Gabriella took the large pack off her back, carefully waiting for Jade to jump off the strap on her shoulder, and rummaged inside for the magical food bag.

  She told it, “One lunch for a centaur, please.” As she waited for the magic, she watched Jerreth, who was looking longingly at the river.

  He looked at her and asked, a little embarrassed, “Would you mind turning the other way while I wash up in the river?”

  Gabriella responded, “All right,” with a small smile. She obediently turned around and faced the opposite way. Jerreth probably didn’t remember that she could watch him just as well with her back turned to him through Jade’s eyes.

  Jerreth hung up his shirt on a convenient tree branch and jumped into the small stream. He knelt down to let the water roll over his sweaty sides. He rinsed his face and hair with the cold water, as well as his chest and back, and used his cupped hands to drink his fill. Then he surged out of the stream to drip dry. She found her heart skip lightly at the sight of him without a shirt, and she felt slightly embarrassed at her own reaction.

  She whispered, “Jade, would you please focus on the food bag?”

  Jade chittered in laughter at her, and when she frowned at him, he just laughed harder. He jauntily kept one eye on Jerreth, and the other on the food bag.

  She murmured softly, for Jade’s ears only, “How would you feel if you saw a lovely female parakeet for the first time ever?”

  Jade paused for a long moment, and looked at Gabriella. “I don’t know,” he said, finally. “The last time I saw any other parakeet was when I was a few weeks old and taken from my family to be Lady Karya’s pet.”

  Gabriella blinked. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know, Jade. It was a thoughtless question. I can talk to Mrs. Godfrey about getting a companion for you, if you wish.”

  Jade blinked at her and said rather smugly, “Thank you, but Karya already agreed to get me a mate after I get back from this quest of yours.”

  Gabriella nodded, and said, “Good, I’m glad for your sake.”

  Then Gabriella turned her attention to the food bag. She also tried really hard to ignore Jerreth, who had found a towel in his pack and was drying off, since Jade had turned his head to make Jerreth quite visible.

  “One lunch for a centaur, please,” she requested.

  That’s when she noticed how closely Martin was watching her. She had forgotten how acute griffin hearing was, and she realized he’d probably heard every word she and Jade had said, despite speaking in a soft murmur. That made her a bit embarrassed, and she cleared her throat and avoided facing him. What she pulled out of the food bag was a huge plate of salad with smoked fish, a chunk of bread, a large piece of cheese, and a large red apple.

  “One lunch for a griffin, please,” she said next. A large plate of steak and roast pork came out next.

  “One lunch for a human, please,” she requested.

  A smaller plate of fish and salad with bread and cheese came out for her.

  Then finally she said, “One lunch for a parakeet, please.”

  She pulled out a tiny bowl of birdseed, and sat down carefully, crossing her legs so she had a place to balance the small bowl. Jade squawked excitedly, “My favorite seeds! Yum!” and he flew from her shoulder to her leg to eat.

  Gabriella blinked in surprise at the change in perspective, and found it a little harder to coordinate the movement of her fork from the plate to her mouth as Jade’s eyes were farther from her head, especially as he kept bobbing his head up and down for his food. She found it easier to ignore her eyesight altogether once the food was on her fork.

  “Thank you, food bag. We appreciate your bounty,” she said.

  Jerreth had wrapped the towel around himself snugly before coming to sit next to her. He instantly began inhaling his food, but Martin only stared at his food.

  “If you prefer, I can try to cut your food for you,” she offered. “My eyesight isn’t quite as good with Jade down on my knee, but you probably aren’t used to eating with a beak and talons.”

  Martin growled, “Jerreth, why don’t you. I don’t want to bother Gabriella.”

  Jerreth reached over to Martin’s plate and slid it towards himself, then cut it into slices. He snagged a slice of pork, however, before he slid the plate back to Martin, earning an irritated snap of the beak from Martin.

  Gabriella dropped her bite of salad, fork and all, back onto her plate, somehow scooped up Jade and his bowl and jumped to Jerreth’s side, grabbing Jerreth’s wrist with her free hand and said firmly, “No!”

