The Fairy Whisperers

The climb

By noon, we were drawing nearer to the mountain range. The forest was beginning to thin out and give way to rockier ground. Clouds were gathering in the sky and it eventually became completely overcast. That saved us from having the sun beat down on our backs, but climbing rocks in the rain would be no easy feat. I said as much to Alice and we agreed to pick up the pace.

We got to the foot of the mountain. I had been looking for any sign of a cave the whole way there, but there was none to be found, at least from the angle at which we had approached. And now standing right in front of the mountain, all I could see was solid rock towering over our heads and reaching to the heavens.

I felt the scepticim creep back into my thoughts. It was one thing to take a lovely forest walk to find what was obviously a mythical object, it was a whole other to scale a mountain face for it. And judging by Alice's physique, I doubted that she had much experience with hiking. But she wasn't fazed by the daunting climb and began the ascent without hesitation. I let her confidence reassure me and followed behind.

As the path got steeper, I began to feel my stomach become very unsettled. I was hit by a wave of nausea and before long I was uncontrollably vomiting into a nearby bush. Alice was alarmed, but rubbing my back was all she could do to help. I heaved until there was nothing left to in my stomach to throw up.

I sat down, drained and feeling a shiver all down my spine. This was literally my worst nightmare. Forget the unpleasantness of being sick on the side of a mountain miles away from home, this would not bode well for my training and potential placement on missions. Being sick was being weak. And if I was sick, there was a good chance our whole troupe had caught the same bug.

"I think you might be having a reaction to the White Claw I gave you earlier," Alice said.

"The what?"

"The flowers we ate. They're called White Claw. They're supposed to help people who are in pain, but they can also cause hallucinations and nausea. I think I can find something that can help if you are feeling really bad."

I was relieved to know I wasn't sick, but this just reaffirmed the fact that plants were not a suitable food source. Alice must have built up a tolerance or something, that would explain why she wasn't suffering the same side effects. I stood up to see if I could keep going and as soon as I did I was hit with another wave of nausea. I sat back down.

"What have you got?"

"Well... it's another plant. I saw some on the way here, down there." she pointed down at the base of the mountain. "And don't worry, you don't have to eat it, just sniff it every once in a while and it should help settle your stomach."

I  wondered if she had been cataloguing plants in her head along the whole way and how reliable she really was. After all, she was just a trainee researcher. But I agreed. I needed help, and this time there would be no plants going inside my body.

I sat there and watched her trot down the incline we had just climbed, getting smaller and smaller until she was no bigger than my thumb. I closed my eyes and tilted my head back and that helped to keep the nausea at bay. I stayed like that until I could hear the crunch of her footsteps on the gravel again.

She handed me a handful of leaves to hold to my nose and I inhaled deeply. A strong scent burned in my nostrils, warm and peppery. The urge to vomit lessened slightly. I stood up and sniffed a bit harder when I felt like I might throw up and was able to get my gag reflex under control again.

I could tell that Alice had felt guilty for making me sick and seemed relieved to see me doing better. She was panting lightly from her little jog up and down the path. Maybe it was how good I felt to be myself again, maybe I was grateful and maybe I just wanted to show off how strong I was now that she had put her smarts on full display, but I offered to carry her the rest of the way.

"You can hold this up to my nose for me and I can run. We'll make up for a bit of lost time and get there before it rains." 

She looked at me obstinately and I thought she might refuse, too proud to admit that she invited me along to take care of her again. But then she stared up at the mountain face for a very long time and I heard let out a long sigh.

"Ok," she said.

I grinned and snatched her up in my arms with ease. I had underestimated her weight though. She weighed about as much as three sacks of meat from a big kill. But I would be taking it much easier than I did when we ran back home in the troupe. I would have to I wanted to make it all the way up the mountain and back home again with no water.