Chain Mail and Butterfly Wings

Forgetting both my anger and my valiant attempt at shunning Aiden, I rushed to Aiden’s side and helped him stand, gazing around frantically as I did so. “Aiden! Are you--?” I didn’t finish my question when I threw both me and Aiden to the ground again, narrowly missing an arrow that seemed to shoot out of nowhere.

“Shit!” I shouted, pulling myself up from the snow and quickly helping Aiden up again with a quiet apology.

“Ow,” was all Aiden said when I looked him carefully in the face to gauge the amount of pain he was in.

I growled in annoyance, that wasn’t any help! I pulled Aiden’s arm around my shoulders and urged him forward with me. “Damn it Aiden, you better start moving faster than this!” I cried when another arrow whizzed past me, this time grazing my left leg, and then two more that missed me altogether.

“Sorry,” Aiden replied, a frown creasing his brow as he quickened his step, while mine slowed to his pace. “Will you forgive me, Angel?” he asked with a huff of breath leaving him.

“What? For walking slow? Sure, sure, now shut up so we can escape,” I ordered harshly, what kind of stupid question was that? I didn’t get mad at everything he did.

“No, I didn’t mean everything I said, you aren’t frustrating all the time. I mean, sometimes, maybe, but I had no right to be mad at you for being mad at me…I just get frustrat--”

I cut him off mid-sentence, “Remember what I said earlier? About you talking too much?” I didn’t wait for his answer. “Well this is one of those times, just shut up and focus on running will you? Please?” I added the last part out of guilt.

“Right. Sorry,” Aiden murmured, but somehow I knew he was smiling, why that was I wasn’t sure, but I also didn’t have time to find out.

I stumbled through the snow and up the rocky climate with Aiden leaning against me and somehow managed to make it up a steep incline where boulders lined a small pathway. The mountain pass? Had we really somehow managed to find it? I followed the path quickly, although arrows hadn’t been shot at us for over a minute, I was still moving as fast as possible.

As I moved I asked Aiden in a rush of breath, “Who the hell is shooting at us?”

“Bandits,” Aiden managed to choke out before he had to take another deep gulp of air.

“Fu--” Aiden made a loud noise to cover my swear and I glared at him as I continued to make it to the crown of the hill.

I took in a sharp intake of air as the snow caused me to slip, sending both of us hurtling toward the snow-covered ground. I scrambled frantically to my feet, apologizing to Aiden yet again as I helped him up and urged him toward the top of the hill. Once we reached the top I felt my heart twinge in desperation. At the bottom of the hill were the rest of the bandits from a few days before, the bandit leader standing smugly in front of them all, grinning evilly up at Aiden and I.

“Mother f--” I stopped and stole a glance at Aiden who was looking at me with raised brows, apparently he had something against that particular word. I kept that in mind and changed my swear into something less vulgar. “Feather duster?” I offered with a shrug and Aiden smirked, then his face became blank suddenly, throwing me off momentarily, but I followed suit, staring down at the bandit leader.

“Hello again,” The bandit leader called and quickly added, “I have a proposition for you Miss.”

I cocked an eyebrow in his direction. What kind of proposition? I stole another glance at Aiden who was watching the bandit leader intensely.

“Send the assassin down, an’ we won’t hurt you. You can even leave.” The bandit leader threw his hands up to indicate that he didn’t care what I did, as long as he got Aiden.

I frowned, if all they wanted was Aiden, but they didn’t care what happened to me. Then that meant they weren’t reporting back to General Darren…or General Darren really didn’t care what happened to me…Ow. I’m not going to think about that second possibility again anytime soon.

“Tempting,” I called back and Aiden glanced at me from the corner of his eye, unnerved by my words.

“Do we have a deal?” The bandit leader called up, unable to keep the smile from his voice as he expected me to comply.

I glanced once around me, contemplating how to make my escape with the bandits blocking one end of the pass while more came in from behind. I swallowed hard and carefully pulled Aiden’s arm from around my shoulders. Aiden gasped, unaccustomed to his own weight and I felt my jaw clench as I kept myself from helping him when he fell to the ground.

Aiden landed with a grunt and turned quickly to look at me, more than a little hurt showing in his eyes. I knew it wasn’t because of his wound, but more so because of what I was about to do. There was only one way for me to get away from the bandits alive.

“Angel…?” Aiden asked softly, searching my face for an answer, but he didn’t find the answer he was looking for. Not the one he had hoped for.

I swallowed past a lump in my throat and whispered, “I’m sorry, Aiden.” I took two quick steps backwards, but couldn’t pull my eyes away from Aiden’s, the betrayal in them made me want to gouge out my own eyes, to punish myself in some way.

I finally peeled my gaze away and called down to the bandit leader, “I’m not bringing him there, you gotta get him yourself.” I turned quickly and walked as fast as possible to the right of the mountain pass. I could feel Aiden’s eyes on my back and it felt like I was walking with a weight tied to my waist. Only when I disappeared behind a large boulder did I stop, and let out the breath I was holding in. I didn’t deserve to breathe, the expression on Aiden’s face reminded me of this. But it was for the best. It was the only way I could escape.

