Glancing over my shoulder to find Bels staring after his friend with a concerned look on his thin face, it looked as if the Elf had noticed the difference in Ded as well.
Should I be worried, I wondered. Or, could this work to my advantage..?
“So… what’s a Snowmaiden, why am I one? What’s with the eye changing thing?” My eyes were brown, plain ol’ regular brown, like my natural, slowly going grey, hair color—though I was sporting a vibrant blue dye job at the moment that made me think You’re a mermaid, Lumi, go sing the siren song of your people and drag a few men below the depths. Uhm, or something like that.
“You ask a lot of questions,” Bels muttered from behind me. “I think I liked you better when you were screaming.”
“I don’t.” Ded’s free hand went to that twitching Elk looking furry ear on the side of his head and he gently cupped it. “It makes my heart hurt.”
Brown doe eyes met mine and he smiled. “I like the brown, but the blue is pretty, too, like the lakes in the village. Clear, bright, with little glittery pieces shining like silver dust.”
Not quite knowing what to say to that, or if I really should, my parted lips slowly clamped shut and I blanked my expression.
With a sheepish smile, he dropped his hand and shrugged. “You’re going to help Shnikel. That’s what the maiden does.”
“Right… but what exactly, are you expecting me to do?” I wondered aloud.
Ded’s face screwed up as he looked my way once more, almost knocking an antler on the big tree with branches overburdened by candy canes growing right from it we passed under. Come spring time, this place was probably a melty, sticky wasteland. “I don’t…” he glanced to Bels for help over my shoulder, “rightly know…”
“Wait. So you’re saying you’ve drugged me-”
“Dusted,” Bels corrected—though, really, was there a damned difference?
“Tied me to a sex chair-” I went on, ticking these things off on my fingers.
A gasp left Ded. “That wasn’t a defecating stool?!” he squawked.
Bels snapped his fingers from behind me. “I was so close,” he opined.
“You all need to get out more,” I commented with a deadened tone. But went on anyway, because why the hell not? “Dragged me out into the middle of nowhere, straight on through to Candy Cane Lane on the other side in some alternate realm, reality, I don’t even know-”
“Hinterlands. More of another dimension, really, a different plane. It borders on yours,” Bels offered helpfully, thank you very much, jingle toes!
“On the off chance the first random stranger you meet, me, might be some Snowmaiden person descendant of your Hinter whatever, hoping I might maybe but you’re not entirely sure how, help your friend, Shniky-”
“Shnikel,” Ded said quickly.
“Whatever,” I clipped out, tossing my tied hands up, jerking on my ropes. “The point is, this is crazy, you both are crazy, and apparently I am, too, to be even discussing this and not losing my shit freaking out,” I finished on a huff. It was hard to breathe. Working up a steam in this cold was really taking it out of me.
Taking a deep breath while they watched, waited, for once, waiting for more because I obviously wasn’t finished yet, call me crazy too, but I muttered on a sigh, “What am I supposed to maybe, kind of, possibly do? You know, as a Snowmaiden person? Do you even have a hint of something, or are we just going into this butt blind?”
Ded and Bels exchanged a look. Ded pointed at the Elf. God, if this was all real and my gut was saying this was so, I was looking at a freaking Christmas-y alternative cursing, honest to god Santa’s helper and his furry, anthropomorphic sidekick. Did he pull the sleigh, I thought with a poorly muffled laugh.
“Bels would know more. It’s in the lore. The Team doesn’t have access to lore.” Ded shrugged apologetically, then, folding his hands in front of his person, camouflaging the semi hardy he’d been sporting for most of this trip, looked to Bels.
Clearing his throat, Bels lifted his chin and gave a sniff. “Well… it’s all very… magical, a bit complicated, if you must know, and I’m not entirely certain how it’s specifically going to work, just that a, erm, maiden is needed, and that you will deliver Shnikel from his… illness.”
“Look, guys, you have the wrong gal. I’m not a healer. I have no special capabilities unless making up stories is your kind of juju, okay? I-”
“I love stories!” Ded said quickly, that stubby tail over the top of his furry ass crack starting to waggle away. “Tell us one!”
“Ded, now is hardly the time,” Bels blustered, huffing and chuffing his annoyance.
Ded’s face fell but his stubby tail remained at half wag. “Later then, after she helps Shnikel? When she makes him well?” Ded looked to his friend for confirmation.
Bels stood there staring and blinking at his friend for so long, like he was waiting for him to catch something the Elkfen just wasn’t catching on to. I’d certainly caught the drift all was not as it seemed. The Elf knew more than he was willing to say in my presence, something he might have at one point told or hinted at the Elkfen to. An uneasy feeling twisted my guts but again, what the hell could I do but bide my time until the right moment, hopefully, struck?
Ded leaned around me, glancing between the Elf and me.
“Sure, Ded, whatever you want, buddy,” Bels said quickly, shaking his head to turn, taking lead with my rope leash firmly gripped in his hand, heading off in the same direction Ded had.
“Joy to the world,” Ded said excitedly. His antsy clops behind me had the hairs on my nape standing on end. “We’re almost there,” he whispered, a note of excitement in his voice that had my guts tumbling all over again.
“The caves aren’t too far from here!” Bels called over the wind starting to come howling in. We were entering a valley, a strange mishmash of Earth world landscape and this wilds of Other, Christmas-y kookiness.
“What is that?” I just had to go and ask. Sticky looking, sweet smelling clumps bursting from gingerbread looking leaves on a sticker filled blood red bush.
“That?” Ded plucked a sticky ball of brown with bits of hard looking pieces and green and red chunks inside it. Squishing the spongy, moist mass, he popped it into his mouth and happily began chewing. “Fruitcake bramble,” he mumbled around his mouthful. “Won sum?” he mumbled out around his bite.
“No,” I said in a rush, and shook my head.
“She might lose her stomach again,” Bels cautioned Ded. Motioning us to keep moving as the rocks and that mountain to our left grew larger and closer, he said with the first bit of real cheer I’d heard from the male since being forced into his company.
“We didn’t pick the first person we found,” Ded drew closer to whisper in my ear. Watching him through the corner of my eye, he licked his lips, his large-eyed gaze dipping from me, focusing too long on my nape peeking from my coat, to his friend. A chill crept up my spine. I wasn’t sure what would be a worse fate, meeting this Shnikel to try and help him, or having to deal with Ded’s weird eyeball fucking, fearing what he might impulsively decide to try with me, a moment longer.