Keeper and the Firefly, page 7
Ariel's blood ran cold. No! He couldn't have done such a thing!...could he?
Keeper walked up and stood in front of her.
"Touch me."
When she didn't. He barked out the order at her, so she quickly put her hands on him and felt the ragged scars. Her skin crawled with the feel of it. He took her hand and guided her fingers through his hair, so she could feel where his antenna had been, cut off at the roots. Ariel shuttered in horror.
"Feel the price of knowledge, and never forget it," he advised her. "Hide your knowledge well, princess, or it will come back to kill you."
Keeper stared down into her wide, terror-stricken eyes and was satisfied with the fear he saw there. He let go of her hands.
"Basil and Dill are waiting for you. You best go home now."
Ariel willingly broke away from him and ran back to the dwelling. She burst through the door, startling the others.
"Let's go!" she panted.
"Where's Keeper?" Basil asked.
"Out there. He said to leave!"
Basil looked at her questioningly. He opened his mouth, but Ariel interrupted.
"I want to go now, Basil! Please!" She was crying hysterically. There was fear in her eyes. Basil noticed it. What had Keeper said to her?
The younger hopper nodded and pushed himself up to his feet. "Ok, we'll go."
Dill stood too and came up under his friend's arm to offer support.
Basil tried to put an arm around the girl’s shoulders to comfort her, but the flyer quickly grabbed Basil’s hand, pulling him to hurry.
“Too fast! Too fast!” he yelped. Ariel dropped the arm and Peter hurried in to help. With Dill on one side and Peter on the other, the hoppers managed to get the invalid up the entry hall behind the impatient flyer.
"What did he tell her?" Dill whispered the question in Basil's ear.
Basil shook his head. He had no idea, and it was pretty clear Ariel was beyond talking about it right now. She kept her eyes forward and walked as fast as possible, dragging Basil by a grip on his shirt, forcing Dill and Peter to keep up. After a few more seconds, Dill shook his head and stopped the group.
“We gotta call down a meadowlark,” he stated. “Basil can’t limp all the way home.”
Ariel had no desire to stop, but the pain on her teacher’s face couldn’t be denied. She stood there, shifting from one foot to the other, biting her lip, as Peter pulled out his slingshot and looked around for a sizable bug to take down. Basil watched the princess, wondering what had her so bothered. She kept looking over her shoulder in the direction of the knoll.
What’s she so afraid of? he wondered. Is she scared of Keeper? What did he do to her?
“Come on,” Dill’s voice cut through his thoughts. Peter had coaxed down a meadowlark and the older hopper mounted up. Basil took the hand he was offered and allowed his friend to pull him up as Peter boosted from below. In a few seconds, the young Rapha was settled in front of Dill. Before they took flight, the older hopper looked back to the knoll where Keeper stood, now fully dressed, watching them. He raised a hand in farewell and Dill waved back in acknowledgment. Was there someone with the elder? Dill wasn’t sure. He’d only caught a glimpse before the bird spread his wings and obscured Keeper from sight.
Back on the knoll, Keeper watched his students and their guest leave, his conversation with Ariel playing over again in his mind. He’d had no options. Driving her away was the only reasonable choice.
“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”
Keeper looked over his shoulder at the elf standing there. Blond, early twenties, radiating youth and health. This time anyway. Keeper hadn’t heard him come, but that was no surprise.
“I had no choice,” he answered.
The other disagreed. “There’s always a choice. Are you sure yours was the right one?”
Keeper sighed impatiently. He’d just gotten home from a long trip. This issue about the flyer princess had been unexpectantly thrust upon him. He really didn’t want to hear a lecture.
“I know what I’m doing,” he reiterated. “She doesn’t belong here. She’s going to get herself, and everyone associated with her, killed. This isn’t where she belongs.”
The blonde looked out into the grove. Basil, Dill and Ariel had disappeared into the trees. Peter had gone back into the home. There was nothing more to see, except the hardheaded elf standing beside him.
“When you’re ready to talk, let me know,” he told Keeper. Keeper looked back over his shoulder again, but his companion was already gone.
