Océane came to and discovered the most nauseating swaying motion. She wondered briefly if her tormentor had decided to compound her agony by placing her on a boat. Her cheek rested against something coarse with an earthy, warm smell that she couldn't place and the swaying continued. She groaned. She had once travelled to England by ferry and had never been sicker in her life. Then, the thought occurred to her that boats aren't usually hairy, and she cracked open an eye to discover she had been lashed to a horse. She struggled to sit upright and stifled a scream. She had never been on a horse in her life, which was frightening enough on its own as the ground seemed an awfully long way away, but what kind of freak abducted women on horseback for the love of God? The worst kind, she decided, glaring at the figure riding beside her on the biggest black horse she had ever seen. The great animal looked at her in distaste, flicking its head in the air and rolling its eyes - Jesus, even his horse was a freaking psychopath. He looked her over in disgust before patting the great animal with affection. “Hush, Skylla. Don’t let her upset you.”
She raised her eyebrows in disbelief. “What do you want with me?” she demanded, deciding she had better get to the heart of the matter. From the look of him and his beautiful companion, she didn’t think he seemed the type to need to abduct women for weird sexual motives, but what the hell did he want?
“I want to know about the book.”
She looked at him in confusion and saw the words mystification, astonishment and shock flicker over his face like the words were illuminated with a delicate white light beneath the surface of his skin before disappearing.
“What the hell was that?” She pointed at his face, remembering suddenly that she had seen this before at the museum. He glowered and looked away from her in irritation.
“It is a part of our banishment.”
Océane jumped at the soft voice as she realised the woman had spoken and was riding on her other side.
“Aleish!” Laen said.
“Oh hush! You have beaten and mistreated the poor girl enough for one day, the least we can do is answer her questions.”
“Your ... what?”
“Banishment,” Aleish repeated slowly, sounding out the syllables, obviously believing the blows to Océane’s head had impaired her mental faculties.
“I know what the bloody word means, I just don’t know what you're on about!” she snapped and then swallowed hard as her head began to throb and her stomach churned. Bewilderment scrolled under the woman’s flesh and Océane shuddered.
Aleish flushed but continued with her explanation. “It is part of our punishment for speaking out against the King and his wife. We have been banished from the palace and the heart of his lands and now whoever speaks with us will see their own true feelings reflected back at them. It is one of the more ... subtle punishments but is nonetheless effective. It makes people very uncomfortable.”
“No shit,” muttered Océane before turning back to Laen and wondering if she had misjudged him as being the least mentally stable of the two. The girl was clearly madder than he was with her talk of Kings and palaces. She wondered if they had escaped from some kind of mental asylum as they were both obviously nutters; she was probably suffering some kind of trauma-induced hallucination, and they were going along with it, tying it in with their own personal delusions. She decided to get the conversation back on track in the hope that she might get to the bottom of things. She took a deep breath and tried to focus past her nausea. “What book?” she asked him.
“This one.” He reached down into his saddle bag and held out her precious creation between his fingers as though it offended him, and she let out a small cry.
“Oh, please be careful with it,” she begged, thinking of all the hours of work she had dedicated to this, her greatest achievement.
“Why?” He shoved it roughly back in the saddle bag and turned to her, anger flashing in his eyes. “What is it to you? How did you come to know of the things you have written here?”
Océane frowned and shook her head as she noticed the word confusion once again flicker under his skin. “What do you mean? It’s just a Fairy story.”
Laen glowered at her. “Fae, not Fairy!” he shouted, making her stomach clench in fear before she turned to Aleish. He held out his hand as if to illustrate his point with a smug expression. “You see, she admits it!”
“Admits what?” Océane looked from one to the other wondering what she could possibly just have confessed to but neither of them would say any more and her attention was taken by the surrounding view. They were heading into a valley now, skirted on one side by woodland, and for the first time it occurred to her that many of the trees, flowers and birds were unlike any she had ever seen before. She was no expert on the natural world, having lived her whole life in a city, but she was pretty sure the French countryside didn't look like this. The sky was blue but somehow the colour was more intense, like the artist had forgotten the water and just slapped the paint undiluted onto the paper. The light was fierce with every tiny leaf and blade of grass defined in sharper focus than anything she had experienced, though maybe that was her eyes as they had begun to water and the sun made her blink. Even the air was different - sweet and pure. She shook her head. That one was easy enough; it was just because she wasn’t breathing in the usual grey soup of city pollution and dust and human detritus. The meadow before her was an extraordinary sight though and in any other circumstance she would have been begging to get down and draw what she could see and yet she couldn't identify anything.
She looked around her more carefully, trying to see if perhaps her eyesight was playing tricks on her as she didn’t have her glasses on. One flower looked like a huge poppy but it was a deep vibrant purple and the petals were thick and velvety, not the frail silk of the ones she had seen before. She longed to reach down and touch them and see if they really were as soft as they looked. But there were dozens of others, all curious and wonderful and in every shade she could possibly conceive. Disturbed by the horse’s passage, a butterfly flew up past her face. It was the size of her hand, the wings beating with slow and lazy strokes in the heated atmosphere and glinting with iridescent shades of green and gold. It couldn’t be real. It simply could not be real - she had to be concussed. Glancing up she saw a flock of bright blue birds pass overhead, their shrill cries searing through her tender brain. She wondered how long she’d been out of it, and if the bumps to her head had done any permanent damage, as suddenly she felt very unwell. She swayed forwards, just stopping herself before she could break her nose on the horse’s neck.
“Laen, get her down, she looks unwell. I believe she is going to pass out.” The soft concern in Aleish’s voice drifted through the pounding in Océane’s head as she closed her eyes. She could hear Laen cursing her as he dismounted, and mentally returned his feelings with equal violence. The sun was too bright, too hot, burning her eyes even though they were now closed, and staining her vision a bright vermilion, a startling contrast against the previous lapis blue sky. It had been February in Paris and the days had been reassuringly familiar shades of dull and she had been dressed accordingly. Here, where ever the hell here was, it seemed to be the middle of bloody August. She tried to breathe deeply as acid burned the back of her throat and her stomach roiled again as she felt the ropes being untied and strong hands grasp her around the waist. She began to tell him to leave her be for a moment, but it was too late. The sudden movement was more than her constitution could stand, and with some small measure of satisfaction, she vomited all over him.