Adventurer Series 1: The Fairy

Chapter 6: Patched Wings

The entire week was filled with silence as Kurtis single-mindedly marched down the path. He walked along tirelessly for three whole days, never stopping to sleep or eat; although I blame myself for that since I had confused nightshade for wonder berries and accidently poisoned Kurtis. Although it was fortunate that he survived without any major sickness, he didn't talk to me this whole time and I can't blame him. He found out that I had no sense of direction, and that I had no knowledge of the creatures of this land; as demonstrated by the raid by the goblins a week ago.

I had kept my distance behind Kurtis the whole time. I felt that he didn't really want to talk to me, but I think he knew I was still following him. From behind, I couldn't notice that he was hunched forward slightly, or that his face was pale and tired. All I noticed was his long, bushy hair caked with dirt and dust. It wasn't until he started walking sideways that I started to get concerned. I would rush towards him at first, but then he would straighten himself with a quick re-step and keep going forward. If there's anything I know about humans, it's that they can't survive without food for very long; and let me remind you that Kurtis had not eaten or slept for three days.

Our seemingly endless march came to an end once we spotted the entrance gate to a village, the one I saw on the map. I sighed relief at the fact that I was right about where the village was, and at the fact that we could finally get some food and rest. I managed to sustain myself with berries, but it wasn't too filling in my stomach.

Kurtis didn't bother with niceties or discretion when he walked through the village entrance. The first thing he did was find the nearest inn and walk inside. It looked as though he put considerable effort in opening the door. He walked up to the innkeeper who eyed Kurtis with concern.

"Can I help you...sir?" The innkeeper asked with concern.

Kurtis was panting heavily as he placed a sack on the table. It made a clink as it landed on the table.

"Get me...a damn room..." Kurtis said with effort. He slurred the last half of his sentence with his exhaustion. The innkeeper quickly gave Kurtis a key and Kurtis trudged over to a table in the inn's dining area. He dropped his sack carelessly and sat in his chair with a loud exhale. I flew around to look at his face. His face was totally pale and the skin on his face was shriveled up as if it was trying to stick to his bones. He looked absolutely terrible for a human, one would think he was a revenant.

"Kurtis! You look terrible." I blurted out. It was probably obvious to him, but I didn't know he looked this bad.

Kurtis closed his eyes and let his head fall. He weakly lifted a finger at me. "Get...some damn...food..." he said with equal levels of tiredness and annoyance.

I quickly flew to the barkeep's counter and demanded a feast's worth of food. The kind of feast that would have occurred if a hero had returned successful from their campaign. The kind of feast that a royal kingdom would hold if their heir had chosen a suitor. When it was brought out, Kurtis ate at a steady pace. He didn't rush himself with the food like I did, and I found at why shortly after when my stomach decided to stem the flow my food.

"Don't eat so fast." Kurtis said tiredly. "Otherwise you're going to get sick."

I don't know how long we ate or how much, all I remember was, we ate.

After eating, Kurtis had dragged himself and his bag up the inn's stairs, to his room, and proceeded to fall asleep on the floor, while I managed to fly over to the bed and let myself get lost in the blanket's comparatively vast expanse.

I don't remember how long either of us slept, but it felt damn nice to wake up feeling refreshed. I woke up to find Kurtis sharpening a dagger. The question of where he got a dagger appeared in my mind, but I decided not to ask him. After meticulously sharpening the edge until it was sharp enough to cut at its touch, he started using it to cut away at his hair. The long strands of hair fell off in large clumps. When he finished, he looked like a different person entirely. Afterwards, he placed it into its sheath one of his straps. He then picked up his sack and walked out of the room door, ignoring me entirely. I had to rush out after him as he walked down the stairs with a renewed vigor, which was surprising considering he was about to drop dead yesterday, or however long ago it was since we got here.

"Kurtis, wait!" I called out.

With an inhuman reaction time, Kurtis spun around and looked back at me. "What?" He asked with some annoyance.

"Are you leaving already? Why don't you take some time to rest; recover your strength, and all that."

"Damn right, I'm leaving." Kurtis turned around and started walking away. Not wanting to be ignored, I flew in front of him and tried to stop him as nicely as I could. I tried hovering in front of his face, but he tried to swat me away like a fly. Then I tried to stop him by pulling his collar, which was probably a bad move since Kurtis was much bigger than me. The last resort I tried was flying into Kurtis' eye; which was a mistake. Even though Kurtis closed his eyes in time, the force of me flying into him was enough to make him reel in pain. After a brief curse, Kurtis unsheathed his set of blades and started slashing at me with them. I did my best to evade them by hiding in Kurtis' pack.

"Pixie, you little bastard!" Kurtis shouted. In the short time I had to reflect on my actions, hitting Kurtis in the eye was not the best move to make if I wanted to make things better with him.

Nevertheless, I had his attention, and now I needed to make myself known. With confidence, I flew in front of Kurtis' face and confronted him.

"Look, Kurtis. I'm sorry. I lied to you about everything. I'm not an official companion, yes, but I did do some good things for you."

"Like getting my food stolen and making me eat bad berries and flying into my eye?" Kurtis didn't try to hide his spite towards me. All I could do was reply with a drawn-out "yeah".

"Pixie, if you were honest with me from the start, I probably wouldn't have been so pissed at you. I probably wouldn't trust you so easily, but I wouldn't have turned you away, if that's what you were afraid of." Kurtis sighed as he sheathed all his blades.

"I just wanted to prove myself to you and I probably wanted to keep up this idea that I was a real companion despite not officially being one."

Kurtis rubbed his eye, "I suppose I should apologize too. It's not the best thing to try and kill someone who's trying to help you."

"So...now that that's over, could we resume your quest and forget about this whole thing?"

"Like hell I'm going to forget about last week."

Kurtis and I made amends with each other rather quickly. The rest of the day was spent packing for the rest of the journey, mainly packing some food. A lot of food.