Taking the Long Way: Part Three

The broken, creepy carnival music was slowly and deliberately driving him mad. It sounded like the last gasping breaths of a mangled music box, one that would nearly wind down into blessed silence…and then crank back up again for one last round. A heavy moon was hanging over the old deserted fairground, though the place was clearly not living up to its name. Popping at constant intervals said that someone wasn't getting their neopoints' worth at the cork gun gallery, and Wiltshire was making enough racket of his own at the Test Your Strength stand. Apparently, consistently being labeled 'Pathetic' was not something that caused harm to his ample self-esteem, because he kept handing over money for another pointless swing. The Mynci in charge was smirking for all he was worth at having located a willing victim.

     Alexien was seated at a rickety old picnic table, Celleny perched opposite him and taking quick, ravenous bites out of her mystery meat sandwich.

     "Do you want to know what's in that?" he asked her slyly, eyeing the sandwich as though he expected it to sprout legs and wander off the plate. Well, in this place, it just might, he considered silently. He had long since learned never to trust the food in the Haunted Woods.

     "No," she said emphatically, raising one hand for emphasis. "It won't bother me as long as I don't know."

     "So then are you going to tell me why you followed me to Sakhmet? And why you were skulking behind me the entire way back?"

     She nodded vigorously, swallowing a mouthful of sandwich. "I followed behind you because I wasn't even sure you were you," she said accusingly, gesturing at his current Kyrii form. "What in the world happened?"

     "I took a bad turn in that enormous temple in Sakhmet," Alexien answered wryly. "I walked in a Grarrl and stumbled out a Gold Kyrii. At least the sand wore off after a while; this appears to be permanent short of me tripping over a Transmogrification potion on the way home."

     "You'll have to fix it when you get back to Meridell. It's positively gaudy," Celleny complained, her nose wrinkling in distaste.

     Alexien leaned forward and eyed her sternly, hands folded on the table. "You said you needed help with something. What is it?"

     "It's the farm," she confided in a low voice. "The king has seized it."

     "Seized it?" Alexien repeated, drawing back and frowning at this news. "What for?"

     Celleny shifted uncomfortably on the bench, eyes averting to Wiltshire's celebratory yelp at having been awarded yet another gummy rat. Her attention turned back to Alexien then, and he recognized that odd look once more, a mixture of cheerful apology. "I didn't pay the marrow tax this year."

     "Well, that explains that."

     "But, you see---" she rushed past his attempt to close the subject, "it was a very, very wet season. I had to plant them late, and even as it was, some of them still rotted before----"

     Alexien fixed her with an odd look, then broke into her ramblings. "I can do a lot of things, Celleny, but controlling soil moisture is beyond both my abilities and my interest. My recommendation is to consult an almanac next time."

     "No, no," she replied quickly. "Bad seasons come and go, I understand that. My farm was seized not only because of tax money. It was still in a state of disrepair from the previous owners. I didn't have the chance to do much in the way of repairs, since the money from the marrow harvest was supposed to fund that, and---"

     "The marrows rotted," Alexien finished bluntly. "They must have felt there was little likelihood of you bouncing back next season and making up the overdue taxes with it looking so rundown."

     "Exactly," she said, face falling. "All of that work…it was just bad timing…."

     "And so what did you want me to do about it, Celleny?" Alexien questioned for what felt like the tenth time. Getting a straight answer out of her was becoming a mind-numbing chore, and he could tell she didn't want to ask, because she was starting to fidget again, fingers tapping restlessly against the scarred table.

     "I'd like you to intercede with the king before he sells my property," she said bluntly, surprising him, brown eyes blinking.

     "Skarl has a mouth, but no ears. He speaks, he doesn't listen," Alexien quietly argued back, but at the look of crestfallen disappointment, he heaved a long-suffering sigh and growled, "Something will have to be done about the farm first. Repairs will need to be made, weeds pulled, buildings painted. All of it. If you put in the effort now, it'll help your case."

     "There's no money to do that. I---" she began to argue, but he cut her off.

     "It won't be necessary," he informed her, a hint of an evil smile crossing his face. "You have an entire horde of overly-willing, anxious-to-please neighbors practically in your backyard. You have a large, algae-infested pond on your property, don't you? And who lives there, Celleny?"

     "Quiggles, mostly. A few Nimmos…."

     "None of whom would be thrilled about potentially losing their happy home, right?" he questioned, and then turned to bellow over his shoulder, "Wil! Come here!" Instantly the Quiggle dropped the enormous mallet he'd been wielding and practically hopped back to the table, painfully eager.

     "Watch this," Alexien shamelessly suggested to Celleny as he turned to his frog friend with a suddenly grave expression. "I'm afraid there is some bad news, Wil. Celleny's farm has been seized by the king due to disrepair."

     "Oh, my! How terrible! My condolences, miss," Wiltshire said, expression melting into near-comical despair.

     "And mine to you as well, Wil," Alexien added, voice somber. "The new owner will probably want to expand the fields, don't you think? That pond…you were born there, weren't you?...I'm sure it will have to be razed. It does take up a lot of room, a lot of potentially profitable space."

