Fairest (An Unfortunate Fairy Tale 2)

“I’m fine, it’s looks worse than it feels,” He lied terribly.

“Oh, Jared, you could have been killed. We have to get out of here, more bears could come back, and we don’t want to be here.” She tore off a strip of her shirt and ran back to the water and started to clean the wound.

“We will be fine as long as we don’t make any sudden moves in the direction of that thicket.” He sat down on the ground and let Mina tend to the bite on his shoulder and the cut along his arm. He closed his eyes and nodded toward where the bear had both appeared and disappeared into.

“How can you be sure?” Mina asked hesitantly. It was too much like being attacked by the cannibalistic bears, but the Grimoire wouldn’t work in this real situation.

“It was our fault. We startled a mother and her cubs when we fell down the embankment. The cubs were hiding in the thicket the whole time. She was just being a good mom.” He hissed in pain when she pressed to hard against the wound.

Mina glanced over at the thicket and was barely able to see the retreating form of the mother black bear and two rambunctious cubs bumbling after her.

Jared rested for a few moments with his eyes closed before he took a closer look at his wounds. Slowly, he got up and began to look around the base of tree trunks. Mina asked what he was doing, and he explained that he was looking for Eros Moss, a plain looking tree moss that the Fae loved for numbing pain. It was easy to find since the moss grew everywhere. He got Mina to apply it and bandage his wound. Satisfied, he motioned for them to continue their journey.

Mina kept close to Jared, worried that he might collapse or fall down from fatigue. But the Eros Moss seemed to be doing its job, because Jared never slowed his pace, but picked it up. It actually looked like he was the one becoming impatient with her slowness.

“Do you like to climb trees?” He asked.

Mina looked at the huge pine tree they stopped next to apprehensively. “Not really, but I can try.” She began to scale the tree, but about fifteen feet up, her natural clumsiness got the best of her and she slipped and sliced her arm on a broken branch. Pain laced up her arm, and she cried out.

“Stay there, I’m coming up,” Jared yelled up at her.

“No, I got this!” She knew he wasn’t in any condition to climb a tree. Gritting her teeth, she slowly ascended to the top. She spent a few minutes looking around at the surrounding landscape. What she saw was discouraging. A few agonizing minutes later she was back on the ground next to a perplexed Jared.

“So what did you see?” he asked carefully.

“A whole lot of trees,” she grumbled under her breath.

“Ah,” he intoned casually. “Well, let’s go this way.” He pointed left.

“How do you know where to go?” She looked around and back up at the sky confused.

“Because I know we need to go east,” Jared answered.

“But it is overcast and cloudy and we can’t even see the sun? How do you know which way is east?” Mina waved her arms and pointed at the grey sky. The sky took that moment to start to rain down on them. “See!”

“Because the moss grows on the north side of trees, so as long as you head this way, you’ll get out.”

Mina stopped and stared at Jared in disbelief. “If you knew that already, why in the world did you have me climb the tree?”

Jared looked at her his eyes widening in innocence. “I didn’t ask you to climb the tree. I knew which way we were heading. I just asked you if you liked to climb trees in an attempt to start a conversation. You were the one who wanted to try and climb the stupid tree.”

“I did not,” Mina tried to argue but realized that she was the one at fault.

They trudged through the slight drizzle, and soon all of her clothes were once again soaked. Another hour in and she started to shiver and sneeze. If they didn’t get out of this soon they were going to catch pneumonia.

“How much longer?” she asked.

“Hey, how am I supposed to know?” He was becoming cross.

“Well, can’t you do any magic to make it go faster?” Mina whined. The pain in her arm was starting to sting and make her more irritated than she already was.

“What, do you think I’m some kind of genie in a bottle that can grant you three wishes?” Jared fumed angrily.

“Are you really that selfish that you can’t help us out? If you can get us out of here then you should,” Mina yelled back. “It’s your fault that we are lost in the woods to begin with, so don’t you think you should try and get us out?”

“I’m not your beck-and-call boy. You don’t tell me what to do!” Whatever she said really set Jared off because he turned his back on her, and the happy-go-lucky Jared from last night and this morning was gone, to be replaced by the surly one she used to know.