Chronicles of Eden - Act VI (22 page)

“You haven’t seen what they’re capable of yet,” Clover retorted as she picked up a clump of flowers and weeds, examining them carefully before tossing them aside carelessly. “We’re just lucky she didn’t blow us all up with that display earlier.”

“She appeared to be in control of herself,” Kroanette reasoned with a shrug. “She attacked that Darker One all on her own and never let any of her magic come near us.”

Clover yanked up another handful of flowers and eyed them over before tossing them away with a grunt. As she continued searching the forest floor Kroanette turned her eyes to the elf with a curious glance.

“Why haven’t you tried to kill her yet?” Her words earned a harsh scowl from the elf but no reply. “You distrust her so much, hate fairies so much, so why haven’t you tried to kill her? Not once have you fired your arrows at her. You didn’t even try to kill her when she slept last night. How come?”

“Would Dan still give me a ride back to my home if I did?” Clover dryly asked.

“No, I suspect he would try to avenge Pip with his dashing sword of light.”

“There you go,” Clover flatly replied before looking around at the ground again.

“So you’re afraid of Daniel killing you if you harm Pip?”

“He’s my ride back home. If he wants that damn fairy around then what can I do about it?”

“Is that also the reason you’re out here right now looking for medicine for Triska?” Kroanette asked with a curious smirk. “Not because you wish her to be better but only because it would keep Daniel happy and ensure you a ride home?”

“Bull’s-eye,” Clover said with a roll her eyes.

“So Triska’s life itself means nothing to you?” Kroanette questioned, with Clover glaring at her with a low growl. “I don’t believe that. You rode out here and brought Triska back to us, risked your life to save her from a Darker One, and you yourself mentioned and even volunteered to search here for something to help her with her illness.”

“Stop talking already,” Clover ordered with clenched fists.

“You saved my life, you saved Pip’s life, you saved Triska’s life, I must say for someone who acts like she doesn’t care about others at all you are awfully protective of those around you.”

“I said shut up!” Clover shouted before promptly taking aim with an arrow and firing it. The bolt struck into a tree just past Kroanette, the centaur freezing in place with a squeak as she felt the hair on the left side of her head blowing back from the arrow having passed right by her.

“I saved your fat ass so you could give me a ride to Rackleholm,” Clover snapped with anger. “I saved that little bug’s life so I wouldn’t be in her debt after she got me the fuck out of that place. I brought Triska back to you and even offered to get these stupid herbs for her so you all would shut the fuck up about saying I’m a horrible monster and take me home already!”

Kroanette remained silent for a while as Clover muttered something to herself and searched around the area again, taking her time to calm her breath and swiftly beating heart before showing a look of concern.

“I’m sorry,” she remorsefully said. Clover merely glanced to her with a dull expression as the centaur turned her eyes down and away. “I’m sorry that what happened to you has left you so cold and angry. You are a good person, underneath your foul exterior. I can see it, though I know you don’t want anyone to. I’m sorry you’re in so much pain still.”

“Why won’t you just shut up already?” Clover groaned before continuing her search. She made her way deeper into the woods, brushing aside shrubs and fallen branches while quietly grumbling to herself. Kroanette slowly followed after, watching as the elf knocked aside foliage and examined all the blooming flowers she could find.

“What does it look like?” Kroanette finally asked. “I could help find it.”

“I said be quiet,” Clover snapped while keeping her eyes down at the ground.

Kroanette showed a trouble frown and glanced around at the shrubbery they passed by, feeling as though the icy wall between herself and the elf was standing strong as ever.

‘I know she cares to some extent, but she just refuses to let her anger go. She couldn’t have always been like this, she had to have smiled more before losing her friend.’

“What was she like?” Kroanette spoke up, electing a frustrated growl from the elf before her. “Zoey, I mean.”

Clover stopped moving and remained silent, facing away from Kroanette who watched her with a small saddened smile.

“Losing her created a deep wound in your heart, I can tell. She must have meant the world to you. What was she like? What did she look like?”

