‘About earlier,’ Darcy spoke up suddenly over the echoing calls of distant birds, and the chirps of the surrounding crickets. The two were camped in a small patch of clear land where the setting sun lowered itself in the surrounding trees, whose tops pierced it with their fir needles. They had gotten stuck in a loop of directions as the blackwell instructed the boy on what bushes to push through and what rocks to jump over- only to get turned around. They had passed by a little stream where frogs sang to the fish flopping in the water, as they all waited for winter to freeze them over. The water drifted lazily over the stones and reeds that grew along it, waiting the same. They almost tumbled down a steep hill before Darcy could steady himself on its ledge, sparing the two from a fall.
But now they were at rest, with the sky washing over with a golden glow that threatened to be overtaken by a black night. Cotton clouds swam through the air over their heads as if foam on a still sea.
The red fur blanket was splayed on the grass, covering the sharp rocks and sticks that cluttered below it. Darcy had sat himself down for the evening, staring longingly up at that yellow sky that fought with the approaching darkness. In the meantime, Cuppy was occupying himself, fiddling with bundles of dry grass he had been collecting around the spot in which they stayed. For what reason, Darcy did not care to ask- he assumed it was for a fire.
‘Do you often do that?’
‘Do what?’ The blackwell did not look up from his work, twisting bundles of grass together in a rope.
‘Do you often set your feet on fire?’
Cuppy said nothing as he continued wrapping dry bundles around and around, leaving the crickets’ songs to answer the boys’ question. Darcy sat up from his lying about and looked over at his smaller companion, breaking the pause with a, ‘Well?’
‘No,’ The blackwell responded hastily, his fingers twisting the rope just a little faster, ‘it was nothing you need to involve yourself with.’
‘It was rather fascinating, I did not even see you light a match.’
‘I do not have matches. Stop prying.’
‘Do you have flint for your heels? It is the only reason I can think of that would have caused such a fire.’
‘I have a curse, fool!’ Cuppy snapped at his large companion, sending the boy leaning back in surprise. Darcy crossed his legs as his hand laid on the red fur blanket, propping him up from his lounging; he blinked at the blackwell in silence.
Cuppy only paused, and slowly returned to fiddling with his dry bundles of grass. But, before he could settle back into his rhythm of twisting- Darcy pulled the cups’ attention once again.
‘Do you know what you did to get cursed?’
‘Yes.’
‘Can you tell me what it was?’
‘No.’
And the boy pouted, and shuffled himself so that he was laying on his stomach, head resting in his palm and his elbows propping him up. Huffing in disappointment Darcy continued to bother his company once more.
‘Can you, at the very least, tell me who it was who cursed you?’
Cuppy stopped his handiwork, though never looking up at the troublesome child. He considered it; he was not required to tell the boy anything. But it had been long since then that he had ever talked to another being- let alone one who could speak back to him. So far, his only confidant had been the very one who gave him his ‘gift.’
‘… The sun.’ he spoke after considerable speechlessness.
‘‘The sun?’’- Darcy glanced up at the red, round ball falling into the acres of mountains to bring light to another part of the earth- ‘you mean the sun?’
‘Are you dense?’ Cuppy huffed loudly, ‘What other sun is there?’
‘I would not have thought something as small as you would get the attention of the sun. Surely, it is not all bad.’
‘Of course, you have not a clue about us blackwells,’ the cup murmured to himself, ‘if I were to get too, too close to fire, I would burn in a sudden cloud of smoke- ‘poof!’ lost to the wind,’ he explained, as he motioned bursts with his fingers before wiggling them in the air, ‘I am lucky to have my gloves and my boots at the very least, or else you would have to find your own way back- without my help.’
By this time, the sun had gone away far across to a land now waking up to its rays. The sky was a shadow of nothing but white stars dusting the darkness with their twinkling light. The only light the child had to see was from the softly glowing moon hanging above like an ornament, and the blinking fireflies that waltzed around the woods that surrounded the two. Cuppy, however, could see just fine.
Not answering more of the childs’ incessant prying, the blackwell was content in leaving the boy talking himself in circles. Rambling on about things only he knew to talk about, before finding himself speaking of home.
Darcy was back to laying against the ground, staring up at the moon, ‘Bucky and I had almost set the surrounding grass on fire that night, the whole thing went up in flames! We were not allowed to make the bonfire when the next summer festival came around.’ he blabbered.
‘I cannot say I am surprised,’ the blackwell answered him in the darkness, his rope of dry grass had grown long and was sturdy enough for his liking. He twisted off the ends before looking up at the boy,
‘Who is Bucky?’
‘Ah,’ the golden child sighed sadly, not looking away from the brilliant moon, ‘He was my closest friend, I lost him the night we were chased through the trees- we had gone in together to look at the stars in a new place, you see
‘But, now I have not a clue where he has gone, or what has become of him.’ he spoke solemnly.
‘Cuppy?’
No response, though the red eyes of his smaller companion shined in the darkness letting the boy know he was still there.
‘When you found me, did you see another?’
‘No,’ Cuppy seemed to shake his head, or what Darcy could only guess was such, ‘I found you alone, surrounded by nothing but trees and brush.’
‘No footprints? No tracks? Could you tell we had been chased? A hu-uge monster, with eyes as round as the moon, and blue like the ocean!’
‘… No, though I do not doubt it. There are terrible things within these forest walls,’ his company said slowly, softer than he had ever heard him before. Something had crossed his mind- but what it was, he never told it.
‘Like you?’ And then suddenly Cuppys’ regular demeanor returned to him when the child remarked; his shining eyes squinted at the boy through the darkness. Darcy could barely hold back a giggle.
‘Oh, enough of you,’ the blackwell threw a hand up, waving off the boy.
Wrapped in the sounds of the night forest, with the rays of moonlight eating away at all the brilliant colors that surrounded him, Darcy let his thoughts wander back to that horrible night, that piercing pain biting his arm and the dirt filling his nose as he fell into the waiting trap set by the very creature he traveled with now. He had let his eyes rest for but a couple seconds before the beat of shuffling, and the flapping of wings, were heard near him.
Opening his weary eyes, he could see nothing in the shadows. Darcy did not think to squint to check if his partner was still around, as the dancing light of the fireflies lulled him to sleep.