Page 13 of Where Broken Wings Fly

I was twirling around the room like a child, dancing from the plush bed to the small woven couch, pausing at the bay-window to look out at the woodland beyond, and starting all over again.

“I have so many questions!” I squealed as Killian watched me with a smile on his face.

“And I might have some answers,” he chuckled as he approached. Once he was a few feet from me, I stopped my spinning and chaotic movements, sensing the seriousness in his face.

I wasn’t sure why I trusted Killian, I just did. It was likely my unconscious mind identifying him as my dream-guide, or something. Whatever it was, it was the only reason I didn’t flinch as he took a small step closer to me.

“Let’s have dinner together tonight,” he said, his voice breathier than normal as his eyes scanned every inch of my face.

Gulping before he could notice how much my hands were shaking, I nodded. “I’d like that.”

He reached up and tucked a stray piece of my hair behind my ear, his focus snatched by the absurdity of their shape for a moment before he finally found my eyes again. “You can ask me all of the questions you desire then. For now, I have to go back. Please, stay here.”

“In this room?”

He narrowed his eyes as he fought a grin. “In this room. I won’t be there to protect you if you wander off.”

Protect me? How violent could pixies possibly be?

Just a dream.

“Alright.”

“Alright?”

I matched his smile. “Yes. I’ll wait here for you.”

His eyes roved over my face a second and third time before he took a large step back, bowed at his waist, and left the room.

~

It only took ten minutes for boredom to kick me up off of the strange, grass-packed couch. Boredom mixed with the slow creep of dread back into my mind as I was left alone with only my thoughts. It seemed like the more I moved, the less I seeped into that deep pit of tar. So I started pacing.

Back and forth. Back and forth. Until a small door tucked into the shadows of my room caught my attention and brought my panicked stroll right to it. I pushed at the wooden slab until a second, tiny room was revealed. And in it, clothes.

Similar to what the pixies wore, hanging along stretched branches and laying out an assortment of shirts and pants.

With that revelation, I had an idea…

Once I was changed into the dark green attire that began at my neck and ended at my feet, I got to work on my hair. I slipped into an adjoining room that was supposed to be a bathroom of sorts, yet there was no running water and I highly questioned the plumbing system that they had going on. Luckily for me, I wasn’t in there for those services but to locate a mirror.

Instead of a pane of glass like what I had hanging over my sink back at home, the pixies had a strange bowl that was hung on the wall, filled with water that should have trickled out of it due to gravity but was somehow confined to the boundaries of the sideways container. The fluid within rippled over and over, a continuous motion that I had no choice but to assume was how it stayed upright. While my reflection in it wasn’t perfect, it was good enough to provide me insight as to how my efforts on my hair were faring.

I had stormed across the bedroom on a mission, picking up a variety of natural debris from tiny twigs to torn pieces of leaves, and took them all to the bathroom. There, I spent a lengthy amount of time scrunching and twisting my hair until it looked far too similar to a bird's nest. Once I had that wild texture figured out, I got to work on inputting the various pieces into my hair.

At last, I stepped towards the floating pool of liquid and admired myself. I looked like I had just survived a month on a mountain-survival show. Which was to say I looked like a woodland pixie.

I hadn’t taken the time to assess how the pixies moved, so assuming that they walked the same way that I did, I slipped out of the guest chambers and clung to the outside of the door as I cast a gaze left and right down the hallway. No one was lingering.

Puffing out my chest as I basked in my success, I got to work slowly moving down the length of the hallway as I tried to remember where the staircase was. Once I found it — at the help of a group of fireflies that were floating behind me no matter how many times I swatted at them — I began the steep descent down the spiralled shape until I was on the main floor once more.

Having completely forgotten where the throne room even was, I was thankful when a loud roar of voices echoed across the too-quiet castle, drawing my attention — and feet — in their direction. One foot in front of the other, my eyes constantly swinging from the path ahead of me to the path behind me, occasionally pausing on the fireflies and uttering curses to them, I found myself around the corner to the throne room. I knew it was the right place when I tried to take the corner only to see four guards standing at arms in front of it, spears pointed to the ceiling as each of them took turns yawning.

But I was close enough. I could hear most of what was being said.

“ – It’s outrageous!”

“ – Completely unacceptable –”