Gossamyr

Damsel? Gossamyr slid a look to the left then the right. Where be this damsel? She was the only—Ah. So he thought…?

She spread her shoulders back, lifting her chest. Fisting her fingers before her, she hissed, “Do I look like I need saving?”

Dancing blue eyes took in her obstinate pose in a quick cap-à-pie flight. “Actually…no.”

“Just so. In the future keep your mortal weapons to yourself.”

“Indeed? Mortal weapons. Ahum.” He assumed a haughty pose, thumbs hooked at the waist of his striped hose, one foot stretched forward and his body cocked at an angle. “So says the damsel with the sparkly throat.”

“I—” Gossamyr slapped a palm to her throat.

“I suppose I must thank you,” he added.

“For saving thee?”

He chuckled. “No, for reminding me of which I forget. There is a damsel in need of rescue. And she will not argue my help. I must be off.”

“Saving damsels? What sort of pitiful, unoriginal quest—” She stabbed a proud thumb into her pourpoint. “I’ve a mission to save the—”

“The what?” Mirth tickled Ulrich’s lips into a slippery smile and now his tone danced teasingly. “The world? Is not such a quest reserved for armored knights and champions wearing their lady’s favor on their sleeves?”

“I am not here to save your world. It is my world I…must save.” Bogies and blight! Very sly, Gossamyr. Really blending well. Why did she not simply reveal her fée origins and hold out her wrists for the chains?

“Ah! I see. There is a separation between our worlds. But since you claim not to be a faery, I can only then assume you speak of the minuscule world that populates the inside of your skull.”

Ulrich approached and made show of tilting his head this way and that as he looked into her eyes. A vicious preening. The look was so familiar, like that of a fellow fée who deemed Gossamyr lesser because of her half blood, and yet, the rank of her father elevated her above all. Fluttering beringed fingers near her head, he insulted with silent menace. “My master once treated a victim of psychomachia.”

“Psycho-what?”

“It is one who lives within their own mind. Entire worlds are invented. An extraordinary life is led walking through the imaginary world, while the victim’s very feet tread the earth of reality.”

Gossamyr stepped right up to the man to meet his mocking stare. The embroidered trim of his cape brushed her knees. Must and earth surrounded his air. No longer did anything about him appeal, not even his fine white teeth. “You. Are rude.”

“And you are most snappish. And much too close. Have you no sense of propriety? Back off, warrior woman.”

She hooked her hands at her hips and fixed him with the mongoose eye.

“Not at all the same,” Ulrich muttered as he stepped away and drew a glance down her form. A sorry shake of his head shook his loose curls. “In twenty years women have truly lost all their graces. Pity.”

“What do you mumble about now?”

“Nothing that concerns you, Faery Not.”

That moniker, most cruel, set Gossamyr to a stomp.

“Very well.” Ulrich slapped his arms across his chest and faced her again with that preening expression. “I promise to stand back and allow you all the glory next time we are set upon by supernatural beasties.”

“It was a bogie.”

“If you say so.”

“I do.”

Next time? Hmm…Very possible, considering they walked the edge of the Netherdred, and would soon have to cross through it to reach the mortal city of Paris.

A scan of the horizon sighted a line of lindens and a wispy ghost of smoke, likely a fire roasting a family’s evening meal. The distant yowl from a night creature gave her wonder to the rampant wolves her mother had documented in the bestiary. Not so vicious as a Netherdog, frequently found wandering the sandy borders of the marsh roots, but certainly ferocious. She’d had no time to gather expectations of her journey, but already it proved more perilous than she might have imagined.

Adventure? Yes, please. She could stand down any threat that challenged.

I hope, a small voice deep inside whispered.

“I wonder what it was doing here?” she said with a glance to the block of bogie lying in a growing puddle of brown ooze. “Is it common for bogies to charge from out of nowhere? Such creatures generally keep to cinder caves and the night. For all the rage it possessed, one would think we’d done it a grievance.”

“Do you wish me to answer according to my world?” Ulrich tugged at the saddlebag, secured to Fancy’s flank. “As opposed to your skull world?”

With a glance to the battleground, peppered with brown bogie blood, Ulrich let out a heavy exhalation. He squeezed an eye shut at the blast of setting sun that beamed him in the face. “Never, in my extremely pitiful life, have I seen one of those things. Said life being much too short of late. Or be it too long?” A tilt of his head revealed the modena on his cheek. “But I trust you have encountered such? You knew exactly how to take the thing out.”

“Training.”

“Oh? Did I miss something in my schooling? Attack and conquer abecedarian?”

She delivered him a sneer to match—nay, defy—his mockery. “Just answer me this: are we close to a village? I tire, and have worked up a hunger.”

“One would never guess from the brilliant sparkle you put out.”

His constant reminder she glimmered troubled. A touch to her throat discovered the highest agraffe was open. The carved bone clasp had broken, most likely during the fight.

“A village? Indeed, Aparjon lies just ahead. But tell me, why do you not simply fly there? Ah!” He made show of bending and peering around to study her shoulders. Gossamyr twisted her back away from his view. “No wings!”

“We have already discussed this.”

“Indeed. Not a faery.” Now his jesting tone returned and that brilliant smile flashed like a beam of sunlight. “But plenty faeries do not have wings.”

“How know you such?”

“Every child learns the facts before they are out of infant skirts.” He made a merry skip and danced around Gossamyr. “Faeries come in all manner of shape, size and wing. Some walk amongst the mortals undiscovered, some flitter up to a man’s ear to stand inside it. But one thing they all have in common is a glimmer—” he drew his palm between them in a curtain of fluttering fingers “—that sheen of the unnatural.”

The blazon.

“Though, I must say, you do appear a trifle…faded.”

“What mean you by that?”

Ulrich pointed to the hem of Gossamyr’s pourpoint. “Your clothing. The leaves look as though they are fading. More so than when we first met.”

Gossamyr touched a curve of supple hornbeam at her waist. Indeed, the leaf had lost some of its glossy resilience. The arachnagoss threading was strong, but no more so than the outer layers it stitched together. She smoothed a hand over her braies. They felt secure; amphi-leather was virtually indestructible, even a fire-forged blade must draw a precise line to cut through.

A bend of her arm tugged a crack in the leaves at her shoulder.