Stuck With You

Part 3

Chapter 3

Aidirian watched as she looked over her shoulder.  She did not move her body off him, nor did she apologize for knocking him into the ground.  He rolled his eyes at his thoughts.  She was an angel; of course, she would not apologize for such a thing.  Angels were arrogant creatures.

“Oh, it’s one of your creatures,” she mumbled while rolling to her back.  “You deal with it.”

He watched the large scorpion tail swing between the two of them.  She had a bored expression on her face, but he was frightened.  There was no way that he wanted this thing to sting him with its tail, or bite him with its bird like mouth.  “What is it?”

Her head snapped over to him.  “You mean you do not know?”

“Would I have asked,” he hissed as the stinger came closer to his face, “if I knew?”

“Guess not,” she mumbled.  “It’s a sandwalker.  It has the stinger of a scorpion, the mouth of a large bird, and the body of an overgrown crab.”

“I can see,” he snarled at her.  The damned woman wanted to describe the thing when she should be telling him how to kill it.

“It’s the size of a horse.”

“I can see,” he said the words slowly this time, hoping that she would get it in her mind that he understood what was in front of him.  “Now, how do we kill it?”

She sent him a smile that he saw out of the corner of his eye.  There was no way he was going to look away from the creature standing above him.  “It’s one of yours,” she said again.  “I don’t know how to kill it; I thought you would.”

“Well, I don’t,” he snapped.

“We could,” she paused.

“We could?”

She scooted closer to him until her side was pressed against his.  “Destroy the stinger first.  I do not know if the poison would affect us, but I would prefer not to know.”

“You have a weapon? Or did you plan to reach out and grab it?”

“I planned for you to reach out and grab it while I distract the creature.”

He shook his head at her while attempting to move his body from hers.  She may have been an angel, but she was still female, and he hadn’t been around a female in a long time.  “I’m not touching that damned thing and you can’t make me.”  She turned her head, and he could feel her nose brushing against his cheek.  All he would have to do is turn and-he cut his thoughts off.  That wasn’t going to happen.  He wasn’t even going to think about that happening.  “Once I grab it,” he mumbled, “what do I do then?”

“Simple,” she replied, “break it off.”

The scorpion tail swung in his face again.  Watching it as it arched up and swung back down, he took a deep breath before grabbing the thing.  What was supposed to happen?  He had no idea, but he was positive that the thing wasn’t supposed to stop altogether.  The creature wasn’t supposed to let him hold onto its stinger, nor was it supposed to make that odd sound.

“What is it doing?”

She jumped to her feet.  Running a hand up its tail, she began petting the thing.  “Aw, it’s just a baby.”

“If that is the baby, get me the hell out of here before the mother comes.”

“Don’t be such a girl,” she threw over her shoulder while walking towards the sandwalker’s mouth.  He watched the beak snap and wanted to pull her away from it, but he wouldn’t.  He was holding its tail; something that he thought would benefit them both in the long run. “Can I keep it?”

He froze.  “No.”

“Okay.”

He narrowed his eyes at her as she walked towards its back.  She patted it before walking towards him.  “It is going to help us find a safe way out of here, and then it will go back to its mother.  You can let go of its tail now.  It won’t hurt us.”

“Easy for you to say,” he mumbled.  “I don’t speak crazy creature with giant beak.”

The thing made another squawking sound that sent his nerves on edge. Celeste bent down and popped him on the side of the head.  “Say you’re sorry.”

“I am not saying sorry to something that wanted to kill us.  Shouldn’t it be saying sorry?”

“He already did.”

“Well, he can go to hell.”

Another squawking sound, but this time, it sounded hurt.  He looked at the thing; there was no way that it understood him.  It was a dangerous mythical being, not a puppy eager to please its master.  He was not going to let its tail go.  Celeste let out a sigh before plopping down to the ground next to him.  It was the first time that he realized her wings was not present.  “Where are they?”

“My wings? They retract.  It keeps me out of human eyes, makes things easier that way.”

“I look human,” he told her.  “There is nothing about me that gives me away.”

“You have the brightest blue eyes I have ever seen.”

He looked over at her brown ones.  Brown wasn’t a word to properly describe them.  They seemed to spark with light, but he wrote it off as an angel trick.  “Yours are nice too.”

She blinded him with a brilliant smile.  “See, that wasn’t so hard, was it?”

He looked at her in confusion as she jumped to her feet.  His grip went to tighten on the things tail when he realized that there was no tail to grip.  He had let it go.  He froze, waiting for the stinger to lodge itself into his heart, but nothing happened.  All he heard were cooing noises.

“Okay, Fred is ready to go.”

“Fred?  You named him Fred?”  he asked in disbelief as he attempted to scrape his dignity from the cave floor.

She sent him a glare.  “I like the name, thank you very much, and so does he.”

“Fred,” Aidirian said while stepping towards the sandwalker, “let’s make a deal.  You don’t come near me with that tail, and I won’t kill you once you show us the way.” It shrunk back from him, and a small amount of guilt went through him.

“Quit bullying it,” Celeste hissed.  “It’s just a baby.  It doesn’t even know how to use its tail yet.  See watch.” She grabbed the thing, keeping it from swinging.  As soon as she did, the thing froze.  It seemed to think that if its tail could not move, neither could it.

“That’s fascinating.”

She sent him another smile.  “I know,” she said, not noticing his sarcasm.

He let out a sigh.  This was going to be a long trip to an unknown place to help an unknown woman with something he knew nothing about.  A smile crossed his own features.  She was going to be amusing, that was for sure, but he still did not know how safe she would be.  Already, she told him that creatures were after her.  In his opinion, the one she was following was the most dangerous thing he had seen, but she tamed it as if it was a puppy.  What did her dangerous include?  And did he really want to know?

***Amazing photo of Fred on the side drawn by Dipper***