The crippled flyer sighed and considered what the other elf had said. He then thought about his sentencing for treason and what he’d told the young flyer princess. He shook his head.
“The conversation is over.”
Ariel flew along beside the meadowlark just until she figured out where they were. At that point, the girl poured on the speed and sped on ahead.
The men exchanged looks and urged the ‘lark to pick up speed. Three minutes later, they were making their way down the entry hall. Before they could get to the interior door, Ariel flung it open from the inside, spear in hand. She stared at them, a haunted look, in her eyes.
“Ariel?”
The flyer hurried out, pushing past the two men in her haste to leave. Dill caught her by the arm.
“Wait a minute!” he demanded. “What happened back there? What’s going on?”
She opened her mouth. “I…” she started, but then realized she had no idea what to say. Her lips snapped shut and her eyes welled up with tears. “I gotta go!” She turned to rush on, but Dill still held her arm and wasn’t letting go.
“Why don’t you sit down?” the dark-haired hopper suggested. “Let’s talk about this.”
“NO!” she screeched. “Let me go! I gotta go home!” She was becoming hysterical again as she flailed out against the arm that held her there.
“Let her go, Dill.” Basil ordered. Her confinement was only making things worse.
“We’ll see you tomorrow, Ariel,” he told the girl.
She froze at those words and stared at them, wide eyed. Tomorrow? Was there going to be a tomorrow? Would she come back? Could she come back? Did she dare to come back? Did she dare to ever come back? She didn’t know.
Basil caught the terror in her eyes.
“Ariel?” he tentatively questioned. “You are coming back tomorrow, aren’t you?”
She didn’t answer. Instead, she leaned over and bit Dill’s wrist.
“OW!”
Shocked, he let go, and she quickly darted up the hall and out the door.
“She bit me!” Dill stared down at his arm in disbelief as blood began to bead up in the horseshoe shaped wound.
Basil was stunned beyond words. He gawked at the bite a few seconds before ripping his eyes away to watch the flyer’s fleeing form.
Her action scared Ariel, and the shock she heard in Dill’s voice pained her heart, but she didn’t stop. The girl bolted out the exterior door and took to the air. She streaked away as fast as her wings could carry her, but she couldn’t fly fast enough to get away from the memory of what she had seen under Keeper's tunic and the fear of what might be waiting in her future.
8
Discussions Between Friends
“Am I gonna need a rabies shot?” Dill asked.
“No,” Basil reassured him as he dressed the wound.
“Will I need stitches?”
“Uh uh.”
“Are you going to amputate?”
Basil shifted his eyes up off the bite wound to give his friend an are you serious look.
“You’re a surgeon,” Basil reminded his dark-haired friend. “This is not a fatal wound.”
Dill nodded, distracted.
“She bit me!” he recalled. “She actually bit me!”
Basil had been there. He didn’t need to be reminded.
The two young elves couldn’t figure out what was going on. They sat there before the fireplace in Basil’s home under the tree, and they pondered.
What could Keeper have possibly done to frighten her so badly? More than once, Keeper put a healthy fear into Dill and Basil, but that had been different. Keeper was their mentor and the antics of their younger days deserved Keeper's tongue-lashings and harsher. But Ariel was a guest, and only a child at that. What could have possibly provoked the fear she’d displayed?
Basil taped a square of gauze over the treated bite mark. “There. All better,” he proclaimed. “Mind taking a look at my leg now?”
Dill nodded absently. The absurdity suddenly struck him. Here he was rattled over a flesh wound and the friend who was treating him had a torn ligament. He looked over at the younger hopper. Basil looked terrible. His leg must have been hurting horribly, yet he’d said nothing as he tended to his overdramatic counterpart.
“I’m being stupid, aren’t I?” he asked.
“Basil nodded. “Yeah,” he agreed.
“Ok, let me fix up your leg. Want me to knock you out, or do you just want me to deaden the leg?”
“Just deaden it. I want to be awake during this.”
