The Believer

Chapter Seven: True Love's Kiss. Also, Bunnies

Wilky turned back to Thea, who was watching the captured spider carefully, her golden eyes filled with awe and disbelief. She'd given up on her sword, and slid it back into its sheath.

"Told you magic isn't useless," Wilky said, smirking. "I beat the spider!"

"I didn't say it was useless," Thea said, folding her arms over her chest. "Just that I didn't like it."

Wilky knelt by Casey, and began tugging at the spider web, which only stuck to her hands. It felt like stringy honey, but much firmer and not nearly as sweet.

"Oh, I hope he's alright," Wilky worried, as she began trying to pry the web off of him.

Thea drew her sword, and carefully began sawing away at the web with the blade. Wilky, wiping her gooey hands on her skirt, watched as Thea slowly but surely worked her way through the web, pulling it away from Casey's clothes and body as much as she could. After a long, tedious job of prying spider web off of Casey, most of his body was free of the sticky stuff. Some was still stuck in his hair and on his clothes, but at least he appeared to be alive.

"Hello? Casey?" Wilky waved a hand over his face, as Thea propped him up against a tree. "I don't think he's dead..."

Thea retrieved his wand from the ground where he'd dropped it, and tucked it in his hand. Nothing happened. Wilky gave her a weird look, and she shrugged.

"Wizards are weird. I don't know, maybe having their wand revives them or something."

Wilky thought for a moment. "This will sound silly," she said. "But what about true love's kiss?"

Thea's face immediately turned bright red, and she scowled at Wilky. "What? What do you mean like that? Or by that? Casey isn't... I mean, me and him aren't... we're not a thing, ok?"

"Oh, really?" Wilky asked.

"Really." Thea said. Her face now resembled a ripe tomato.

"So... true love's kiss could make it a thing?" Wilky wondered, completely sincere.

"No! Casey and I are hardly even friends. Not to mention the fact that he... he's... oh, it's complicated."

"Of course it is," Wilky said gently.

"Shut up!" Thea snapped. "Not complicated like that! Not complicated at all! No true love's kiss, no thing! It's not a thing! It's nothing!" Her voice crackled through the translator, the words travelling to Wilky's ears with a bit of a lag, as the magic struggled to make out Thea's rambling.

"Okay, okay," Wilky shook Casey's shoulder. "C'mon, Casey, we need to get going and Thea isn't willing to kiss you, so wake up!"

"Oh Gods, do I have to do everything myself?" Thea asked, before promptly slapping Casey across the face.

"Ahhhhh... ow...." Casey's head tilted to one side, and his eyelids fluttered. "That wasn't nice..."

His eyes opened, and he saw Thea and Wilky watching him.

"Oh."

His gaze shifted to the giant spider in the background, tangled in its own sticky trap.

"Oh."

Unsteadily, Casey climbed to his feet, gripping his wand with one hand and his shoulder with the other.

"Who gave the spider a hard time?"

Wilky grinned and raised a hand. "I used the rewind spell you used the other night to shoot the web back at it! And a strength spell you taught me to keep my staff from breaking! Are you proud of me?"