  Jade squawked, “What are you doing? Be careful with my food!!”

  Gabriella quickly said, “Sorry Jade!”

  Jerreth looked at her, frozen in complete surprise.

  Then she quickly explained, “Jerreth, you can’t eat pork or beef while you are a centaur! It will give you a horrible stomach ache if you eat any meat from a four-legged animal. You must wait until you’re a human again.”

  He said, “But I’m really a human! Transformations don’t affect what you can eat.”

  She shook her head and said, “You’d be right for most transformations, Jerreth, but with turntable transformations, it’s different. You’re a centaur in every aspect right now. You may not have absorbed enough centaur magic yet to try any of their magic or to start thinking like them, but I imagine that given time you would.”

  He looked at her with a surprised and somewhat concerned expression, but then his expression turned gentle. He looked into her eyes for what seemed like a long time, and then he turned his gaze to Jade so that she could see into his eyes, and he said with exaggerated formality, “Gabriella, I will gladly give you my pork and anything else that I currently own if you ask it.” He said this with a sparkle in his eyes and a smile playing around his lips.

  Martin growled. “You mean MY pork?”

  She was angry at her stomach that suddenly seemed to have butterflies, and she quickly let go of his wrist. However, she didn’t move away from him, either, as he hadn’t given her the pork yet. She hovered, ready to grab his wrist again if she had to.

  Gabriella blushed at her own feelings, and to cover her own embarrassment she said severely, “You should be more careful what you say. You wouldn’t really give me anything I asked for, so you shouldn’t offer.”

  The overly formal manner and the smile playing around his mouth that he’d had only a moment before vanished and he looked at her with serious eyes. “Gabriella,” he said, “I say that because there is not a single one of my humble possessions that I would keep from you if you needed it. Am I right in thinking that you would only ask for something you needed?”

  She said with a sigh, “You’re wrong. I could very well ask you for something I don’t need. Would you please agree that you will only give me something I ask for if you actually want to give it to me and you can do without it? Just because I ask for something does not mean I need it, and I don’t want to have to be that careful about what I ask of you.”

  Jerreth laughed. “As you wish, Lady! You are very hard to please, but I accept your strict terms. However, you should know that I don’t really own much. My promise was perhaps more sentiment than substance.”

  She snorted and then chuckled lightly.

  “Well then, thank you, Jerreth,” she said with a nod of her head. “I appreciate and accept your kind offer.”

  He smiled and said, “You’re welcome.”

  “Now,” she said, holding her hand up and wiggling her fingers, “you still haven’t given me the pork, and just to be clear, I am asking for it.”

  Jerreth chuckled, and said, “I don’t know that I totally believe you about the stomach ache,” he said as he gently placed his fork into her hand, “but I did just make you a promise, so I’d better keep it.”

  With an eyebrow arched up, she returned the pork to Martin, who snatched it up in his beak gingerly but quickly, just in case Jerreth tried to steal it again.

  “If you doubt my words, ask Aunt Tithonia next time we see her,” she said.

  Jade chittered, and said, “You should have let him eat it, to teach him a lesson.”

  Gabriella smiled at Jade and said, “But Jade, if he had eaten it, he wouldn’t be able to travel, and we would have lost time. In time he will learn that I am always right.”

  Jade laughed at that, as did Jerreth and Martin.

  Jerreth looked into her eyes, and then shifted his gaze to little Jade, so Gabriella could look into his eyes. “Gabriella, I’ve never met a young lady quite like you.”

  Gabriella chuckled.

  “You mean you’ve never met a blind girl leading a quest? I can’t imagine why not!” she said.

  He snorted, and Martin huffed in amusement.

  Jade then pointedly asked, “Now that you’ve told the centaur what he can and can’t eat, would you let ME get back to eating?”

  “Of course, Jade, my apologies,” Gabriella said and sat down, putting the seed bowl carefully back on her leg.

  Jade went back to eating, bobbing his head down to take a seed, and then up again to crack it open and eat it, making Gabriella slightly dizzy.

  After that, all of them rested and ate hungrily.

