Michele Hauf - Gossamyr

“Training.”

“Oh? Did I miss something in my schooling? Attack and conquer abecedarian?”

She delivered him a sneer to match—nay, defy—his mockery. “Just answer me this: are we close to a village? I tire, and have worked up a hunger.”

“One would never guess from the brilliant sparkle you put out.”

His constant reminder she glimmered troubled. A touch to her throat discovered the highest agraffe was open. The carved bone clasp had broken, most likely during the fight.

“A village? Indeed, Aparjon lies just ahead. But tell me, why do you not simply fly there? Ah!” He made show of bending and peering around to study her shoulders. Gossamyr twisted her back away from his view. “No wings!”

“We have already discussed this.”

“Indeed. Not a faery.” Now his jesting tone returned and that brilliant smile flashed like a beam of sunlight. “But plenty faeries do not have wings.”

“How know you such?”

“Every child learns the facts before they are out of infant skirts.” He made a merry skip and danced around Gossamyr. “Faeries come in all manner of shape, size and wing. Some walk amongst the mortals undiscovered, some flitter up to a man’s ear to stand inside it. But one thing they all have in common is a glimmer—” he drew his palm between them in a curtain of fluttering fingers “—that sheen of the unnatural.”

The blazon.

“Though, I must say, you do appear a trifle…faded.”

“What mean you by that?”

Ulrich pointed to the hem of Gossamyr’s pourpoint. “Your clothing. The leaves look as though they are fading. More so than when we first met.”

Gossamyr touched a curve of supple hornbeam at her waist. Indeed, the leaf had lost some of its glossy resilience. The arachnagoss threading was strong, but no more so than the outer layers it stitched together. She smoothed a hand over her braies. They felt secure; amphi-leather was virtually indestructible, even a fire-forged blade must draw a precise line to cut through.

A bend of her arm tugged a crack in the leaves at her shoulder.

“I must make haste,” she said and picked up her pace along the dirt path.

“And so I shall hurry alongside you, Faery Not.”

They walked onward, Ulrich leading Fancy as he ventured first. His strides were light, jumping to kick a stone in the path, as free as the air made Gossamyr feel. When he finally spoke, though, he sounded suspicious. “You are quite skilled in defense and attack.”

She smirked. “And you are adept at getting in the way.”

“Why, thank you, fair lady. It is a skill. Pity ’twas my last quarrel. Though, rest assured, I can hold steel to the enemy should the need arise. That is…if I had steel.” He patted his hips and scanned the ground. “I seem to have misplaced my dagger a few leagues back.”

“Would that be when you won the prize dripping down your forehead?”

“Do you think it will leave a mark?” He touched the wound.

Ever changing, the man’s moods. From suspicion, to anger, to a teasing charm. Despite the danger his learning of her origins could pose, Gossamyr found it difficult to dislike the man. For he tread the earth as if he had wings. To have him accompany her even a short distance could prove a boon. She would study him, prepare for future contact with mortals. They weren’t so different from the fée. Even his deep voice she had grown accustomed to.

“So, Gossamyr who isn’t from Faery, I did notice you were particularly surprised at your success over the beast.”

Gossamyr tripped ahead, enjoying the warm air skim her bared flesh. Right, was the only feeling she could summon. She spun in a dancer’s twirl and rejoined Ulrich’s side. “It is the first time I have engaged in hand-to-hand combat.”

“Ah. Well then, good show, Faery Not.”

“Don’t name me that—achoo!” Halted in her tracks, Gossamyr grasped her head.

“Touché!” Turning to walk backward Ulrich smiled at her. The gap in his teeth distorted his mirth. “So you like to dance?”

Skipping, Gossamyr shrugged and offered an unexpected “I think so!”

“You take marvel at your own wonder.”

“It is just, the air…I feel light.”

“Pray tell what the air is like whence you hail?”

“Not like here,” she called out and jumped to the grass to skip through the cool blades.

Flight had ever alluded her, no matter how often she had attempted it. Which had been often in the rose garden behind the castle buttery. Mince had once witnessed her fruitless attempts and had laughingly joined in. The matron’s small wings, attached to a generously rounded body, had served little more than to lift her shoulders. She could not leave the ground, either. It had bonded them in laughter, and a smirking confession from Gossamyr, which revealed her jealousy of the winged ones.

“You are the daughter of Lord de Wintershinn,” Mince had stated simply. “You needn’t envy; you are envied.”

Mayhap. But Gossamyr had not missed a single averted gaze or cruel stare in her lifetime. Envy hurt. And the only way to overcome was to prove herself. She needn’t the Wintershinn name to stand proud; to defeat the Red Lady would prove her worth and perhaps put to rest the suspicious whispers.

She spun now, and leaped into the path immediately before Ulrich. He had no wings, and yet, he took to the air in his strides. And that made him all the more appealing.

“The dirt from the fight,” Ulrich commented as he angled forward to study her. “It covers your face.”

Gossamyr wiggled her nose. Another sneeze tormented.

“It is bone,” he said of her dirty covering. “It hides your glimmer.”

“Bone?”

“That means good.”

“Then why not say good?”

“For the same reason you say mortal. We have our own slangs, do we not?” A click of his tongue beckoned Fancy onward.

Gossamyr paralleled him but a leap to his left. He suspected; she knew that he did.

“I wager you are safe from wonder so long as you do not favor bathing. Though your clothing—”

“Will be changed anon. I need only locate a seamstress. Mayhap something bright, like yours.” She glanced over Ulrich’s attire. The cloak swung merrily with his strides, intermittently revealing the tight striped hose he wore.

“I’m afraid a change of costume won’t be so easy in Aparjon,” he said. “’Tis a very small village, as most villages are. It is not fortified, which will prove bone. Our entry will not be questioned. If I recall from my travels there is a stable behind the one lone tavern that rents out to riders. Plead to Luck to find a horse for purchase, especially a swift one. As well, it may be difficult to get a room for the night.” He turned and scanned back down the road.

“Dead as a doornail,” Gossamyr reassured. And who decided when a doornail was dead? “What lends you to believe I wish to stay the night in the next village?”

“You said you were tired?”

“Yes, but a rest and some hearty fare will serve. I am off to Paris.”

“Indeed?”

Ulrich handed Gossamyr Fancy’s reins and skipped ahead, turning to walk widdershins in front of her. His cloak billowed as he gestured and filled the air with the rumbling tones Gossamyr found she favored more and more.

“I cannot resist questioning when there is so much of interest about you, fair lady. Whence do you hail? And, skill aside, what finds a lone woman trekking to Paris with so little fear of danger?”

“I am in search of a…woman. She goes by the moniker of the Red Lady.”

She picked up her pace in hopes of the man stumbling, but he tread backward with ease. His arms pumping, his robe splayed open with each stride, to reveal long legs and ankle-high suede boots with pointed toes.