Let Me Be Your Wings Chapter 8

Since Very few of you actually read my comments I wanted to add this chapter is dedicated to my good friend YamiSorceress, as thanks for her wicked awesome illustration to this story! the Link is located in my comments section if you haven't see it yet. If you haven't I strongly suggest you too, it is breathtaking!


Chapter 8:  Spirits of the Forest

           Yugi bunched his knees to his chest and wrapped his arms around them before burying his face in his knees and let the tears fall freely, in rivers of sorrows. The huge green island that served as his prison floated surrounded by a sea of water. His prison surrounded by water. Being trapped was along to make more tears fall, unable to bear the thought of living in that awful swamp with the hideous swamp spirit and having his repulsive daughter for a wife.
          He felt a ripple under the lily pad and swore he heard sighs from the shore but he ignored them, unaware of the ones who had seen the swamp spirits an heard what they said and rushed to the pond to investigate.

         The waterlights, more commonly known as Water Sprites, swam beneath the lily pad. Swamp spirits didn’t belong in the pond and their presence alerted the water and earth sprites that something was wrong, and the flower faeries rapidly working to put the flowers to sleep for winter, stopped and froze when they heard the sorrowful tears. Their essence poured from nature itself as they returned to their true faerie forms, the true forms only those gifted with the sight could see.  The waterlights were first, blessed with the ability to transform their physical for, into the essence of water to travel from water source to source, but unlike the Swamp spirits who could only travel through the muck and slime, they could use the water in the air. The fishes of the pond had gossiped and told them all they needed to know, as the two waterlights returned to their true forms. The closet thing you could compare them too would be a mermaid, because of their glistening tails, but the transparent fin-like gossamers sprouting from their backs was enough to prove that assumption false. The two waterlights climbed from the water and clamped their pallor, webbed hands against the lily pad and heaved themselves upward, but paused when they heard the Swamp’s prisoner gasp in fright.  
           The faeries of the land were more subtle: the Earth faeries traveled through the earth and mud until the set themselves upon the leaning cattails over the boy’s lily pad, while the female Faeries danced from the flowers surrounding the pond to the waterlilies.
           Yugi reacted to their arrival with the force of a round-up spring, as the beings surrounded, pouring into the circle of his island like molten silver, bronze and columns of falling light. The water lights pulled themselves from the water, looking similar in appearance. One was smaller and pale, with long hair like falling snow. Did he have a tail? Or wings? Or was that water sliding over his lower-half in the graceful, elegant shape of flawless, smooth skin, like molten silver. Fin like gossamers, translucent and transparent glistened in the sunlight behind him, like sea-colored wings. His moonlight skin glittered in the light as the water crystals fell down his tender, lean torso. Thin webs like spider webs were between his graceful hands. His features were soft and a bright smile graced his face magnified but his bright, emerald eyes filled with kindness.
            His companion was exactly like him in form and structure, but he was taller, leaner, and more masculine and his silver hair was tipped with black giving it the color of metallic gray. His skin held a deeper tint to it, not tanned but not as pale as his companions. Water glistened on his muscular arms and torso. His strong tail glittered and sparkled like his companions but unlike the smaller water light’s crystalline silver scales, his were a rich, dark red, like a pale burgundy. An identical color adorned his translucent gossamers more broad than the gentle fin-like wings of the smaller. His features were sharper and more chiseled. His rich burgundy eyes glowed like blood stones beneath his gray bangs and bright skin.
            The other four fell from the shore. Two male and two female. The males were identical but different in every way except their colors, like the water lights. Their nut-brown, earthen skin mirrored the color of the dark earth. Their platinum hair, the palest of blonds like glittered pale golden white sunlight in a mass of spikes, splattered with specks of dirt and adorned with crowns of leaves. Both of their eyes were lavender, but the older of the two had darker eyes.  Their clothes were leaves and petals, and puffs of thistledown.  Both of them were purely wild things, nature’s children.
           He ignored the girls, even as he felt the water lily dip with their weight, he didn’t bother to look at them. At first the faeries were surprised by his reaction, neither faerie struck nor astounded but then remembered why they came when the boy returned to his tears returned.
The younger water light and earth sprite gently climbed upon the leaf and slowly made their way towards them. The elder Flower Faerie nudged her auburn-haired companion as well, seeing the boy needed comfort. The trio of faeries knelt down in front of their new friend.