     There was a horrified gasp as the Quiggle caught on and settled himself heavily on the bench, as though some invisible rug had been pulled out from under him. A deep, mournful silence seized the table as Alexien waited for the gears in Wiltshire's head to turn and come up with the solution he was waiting for. And, as expected, within moments the wide Quiggle beam returned and he spread his hands as though the answer was laughably simple.

     "Why, if it is repairs that are needed, we Quiggles would be happy to help, Miss Celleny! You have been a kind hostess, and I think this would be a suitable repayment, indeed I do!" he declared, head bobbing in rapid succession.

     "That is genius, Wiltshire, well done," Alexien mock-congratulated him before turning back to Celleny with a sly look. She smiled faintly at the obvious manipulation.

     "But it'll be for nothing if the king doesn't agree to give me an extension," she reminded him.

     "I think that's the part I can settle," he cryptically replied as Wiltshire dumped his treasure trove of won strawberry gummy rats on the table, all of which slid together in a goopy pile of sightless pink rodents. Celleny and Alexien eyed them with marked distaste as Wiltshire gestured grandly at what he had hauled in from his dozen swings at Test Your Strength.

     "Dessert!" he crowed. "And I'm getting better! I moved up to 'Weakling' on that last swing!"

     "Great, Wil, you start without us," Alexien muttered, and then something popped back into memory, something shiny, something that had struck him as oddly familiar when he'd fought the gate guard for it, and now could recall just why that was. Without so much as an attempt at permission, Alexien leaned down and stuck a hand into Wiltshire's backpack, which lay flopped sideways on the muddy, grub-infested ground. Clawed fingers dug and groped until they twined around that broken chain and withdrew the amulet he had rescued the day before.

     Dangling it in front of Celleny, he watched as her mouth dropped open in surprise and said, "I thought this looked familiar. Now I know why." He set the pendant-like necklace on the table in front of her. "You must have dropped it when you were stalking me through Sakhmet."

     "It's broken!" she cried, hands reaching out to cradle this cherished possession.

     "It's found," he reminded her, pointing out the bright side. "If Wiltshire wasn't the type to hoard every shiny thing he finds, it'd probably be for sale at a stand somewhere. An ancient artifact, no doubt, priceless and rare and whatever other descriptive word deemed necessary to sell it for a ridiculously overpriced amount to some half-witted tourist."

     "I wonder how it was cracked," she murmured disconsolately, fingers trailing the sizeable fissure that segmented the golden toad in the center.

     Alexien's eyebrows rose at that, and he spoke in a slow, measured tone that suggested he was subtracting from his estimation of her intelligence. "Celleny, there was a battle there in Sakhmet, a large one, a loud one; one that included a cursed zombie army. Did you miss that somehow?"

     "You're not funny," she complained with a dramatic sigh, pocketing the necklace.

     "Not very smart, either, apparently," he ruefully admitted. "If I had recognized it sooner, I would have figured out you were nearby."

     She reserved comment on that and, instead, graced Wiltshire with a heartfelt smile. "Thank you for finding it, Wil!"

     The Quiggle beamed back at this bit of recognition, and bobbed his head in a quick nod as he assured her, "Oh, certainly, certainly!"

          ***

     Leaving the Haunted Woods was like stepping into a giant fluorescent light bulb. Darkness fled instantaneously, and they shielded their eyes against the sudden onslaught of light, having become accustomed to meandering through perpetual doom and gloom. Sunlight shone down overhead, weaker from winter's pull, but enough to warm them some, driving off the chill of that depthless forest.

     Celleny and Wiltshire had fallen into an easy stream of chatter as they walked, and Alexien kept several paces ahead, mind pleasantly empty of much thought. He had acquired the delightful ability to tune out his companions, and was quite content to no longer be the sole focus of Wiltshire's inane ramblings. Velvety green fields rolled outward in every direction, capped by a powder blue sky. Perfect scenery and weather for blissful mindlessness…but this soothing calm was shattered when a dark form fell suddenly into step with him. His head rose and glanced to his left of its own accord, lazily, as though he could barely be bothered, and he found a dark faerie smirking back at him.

     "What?" he asked rudely.

     "I'm waiting for a Red Meerca Plushie," she informed him without preamble, appearing impatient, as though he had already kept her lingering for far longer than proper manners dictated.

     He eyed her as if she were mad and spread his arms wide, encompassing the vast fields of natural nothingness. "And what do you propose I do about that out here?"

     "That's for you to worry about," she said with airy carelessness, but then her eyes widened and she brandished a finger in his direction, accusatory as she hissed. "Are you rejecting my quest?"

     "I should. I really should," he muttered, setting their pace as he strode through a mixture of shin-deep grass and wildflowers. "If I do find you that plushie, you'll only bless that one back there," he complained, head tilting in Wiltshire's direction. "It's really not worth my effort."

     Appearing sulky at this, the dark faerie's face dissolved into a scowl. "So then you are rejecting!"

     "No, I'll keep the quest," Alexien agreed, smiling wickedly. "You'll have to wait, though, won't you? There are plenty of small toy shops in Meridell. I'm sure one of them will have what you need. But just so you know…" The smile widened. "…I'm taking the long way home."

     "And so you wonder why the faeries always bless your companion instead?" she queried sarcastically before disappearing with an angry flourish.

     "Not really," he replied to thin air. "They always give me the same tiresome reason. Something about 'manners'…."

     To be continued…