Page 12 of There’s an Elf in My Cockpit

Chapter 8

Oliver

I woke up to a pounding headache and the sound of a woman crying. I didn’t like the headache, but it was the sound of those little shudders and sobs that pierced my chest. I hadn’t heard her cry yet, but I instantly recognized her anyway, Vi. My little elf with her carefully warded heart was exposing her feelings now. What was making her cry?

A surge of anger gave me strength, whoever the bastard was that had hurt her like this, I was going to kill him. Nobody got to make my girl cry like that and got away with it, not on my watch in any case. I clenched my fist, feeling extremely weak, and each muscle in my body ached. Opening my eyes hurt my head, piercing my vision with a bright light that made everything spin around me and nausea rise in my belly.

Okay, no eyesight for a minute until I recovered, and no fighting some unknown bad either for a while. “Vi. Sweetheart. Please don’t cry,” I murmured, hoping that despite my weak state, I could at least comfort her. I didn’t expect the softly uttered words to have such an impact though, she made a startled squeaking noise and then I felt her hands patting me all over.

“Oliver! You are awake!” she exclaimed and I winced when the much louder noise pierced my head painfully. Man, that headache was serious, what had caused it? What happened, and where were we? I tried to open my eyes again but the light was still too bright and I couldn’t get my sight to focus. At least I managed to move my arms just enough to wrap them around my elf, who was lying next to me on the hard surface we were on.

“Yeah, sorta,” I mumbled, “Why were you crying?” That seemed more important than to figure out where we were and I was aware of how irrational that was. In the short time I’d known Vi, her well-being had gotten insanely important to me. When my head wasn’t aching as much as it was I’d have to think about that, about why I was feeling so drawn to her. She was a damsel in distress and that certainly appealed. She was sexy as sin, which was definitely making me want her, but it was all those hints of vulnerability that she tried to hide that I loved. Those felt like little treasures when she trusted me with them.

“Why?” she asked, sounding baffled, and then much more fiercely, “I was crying because you wouldn’t wake up, you oaf!” She gasped after she said the words and from the way her body shifted against my side, I was pretty sure she’d just covered her mouth with a hand. I couldn’t help myself, I chuckled and then winced when that shot horrible pain through my ribs. Those were definitely cracked.

“Must have hit my head real hard,” I responded, still amused. She was lying down with me, we had to be in a safe place or she wouldn’t be this calm. Well, calm wasn’t exactly what she was, but she definitely didn’t appear like she was in a rush to move so I wasn’t either. “Don’t worry, I’ve got a thick skull,” I added.

She huffed but she was no longer crying. Actually, she’d shifted closer and was now resting her head on my shoulder; I could feel the brush of her soft hair against my neck, tangling with my beard. After the distance she’d kept during our hike that morning that was one hell of an improvement. I just couldn’t remember much beyond that point, where were we? How had I gotten my head knocked?

“Don’t joke,” she murmured, “You were out for hours, and you didn’t move at all, I was so scared…” Her words made me take stock of myself more seriously; where was I injured? Was it just the blow to the head and ribs? Or did I have more injuries and I hadn’t noticed? Had Vi already treated them?

Talking much was still a bit of a struggle but each time I blinked open my eyes, the light got less bright and it stopped hurting. “What happened?” I managed to ask. I couldn’t recall and that was worrisome but not too strange if I’d gotten hit in the head hard enough to stay passed out for as long as she said I had.

“After we fought that ice beast Elpherian almost found us and we had to run, you fell down an ice crevice and got knocked out and I fell down with you.” She moved restlessly and finally, though I tried to hold onto her, she sat up and shrugged out of my arms. I missed her presence immediately so I focused hard on getting my eyes to obey. She fell too, had she gotten hurt?

We were beneath the ice and a single lantern lit up the rather narrow space we were in. Vi was sitting on her knees at my hip, her long hair a wild mess around her shoulders, her cap missing and the snow goggles dangling around her neck from the strap. She looked like she was in one piece, but she had dark, bruise-like circles beneath her eyes and her shoulders were down like she was carrying the weight of the world on them.

The glow of her green eyes on my face warmed me, attentive, filled with worry. Looked like my Elf really cared about me. I knew she had a soft heart, she was as protective of the teens as I was and she’d only just met them, but care about me? That had been a much more prickly affair. I hated that she’d been so scared while I was out, but I kind of liked it too.