           “Hey, hey,” the waterlight called in a soft, low voice rich with a British accent, and place and gentle hand on the boy’s shoulder forcing him to look up. His eyes traveled back and forth between the three faeries, until he settled on the water light in front of him. He relaxed at the boy’s bright, warm smile and the friendly green eyes. “Who are you?” Yugi asked.
           The waterlight smiled “I’m Ryou.”
          “It the runt alright?” the elder Waterlight demanded, in a voice, much deeper and harsher than the first.
          “I’m not a runt!” Yugi stormed to his feet insulted, causing the three to jump back. The elder waterlights eyes flew open not expecting the fragile boy to have such a bold attitude.
          “Wow there, kido” the elder waterlight, chuckled amused.
          “Don’t mind him.” Ryou laughed, “That’s just Bakura. He’s a stubborn jerk but he means well.
           “Hey!” Bakura growled at his mate. “I thought you loved me!”
           “I do” Ryou replied the perfect picture of innocence “But I don’t like your attitude.” Bakura’s jaw dropped, but the waterlight succeeded in making Yugi laugh, which was a much greater accomplishment.
          “Before ya ask, my name’s Malik.” The Earth sprite exclaimed. Yugi looked him over the boy stood the same height as Ryou, his platinum hair rested in a spiky mop atop his head, matted with a crown of leaves. His skin was nut brown, and thought less muscular than the earth sprite behind him he still had a strong, lean figure and build. His shirt and pants were tattered in ribbons and interlaced with leaves and wildflowers. Bracelets of holly and mistletoe encircled his wrists and his feet were bare except for the chain of oak leaves like natural anklets. “And that crazy guy back there is Marik.” He pointed over his shoulder gesturing to the mud-soaked earth sprite flopping off the cat tail and onto the lily pad, shaking himself free of the muck before turning to the small boy.
          “The one and only” Marik boasted proudly. He was taller than Malik but around the same height as Bakura, clearly older, broader and more muscular than his smaller companion. His nut brown skin, dark and rich like the earth and his dark eyes were a pale shade of lavender, bright against his skin. Unlike Malik’s somewhat tame mass, his hair was pure wild and untamed spiked and pointed outwards in various directions. The platinum locks were speckled with specks of dirt and matted with leaves. His tunic and pants shredded and interwoven with oak leaves and ferns, while his arms and legs were bare. Vine wreathed decorated with holly berries and mistletoe formed armbands and bracelets on his arms, and circles his ankles leaving his feet bare, while a chain of thorns shaped like shark’s teeth encircled his neck.
          “Who are you too?” he turned to the two flower faeries and the only females in his council of visitors. The younger girl rose to her feet, with a wide smile. Her cream skin glittered in the light, and her long auburn hair fell around her freely in random locks and angles, matted with wild flowers and wreathed with a daisy chain. A short, shredded green dress, interlaced with wildflowers adorned her slender, graceful figure. Her legs were bare, but her ankles were adorned with bell anklets. Ribbons of daisies and forget-me-nots weaved up her arms to the shoulders of her sleeveless dress. “My name’s Serenity,” she smiled warmly, and opened her eyes to reveal the brilliant olive green gems with flecks of brown. He couldn’t see if wings or sunlight trailed behind her or but the shimmering gossamers shaped like the wings of a butterfly, not one spotted color but speckled all over in various colors and shades glittering like different color flowers.
           Seeing she was last, the final flower Faerie removed herself from her Water lily hiding place. She was truly a lovely faerie, with short fluffy chestnut hair, that fell to her shoulders and smooth angles, laces with highlights of green and purple. A sleeveless dress of green covered her slim figure, exposing her mini-drift and leaving much of her nut tan skin exposed. Her feet and legs were bare but she wore a chain of different wild flowers around her neck and wrists.  A wreathe of wild flowers centered with a pink rose encircled her head. Her eyes were a bright sky blue, warm and friendly. “I’m Tea.” She smiled with a bright charm making the smaller blush.
            They were beautiful and magnificent in a fierce wild way, but their eyes were too bright, too wild, even more than Yami’s spirited crimson jewels.
          “Now tell us your name?” the girls asked gleefully. Yugi blushed as six sets of eyes suddenly fell on him.
           “I’m…Yugi.” He blushed brightly.
           “That’s a lovely name.” Serenity smiled.
           “A pretty name for a pretty boy.” Tea added.
