Enny and the Allosaurus

It was twilight in the woods. The sun had vanished but full night had yet to fall. With the mountains towards the South and East, the sun had lingered on the low horizon.

It was Rylena’s favorite time of day. She wove through the sleepy woods as the night animals stretched awake, tended their young, and prepared for their hunts. Day animals rested for the night in trees, burrows, and pockets of shielding vegetation. As she wandered through the woods, the trees drooped into their nightly slumber. One group of trees all leaned toward their mother tree, her long branches stretched over them like a blanket of protection and a light embrace.

The night woods were a subtle place full of sounds that Enny could tune out. It was the only time of day she felt truly relaxed.

She padded through the marshes, careful to avoid the glowing orbs of lizards and kokadis, a small crocodile like creature with the low-aggression of a gharial. They watched her pass, but none moved towards her. She took another step then hesitated. Branches cracked, the earth rumbled. Something large wove through the trees. She reached out to find the attached mind and found nothing.

“Hello?” Enny called out. “Is something there?”

A strange call rang through the air. She followed it back and still nothing but silence.

“Hello?” she repeated.

Though Enny wasn’t one to get scared, her wings rippled a little and flames licked their edges. She inhaled. She was alone out here, her family and her children and her people nestled safely in their treehouses for the night. Nell and Drey were gone on another adventure, now that their youngest four were old enough to be trusted in the woods. Every hundred years they came home to give her another set of twins (each), to see their people and tend long-delayed projects, to raise their children to adulthood—16, in their opinion—and then they left again, coming and going as they pleased.

They would not hear her call tonight. They were too far away—in another realm, most likely. She could call a portal.

But something tugged at her. She narrowed her eyes to scan the darkness for any hint of unaccounted for life.

A twig snapped a few dozen yards away.

Her wings shimmered, the firelight giving her location away with painful clarity. She willed her fire quiet and her nerves calm.

“Where are you?” she called out. She squared herself. If she didn’t feel brave, she could at least act brave. That was something she knew how to do from over 400 years as the Pixie Queen. It was something Nell had taught her.

Be brave, Enny, he’d whisper to her when he rocked her to sleep. One of us has to be.

Nell, for all his beauty and depth, rarely believed in himself. How could he? He’d been handed his newborn wife, married to her moments after her birth and naming. He’d been told to take the uninfected Pixies and run far away from the rotting despair of disease. He’d raised her, loved her, protected their people.

But he was brave, even when he couldn’t see it. He was brave in his shoulders and brave in his actions, brave in his heart as the king. He would destroy himself for his family—all Pixies, Enny, their children, even their shared love, Drey. He would tear himself apart to keep them safe.

And so would Enny. She tried to look brave instead of alone. She stayed where she was even though a portal shimmered close to her, ready to whisk her to freedom. She stood in the woods as a firm line between this beast and her people.

“I’m not here to hurt you,” she lied.

Something hard and small flew towards her. She jumped to avoid it, though it wasn’t at risk of hitting her. Her wings brought her back to the ground next to a kokadis. It scurried deep into the woods.

“I felt that,” Enny called out. “Stop messing with me you….you…” She tried to think what sort of beast would act this way. “You squirrel!”

Soft laughter rumbled through the air. More objects came, each landing with a heavy thud around her—none hitting her or another animal in the woods.

Though her heart pounded, thudding in fear, she knew it had to be a Pixie that was mentally blocking. She stormed forward, towards where the rocks had come from and towards the sound of another branch crunching. “I heard that little squirrel.”

She was close. Their mind was a black hole, a subtle beacon she could feel the edges of. She stalked closer, a buzzing building inside her. Where are you?

And then a mind erupted into existence, as if it hadn’t been there and now it was. The mind was full of panic, a prank gone wrong twisting in their mind. They’d made something, or something had come out of nowhere. They didn’t know, and neither did Enny. She did know who the mind belonged to: Gannon Wixx. He was a younger Nixie—a close relative of Pixies that had a higher affinity for water. Gannon was the heir to the Nixies. He was handsome and tall and Enny liked his smile.

When Drey and Nell were away, Gannon helped her. As the heir to the Nixies he had to, or so Enny told herself. She liked his company, the silly jokes he made, the way his fingers felt when they brushed hers. He sent shivers through her, feelings she’d never felt but the sort of feelings she should have felt for her husbands.

Why was he taunting her?

Gannon’s panicked mind was immediately followed by white teeth draped through the canopy. Though they were feet away, they cut through her mind with a hunger and fury she couldn’t ignore. The teeth didn’t belong to Gannon, of course, but to the thing that had him in a panic. Breaths as hot as her fire magic rolled in waves off the branches. Enny looked up from Gannon and into the eyes of a real dinosaur, an allosaurus from the books Drey had brought back, alive in the woods.

She screamed. “RUN!”

Gannon glanced up. For a moment his mind wondered did I make that? A curl draped over his forehead. “Why is there a dinosaur?”

Enny grabbed his hand and lifted off, flying away from camp and towards the sea. “You tell me! You brought it here. What did you do? Why were you trying to scare me?”

They fled, a mix of flying and running and panic that came off in sparks. The allosaurus roared wildly and the forest shook. Animals cowered; trees shifted as best they could given their permanent fixture to one spot.