My eyes trailed along the ground until there was a bump in the snow, I dropped to my knees and dug vigorously into the snow, finding a thick tree branch as I had hoped and jerked it free. Next, I gripped it tightly in both of my hands and jammed it harshly into a niche where the boulder met the ground. I bit my bottom lip to prepare myself, adjusted my hands and then pushed down on my makeshift lever with any force I had left in me. It didn’t budge at first, it only groaned in protest, but I knew the foundations of the boulder weren’t strong, they wouldn’t hold, I noticed that as we had first come up the damn hill.

I pushed down on my lever again and cursed when it groaned again. God damn it, I didn’t have enough time. I practically jumped off of the ground the third time around, putting all of my weight into the tree branch, which might have been why it snapped in half. I swore under my breath, hearing the crunching of boots through snow.

Shit, they were close.

I kicked the rest of the branch free and rammed my shoulder against the boulder with all of my strength, praying to any god that would listen that the boulder would pull free.

I felt a rush of relief run through me as the boulder finally lurched forward and began to roll down the hill, first at a painfully slow pace, which made my heart twinge with worry. But it began to pick up momentum just as I heard someone shout in surprise. I watched anxiously as my view became clear and the boulder rolled parallel to the path, until it bumped against another boulder about the same size, sending it directly into the mountain pass where it crushed one bandit with a bloodcurdling scream, the others had begun to run down the hill at that point. The fools, to think they could outrun a giant boulder which only continued to gain momentum as it chased them.

I tore my gaze away from them and dashed back to where I had left Aiden. He was staring in shock at the giant boulder as it continued it’s journey down the hill.

Only when I grabbed his shoulder and jerked him upwards did his eyes snap to me, cold at first, then hurt again, and then relieved all in a total of fifteen seconds. “Come on!” I shouted over the boulder’s loud thundering.

Aiden obeyed instantly and rose to his feet with my help. I slung his arm around my shoulders again and took a step before Aiden was ready, which resulted in both Aiden and I stumbling forward just a few steps before we both managed to tumble down the hill, only stopping once we reached the bottom and the slope ended.

I panted, and tried to ignore the pain in my newly bruised body and the cut on my leg, and pulled myself to my feet. Aiden wasn’t far off, maybe a few feet away from me, already sitting up and struggling to get to his feet--although the blood loss was probably making the task more difficult. I rushed over to him and helped him up again, slinging his arm around my shoulders yet again, this time I waited for him to be ready before taking a step. I glanced up ahead of us as we walked at a painfully slow pace, the exit was clear for the time being, but the bandits had long since dodged the boulder, diving behind other large boulders that lined the mountain pass for cover.

The point was: We didn’t have much time.

What worried me more was how much of Aiden’s weight I was holding up, he was getting weaker by the minute. I had to get us both somewhere where I would be able to heal him.

This was it, just a few more steps and we would be officially out of the mountains and from there on out it was nothing but fields of six-foot-tall grass. Of course the snow had reached regions other than the mountains, covering at least a mile of this tall grass in about an inch of snow.

“Aiden, where do I go?” I asked, looking around frantically as I just walked in a straight line, there was nothing to hide behind! It was more than a little frustrating.

“There.” Aiden used his free hand to point in the direction of a small cloud of smoke, rising high about a cluster of trees not too far off in the distance.

Is that a town? I wondered, squinting to try and see the smoke cloud better. It looked like it was probably a few miles away. Walking that far with Aiden weighing on my shoulders and a leg that was making it’s injury quite apparent…Yeah. Not fun.

“There?” I repeated, almost keeping my voice from a whine. Almost.

Aiden nodded once in confirmation.

I groaned and adjusted our course, grumbling small curses to myself when I realized Aiden’s arm made it impossible for me to see behind us.

However, Aiden must have noticed that I turned my head and said quietly, “Don’t worry. They aren’t behind us. They’ll have to regroup before they come after us again.” It sounded like he had made an attempt to sound optimistic and upbeat as he usually did, but it didn’t quite work. He just sounded tired, which made me feel guilty for making him keep walking.

Seconds turned to minutes and minutes to hours, until finally, I had to stop. Aiden and I were still no where near the trees I had seen in the distance over two hours ago. I set Aiden carefully on the ground, vaguely aware of the darkness that was creeping up on us. It looked like we would be sleeping out in the open. Once again. Not fun.

“Aiden?” I asked quietly, my frown apparent in worry.

He looked up at me and grinned weakly. He had lost too much blood, his face was pale and so were his lips. Aiden moved his lips to speak but no words came out, which only furthered my worry.

“Where were you hit?” I asked, putting on a mask to cover my worry. I was all business now.

Aiden turned to indicate a spot somewhere on his back and my eyes narrowed when I realized part of the arrow that hit him was still protruding from his back. Why hadn’t he told me sooner? I growled in annoyance, and pulled off one of my layers of shirts--shivering as I did so--and spread it out on the ground. Luckily it was a fairly loose shirt, so it covered a large enough portion of the ground for Aiden to lay down on. It wouldn’t get completely soaked as quickly now that the snow was thinner.

