A Surprising Spring

Chapter Five

Nicholas growled up at the clear blue above him, glaring at the sun.

"There's no need to take your anger out on the weather, Nicholas," Zekiel remarked from where he sat on the air a little way away. "Your completely irrational anger, that is."

The Sprite span around on his tree stump, his brown curls falling over his eyes. "Really? Irrational?"

Zekiel nodded. "I really don't understand why you thought she was that bad."

Nicholas flopped backwards, his eyes darting across the sky, trying desperately to find a single cloud. There were none. "No wonder it's so cold," he muttered.

He decided to ignore Zekiel, slightly worried that the Messenger had a point. Sure, Katy had been really annoying, but maybe he'd just been in a bad mood - and after all, he tried to reason with himself, it could be a lot worse. She wasn't evil or a complete idiot or anything. Just a little bit silly, and surely she'd grow out of that. Maybe she just needed a steady relationship...

Groaning, the Sprite slapped his hands over his eyes.

"You can't just hide from it. It won't go away," Zekiel chortled from behind him, not bothering to get up. "Give her another chance and it will be fine."

"How can you be so sure?" Nicholas asked, his voice muffled by his arms.

Zekiel shrugged, although the other obviously couldn't see him. "She's your mate. You're meant to be together."

There was a minute's silence whilst Nicholas lay still. There were birds in the trees, and the sound of the water trickling by. If he tried, Zekiel could easily hear the other people in the forest, the cars on the road, the movement of air across a leaf... But he was focused on his Sprite.

"Do you suppose I'll love her?" Nicholas asked quietly.

For a moment Zekiel sat, shocked. The question had sounded so serious, so sincere, that it made him stop and think. "Yes. Yes, of course you will."

Nicholas hung his head backwards off of the end of the tree stump, meeting the Messenger's eyes. "Are you sure?"

Suddenly, without even him realising it was going to happen, something inside of Zekiel snapped. He jumped up, his cloak swirling gently behind him, as if caught up in a wind that wasn't there naturally. "Yes! You shall! She is your mate, Nicholas!" His voice was a little louder, and there was something in it, an echo or a strength or just something that the Sprite was sure he'd never heard before. 

Zekiel started to pace, walking three steps one way before spinning on his heel, his feet suspended two inches above the ground, and going back. "You wake up for your twentieth spring-" he paused and stared right at Nicholas, "-which is this one, by the way, and you meet your mate, and you fall in love, and you bring her into our world, and you spend your life together. That's the way it goes, Nicholas! You get true love, you get security, you get me looking after you every time you decide to act up like a mortal teenager, you get the High Table sorting out your whole existence and all you have to do is help out for a few years and follow the rules and stop questioning everything!"

His voice fell away, and there was silence. The birds weren't making any noise - even the river seemed to quieten. Nicholas simply stared at his Messenger, his mouth slightly open.

"I..."

Zekiel stood straight, his black eyes burning, his dark skin seeming to glow with power. "What, Nicholas?"

The Sprite's green eyes narrowed, and he snapped himself upward, twisting in seconds to face Zekiel. They stood, a few metres apart, like men ready to fight for the honour of a lady in an duel of the past.

"You think my life is brilliant?" he hissed. "'Cause I don't. You may call it protection, or guidance, or fucking security, but I call it a damned lack of free will! 'Love her!', you tell me, 'Go here!', 'Do this, do that!'"

Zekiel stayed where he was, his face a blank mask, as Nicholas leant forward with sparks flying from his fingers. They fell, bright, to the muddy ground and disappeared into nothing.

"I'm sick of it!" the Sprite continued, tipping his head back to yell at the sky. "I'M SICK OF IT! I wantto lead the life I want to! To love who I want to - or not to love at all! I definitely don't want to be at the beck and call of a ponce in a robe and some ancient creeps who do nothing but sit about all day and plot out my days with about as much consideration as I give to the ant I stood on this morning! Hell, probably more than that - they wouldn't even recognise my face if I were to appear in front of them. At least I remember the poor creature that ended up on the heel of my boot!" He gasped, his cheeks flushed, his eyes bright with emotion. "I'm sick of it, Zekiel. Fucking sick of it."

The Messenger still hadn't moved. The air crackled and sparked between them, the earth was warm under Nicholas's feet.

Slowly, Zekiel reached up and adjusted the brooch at his neck. "Are you quite finished?" he asked quietly, his voice emotionless and calm.

The Sprite scrunched his face up, a little confused. "I suppose so?"

"Good. Then this 'ponce in a robe' will be off. Goodbye." With those words, before Nicholas could move or say a word, Zekiel disappeared, the air breathing a sigh as he left, his smell wafting over to the Sprite, crisp and heady, before all traces of his ever being there disappeared completely.

Nicholas staggered backwards, collapsing onto the tree stump he'd been sitting on earlier. "Shit," he groaned, resting his elbows on his knees and running his hands through his hair.

His head was in turmoil. He'd met his mate, apparently, although he'd always thought that he would be able to tell somehow when he met her. He'd met her... and she annoyed the hell out of him. He was filled with bubbling anger at the force that controlled his life - the High Table - and the way he felt so mucked about by them.

"And I took it all out on Zekiel," he muttered. The relationship with his Messenger had never been amazing, but recently he thought they had been reaching a point they could call friendship. The only friendship Nicholas really had, he admitted to himself. There had been other Sprites to call friends when he used to do work every spring, although they'd be lost when he awoke from his winter sleep. But with Zekiel, there had been a chance to have something close. "And I screwed all that up," he told the caterpillar that was walking slowly across the leaves in front of him.

Somewhere far away, where white light shone and beautiful people strolled around each other, a Messenger in a dark green cloak and tunic looked sadly at the crumpled Sprite, words trembling at his lips, before he turned away.

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