohath asked, sounding incredibly confident.
“No,” I said, shutting the door in his face. I walked into sitting room and set the feathers on the table before shuffling into the kitchen. I yelped when I set my sights on the sink. There, sitting in MY chair, was Kohath, unconcernedly eating an apple.
“Wha?” I said, my mind still trying to register what was going on. I shook my head, thinking my vision may be blurry. Nope, he was still there. “How did you get in here?” I demanded as I glanced around the room, looking for a back door of some sort.
“Through the front door. Just because you shut it doesn’t mean I can’t enter by myself,” he said.
“Out!” I bellowed. “Out, out, OUT!” I repeated, pointing to the kitchen entrance.
“No thanks,” he said while taking a bite out of his apple.
“You’re unbearable,” I groaned as I walked past him and headed for my bedroom. He tossed the apple core into the tr
ash and followed me. I glared as I turned around and solidly slammed the door in his face. I sat down on my bed with a happy sigh when I heard the doorknob click.
In marched Kohath, acting as though he owned the place. I murderously glared at him. “You! Out right now!” I yelled pushing him back toward the door.
“Shh! You’ll wake up Azmaveth!” he shushed. He didn’t even budge as I leaned against him with all of my weight and power.
“Wow! If you like me that much you could just tell me!” I Kohath teased as I felt arms around my waist. Kohath’s smarmy front reminded me so badly like a bad actor attempting to fulfill a role he had studied copiously.
“What are you doing?” I said as I tried to break his grasp.
“Getting comfortable,” Kohath smoothly said. I stomped on his foot.
Kohath yelped like a kicked puppy and released me to hold his injured limb. “That hurt!” he said with a scowl.
“Good,” I replied as I caught him off guard and pushed him outside, closing the door behind him. This time I was sure to tip a chair under the knob so it wouldn’t budge.
“Hey!” Kohath wailed, pounding on my door.
“Shh! You’ll wake up Azmaveth!” I quoted back to him.
He growled.
“Goodnight! Kohath I’m sure you have some kind of a home, probably some sort of cave that you hang upside down in, so return to it!” I ordered safely through my door.
“I’m gonna tell Azmaveth!” Kohath whined.
“And what do you think he’s gonna do about it? Rebuke me? Fat chance! Faeries will start living as dwarves the day Azmaveth punishes me!” I snorted.
Kohath grumbled. “Good night to you too!” he walked away, muttering to himself, as his boots clicked on the marble floor of the tunnel.
I felt a peaceful smile slide over my lips. Silence, what I loved best.
“You know tomorrow Azmaveth will probably send us somewhere else again,” Kohath said, somehow soundlessly getting back to my door.
“Good night Kohath!” I firmly said as I blew my candle out, leaving the steward to his own devices.
Chapter 8Beauty and Intelligence
I woke up the following morning to a blinding shaft of sunlight. I groaned as I rolled out of bed and stumbled into the kitchen, quickly preparing breakfast. I hummed a little tune as I stirred the oatmeal. Strangely my adventure with Kohath had uplifted my spirits.