Chapter 9:
Arath's stables were by a pit called The sleeping snake. It's called like that, because apparently when you look at it from the sky the pit is shaped as a snake that doesn't move. So therefor, they called it the Sleeping Snake.
The stables were like any other stables from the outside. Old spoiled wood and the smell was like almost one too, but it smell more like a chicken pen. There were nest at the top of the stables, but it weren't just normal ones, no the nests were the size of a nighttable. There were four trunks full of water on the corners of the pen outside the stables. And there was a lot of feathers on the floor.
“So what did you say he wanted?” I asked Sky again. He hadn't say a thing since we got out of the garden's maze.
“I told you, is a surprise” Sky said.
“Oh, yeah. Right, a surprise” I repeated.
We kept walking in silent as we entered the stables. Arath and the others were already there and apparently Sky and I were the only ones that were missing.
“Oh, good. They are finally here” Arath said as he saw us enter the stables –or more like exit to the back of the stables.
Arath is a middle size elve of five seven with long green hair tied up in a ponytail. He was kind of build up and had wide shoulders making him look like a wrestleting teenager.
“So why are we here?” I asked as I meet with my friends. I looked at my friends faces and they looked as confused as I was.
“We are here so you can learn” Arath said grinning.
“Learn what?” I asked confused.
“Is he this airhead all the time?” Arath asked, looking at Naomi and Dustin. They just nodded at the same time, then turned to looked at each other blushing.
“If you call us here to insult me, then I'm leaving” I said feeling angry. I can't believe he just sent Sky for me to call me names and stuffs.
“Ok, relax. Geez, you humans get angry easily. Now I know why your world is at the edge of destruction”
I just shoved my hands in my pockets and looked at him –well, more like glaring at him.
Arath walked inside his stables and cam back moments later hauiling two horse seats behind him. They were a little different, then the normal ones. This ones were modified for something bigger and faster.
“What are those?” Dustin asked.
“This are dragon's seats. We had to measured your dragons so we could build this things. They are made of the best leather and the strongest one in Margus Terram. And more importantly...this are the only ones around and it took me almost a week to made them” He said looking at each of us “So, don't mess them up”
“We are not planing to do that” I replied, rolling my eyes.
“Just a warning” He said, “Ok, now put them on your dragons please”
I went a grabbed on and about to put it on Sky when we heard a loud horn been blowed, signaling that someone was entering through the doors of the wall around the castle. When we arrived here we didn't heard it and I asked the princess—which I had became her friend after a few days ago—and she told me that it was becasue of some kind of spell that prevent the enemy to learn that they knew he was her. I got to admit it was pretty impressive, making the enemy think he got the benefit of the surprise by his side, but end up wrong about it.
“We better go check it out,” Arath said. “Stop and put the seats resting on the fence.”
After doing what he told us, we rush to the front doors of the wall.
People was already gathering around the walls. Sellers, traiders, women, men, and some soldiers were looking at the doors with worry.
When both the doors swang slowly open, three silhouttes enter stumbling trying to kept their balance. There were two girls' silhoutte and a man. The three were in pretty bad shape and I recognized that curly long brown hair. Her face had scares on her chin and her cheeks, but I could still recognized her. It was...Anastasia. And she was been followed by the Dynamic duo—Lúthien and Beren.
“Anastasia!” I yelled running toward her. Dustin, Naomi and the dragons following me.
Anastasia smiled weakly before fainting. I throwed myself and caught her before she could hit the ground head first.
“Anastasia?” I called shaking her gently. “Hey, wake up”
“We barely managed to escape” Beren said. Soldiers were helping them now to stand. “They knew we were going. They wiped us like if we were flies”
Then those weird dreams—that I didn't told anyone—were true. They knew they were going thinking we were going too. See, for the past few days I got this dreams where the Dark dragon told me they were waiting.
“We managed to escape, but the rest of the team didn't” Lúthien spoke wincing in pain.
“The Queen and the princess are here!” A guard exclaimed.