“You sure? It’s gonna take a few hours.”
“I’m sure. I don’t want to wake up with a mustache.”
“But my artistic skills are awesome,” Dill argued.
“I don’t want you drawing a mustache on me!”
“Ok,” Dill conceded. “Your loss.” He strolled over to Basil’s shelves and started checking labels. “I got a better stock of meds,” he commented.
“Check the drawer. I store the anesthetics there.”
“Why are you always hiding things from me?” Dill grumbled. He found what he wanted. “Let’s get you on the table. I’m gonna need some room to work.”
Basil's leg had only just recovered from the spider bite and this new injury hadn’t helped in the healing. He'd torn the muscle again and ligament in the ankle to boot. Dill casted the leg from the toes to just above the knee, rendering it immovable. There would be no chance of Basil re-damaging it again before it properly healed.
And then the two sat before the fireplace discussing Ariel, eating cold leftovers, and pondering the ways of flyers in general. A checkerboard was pulled out, and the talk continued over jumps and kings. On the pretense of being funny, Dill tried switching pieces around whenever Basil wasn’t looking closely enough. Dill found this extremely funny. Basil found it downright annoying. Finally, at the end of their seventh game, Dill excused himself on the pretense of getting a glass of milk, but really to see if there might be a piece of pie hiding in the ice room under the kitchen floor.
In his absence, there was nothing to distract Basil for the damaged leg. The local anesthetic was wearing off and the wound site was beginning to throb. He was going to need some painkillers, but that would require him to get up. He sighed. That wasn’t going to be easy with the full cast and the pain level he was already starting to feel. Dill should be back soon, he reasoned. I’ll just wait it out.
It was another five minutes before Dill finally decided on a pie and ascended the ice room stairs, bringing along the milk jug and the dessert.
“Do flyers like rhubarb?” he asked even before his head peaked over the floor boards.
Basil didn’t answer. He was slouched in the rocking chair, eyes closed, having conversations in his head with the pain. Back off! Back off! he demanded. Pain just laughed and took a step closer. Man! Basil could feel it creeping its way into control.
“Could you get me some aspirin?” he croaked out.
Dill looked at his friend then glanced up at the clock. Yep, the local was starting to wear off. Basil wasn’t looking too good, and it wouldn’t be long before he would be looking even worst. Dill needed to take action.
He strolled over to the anesthetic’s drawer. There was something he’d seen earlier that would come in handy right about now.
“You ever had morphine before?” he asked his friend.
“Morphine?!? No, Dill. Just get me some aspirin.”
“Ha, ha. You’re funny,” Dill prepared a syringe. “No, you’re just feeling the precursors right now. Give it half an hour and that local will have fully worn off and your leg’s gonna be screaming. Let’s get some serious pain killers in you before it gets to that point.”
“Ok,” Basil relented with a groan. “Just a little. I’ll be fine.”
“Yeah, right,” Dill had seen the ligament. He knew how bad it was. Just a little wasn’t going to do diddly. He filled the syringe with a full dose of the painkiller, injected it into Basil’s arm, then sat down across from him and took up his pie.
“It’s gonna take a few minutes to kick in. Want some of this?”
Basil rubbed his sore bicep. “No.”
“Good. More for me.” Dill didn’t even bother with a plate and fork. He ate with his fingers, right out of the pie tin, licking his digits and wiping them on his shirt.
“No wonder her manners are still atrocious,” Basil grumbled under his breath.
Dill grunted at the remark. “If it was left up to you, she’d be trying to clean dirt. I’m making sure she has a little character.”
Basil didn’t exactly agree with this, but his leg hurt too much to allow him to concentrate on an argument.
"No," Dill picked up the conversation that they had dropped earlier. "Ariel'll probably be back tomorrow. She's a tough cookie and, whatever Keeper did to her, she'll be over it by then. Still, I wonder what he did. Maybe he told her one of those ghost stories like he tells at the harvest festivals. Like the one about the trolls. Remember that one, Bas? The trolls who ate horses and lived in the black castle?"