Clover slowly glanced back to her with a narrowed eye, causing Kroanette to fear if she had angered the elf even further by mentioning her fallen friend.

“She
was
my world,” Clover sternly replied. “She was the only one that understood me, that cared about me. Losing her did more than wound my heart; it tore my heart right out. That elf was everything to me.”

She started walking away with a grunt, seeming to have become more irritated with speaking about her friend again, and sharply glanced around at the ground as she continued looking for the herbs with growing frustration and ire. Kroanette watched as Clover struggled to keep in her emotions, to hide her tears, to show that she was more angry at life than anything else.

“Is this how she would want you to be now?” Kroanette called after her. Clover stopped again while the centaur took a step towards her. “Is this how you were when she was with you? Did you treat the world, everyone you met, like they were trash? Did you used to say the world could ‘fuck off’ back then as well?”

Clover growled as she slowly turned to face the centaur with gritted teeth. Kroanette forced a stern expression and walked closer towards her despite the murderous aura the elf was exuding.

“If she could see you now what would she say?” Kroanette questioned. “Is this the Clover she liked and understood? Is this really how you’ve always been? Or would she be sad that the girl she cared about died in her grove that day, and that this is what became of her.”

“Shut up!” Clover yelled as she grabbed another arrow and took aim at the centaur.

“You’ve been the most foulmouthed, crass, irritable, spiteful person I have ever met. I don’t see how Zoey could have liked someone like you. She had to have seen a different Clover than the one I am right now.”

“I said shut up!”

“You don’t like anyone, you don’t want to like anyone, you’d rather just walk Eden alone, miserable and angry at the world for taking someone away from you. That’s all you want, isn’t it?”

“I never asked for it to be like this! I had everything I wanted back in my home! I was the best archer in our grove, I was respected by all my sisters, and I had the best friend anyone could have asked for! I had everything, until that fucking fairy came and took it all away from me!” With a shaky breath the elf’s hand started to tremble, her expression of sheer rage showing a pained look behind her eyes as they began to shimmer from watering up. “I had it all… I had the best life I could have had… I was so happy…”

Kroanette stood before the elf while falling silent as she watched with surprise at seeing tears dropping down Clover’s cheeks. Although the elf continued to glare at the centaur with bared teeth it was apparent it wasn’t only anger she was feeling.

“I had everything until that fucking Darker One took it all away from me. Now I have nothing. Now I have nowhere to go in life. Now I have nobody!”

“I’m sorry you lost so much, I am,” Kroanette gently replied holding her hands up. “But you do have a home again. You can still go wherever you want with your life. And if you would only drop the attitude and show the world the Clover you used to be, the one Zoey was so fond of, you wouldn’t be alone.”

“I don’t need your damned sympathy,” Clover snapped.

“Well you have it,” Kroanette spoke setting her hands at her hips. “I do feel sorry for you, Clover. You fell hard in life, and are struggling to get back up again. You’ve become so jaded and cross with the world that you don’t see.”

“I don’t see what?”

“You’re not alone,” Kroanette answered, with Clover showing puzzlement and slowly lowering her bow and arrow. “At least you don’t have to be. We could be your friends, if you would let us. Or if you prefer you can be alone. If that’s really what you want, then you can have it.”

Clover snarled and turned to walk away, shoving her arrow back into her quiver and holstering her bow around her shoulder before grunting with frustration as she shook her head. After a few steps she stopped and closed her eyes, hands shaking at her sides as she tried to steady her breathing and calm down.

“You don’t have to be alone, Clover,” Kroanette assured her. The elf slowly glanced back to see the centaur smiling kindly at her. “You don’t have to face the world alone. We could be there for you, if only you would let us.”

Clover remained silent while eyeing her before looking down with a quiet grumble. She then noticed something off to the side, with Kroanette looking over as well to seeing a few flowers hiding in the shade of a tree. Their soft pink petals and long stamens with blue balls of pollen on them stood out from the grass and tall weeds nearby, with a few rays of sunlight making their way down onto the flowers from the branches above. Clover quickly ran over and examined the flowers before grabbing the bunch and yanking them up.