People moved out the Queen's way as her guards made their way through the villagers. The Queen and the princess were hopping on white horses with...a horn? Wow, the horse had a horn on his head! How did they called them on the stories Grandpa told me? Unihorns?...Unicorns? Yeah, that's it! Unicorns.
“Lúthien and Beren? What happened?” The Queen asked hopping off the unicorn with the princess behind her heels.
“They knew, you Highness.” Lúthien coughed, “There weren't witches only. There were Heartless ones, werewolfs and hellhounds too”
The Queen face filled with shock. I knew she was thinking everything Lúthien had said a millions miles a minute. And I don't know what was if the shocked face the Queen had or the way she was looking at Lúthien and Beren, but somehow it didn't made me felt any calm.
“Take them to the infirmery and take care of them.” The Queen ordered. “You three and the dragons come with me”
“No, I'm going to the infirmery and watch my friend” I retored.
“She will be fine” The Queen said.
“I said I'm going to take care of my friend” I said gritting my teeth. “You didn't let me go saved her, now I will stay by her side until she wakes up”
The Queen most had seen the determination on my face that I wasn't going to leave my friend, because she just sighed and nodded telling us to meet her after Anastasia wake up. I nodded picking up Anastasia and started to walk toward the infirmery following the four soldiers that came to helped Lúthien and Beren.
“They have it. They have one on their power” Anastasia mumbled on her sleeps. “Got to escape and tell the others”
“Shh, you are save now” I whispered.
We reached the infirmery and some healers were waiting there for us already with a bunch of weird tools and herbs. The place smell like herbs mixed with something that smell kind of like...cinnamon?
“Ok, put them on a bed and step out of here. We have to work fast on them” A healer elve told us and we did as he told us.
I put Anastasia gently on an empty bed. I brushed some hair of her scratched pale face and tucked it behind her ear. A smiled spreading across her face and she seem to almost came back to her normal color.
“You'll be find, Annie” I whispered kissing her temple. I stood up and went to wait outside the room.
“How is she?” Dustin asked with the others behind.
“I don't know, the healers just started to heal her,” I replied, “But she said something about 'they have it. They have one on their power' or something like that”
“What is that they have?” Naomi asked.
“I don't know, but whatever it is...it most be important,” I said leaning against the wall and resting my head on the wall. “We need to know more”
Dustin and Naomi sighed and sat beside me leaning their backs against the wall. From the corner of my eye, I saw Naomi rest her head on Dustin's shoulder sighing. I didn't thought something was wrong with that, I mean Anastasia always did that when she was tired. She would rested her head on my shoulder or Dustin's.
“We need to go to see the Queen as soon as Anastasia wakes up.” I said sliding against the wall and sat sighing. “I should had protected her better”
“Jason, you did what you could. You were protecting all of us at the same time and Anastasia tried to help you” Naomi said trying to made me feel better.
“She didn't had to. I was the only one with a weapon! Beside where were you and Dustin?” I snapped.
“Hey, calm down, Jason” Dustin said with calmness in his voice. “Naomi was just trying to help you, and like you said you were the only one with a weapon, beside Lúthien and Beren.”
Naomi just looked at her feet and played with her fingers. I didn't mean to snap at her, I knew she was trying to made me feel better, but I was still blaming myself for Anastasia's kidnapping.
“I'm sorry, Naomi. I didn't mean to snap at you” I said sincerily. “Is just that...I know is my fault what happened to Anastasia”
“Relax man” Dustin said putting his hand on my shoulder. “Is not just your fault. We could had help you even if we didn't had weapons.”
I just sighed and rested my face on my hands grunting.
“Jason? Jason! Wake up!” I heard Naomi called. I opened my eyes to see Dustin and her standing in fron of me. I didn't knew when I fall to sleep. I looked around confused to where I was, but then I remembered that Anastasia was back and I was outside the infirmery waiting for the healers to finished healing her. At the thought of Anastasia back I stood up quickly. “How is she? Where is she? What did they say? Is she alright?”
