Splendid Fall

Ch.8 Red and Gold

Chapter 8

Wake up, Birdie. Wake up.

Birdie pinched herself over and over in hopes her eyes would open and she would snap out of the nightmare she was in.

As the horse-drawn carriage rolled down the streets of the busy city packed with Feys, the skin of Birdie's wrists began to bruise from how hard she pinched herself.

Baba? Mom?

Birdie's heart ached with each beat. She shifted herself to the edge of the carriage as far away from Cliff as she possibly could get. The brass cuffs on her hands sizzled and burned as her skin rubbed against them.

"Have you ever seen anything like this?" Cliff asked the commander.

"No," the commander said, eyeing Birdie suspiciously. "Does it talk?"

"She does," Cliff nodded. "She was talking on the boat with the fisherman."

"What did she say?"

"She kept asking where she was," Cliff's eyes bounced from Birdie to the commander.

The commander, an old fey with graying black hair, nodded slowly. His eyes never left Birdie as he studied her under a very watchful lens.

"Sir..." Cliff looked at the old man once more. "Do you think she came from Deserati?"

"How would that be possible?" The commander scuffed. "Some one like her would have been found the moment she took her first breath on Pangaea."

"What is that?" Birdie suddenly found herself speaking up. "What's Pangaea?"

The commander's eyes widened just a bit. Not enough for Cliff to notice but definitely enough for Birdie to get a wind of. The two men looked at each other and then back at Birdie.

"Pangaea..." Cliff said. "It's where we are, ma'dam."

"You don't have to call her madam, Cliff," the commander said. "She's not a madam. She's a moor."

"Sorry, sir," Cliff apologized. "It's the way she looks."

"I know," the older fey nodded. "It's confusing the hell out of me."

"Where is Pangaea?" Birdie asked, her heart pounding and her insides telling her to shut up. "Where is it located on Earth?"

"On Earth?" the commander laughed. "Where in the world is that?"

The hearty laugh of the man made Birdie's insides shrink to the size of a pea and quiver.

"Earth...." Birdie's voice was barely a whisper.

"Is that where you are from?" Cliff asked. "Earth?"

Slowly, with her remaining strength, Birdie nodded her head.

"Is that beyond the Falls?" Cliff wondered. "Or is it beyond the Glass Lands?"

Birdie's throat tightened as the boy's strange questions made her eyes water. She felt a dark hollowness start to blossom inside of her as her sides began to ache from how tense her body was.

"She's pulling our legs," the commander narrowed his eyes. "These manipulating cunts."

"But they can't lie," Cliff looked at the old man. "She said she's from Earth."

"They can twist their words," the commander leaned forward and used his baton to lift back Birdie's hair. His eyes darkened as he saw her ears before he leaned back and let out an angry breath. "If they believe something to be true, they will be able to say it."