“Are those it?” Kroanette asked walking over to her.

“Iscas herbs,” Clover answered with a nod.

“Will those really help Triska?”

“They won’t cure whatever is plaguing her, but they’ll ease her pain at least.”

Kroanette quickly knelt down for Clover to hop on her back, the centaur then taking off through the woods back towards the campsite. As she ran through the forest and weaved around the trees Kroanette glanced back to see Clover keeping her eyes on the herbs with a distant gaze while she wiped her tears away.

‘Please, Clover. Let your anger go. There’s a kindhearted girl inside of you, and she wants to come out again.’

*****

Inside the caravan Daniel and Specca were seated together at the table, both going through book after book in search of any clues as to what was happening to Triska. The piles of volumes and tombs on the table grew as Specca repeatedly rushed over to the bookshelf to take more out for them to read.

“We’re not finding anything, Daniel,” Specca fretted. “What are we going to do?”

“Stay calm and focused, Specca,” he encouraged as he searched through a few more pages. “If there’s even a hint as to what’s causing Triska to be sick in these we have to find it.”

“She fell ill after that succubus was trying to convert her. I feel as though that’s the reason, but there’s no information about such an occurrence. Nobody has ever had a succubus attempt to convert them but then had the process stopped midway through. What if whatever that demon did to her is still happening to her? The magic that was used on her, it could be doing this.”

“That’s not enough for me to go on,” Alyssa called out from the other side of the room. She stood next to her crates of supplies and elixirs while stirring a large bowl of red liquid using a wooden spoon, her eyes anxiously going from where Triska was still bedridden to Specca and Daniel again.

“I think we can all assume that bitch did this to Triska, but the question is what exactly did she do? If this is because of some kind of magic I need to know
what
kind of magic is being done to her before I could even think of making a proper antidote. I can’t even use magic myself to cure her unless I know what kind of spell is over her. Isn’t there anything else in all those books?”

“We’re looking, but there’s not much else in here about Darker Ones,” Specca said while quickly opening another book at the table. “Only a few extra pages here and there of what we haven’t already added to our guidebook, that’s all we’ve found, and they didn’t shed any light on this whatsoever.”

“She’s getting too hot again,” Luna called out shaking her head, she and her sister still fanning Triska with their wings while the human was breathing sharply with a flushed face.

“Squeak, get another wet towel, hurry,” Falla urged. Squeak quickly took the warm towel off of Triska’s forehead and tossed it onto a small growing pile on the floor before she hastily ran over to the side of the room to prepare another.

“This isn’t working,” Falla said looking to Daniel with urgency. “We can’t keep her cool for long before she starts burning up again.”

Sitting up on the rafter above the girls Pip was watching Triska with a worried eye, hands fidgeting in her lap as she saw Triska struggling with her condition and appearing to get worse.

“Alyssa, is that potion almost ready?” Luna quickly asked the witch.

“I suppose so,” Alyssa worriedly said as she looked down to it. “It’s the best I could do so quickly, I just hope it helps her. I should have made better potions yesterday when I got this stuff, I should have already prepared for this. Dammit, why didn’t I-”

“Stop,” Daniel called out to her. “None of us were expecting this to happen, don’t blame yourself.”

“Whatever you can make for her would be helpful, we’re just glad you have the ingredients to make anything at all,” Specca assured her.

Alyssa sighed and nodded then watched Triska with growing concern. Squeak finished wetting a new towel and rushed over to the girl on the bed, resting the cool cloth on her forehead with a few worried squeaks.

“Can you help her?” Pip asked as she flew down and landed on Alyssa’s shoulder. “Can you help her with that?”

“I hope so,” Alyssa answered softly before hopping onto the bed and moving closer to Triska. The butterfly sisters tried using their hands to help fan more air onto the overheating teen while Squeak frantically squeaked at Alyssa while pointing down to Triska.

“I know, Squeak,” Alyssa said as Daniel and Specca quickly headed over to the bed, everyone gathering around while the witch clanked her spoon on the edge of the bowl. “Hopefully this will help. Lift her up so I can give it to her.”