His Fairytale

Chapter 2 - The Stableman

Theo

Luminous thunderclouds stretch across the expanse of blue sky, devouring its beauty with thick, ravenous talons. Lightening flickers like a pulse within the blanket of gray, angry and unforgiving. Genevieve whinnies as she paces the small confines of her stall, far more in tune with nature's underbelly than I am. I run my hand across her velvety coat and muster up a soothing tone.

"It's ok, girl. Just a storm," I murmur.

Genevieve's ear twitches at the sound of hay crunching beneath heavy boots. Pippen tsks under his breath when he reaches us, leaning his slender frame against the stall door.

"Shouldn't feed the poor thing lies," he chastises with a sniff.

The fellow stableman crosses his arms across his chest, giving me a once-over before flicking his gaze back to the foreboding clouds. Dirt smudges his olive skin, and his dark hair is matted with clumps of God-only-knows-what. My sister and I used to tease Pippen that he was a forest boy, meant to live among the wild instead of humans.

We only meant it in fun, the way young children tend to do. He'd roll his eyes and laugh with us before firing back his own flavor of taunting – namely calling Sarah a Momma's girl and me stupid farm boy.

We never thought anything of it, not until one of the plagues hit our villages, taking Pippen's parents and my father right along with it. He was left orphaned. I was left as the head of my house. The guards came to collect him, but Pippen refused. He said he could keep up the land his family left behind. Normally, a refusal like that would result in death, but the gods of mercy laid their sweet words of protection on his soul that day.

The guards left him to fend for himself at the tender age of twelve. And I, at the youthful age of fourteen, was left to take on the role as head of my house. The teasing didn't seem so funny after that.

Now, seven years later, the jokes are nothing more than a memory. A hollow toast to a life we once knew.

"This is no ordinary storm, Theo," Pippen continues matter-of-factly, pulling me from the ghosts of our past. "That right there is a bad omen."

He furthers his point by wagging a slender index finger towards the sky. I follow the movement, entertaining his drivel and imagining the shadows of the wood waiting to devour us whole. The clouds swell as they descend closer to earth. The towers of the Palace seem to pierce its drab belly, and yet it refuses to spill its tears.

"Momma used to tell me that clouds like this were a warning. Trouble is a foot. Best to brace ourselves," he says, tapping his nose.

I clap Pippen on the back and decide to let him have the last word. No sense in arguing, especially when the other party refuses to see reason. He silently helps me clean out the stalls, brush down the horses, and replenish their food and water. Our pace is unhurried as we make our way home, and small tufts of dust plume around our feet. The heaviness of the humidity hangs against my shoulders like an itchy weight, and despite the relaxed day spent beneath the sun, I feel my shoulders tightening with tension.

It's only when we reach the fork in the road that Pippen pauses and mindlessly scratches at the back of his neck with his thumb.

"You think your Ma will mind if I join for supper?" he asks, careful to avoid my gaze.

After all these years, he should know better. He knows the way my family views him. In fact, there was even a stretch of time when Sarah and I tried to convince him to live with us. Ma echoed our pleas a time or two. Pride is a tricky thing, though, and it seems it's an emotion that only gets more complicated with age. I throw an arm over his shoulder and tug him to the left pathway, the one leading to my home.