  Once Jerreth was done eating, he put on his shirt, which was a relief to Gabriella. Somehow the towel just didn’t seem like enough of a covering for her comfort even though it covered him quite well.

  Jerreth then asked her, “Gabriella, how did you learn to read when you were blind?”

  “Oh, Mother asked Dad to carve letters out of pieces of wood at first. Once Aunt Tithonia gave me this spell ring for raising the letters it went faster. Mother says being blind is no excuse for being uneducated. She taught me to spin wool, too. At first my yarn was lumpy and uneven, but I’ve gotten better with practice. She taught me and the oxen to work together to water the sheep, too.”

  Jerreth looked at her in surprise. “Your mother sounds like an amazing woman, and it seems you take after her.”

  Gabriella smiled. “Mother is amazing. Father is, too, but he wants to baby me and take care of his blind little girl. Mother doesn’t allow me to feel sorry for myself for long, and she keeps me busy, although there is still a lot I cannot do. She says that no one can do everything, so we each do what we can.”

  “Your mother is very wise,” commented Jerreth.

  Once they were all done, Gabriella decided it was time for Martin to practice flying higher.

  “Ok, Martin,” she said “We have this nice clearing and we haven’t passed anyone for a few miles, so it’s perfect for you to practice flying a bit higher without too many prying eyes before we head into the trees by the river.”

  She smiled expectantly.

  “I don’t want to learn to fly any higher than I already have,” he said firmly. “Gliding a few feet off the ground is just fine.”

  Jade ruffled his feathers and then flattened them in disgust and said, “What a waste of wings!”

  Gabriella bit her tongue to keep from laughing.

  She asked Martin, “Haven’t you ever dreamed of flying?”

  He shook his head firmly.

  She looked at him for a long moment, but she didn’t want to push him, at least not in an obvious way. She shrugged with the shoulder Jade wasn’t occupying, and said, “I guess I can’t blame you. I was scared the first time I flew as an eagle, too. That was my fourteenth birthday. It’s only scary for the first little while, and after that, the exhilaration of flight takes over. But if you really don’t want to, that’s ok.” She didn’t mention that it was the ONLY time she’d ever flown as an eagle.

  He stared at her, and what little she could understand of griffin expressions seemed to indicate disbelief.

  “How did a blind girl fly?” he asked. The disbelief in his voice was quite obvious.

  Jade echoed the sentiment, asking, “Yes, I’d like to know as well.”

  She grinned at Martin. “Aunt Tithonia was able to give me sight for a few hours on my fourteenth birthday because all of my lucky stars were aligned just right, so I asked her to turn me into an eagle. Being able to see for a few hours and the experience of flying with my own wings were dreams come true for me.”

  He looked at her for a long moment, and then asked, “Any suggestions?” He didn’t want to be outdone by a blind girl, apparently. She carefully kept herself from smiling.

  “When you land, give yourself plenty of room, more room than you think you’ll need, just in case,” she replied. “You’ll be going faster than when you were gliding with me on your back, so it’ll take longer to slow down and land. Use your wings to slow down by flapping this way,” and she lifted her arms to demonstrate, but then realized how silly it would look.

  She lowered her arm to her side, cleared her throat and said, “Er, actually, Jade, would you please demonstrate?”

  Jade snorted and said, “I was actually looking forward to seeing you make an absolute fool of yourself.”

  Then he turned one eye on Martin and said, “Watch closely and pay attention to the turn.”

  He then launched himself from her shoulder, leaving her blind, and a few moments later he was back, showing off his perfect landing skills.

  Gabriella grinned at the memory of her own first attempt at landing. “Once you’re at the tops of the trees, turn around and come back by tipping your right wing like this, and the left one like this.” She demonstrated with her hands.

  Jerreth came to stand by Gabriella’s side to watch his brother. She smiled up at him for just a moment, and then turned back to watch Martin.

  Martin turned away from them and extended his wings as far as they would go. He gave his wings an experimental flap.

  He then ran down the road to get some speed and took off with a flap of his great wings. He made it to the tops of the trees, and then managed a wide turn to glide back, landing with a fair amount of grace.

