The Runaway

Chapter 13

After he walks around the side, to the front of the castle, he walks down a path to a set of stalls. It's been a while, this place and everything in it is huge.

"Am I hurting your back?" I ask.

"No."

I can see them. Oh, they're huge. And absolutely beautiful. There's 4 of them. Once In front of the stalls, he lets me get off and walks to the first one.

It is black and gold. It has little gold lines on it like lightning. Across the chest and face. He opens the door and waves his hand at the Pegasus. The Pegasus walks out of the stall, standing tall and proper. He points towards me.

The Pegasus walks over to me. It sniffs me, my face, all it can reach. Its head is as big as half of me. He opens the other doors, and the 3 others walk over to me. I'm getting ambushed.

One is all black with fur around its hooves, and a long wavy mane. Another is all white with its fur having patterns and it has a tail I've never seen before. The last one is black with white hair and gold decorating its skin and rows of gold feathers in the black wings. It has white fur around its hooves.

I'm in love.

"Who do these belong to? I want to take them home."

"They belong to the kingdom. They probably won't let you take them."

"Are there more Pegasus?"

He nods. The completely white one nudges my arm with its huge muzzle. The metal on it is cold. My leg hurts so damn much, the Pegasus almost pushed me over.

"She likes you."

"What's her name?"

"Callista. The black Clydesdale is Esmeralda. The black one with white hair and gold is Icarus. The black and gold one is Zephyr." He faces the Pegasus and points to me.

"Everyone, this is princess. She lies a lot, has an unhealthy addiction to honey and has the worst luck running away."

I'm in too much pain to argue back with his outlandish claims. He walks to Zephyr and points down. The Pegasus lays down. He walks over to me and wraps an arm around my back and under my arms. He walks me over to the Pegasus. Zephyr is talking to the others in whatever language Pegasus talk.

Is it telepathic too? Unicorns telepathically communicate. They won't teach us how though. They refuse.

"Get on his back."

"How? Won't the wings be in the way?"

"He isn't going to fly off now, is he? Just get on."

With the most struggle ever in my short life, I got on the Pegasus. Thank you, stupid leg. It is making my life so much easier.

He makes some noise by clicking his tongue or something and Zephyr gets up. I wrap myself around his neck as he does so. I'm so high in the air now. Unicorns are smaller.

There are no reins or anything to hold onto. How am I supposed to not fall off or anything? If I fall, I might die this time. I have so many injuries it's embarrassing.

The mystery man is talking to the Pegasus in probably the language for the kingdom. They're forehead to forehead. They're so cute. I didn't know a ginormous Pegasus and a secretive stranger would be so cute.

He runs his hand through Zephyr's mane a few times before walking near the back and getting on him, behind me. I turn around.

"Hi."

"Hello."

I feel awkward. I never feel awkward. My skin feels hot. I must be broken. Mystery guy whistles and Zephyr starts walking. Callista huffs and sniffs me one last time before turning around to the other Pegasus. She is so pretty.

I turn back to mystery man; the sun is behind him, so I'm blinded. I'll never see who he is. This isn't fair.

"Why doesn't he have reins? I'm going to fall off."

He puts his hands on the middle of Zephyr's back, making him just a short distance away from me.

"You won't if you pay attention."

I turn back around. My skin is now very hot. I pet the Pegasus to distract myself. His mane is soft.

"Where are we going?"

"A surprise."

Him and his surprises. Zephyr walks down the path we came up. His hooves hit the stone path over and over. It's rhythmic.

"I take back what I said earlier," he starts, "You can run away. You successfully got out of the castle earlier, you even have a hurt leg. Quite impressive, if I do say so."

"You carried me out. I didn't do anything."

"You did nothing quite nicely."

My head hurts now. He messes with me too much.

"Why did you scale the side of the castle all dramatically?"

There's silence for a long time. Zephyr walks on different branches of paths till the water fountain comes into view. Oh, how I love this place.

It's a gorgeous, giant waterfall in the middle of 4 paths that lead to it. There are trees all around it. Zephyr lays next to it, the mystery man gets off the Pegasus' bum and sits on the ground, against his wing, next to me. I turn myself around and slide off till my back is against Zephyr and I'm besides mystery man. Zephyr sniffs me a lot and forces me to pet him.

"That was the king walking towards us. I didn't want us to be in his way."

"But that doesn't mean you have to climb down a whole castle."

"You make it sound like we were on the top. Who doesn't want to be on an adventure anyways?"

"Me."

He turns to me, putting an arm on Zephyr's back and the other one on his right leg.

"It's too late for you."