Dill had been looking into the fire as he recollected, but now he glanced over at Basil to see if he remembered the tale. Basil hadn't been listening to him. The morphine was beginning to have a profound effect. As he sat staring into the fire, the flames seemed to take on a life of their own and were dancing a ballet just for him. Dill’s voice had slurred into gibberish as strange melodies composed themselves inside his head to accommodate the dancing flames. And the flames were getting darker...
"Basil?"
The voice snapped him back and he looked up. Someone was standing over his chair looking at him, but he couldn't quite remember who it was.
"Are you alright?" the someone asked.
Basil stared at the face in front of him. He had to blink to keep it in focus and even then, it wanted to pitch from side to side.
"I think..." Basil started, but he wasn't sure what he wanted to say.
"Where am I?" he finally asked. But he wasn't even quite sure who he was.
Dill assessed the situation. He looked down at the syringe on the checkers’ table. He’d given the right dosage. But sometimes, people did have quirky reactions to strong narcotics.
"Come on, Kiddo,” he said. Let's get you to bed."
Dill half dragged, half carried Basil across the room and laid him down on the bed. By the time he had worked the younger hopper's remaining boot off, Basil had passed out and was snoring lightly. Sighing, Dill stared down at his friend.
"Yeah, you’re gonna be sleeping a while," he assessed. A smile spread across his face as he looked around for a pen and ink. "Time for you to grow a mustache, Basil ol’ pal. Oh! And Glasses! We gotta add a pair of glasses this time."
Half a mile away, Tanner was refilling Keeper’s glass with some of his best port wine.
“So, she’s gone?” the large man asked.
“I think so. She didn’t waste any time leaving my place, anyway.”
“What did you say to her?” Tanner wasn’t very happy at the idea of never seeing the little princess again, but his other guest didn’t seem too upset.
“What does it matter?” Grandma Love asked. “She doesn’t belong here with us. Let her stay with her own colony.”
Keeper sat silent, staring into the fire. He took another swallow from his glass and listened to his two friends verbally battle it out.
“You have to admit, Rachel,” Tanner was saying, “She wasn’t exactly the wild beast so many of our kind claim flyers are.”
“Remember what her people did here, Ben? Her colony?”
“That was almost fourteen years ago,” Tanner retorted. “I doubt if little year-old Ariel did much pillaging. And you might do good to remember that it hasn’t happened since.”
“That’s beside the point! It’s in her upbringing. She shouldn’t be trusted.”
Tanner huffed angrily. “So, what do you think of all this, Joseph?”
The two of them turned expectantly to Keeper.
“I think, if I remember right, I sent her home,” he reminded them. “It’s better for everyone this way.”
“Well spoken,” Grandma Love agreed.
Tanner glared at the other man, not wanting to accept his friend’s show of narrow-mindedness. Keeper challenged his gaze.
“Ben, she really shouldn’t be here. We’re opening ourselves up to a risky situation even by associating with her. Basil was out of line to befriend her.”
“Oh, really?” Tanner countered. “I thought he was being open-minded and showing a lot of maturity. Unlike the juvenile, bigoted reasoning I’m hearing now.”
“Oh, stop it, Ben!” Grandma Love snapped. “You’re not on the council. You don’t know what it’s like making decisions to protect the plains keepers.”
“And if this is what it’s like, I’m glad I’m not a council member! I can’t believe you’re turning your back on this opportunity, Joseph! Here this girl is wanting to learn, and you send her packing! This could have opened up a door to invite others of her tribe in.”
“Elyon help us if that happened!” Grandma Love interjected. “We let one of them in and you’re actually suggesting we make a habit of this? Ben! These people are savages!”
Keeper shook his head at Tanner. “And this is why this wouldn’t work.”
“I’m not narrow minded, Joseph!” Grandma defended. “I’m just being cautious!”
Tanner wasn’t buying it. “No, you’re narrow minded,” he growled at her. He shifted his glare to Keeper. “At least Basil had the courage to try. All that teaching he tried to do with her was probably totally undone by you today!”