           “Now then,” Ryou returned the conversation to the matter at hand “Why were you so upset before?”
           “I’m sorry.” Yugi frowned.
           “Don’t apologize; just tell us what’cha was crying about?” Marik chuckled like an idiot earning him a snack of the head from Malik.
           “Be nice!” the younger Earth sprite ordered.
           “I’m lost.” Yugi, frowned and hugged his shoulders. Tears would’ve fallen but he had no more tears to shed. “I was taken from my home and I miss my grandpa, and my cat, and…my Yami.”
           “Yami!” All six faeries jumped at the name. “The Faerie Prince?”
             Yugi nodded, blushing “Yes, I love him.”
           “Ha! So you’re the one he won’t shut up about!” Bakura hollered in victory.
            Yugi blinked in surprise. Marik and Bakura both smirked.  “Yami’s a good friend of ours. We thought he’d never find a lover.”
            “Yeah, we actually had a bet on how long it would take him to find the perfect mate.” Marik chuckled.
            “You’re really the Faerie King’s love?” Tea looked surprised and shocked.
           “Oh he’ll be so happy to know you’re safe.” Serenity clapped her hands together with glee.
           “I’ll say. He’s been worried sick since word got out that you’d been kidnapped.” Malik explained.
          “How did you all know that?” Yugi demanded suspiciously. “I was taken last night?”
         “Faerie word, Yugi” Ryou explained. “Faeries communicate through all the voices of nature, and she is never silent. Nothing in this forest goes on that the Faeries don’t know about and we spread the word of disaster as fast as possible.”
          “Especially if it concerns the prince,” Tea added with a far off longing in her voice. “The faerie prince is the most beloved creature in the realm. We’ve all fallen for him at some point or another, but he’s reserved his heart for only one.”
          “I’ll say” Bakura laughed like a maniac. “We all thought he’d end up alone and bitter, if that’s even possible.”
         “So imagine our surprise when he comes home every night looking like he just got back from cloud nine, and then two days ago, literally storms into the throne room and tells his mum he’s in love, and that he’s found his soul-mate. I couldn’t believe the queen didn’t fall out of her seat!” Marik cracked up.
          “Really? Yami said all that about me?” Yugi asked surprised.
          “Of course.” Malik added.
           "A pure-hearted boy with a golden voice and a golden heart and a soul as beautiful as his appearance” Serenity quoted poetically.
          “That’s Yami!” Yugi felt his heart leap with joy. Every night when the two of them would just lie around in his bed, or on a flower, he’s poetically comment everything he could find to comment about Yugi, from his innocent angelic appearance to his bold, passionate spirit. Yugi gently moved his hands to the necklace Yami gave him that night. His fingers subconsciously wrapping around the sun and moon pendants, and immediately felt warmth surge through him. “I miss him so much.”
           “Wait a minute, than what are you doing here?” Tea asked bewildered.
            Yugi shivered in apprehension. “It’s that old swamp spirit! He kidnapped me so I could marry his repulsive daughter, but…I can’t!” Yugi covered his eyes. He didn’t cry or tear up again instead, he felt angel boil in his veins and a shaking depression at his decided fate against his own wishes. “She’s vain and hides her appearance because her true self is as monstrous as she is! She doesn’t give a damn or knows a thing about me and only wants my body and my appearance and I can’t stand her! I told her flat out I hate her but she doesn’t care, to her all that matter is that she loves me, but I know for a fact she doesn’t! I can’t stay with her! I refuse to!”
            Everyone’s eyes widened in pure shock and horror.
           “Great Scotts!” Ryou covered his mouth
          “That’s Blastfamy!” Bakura retorted in a disgusted voice.
          “Vivian!” Malik and Marik both looked like they would vomit.
          “I can’t stand that bitch!” Tea clenched her fists; her face red with rage.
          “No it must never be!” Serenity declared and flapped her wings and tugged in the end of Yugi’s lily pad. “Help me!” Tea flew next to her and pulled on the lily pad. Yugi jerked and fell on his bottom as the pad moved but it stopped suddenly.
          “Why isn’t it moving?” Yugi crawled to the edge, look into the murky water.
           “It’s the stem!” Bakura declared, “Come on Ry, we gotta slice that thing.” The two waterlights dove beneath the water, their water vision caught the stem of the lily pad with ease and attacked the stalk mercilessly with their claws. The harsh tugging of the flower faeries and the earth spirits a Yugi paddling through the water (since he couldn’t swim in water so deep) aided in freeing the lily pad from its green chain.

