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“Áine raised me in the forest, Fergus. The plants and animals were all I had while there.”
We both paused for a minute to take in what she was saying to me because it was almost a promise between us that she would never harm my world to gain her own kingdom. With how many human refugees that fled into our land, a handful thought they could become princes themselves in a world that was not theirs to claim. But I think she knew that from seeing war was always lurking on their doorstep because men had never learned to be happy living within their means. When coming here, they were forced to understand their place. While we felt bad about their stature, a lot of them had asked for it by demanding so much when coming through the portal.
Maybe with Briar being here to help stop Morrigan, she could be the anchor her kind needed to see that we could work together. And if it could work for her people, maybe it could work for mine. It was no question that our kind were not fond of humans. The princess before me wasn’t aware of all that transpired in her absence. Briar was beautiful in ways I hadn’t seen a human be before, and I knew it was inappropriate for the test ahead of us. But I also couldn’t stop looking because her beauty kept calling to me in ways none of my own kind had before.
Clearing my throat, I pointed to where a tree had recently fallen, revealing the ax on my hip. “That one,” I told her.
“Why that one?” she asked.
My hand gestured to all the other trees around us as they grew taller and taller, creating a bountiful canopy of life. “I am a fairy of the earth, so I do not like killing what fuels my magic.”
“But aren’t you still hurting it when you chop into it with your ax?”
My hand reached down to stroke the grain of the once teal tree. It was easy to feel that there was no life left. “When a tree falls, it offers itself in new ways. It’s core energy has dwindled completely, so it will not be mad at us for using it to maintain our own.”
Briar was not sure if she could believe me, but she knew better than to argue with me from not being on her planet anymore. She watched as I split a couple rounds from the base of the tree, axing the branches off as well. Now that the tree was broken down, it would help others find it for when they needed it next without the worry of having to chop it. The others never thought about strangers the way I did, but I didn’t hold it against them.
Feeling my muscles grow tense, I began chopping a large branch into smaller logs. Splitting them, I made sure that we would be able to get these to burn a little easier. Briar stood away from my swings to create a boundary of safety for her just in case I somehow lost control. Not that I ever had, but it was worth it for her to stand off to the side.
Watching her from the corner of my eye, she began stepping through the frosty meadow to look through the gap of some trees. At first, I didn’t think anything of it because I thought she was just exploring, but then I saw her reach for the dagger on her hip. Her legs began to drop as though she was trying to hide her position.
Setting my ax down, I silently moved through the thick of the bushes to see what animal she had come across. There was a strange beat in my heart that picked up its pace as though I feared for her life. In a way, I had hoped it was for what we had lost and fearing losing the one who could restore it. Though, I knew it went deeper than that because I genuinely worried over her naïve essence. Briar didn’t have the same upbringing we did or the amount of time to learn as much as we had. She hadn’t been able to experience living, and now she wouldn’t because she was our personal weapon. I didn’t like knowing we were stripping more of her youth away from her.
As men who had already been through it, we knew it wouldn’t be easy to watch as we took more innocence from her. I knew she was due for a breakdown any day because she hadn’t grieved the loss of her prince yet. She allowed her mind to empty, turning to survival mode in order to help us. While I appreciated that, I understood everyone needed to grieve the loss that they felt. No one could bury it for long.
Settling my front right behind her back, I glanced over her shoulder to see a doe in the brush. Quickly scanning the surrounding area, my eyes cut over to a different tree, neighboring the one she was eating at. Just as Briar moved forward to hunt, I caught her in a way to hold her back. She gave me a funny look that told me how angry she was about it, but I positioned my finger over my mouth to tell her to stay silent.
“You cannot kill her,” I whispered into her ear next to my mouth from bending down to her human level. Finally slowing her thrashing to escape my hold, she held still against me. Briar felt different than the other women I had held before, soft and warm in a way that told me she would be more fragile than my people from being so small. I wouldn’t let it fill my head with thoughts of lust because I knew Briar was here for the mission. Even if I liked sensation of her small body pressed against mine, I knew that was a fantasy that couldn’t be real.
“Why not?” she demanded in the cutest way. Without her being able to see my mouth, I smirked in secret.
Pointing to the tree closest to the doe, I revealed to her what was hidden. “She is a mother, a new one for the year. We do not take mothers away from their young.”
“I didn’t see the baby,” she softly spoke in a way that said she felt guilty for her previous thoughts.
“Do not let it beat you up. The doe knows that come next season, she is fair game again.”
In response, the mother deer lifted her gaze to look directly at us. She dipped her chin to me to acknowledge the temporary truce for her life. Doing the same in return, Briar watched our weird exchange because the animals in her world did not have this amount of intelligence.
“How is that possible?” Baffled, she moved to take a step back, pressing more into me. She hurried to right herself from entering my personal space more, but she began to trip over herself in the process. My hands quickly reached forward and held her to me in a way that turned her to be against my chest. Her round eyes were much like the doe we just spotted. Innocent and large, needing to learn more.
Without permission, my stare never left hers as my hand gently stroked down her back. There was this invisible tether I felt to this woman, but I knew I couldn’t allow myself to feel whatever it was. Though, even as I thought that, I let Briar shift her left leg to fall over my right thigh. The pull was strong, a force beyond what felt natural.
We were both stuck in whatever connection was trying to merge us, doomed due to what might happen from it. Slowly, we each created jerky movements toward the other’s face as though we both craved to feel the warmth of the other’s lips. Just as we were about to meet, feeling the heat of her breath against my mouth, the two deer took off in a mad sprint from the area.
That’s when I jerked my head back to see that night was falling faster than we planned. Letting go of her, I knew I had to create space to ensure her safety back to camp. Both of us didn’t talk to another as we pretended nothing happened.
“Right, we should probably take the wood back to camp now.” She rushed to move away from me as though my touch had somehow burned her, but I knew the scariness of her emotions because I felt it too. With my heart hammering in my ears, it was hard to get her sweet honey sent from my nose.
As we gathered the wood, I watched her in secret. She was a sight for sore eyes in ways I hadn’t been attracted to a person before. Being in the land where nymphs and dryads roamed, it didn’t make sense as to how this human bewitched me.
“The animals here are also tethered to our source of power from the core of our world,” I said out of nowhere to answer the question from the grove. It probably sounded strange for me to bring it up now, but she liked that I was giving her the answer.
“So like the tree, you don’t like to kill unless necessary?”
I knew she was asking if I hunted animals for food, so I listened before answering. “My people come first, but we do try to live off the land rather than kill. If our means suggest we need meat, then the animals here know they are fair game. There are many creatures here that no longer have the intelligence of our magic, so the warriors do have to kill them.”
“What do you mean by that?” she asked me from not knowing Morrigan’s magical repercussions.
