Minor Contribution.
By Jennafina.
My mistress is good to me.
When my world was swallowed up by despair and I was unable to see past the darkness of my own mind, she saved me.
Some, those ignorant of her magnificence, her beauty, her kindness, laugh when she’s not there, or worse, when she is.
“She calls herself powerful.”
“Super powers my foot.”
“Why does she kid herself?”
“What kind of super throws spoons?”
I hear them because I am small. They don’t see me, but I can see them.
My mistress is powerful. She is a heroine and I am her faithful.
She named me herself.
It was in the beginning, at our first meeting, that she picked me out of the smoldering wreckage of my family’s home and said; “You will live to see them avenged. I can guarantee it. Have a little faith, boy.”
I had looked upon her, viewing her face for the first time. That wonderful, enchanting face with its dark eyes and confident chin, that I would come to trust and sometimes love so much it hurt.
"Come with me, little pixie," she offered.
“Come with you?” I repeated.
“Yes,” she had said, extending her hands so that I might walk in to them. “Come, and be my faithful.”
And slowly, tentatively, I had walked unto her palm. Gently, with the care and reserve that fitted her nobility, she had lifted me, and tucked me into a fold on her robe.
“I am Savanna of the Spoons, Protectress of the Small,” she had said.
“And I am... Faithful...?” I whispered.
Faithful I have remained, ever since.
Somehow, in my heart, the name fit.
She is my mistress and I am her Faithful.
“FAITHFUL!”
My mistress was calling me.
I rose from my memories, to see her shining face, inches above me. She was in full armor, a glittering combination or silver and turquoise.
“Faithful, there’s been a rumor of a disturbance west of Bromloden. There could be clues there about your family, too. You up for a battle?”
I nodded, and she smiled, making it all worth it, whatever happened.
She strapped a spoon into the scabbards bound to her wrists and ankles. From the box on the windowsill, my mistress selected six more spoons, their bladed tips polished, and gleaming. These she put in the small, chain mail pouch on her hip, where I would ride.
I dressed myself in the water-repellant suit my mistress had bought for me with her own hard-earned money. She was so generous.
“We should probably go, about now, if we want to see what’s going on.”
I awaited the hand that would deliver me to my safe haven. It came, and I was gracefully deposited next to her spoons, which were about my height. We klinked around as she walked, still filling me in on the details she had gathered.
“Apparently, a messenger was sent to alert us here in Libola, that there was some type of battle by Bromloden,” she continued, confidently, as she walked at a brisk pace down the road. “The details are hazy, though... I’m sure it’s nothing we can’t handle...”
I loved how she said we. I wonder if she knew how much it meant to be part of a team, even a very, very small part.
Size isn’t everything, she had told me once. I wondered if she remembered.
I felt the motion of her hip as she took her long, confident strides, increasing her pace. It made me sleepy, and, almost without meaning to, I succumbed.
A different voice awakened me this time. It was not that of my mistress; it was low, a man’s voice.
“Savanna, is that you?”
He was calling for my mistress.
I felt a surge of jealousy, What business did this man have talking to her? No matter who it was, he wasn’t good enough.
I peeked through a tiny hole in the mail, trying to get a glimpse of the caller.
As my mistress looked around for the source of the voice, I was able to see him. He was tall; taller than her, and had wary brown eyes. His hair was grey, and he was dressed all in red. He looked harried; annoyed to see her there.
“It is I, Savanna of the Spoons. Who calls?”
“You shouldn’t be here,” the man said, not answering her question. “There’s an army of rogues trying to loot the village. This is no place for you.”
“A town in need? This looks exactly the right place for me,” my mistress answered.
“You’ll just get in the way.”
“I have to help! It is my duty to assist those less fortunate, blessed as I am with supernatural powers.”
My mistress is noble and courageous, I though, frowning darkly at that unworthy man who thought to boss her.
“I’ve heard of you,” the man said. “You throw spoons.”
“And I could take you down left handed with them,” my mistress boasted. I believed her. She was so talented.
“I challenge you to a duel,” she continued.
The man, still looking rather pestered, sighed. I hoped he would accept, maybe after it was over he would think twice about coming near her again.
“You know very well I have no such intentions,” the man said, to my disappointment. “Go home, Savanna.”
“Very well,” my mistress said, her hand straying casually to unbutton the leather sheath concealing the spoon on her left wrist. I felt her body tense, inside my haven. “You leave me no choice.”
With that, she whipped out her bladed throwing spoon, and threw it, with the speed and accuracy befitting one such as her. It whipped through the air to collide with the offending man’s forehead. I let out a soft ‘Yes!’ of triumph. I knew it would hit him; my mistress never missed. Never.
The man staggered back, raising a hand to massage his aching brow. He looked reproachfully at her. “Ow! That hurts!”
Without a backwards glance, my mistress sped off into the darkening sky with me jingling along with her spoons.
Before long, the faint noises of distant conflict reached my ears. I strained my eyes, and saw smoke rising in an ominous column, the direction of the shouts.
“Hold on, Faithful,” my mistress said to me. “We’re almost there.”
My mistress’s voice was like music. It caressed my tiny body, seeming to seep in through my pores, heating my soul.
She sounded a bit like my sister had.
For the second time that day, I was so lost in my thoughts I failed to notice her calling me.
“Look, Faithful: Supers.”
True to her word, as I peeked out between links in the mail. I saw several others blessed with powers locked in combat with various thieves and felons.
“I wonder how they got the strength to unite,” my mistress said to me, refering to the criminals. I wondered too, but trusted her to figure it out.