         Vivian sang in a sickeningly sweet voice as her and her father decorated the hollow in the muck that would serve as her and Yugi’s home. That little bed of his made the bridal chamber alive, but then again the yellow flowers she added where a big help as well. She wanted everything perfect and her father gladly agreed to whatever she wished. But she didn’t care much for the wedding or ceremony. No she was completely focused on what would take place after the wedding when the little one was bound to her.
           Unable to resist she snuck another glance back at her fiancé across the marsh and at the pond where the boy was being kept until their wedding.
           Vivian dropped the vase she was holding and screamed! The elder swamp spirit jumped and turned around in time to see what had causes his daughter so much distress! The prisoner was on the edge of the leaf, helping four faeries, pulling the edge of the leaf towards shore. Fury ripped through him, as he followed the furious Vivian as the two stomped through the muck and stormed towards the pond intent on capturing the boy who dared to defy him and dragging each and everyone of those disgusting swarm of insects into the muck until they drowned!

       Yugi and everyone jumped when they heard a horrible shriek burn their ears like a crackling screech of broken glass. Yugi whirled around. A terrified scream was torn from the boy’s throat causing the faeries to look up. Four identical screams brought the two waterlights to the surface just in time for them to see two furious swamp spirits charging towards them with the power and anger of a pair of raging bulls.
       “Keep going! We’ll hold them off, come on Marik!” Bakura ordered. Like clockwork, Ryou dove back under the water and clawed at the stem of the pad with fervor. Bakura and Marik dove into the water after him, because unlike Swamp spirits Earth sprites could travel through plants as well. The two spirits charged towards the two spirits, almost invisible as their physical forms melted away into the purest forms of their essence, for Faeries were truly one with nature.
           The swamp spirits didn’t see them coming until Bakura burst through the surface of the water like crashing through a window in his physical form and delivered a ferocious blow right to Vivian’s face sending her flying, backward. Bakura’s smirk couldn’t get any wider. Before the elder swamp spirit could retaliate Marik was all over him. The two faeries fought the dark spirits with force and stamina, never giving them time to recover. The two spirits fought sloppily, due to their anger and fury, but neither spirit cared. All they needed was to buy enough time to get Yugi to shore.
           Ryou claws at the stubborn fibers of the stem, as the girls and Malik pulled, but the fibers refused to break. Growing frustrated the white haired faerie dove at the stem with his sharp teeth and claws, attacking it like a savage shark until the fibers snapped. He took the last fiber in his mouth, biting and pulling like a mad man, but the stubborn fiber refused to break, He ground his teeth against the thick strand and extended his claws slicing the fibers and pulled with all his strength.
          SNAP!
          The Waterlight flew backwards in a spiral, and did a back-flip in the water and swam after the lily bad as it floated down stream. He clenched the end of the pad and pushed it. “Hurry up!” he ordered the other faeries as they dragged the lily pad towards shore as fast as they could.
          “Yo! Hurry up!” Malik shouted. Marik and Bakura looked up and with a duel punch and a round about kick to both spirits, the two dove into the water and web of plants and moved with a swiftness that rivaled the wind until their hands clamped the of the lily pad next to Ryou and pushed the pad to shore.
         “Hurry up! They’re coming!” Yugi called, and fell forward, flat on his stomach when the lily pad hit the shore.
       “Come on!” the girls took one of his hand in their own and carried him through the forest. Malik and Marik followed after them, even Bakura and Ryou despite their tails, flexed their wings and took to the sky.
       What happened after that was too beautiful for Yugi to describe in terms he could understand.  Even as the swamp spirits reached shore and took to their muck forms they were restricted to being by a source of mud or muck. He remembered and knew all about the Faeries from his grandpa and even more than he could imagine from Yami. But even never pictured such an experience to be so beautiful.