“Wait, ice beast?” I asked, furrowing my brow in confusion, I had no recollection of fighting such a thing. Then only the faintest memory stirred and I tilted my head down to look at my leg. A swatch of bandages was tied around the left one but I didn’t feel any pain beneath it.

“Your pants got torn,” Vi explained when she saw me look, “But somehow neither of us got hurt even though you actually climbed on top of that thing and it was huge.” She sounded impressed and a little like she thought I was insane and now I was sad I had no memory of the fight, it sounded like it had been pretty cool.

“So we’re at the bottom of the crevice where we fell?” I asked carefully, trying to snap myself out of this slightly incoherent, easily distracted mode and back into gear. We needed to climb out and get to help but the thought alone was making another wave of nausea rise in my belly; that was really bad news.

I eyed the low ceiling of ice above our heads, gleaming nearly black in the light of the lantern. That looked like we were down very deep, packed beneath a thick layer of ice. It was mirror smooth too, as if it had been painstakingly polished which was impossible and had to be some kind of strange natural phenomenon.

Vi’s voice got a little shudder to it as if she was recalling something bad when she replied. “No, Elpherian discovered where we fell and demanded they excavate to retrieve our bodies. I had no choice but to move us along the crevice and hope they didn’t find us.” It sounded like a bad memory and when I took better stock of our surroundings I was seeing the signs that what she said was true.

I was lying on a sleeping bag with a rope attached in a loop to two corners, a makeshift sled. Only one backpack was still with us, so she must have condensed our supplies. Reflexively I moved to grab the pack and take stock myself, wanting to be sure that we had the things we needed to survive and get out of here.

“Where’s the handheld healing device? The tissue regenerator?” It was a very essential piece of gear out here and I couldn’t imagine that she’d left it behind, even if she was in a hurry. It was obvious she’d dumped out all our spare clothes for instance, which sucked but it was a luxury we could afford to lose.

She gave me a flat, exasperated look, clearly offended that I even asked. My head was spinning from moving when I shouldn’t but I still grinned widely in response. “Your fat ass broke it when you landed on it,” she informed me and I laughed, clutching at my aching ribs. No wonder I was in this bad a shape, she hadn’t been able to speed up the healing process. That must have really freaked her out.

I was too sore and tired to really worry about it, we needed to figure out if there was still daylight up above and what our best way out of here was. If something collapsed nearby, or it started to snow really hard we could end up getting cut off from our oxygen and suffocate. Patting my pockets, I located the hand scanner in one of them and thankfully this one still functioned.

My eyebrows shot up in surprise when I analyzed the readings, pulling painfully at a crust of dried blood and a cut on my temple. I reached up to touch the spot gingerly while I told myself to double-check what I was seeing.

“Vi, we’re like, almost right on top of those energy readings. How far did you drag me?” I asked. Reaching out I touched one of her biceps and gave it a gentle squeeze through the thick puffy coat she wore. She winced like that hurt, while she helplessly shrugged.

“I don’t know, I suck at directions, I just put my head down and dragged you as far as I could before I gave up.” She tilted her head and looked away her chest going up and down in a few deep breaths when she struggled to calm herself. My heart went out to her, she’d done good, but those hours while I was unconscious must have been so horrible mentally and so physically tough. Last I remembered checking these readings we still had ten miles to go. When I made the scanner check for the nearest access to the surface it indicated at least half that distance.

Vi was so slender and small that I couldn’t imagine that she’d dragged my big body along for almost five miles. But the numbers didn’t lie and I was extremely impressed, and grateful. As a dead weight, I knew I should have been impossible for her to carry. What she’d done was humanly impossible for a girl her size although adrenaline absolutely did crazy things. Good thing I was trapped down here with an Elf and she was made of much sterner stuff than she looked.

Sharing some food and water made my stomach rebel at first but then it thankfully seemed to settle. Getting to my feet was a chore, the world seesawing wildly around me, the food nearly coming back up, and my skin breaking out in clammy sweat from pain and nausea. Standing was only possible as long as I kept one shoulder against the ice to help steady me.

Vi took the backpack, she took all our supplies onto her slender shoulders and I felt angry that I couldn’t manage more to help. She was already so exhausted, she’d done so much to get my ass to safety. I knew she blamed herself for getting us into this mess, but I owed her my life. As far as I was concerned the scales were balanced. It was going to be my turn to take care of her for a while, just as soon as the world stopped spinning.