First off, I would have to get rid of his shirts, it would be dangerous, considering how cold it was, but I would just have to work fast, ensuring he wouldn’t get frostbite in any of his limbs. “I’m, going to take off your shirts,” I muttered, trying not to sound embarrassed, but more medic-like. “So I can get that arrow out,” I explained when Aiden rose his eyebrows slightly, and then he nodded.

I pulled off his first and second layer carefully, making sure to pull the remaining part of the shaft out of the shirts first before actually taking them off.

Once that was done I ordered, “Lay there.” As I gestured to the shirt I had laid out before, surprised that I was capable of keeping my voice so calm in such a situation.

Aiden obeyed, laying on his stomach so that I could access the remaining part of the arrow. The muscles in his back were bunched together, obviously a result of the pain the arrow was causing him. I kneeled beside him in the snow and carefully found several pressure points around the wound of which I pressed gingerly to halt the blood flow for a short amount of time and numb the area around the wound as much as possible, but not completely. I wet my lips with my tongue and swallowed hard, wrapping my fingers around the remaining shaft and breathing deeply once, before jerking the arrow upward and out. Aiden flinched and let out a jagged breath that he had been holding in.

“Sorry,” I murmured, ripping a part of my remaining guard shirt from under the shirt Aiden had lent me. I pulled it out and dabbed at the wound until the caked blood crumbled away and the newer blood wasn’t blocking my view of how deep the wound was. I scrunched my nose in disgust. The wound was deep, I could even see a portion of Aiden’s muscle, which made my stomach squirm.

Aiden was breathing heavily and slowly, which worried me, although I didn’t show it. I had to heal him quickly. I took a deep steadying breath and let my hand hover over the wound, I reached down deep inside of myself, finding as much strength as possible before the cool air bubbled in my chest and rushed through my arm and exited through my fingertips. I could feel my hand shaking in protest to how much of my own strength I was putting into Aiden, but he needed the strength more than I did.

Several minutes passed when I finally felt my healing die away and my hand collapsed, my arm too weak to hold it up any longer. I fell forward slightly, keeping myself steady with my hand pressed firmly to the cold snow. I didn’t realize until that moment, how inconvenient snow could be. I took a deep breath and let it out again, and then asked Aiden, “Are you a-alright?” That waver in my voice was out of weakness, was this how Aiden was feeling? No, it must have been worse, he couldn’t even speak without it being an effort.

Aiden--with a great amount of effort--rolled over onto his back to get a better look at me and frowned when he realized I was breathing heavily and quite possibly as weak as him. He cleared his throat and said, “Fine. You look worse off than me.” I knew that was a lie, but I also knew he wouldn’t worry too much about himself.

I smiled wryly. “Yeah. Well. At least neither one of us is dead.” I managed to get onto my knees and picked up Aiden’s shirts. I scurried to his side and helped him sit up and put his two layers back on--he would need them even if the snow was thinner. My arms protested the entire time and I half-expected them to fall off when I finally let Aiden go so he could lay down.

I fell into the snow some feet away from Aiden, not caring particularly where I was, just that I would be able to sleep, get rest, get some strength back.

“Angel,” I heard Aiden call weakly and I considered ignoring him since my body wasn’t up to moving, but decided against it and rolled over to see him staring at me.

“Mmm?” Was my simple reply.

Aiden didn’t answer but opened his arms wide, looking at me like he would be chastising me if he had the strength to speak more. I rolled my eyes and managed to get my aching body to get up partially and crawl over to where Aiden was laying. I plopped down next to him and could already feel my mind drifting off. I felt his arms wrap around my torso and he pulled me closer to him so that my back was against his lower abdomen, while my head was against his chest.

I convinced myself that my body heat would be better for him, it would help him heal better if he didn’t waste so much energy trying to warm himself up.

I vaguely remembered the argument Aiden and I had had only earlier that day, but it seemed so trivial now. Is that what happened when someone almost died? I remembered thinking of the last words I had said to Aiden and instantly felt guilty, he had almost died, and the last thing he would have thought of would have been me fighting with him and deserting him.

It didn’t matter, I told myself, the point was, Aiden was alive and I was alive, and we both needed rest after such an eventful day. We had gone from best friends, to fighting, to running--or hobbling--for our lives, to almost dying, all in one day.

Not one of my better days.

“Aiden?” I murmured, even as my brain tried to shut my body down completely.

“Hm?”

I knew this was going to eat away at my conscience if I didn’t say it soon, “I’m sorry. Incredibly sorry.” My voice was weak, either with exhaustion or guilt, I wasn’t sure which.

“It’s alright, Angel,” Aiden assured me quietly, he sounded like all he wanted to do was sleep.

“Best friends?” I offered hopefully, silently wondering if we were best friends still, even after a day like that.

Aiden’s arms tightened around me for a brief moment and he exhaled heavily. “Best friends,” he confirmed quietly.