         The key difference between Faeries of the forest and their dark counter parts such as swamp spirits was their ability to “become one” with nature, but not in a whimsical sense, but a true unborn sense as the essences of all things within the natural world as a part of themselves. They blended and camouflaged so beautifully with the trees, the flowers, the water and everything around them, moving and spiraling at such a pace as if they moved at sonic speed in flashes sometimes they were there sometimes they weren’t. They were translucent and transparent too, for Yugi felt weightless and could see through them revealing the counters of the landscape. Yugi himself felt weightless and part of their talent. Melting into the flowers, the water and the leaves and plants and the earth itself, but mostly flowers since Serenity and Tea were the ones holding him. All of the moved as if one with nature, not longer physical but hazy as if misty ghosts, moving in a breathtaking swiftness, wings, limbs, and tresses blended together, no longer faeries or living creatures, but true forced of nature, invisible to earth, making the wings dance, the trees whisper, the flowers dance and the water and earth rattle and the grasses and plants turn. No longer physical but pure essence, vanishing into the forest itself.
         The swamp spirits found themselves trapped in bewildering confusion as colors, limbs, wings and shapes and bodies blended together with the trees, flowers, grasses, rocks, and earth around him. No longer could they see their stolen captive, or the ones who’d taken him. Everything spun around them, unable to tell up from down or side from side. In blindness and fury they attacked anything they could find. Vivian could hear them laughing at her taunting her. Her eyes burned like hot coals with anger and hatred as she balled her fist with rage and punched the closest thing laughing at her…
          …and felt her knuckles bruise and bloody as she glared at the rock fragments that littered her feet. She looked around her and found herself back in the forest. Her father staring concerned at her. The Faeries were gone and so was her fiancé. Shaking in rage the vicious woman growled loudly, and snarled all the way into a crackling shriek somewhere between a bird screech and a human scream. She turned on her heels and stormed away screeching, as her father followed her, vowing to find her fiancé and make him her “slave of love” even if she had to drag him back to the swamp kicking and screaming.
          She didn’t notice the six Faeries and Yugi peeking over the sides of the multiple petals of the wild Irish Rose they used as shelter. They waited on edge until they watched the two spirits fade away, and collapsed in sighs of relief.
          “That was too close.” Bakura took a breath.
          “You okay kid?” Marik asked Yugi, who was still in the girl’s arms (much to his embarrassment).
          “Yes,” he squeaked prying himself loose from their arms. “A little shaken, but I’m okay. What was that? That that you guys did.”
           “It’s what we are” Ryou explained. “I’m not exactly sure how else to describe it, but its what separates the faeries from whatever people call things like those awful swamp spirits, and the shifters that live here as well.”
           “I assume, Yami never had any reason to who it to you, but don’t worry, you get used to it after a while.” Malik laughed.
          “Thank you, all of you so much, for helping me.” Yugi smiled brightly. “I don’t know what I would’ve done if you hadn’t helped me.”
          “Hey no problem Yugi,” Malik wrapped an arm around his shoulders.
          “I wouldn’t wish Vivian on my worst enemy.” Tea added, offering a hand. “Now some on, Yami’s still searching for you.”
         “Thanks Tea, but I need to get home first. Grandpa must be having a heart attack by now.” Yugi shivered, feeling his heart sink at the thought of his distraught grandpa.
         “Yami can’t too far right?” Marik turned to Bakura, in a separate conversation. “Even with Sparks?”
         “He shouldn’t and Seto’s with him also, we may be able to track him.” Bakura pondered, than turned to Yugi. “Where does your Grandpa live, Yugi?”
        "We live in a cottage on the edge of the forest.” He explained pointing in the assumed direction.
           “Yami will probably look there first.” Marik suggest. Bakura nodded and clapped his hands forming a plan. “Alright, here’s what we’re doing. Ryou, you and Mal, and come with us and track down Yami and Seto and let him know Yugi is safe and on his way home, and the girls make sure Yugi gets home alright.”
          Everyone nodded until a cold autumn wind chilled with winter’s bite swept through them, and Yugi’s arms immediately wrapped around his bare shoulders, a light white and purple summer tunic he usually slept in was the only thing shielding him from the coldness.
         “We’d better hurry. Winter’s coming and the Queen’s magic will freeze after the Winter Solstice.” Malik explained.
          “Them move it!” Bakura ordered as he and Marik vanished among the forest. The remaining five climbed down from the rose, and helped Yugi to the ground and began the long journey towards the edge of the forest. The late autumn and early winter winds made it impossible for the faeries to move from flower to flower, but they were perfectly fine with walking, since Yugi loved the forest and loved talking to his new friends. Still when homesickness and lovesickness became too much to bare he gently clutched the pendant Yami gave him, and despite the warmth that spread through him, he couldn’t help but feel a shiver of apprehension run through him as he pondered. Would he ever see his home, his family, or the man he loved again?