Disguised In Stardust ✔

Chapter Eight

It was not easy.

Firstly, we retrieved lentil from the grocery store and everything was great. One ingredient down, right? We kept it at home just in case we were to lose it.

But.. Seth was on my tail again. He was asking where the damn alien went. He knew I had Faelin with me, but didn't dare to make a move for him.

Each call, Seth grew more furious. He was practically screaming at me last time I picked up the phone, rambling on about the alien and how he just needed to get his hands on it. Just a few days ago, we were studying together and sharing notes.

We played games together and acted like two funky brothers. Now he was a completely different person, as if he’d lost all memory of me, of our cherished friendship.

I’ve known Seth for so long, ever since 7th grade. What really got my blood curdling, wasn’t his odd behavior though. The thing that shocked me was that Faelin claimed to have heard his voice before. When I put Seth on speaker, Faelin nearly froze. He was petrified, but those lips would never admit to it.

We started our adventure today.

I packed some things in my backpack, like water, food, and knives. Faelin brought along a little drawstring bag I had stuffed in my closet. He packed it full with honey bottles, of course, ingredients, and the flasks. When reached for my car keys, he pulled me back and shook his head in disapproval.

“No. We go by foot.” he told me, “Those.. things.. are loud. They tarnish the land.”

Those silver eyes, almost milky white, seemed to tell a story that his words couldn’t reach. I smiled at him, for a reason I knew not, and nodded. We made our way down the road and our journey began.

We started down Dauphin street, then made our way into the wilderness by the city outskirts. Just when the cornfields and wheat stocks tapered off, we knew we were in the clear. Well, of people anyway. There was still a long road ahead of us, literally and figuratively speaking.

“What are we looking for first?” I asked him, trailing by his side. His eyes were set on the path before us, stretching out like a blanket across the horizon.

"I’d very much like to find the mercury first. Where would we find that, I can already hear your little mind ask... I have just the thing.” He dug into his bag and pulled out one of his flasks, flicked the side, and it rang like an angel’s choir. It sounded like a tuning bowl, lilting hallowly. “This can transform natural fluids into mercury, since mercury is also in most of our concoctions, a smith made for me as a gift.” he noted.

“I have water bottles-”

“No. That’s why I said we need something natural. Your water is purified and stripped of the algae we need for the process.” he cut me off and chided me. Of course, because that’s just what he does. Though he’s a fickle thing, nobody would expect such a sour attitude, right?

Boy, would they eat their words.

“There’s a lake nearby, over by the trees. When we get there, we can set up a camp or something.” I suggested, to which he scoffed.

He snapped at me in disdain, “Not all the ingredients are going to be in the same place, you know. We have to keep moving, even when we do find all of them. We’ll need to make it back to your stead alive.”

I looked at him, then behind him. His wings must’ve been cramped under that shirt. I wonder what kind of clothes they wore out there; I was curious about the kind of lifestyle they had. I longed to learn more about his home planet. The history seemed elaborate, and I was definitely hooked.

“What are you gawking at, human?”

My eyes snapped out of those thoughts, yet they still ran wild in my head. “Oh… I never told you my name, did I?” His expression went from a glare to an embarrassed wince. He looked away and pouted.

“No. I mean, I didn't want to know anyway. You’re just an asset to help me back home.” His voice tapered off shyly. My heart warmed at the sudden bashful side of him.

“My name is Dain.” I said, despite his look of disagreement.

“Okay, and didn’t I just say that I didn’t want to know-” he cut himself off when he suddenly flinched, stopping us in our tracks. He wiped at his face, which was contorted in confusion, and looked up to the sky.

I looked up curiously and I really wish I didn’t. The sudden dread that filled me that moment, had me entranced. I could remember the blackened clouds, the sudden downpour and a silvery streak of lightning split the thick air.

Faelin looked up to the skies, seeming to communicate silently with the weather. He let out a sigh just as the downpour really hit hard. Even through his shirt, his wings got soaked. It seemed that the rain would be too heavy for those fragile things, but they surprisingly kept their shape.

I dug into my bag and pulled out a retractable umbrella, deploying the arch that kept us relatively dry. The wind whipped around it, though, and it was hard to control with a storm above us.

“We have something like this back at home. Instead of this, we have an iridescent liquid element that rains from the clouds, much like this pond water.” he explained with a fond quirk to his lip. He wasn’t exactly smiling, but it was close. He drifted away from me as if he were musing.

“I still don’t understand how you got here. Why were you in that pod? Out in space, too?” I asked. He suddenly stopped walking and tugged me close, so that he could get under the umbrella too.

“All I can remember is that my father called me to the balcony.. I didn’t think anything of it until he showed me a little orb made of filtered stardust. He placed it in my hand, whispered something, and it sealed around me.” he stopped, then took a breath.

“I can remember trying my hardest to get that thing off of me, but the more I struggled, it grew like a parasite. The stuff enveloped my entire body, all sticky.. I can vaguely recall him using a potion on the pod, a bright yellow glitter that showered me. Then I blacked out.”

“Why would he do that?” I asked, keeping him close under the umbrella. My hand was cramping from how hard I had to grip it. Any looser and the thing would have flown away.

“I… am unsure. When I was young, my parents kept telling me that I was special. I wasn’t like the other Faeries. I’ve never been able to figure out why.” He pouted a little. It seemed like life was amazing up until he was sent away.

My mind wandered too far and the umbrella slipped from my hands, sweeping away with the howling wind. He hung onto me, as if he were going to fly away too, and screwed his eyes shut. The rain coated his curly hair, coloring it a dark burgundy.

“Prishing—ugh, can we just go?” he whined.

“Language.” I scolded with a smirk.

He glared at me for that, eyes cutting through his sopping hair.

__