My mistress’s brain is unmatchable.
I saw Kaylin, a supernatural with the ability to conjure electricity, trip, and fall backwards over a body. A large and demonic looking rogue bore down on her, wielding a dagger. I felt a shiver of fear, and took comfort in the rise and fall of my mistress’s breath.
“Lady Savanna!” I called, shouting with all my might to be heard over the erupting chaos. My voice was so small. “Look! Kaylin needs help!”
She cocked her head high above me. She had heard something. I repeated my message, and, hearing me for sure this time, she spun around and threw a spoon. It hit the rogue in his neck, distracting him just long enough for Kaylin to blast him with a jet of enchanted flame.
“Savanna!” Kaylin greeted my mistress joyfully, once on her feet again.
“Hey, Kaylin, she said, releasing two more bladed missiles, both of which connected with bodies, causing them to yelp with pain, or possibly suprise.
Kaylin gently tossed the spoon back to my mistress, who stuffed it back into its sheath. “Good luck, Savanna! See ya!”
Kaylin bounded off, and I saw the blue light of her power in the distance.
The battle raged on, and I wished I could do more than watch from the safety of my mistress’s hip pouch. I wanted to protect her, to save her, but it was no good. I was too small.
Maybe I was unworthy also. She needed someone strong, beautiful, brilliant, kind and generous, someone just like her.
I thought about what I would be able to do if I was big, and yet again, became lost in my imagination.
My parents had always told me I was a dreamer.
I thought about my family. Up to the day they had been murdered, they had been there for me. My younger sister, Belle, had been only six. My older sister, Tessa, had been sixteen. Tessa would have liked my mistress, I reflected. They both had courageous hearts.
I was between Tessa and Belle, the middle child and only boy.
Now, I thought, I’m the only one left at all.
This time, it was a physical jolt that wrenched me from my thoughts.
My mistress was falling! She collapsed onto her left side, to lay still. I was to panicky to be relieved she had not landed the other way.
My mistress can’t be dead. She’s too powerful. She would never leave me, not like this, not without saying goodbye. She can’t have left me.
I struggled vainly against the metal bonds of the pouch I was trapped in, but to no avail. It had landed upside down.
I prayed for a miracle, and as if some worker of fate had been listening and had granted my wish, my mistress heaved a breath.
She was only unconscious.
And so I waited. The sun set behind hills and gradually, the fighting began to die down. The remaining criminals retreated in discord, and, one by one, the assisting supernatural wandered off into the dark, leaving only bodies and surviving villagers to pick at their belongings.
“Savanna? What are you doing?”
It was Kaylin. Hearing no answer, she walked to my mistress, and flipped her over. There was blood on the side of her face, and her eyes were closed. She reminded me of Belle, on that last day. It was like she was only sleeping, just about to wake up.
“Will she be okay?” I asked.
Kaylin looked for the origin of my voice. Her darting eyes came to rest on the pouch where I was hidden.
“She’ll be fine," she reassured me. Kaylin laughed. “Looks like someone’s hit her with a rock.”
She was laughing at my mistress.
I felt indignant. What right did this woman have to laugh at the person who had saved her only hours previously?
“Savanna’s tough,” Kaylin said, comfortingly. “She’s been through worse than this.”
Maybe she did have an inkling of my mistress’ greatness. But why did she laugh at her?
Kaylin dragged my mistress off the deserted battlefield, and propped her against a tree.
“So what are you, anyway?” she asked me.
“Northern pixie,” I answered.
“Really?” Kaylin queried. “I thought you were all.. you know... dead.”
Ironic, how this question comes up at awkward times.
“Most...” I let my voice trail off. She had none of the sensitivity, the gentleness, the kindness of my mistress. “Would you mind letting me out of here?” I asked.
Kaylin shook her head. “Actually, I think that's a very good place for you at the moment. ‘Keep you safe.”
She stood up.
“It was nice meeting you. Tell Savanna I said Hi!”
Kaylin skipped happily away, with a final wave to me over her shoulder. I watched her figure recede into the distance.
I didn’t sleep, only waited on tenterhooks for a sign of life from my mistress.
Finally, as dawn’s creeping fingers caressed the night sky, she stirred, opening her eyes and groaning softly.
My mistress raised a hand to her head, then held it in front of her eyes. She surveyed the dried blood with disdain.
“Are you all right, m’lady?” I questioned, looking up through the chain links.
“Is that you, Faithful?” she answered, with another question. My mistress opened the pouch, and I crawled up unto her palm.
“I’ll be okay,” she said, and smiled at me so that in that moment everything in the world was wonderful, and nothing could ever hurt me again.
Tucking her spoons back into their sheaths, she got to her feet, wincing.
“Kaylin said hi,” I told my mistress.
“She’s a nice girl, Kaylin...” she said. “I assume it was she who.. who...” she gestured at the tree she had been leaned up against, still looking rather pale. I nodded.
“About your family,” my mistress continued. “Do you mind if we look for more clues another time?”
“Okay,” I said, honored to be asked.
We set off down the road, back home. She, walking lightly to avoid tripping over the wreckage; me, perched atop her shoulder in my favorite spot to keep look out.
“We’ll find out who did it, Faithful. I promise.”
And I believed her.
We were alone with each other, just how I liked it.
She was my mistress and I was her Faithful, and together we were going to be okay.
My mistress is good to me.
The end.
Eh heh heh heh.. I have fun.
I was cracking up most of the way through...