“Relax” Dustin chuckled. “She is fine and just woke up too. She is asking for you too, by the way. We told her we were going to look for you and go with the Queen to tell her that she is awake.”
“Come on, let's go tell the Queen” Naomi said pulling Dustin behind her. “And you go inside and talk to her.”
I nodded and turned toward the door. I took a deep breath and started to walked inside the infirmery. Inside the infirmery were more weird medical tools and other magical ones that I bet are use to heal too. The smell of herbs and cinnamon crash against my nose.
I looked around and saw that Anasatasia was on a different bed from where I putted her. She was on a bed by the window, lying under a thin white blanket that shined with the gloming sunbeams that passed through the window. Her face glowing with the sun hitting her face and I swear I thought it was her who was shining.
She looked up with a small smile on her face. A knot made on my throat as tears started to made their way. I just dropped to my knees beside her with my head resting on her lap.
“I'm sorry” I sobbed, as tears started to wet the blanket. “It was all my fault. I should had protected you better”
“Jason...” Anastasia started. She hesitated for a moment, but then started to talk again. “It wasn't your fault. I took the desicion to saved you, I didn't want...”
“You didn't have to do it!” I exclaimed, my voice was getting a little loud. “You should had let them take me insted of you”
“I made a decision, and I don't regret it. I will do it again if I have too”
“You were barely a live when you got here!”
“But I'm as good as new now”
I just sighed standing up. I paced around the room frustrated. Why can't she see that she went through hell thanks to me? It was my fault that she suffered with those heartless withches.
“You know, you look cute when you wear that frustated face on” Anastasia said with a grin making me blush.
“W-what did you say?” I asked stuttering.
“That you look cute when you have that frustrated face on,” She repeated.“You know what I miss the most?”
“W-what?”
“You” She said with a smile. She sat up and wrapped her arms around me, pulling me towards her.
“Anastasia? Are you ok?” I asked.
“That's a effect of the herbal poison we gave her” A old elve said appearing next to the bed. His white long hair was tied back with a rubberband. He was wearing a black vest above a white shirt with brown pants that were too small for him, the pants stop at his ankles. A little notepad tucked on his side. “The poison is like um....anesthesia? I think that's how you called on you world”
“So she is drugged?” I asked. I remember the last time I went to the dentistes and they did that to me. I felt numb almost the whole day and apparently I did funny things and got video taped.
“You can say that.” The healer said nodding with a big white grin on his face.
“How long will she be like that?” I asked trying to ignored the Anastasia that was running her fingers through my hair saying things like “Very smooth” or “So shiny and manageable.”
“I'll say like two or three more minutes.” He said.
“Ok” I sighed.
He just nodded looking through his files.
“And will she remember everything?”
“Just fragments or parts probably” He replied writing something down. “Not to sure how our poisons work on humans”
I just nodded trying to moved Anastasia's finger from my cheek. She kept poking my cheek and side, and ruffling my hair.
“Hey, Annie? How do you feel?”
“I feel—” She didn't got the chance to finish, because sh faint.
“Is this normal?” I asked with worry in my voice.
“Yeah, she should come to her sense just about...now” He said as Anastasia opened her eyes.
“J-Jason?” Anastasia asked confused looking around the room. “Is-is this another dream? Where am I? Where are the witches and those monsters?”
“No, is not a dream” I said hugging her tighly. I could felt tears making their way. “You are save now. You are in the infirmery of Margus Terram. They are all gone, you are save Annie”
She hugged me back too, and sighed in relief. She was holding to me like dear life. I could felt something warm and wet falling on my shoulder and I realized that she was crying. I just continued hugging her.
Someone cleared it's throat behind us. I could only see a dark silhouette from the corner of my eye. It was a little shorter than me, but I quickly knew who it was. It was...
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Dedicated to Enas, because of her BIRTHDAY!!! :D HAPPY BIRTHDAY, PG!!!! Have a good one!! :D