The Protector and the Peacemaker

Chapter Five

Chapter Five

(Tick)

"Tick?"

Tick wearily opened his eyes to see Manchi kneeling above him.

"Yeah?" he asked, stifling a yawn. The moon was above them, bright and full, as their wagon trundled on through the forest.

"I can't sleep," she responded, looking at him with her big, brown eyes.

Groaning, Tick sat up. His back still tingled where it had been whipped, but at least the searing pain was gone. It hadn't bled in over a day, either, though he still had to move carefully or he'd crack the scabs. He stared at Manchi, waiting for her to explain. She wouldn't have woken him just because she couldn't sleep, he thought.

"Could you..." she began at last, but broke off, looking away in embarrassment.

"Could I what?" Tick encouraged her. In truth, he just wanted to go back to sleep. It had been a long day, and the turmoil he felt at seeing the fae family being pulled apart had left him exhausted.

Manchi looked at him shyly, her cheeks turning red. "Could you tell me a story?"

Tick was taken aback. "A story?" he echoed.

Manchi nodded. "I know it's stupid of me to ask. It's just that when I was little, my mom would always tell me stories when I got scared. She's not here, now, so..."

She looked away again. "I'm sorry. I'm just being a baby."

"No," Tick exclaimed, "it's fine! There's nothing wrong with that." He gently sat himself back down against the wall of the cart, wincing as the splintery wood prickled his wounds. "What do you want to hear about?"

Manchi thought for a moment, and then said. "Tell me about the hero you said is coming to save us."

Tick looked at her in surprise.

"If he's a hero," she reasoned, "then he must have a couple of stories you could tell me about him."

Slowly, Tick nodded. "Yeah, I guess I have a couple."

He bowed his head in thought, trying to think of what to tell her.

"I met him," he began, "when I had been caught by slave traders."

"Slave traders?" Manchi echoed, looking outside the cage.

"Yeah," Tick confirmed, "but not these ones. These are the ones he was probably going to sell me to, though. Anyway, he kept me in a cage for almost a week before he threw someone else in with me."

"The hero?" Manchi asked, excitedly.

"No," Tick shook his head. "It was a sphinx. The slave trader who caught me had caught her too. She was scared, but she told me her name was Sarah. I had a magic chain around my neck so I couldn't talk to her, but I was able to write my name for her."

His voice trailed off as memories of the man in the cowboy hat and his cattle prod came back to him, and he shuddered.

"The slave trader hurt us," he finally continued, "but Sarah was stronger than I was. She was really brave, too. Even though he was hurting her, she looked him right in the eye and yelled at him."

"She sounds like a hero," Manchi interjected.

Tick shrugged. "She is, I guess. But if it had just been the two of us, we'd never have managed to get out of there. That's when he showed up."

Tick paused for effect. "His name is Porter. He's not a grown up, but he's braver than any grown up I've ever met. When the slave trader was hurting us, Porter showed up just in time and beat him up. He got us out of the cage, and locked the slave trader inside it. We all escaped, and Porter carried Sarah all the way out of the town. After that, they let me travel with them."