“Why?” Enny yelled loudly.

“Because you are the mighty queen.” His voice was calm, steady. He was going slow for her, of all things. She could read it in his mind. “Nothing scares you.”

She tried to remember herself. Nothing scared her because Nell had an affinity for misunderstood beasts; monsters. She burst through the trees and slowed, the rocky cliffs and ocean at her back. She could solve this problem, she could settle a beast by herself. She took a long deep breath. Calm! She shouted in her mind towards the dinosaur. Be calm, be settled. Stop attacking us.

The allosaurus burst into the rocky clearing and roared into the night. It was unresponsive to Enny’s mind.

“I said stop!” she yelled aloud. She hovered in the air. She turned to Gannon while the beast stalked them, circling the stony edges of the cliff. “It won’t listen to me! It doesn’t care!”

She kept trying, kept pushing her mind and hoping for answers. She grabbed Gannon’s hand and darted over the cliff side, into an alcove just below the rim. They couldn’t stay there long. They had to protect the Pixies, protect her children and the future. Their numbers—few as they were—were all that was left of Pixie race.

“Why are you out here Gannon?” Tears streamed down her cheeks. How could she fix this? Her power was to speak to animals, to soothe them, to find them another outlet. She couldn’t do it. She had failed, and Nell wasn’t here to do what she had failed at.

Nell wasn’t there to help their children step into leadership roles. Faily or Tala would have to rule the Pixies if she died, or worse…Nell and Drey would have to come home and stay home.

Where had a dinosaur even come from? They were extinct. Her mind briefly recalled Gannon wondering if he’d made it. She glanced at him. Did you? What magic did he have?

“It isn’t my affinity. How did you draw it to us?” Gannon asked. It wasn’t an answer, more of a panicked deflection. His eyes popped wide as his mind decided he was being punished.

“I did not attract that,” Enny scowled.

A clicking noise echoed through the stones.

Punished for what? She asked him with her mind

For messing with you.

Enny reached out toward the allosaurus. Please be calm. I can help you. She turned towards Gannon. Why were you messing with me?

He turned away, his mind slipping toward feelings he didn’t want to share. He couldn’t stop thinking about her, and then he wanted those thoughts gone. He tried to close his mind off, but he brushed his wing against her when he turned and then he froze. His breath was heavy, and not from fear of the allosaurus. To see if anything scares you.

Mission accomplished, she admitted.

There was no point in trying to hide the truth. He’d heard her scream, seen her run.

Gannon was quiet, his mind swirling around thoughts Enny couldn’t quiet touch. She wouldn’t touch them—she was married, and Gannon was…too tempting.

And then Gannon was laughing, his chest shaking.

Before Enny could laugh, or scowl, or anything at all a foot smashed through the ceiling.

Duck! I have it. Tala’s voice cut through their minds as she flew in a rush past the cave entrance. Tala—Enny’s second oldest at nearly 400—had an affinity for large reptiles. Usually kokadis and other lizardy creatures. A dinosaur? It would fit her well.

Tala and Gannon would have made a powerful couple, but Tala had fallen for his younger brother Nalton. It was a relief, but it shouldn’t have been.

Enny grabbed Gannon and flew with him out of their collapsed cave. Her fingers sparked where they touched him. She ignored it and flew out toward the sea and turned back to watch Tala mount the back of the allosaurus, her body glowing with a cool fire. The allosaurus’ anger simmered from a roar to something more malleable. Tala stroked its neck and let it into the woods, away from camp and towards the mountains of Vern.

“I’m so sorry, your queenness,” Gannon gasped. Guilt wrecked him.

Enny turned to him, smoke coming off her shoulders like morning mist. “You should be. I should have you executed for that.” She wiped mud off her face, then opted to do one of her least favorite things and dove into the ocean waves. She emerged fresh, clean enough to sleep.

“You could try…” Gannon grinned at her. “But now I know I run and fly faster than you.”

Enny fumed. “Gannon! You can’t do that again. That…that thing could have…I don’t know what it would have done if it had gotten to camp.”

Shame rippled through Gannon. He felt responsible for the allosaurus, but he hadn’t intended it to be there. His mind tried to reconcile where it had come from, tangling over other thoughts—a vision of Enny through the trees, his heart pounding, the moonlight reflecting off her hair.

Enny blushed. The dinosaur wasn’t part of the prank, but it was here and they had to protect their people.

“What would have happened if it had found the hive?” Enny asked, referring to their collective group of Pixies and Nixies.

“You would have figured it out,” he said, all confidence but in her instead of himself. Or was he confident in himself? She didn’t know. She was about to tell him off and make sure he never brought a dinosaur or other non-amiable beast into their camp when he took off. “See you around.”

She flew after him, giving it her all. He must not have been going at top speed because she easily tackled him to the ground, a tumble of wings and flame. She stopped hovered over him. “No. Now I get to have fun with you.”

Gannon gasped. His cheeks turned flush, his palms sweaty. He turned his face away from her.

She let him go, a mix of curious and afraid. She couldn’t fall in love. Love would never be for her. The deep affection of hundreds of years with Nell and Drey? That was her path. It was her parents’ wish for her.

In the distance, an allosaurus roared.

“You should thank Tala for saving us,” she said, and then it was her turn to run.