  Jade said, “That was actually quite decent. Well done.”

  Gabriella clapped. “That was marvelous! Far better than my first flight! Are you feeling brave enough to try a little higher?” she asked.

  “No,” he said, “I was starting to feel dizzy at that height.”

  Jerreth broke in, “But Martin, you were doing so well! That was incredible!”

  Gabriella put her hand on his arm to stop him, and shook her head. She decided she liked touching his muscled arm.

  “If he’s dizzy he could fall and hurt himself. That’s enough for now,” she said firmly.

  “If it doesn’t hurt your feelings too much, I think I’ll walk for a bit, since you’re feeling dizzy, Martin,” she said.

  “Why don’t you ride on my back for a while?” asked Jerreth.

  She turned around. “Are you sure, Jerreth?” she asked. “That’s a lot of extra weight with your own pack plus myself and my pack. I don’t think I’d slow us down too much by walking as long as we’re by the river among the trees anyway.”

  “I would be most honored to carry you, Gabriella,” he replied. “Along the river we will have to walk as you say, so it won’t be too much extra work, but it will give me peace of mind to know that I can get you to safety if something were to happen.”

  Gabriella looked at the ground unhappily, then sighed. “Very well, Jerreth.”

  “Gabriella,” Jerreth said with concern in his voice, “what in the world is wrong? You sound as though it is a horrible thing for me to carry you.”

  She shook her head, and said, “I simply can’t forget how useless I am on this quest. I can’t even walk on my own two feet because I’ll either slow you down, or I’ll be an easy target for robbers and wild beasts.”

  Jerreth stepped close to her, and put a hand on the shoulder Jade wasn’t using, so she looked up at him.

  “Gabriella,” he said seriously, “the Oracle herself directed us to you. The Oracle wants you on this quest, and that means you are important to our success.” Then he paused, and smiled gently into her eyes, and continued, “My duty is to keep you safe, but my own feelings demand that I keep you safe as well. Would you please allow me to keep you as safe as I can?”

  Gabriella listened carefully to his words and his tone of voice as he spoke. She could hear his sincerity, and it helped her. Perhaps she did have some important part to play on this quest. But even if she didn’t, Jerreth’s sincere desire to keep her safe touched her heart.

  “Very well,” she said. “If it’s really that important to you, I guess I should just feel grateful for your help and not worry about my own pride.” She gave him a tentative smile.

  He squeezed her shoulder lightly. Then he dug through his pack and pulled out a surcingle. “I was hoping I’d be riding home as a human on horseback, but we can put this to use now.”

  “Do you have a small blanket that we could use for you to sit on, by chance?” he asked. “I get kind of sweaty, and I might be a little damp still…”

  She pulled out the small one she had woven herself for sitting on Cy and Pepper, the oxen, and placed it on Jerreth’s back. She had brought it on this trip because when rolled up, it was a decent pillow.

  Jerreth twisted around to lay the surcingle on it, and when he touched the blanket, he was surprised. He took it off of his back in order to study it better.

  “This is exceptionally soft, and it shines like silk. What is it made of?” Jerreth’s eyes lit up with a suppressed excitement.

  “Wool that I spun myself,” Gabriella said with a smile. “Then Mother helped me weave it into a small blanket. Mother and Father say my work is good enough to sell now. Would you agree?”

  “No, no,” he insisted, “it isn’t wool. It must be something else. Yes, of course you should sell it!”

  Gabriella raised an eyebrow at his unwillingness to believe her. If he didn’t want to believe her, she wasn’t about to take the time to argue with him.

  “Fine,” she said, “Don’t believe me if you don’t want to,” she said, “but we do need to get going. Put it back on, and let’s get this belt on you so we can leave.”

  “Gabriella,” he insisted, “I can’t wear this blanket! It will get centaur hair all over it! This material is wonderful! Do you realize how much this could sell for? Does it wear well? How hard is it to wash? What is it made of, please, please tell me! I go to the fair every year to trade, and I guarantee that I could get a small fortune for this! I must know what it’s made of!”

 

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