The Day Feathers Flew

     The Day Feathers Flew

"Now I've forgiven him, I feel like I let him off easy..." Linnaea sighed as she slid a tray of cookies out of the oven.

"Easy?" Sophie laughed. "You practically burned his tongue off and then disappeared for days, I say revenge was sweet. And spicy."

"But I'm kinda still mad…" Linnaea grinned. "He just simply wasn't punished enough."

"Well, he certainly did sound abominable..." Sophie mused. "And y'know what, I just remembered something. The night it all happened, member? And we came back here at like one in the morning..."

She didn't need to say more. Linnaea caught her drift. The boys out in the living room didn't know whether to be amused or alarmed by peals of hysterical giggles coming from the kitchen.

But they found out pretty fast. Or Eric did, anyway. The both of them emerged from the kitchen, and stood in the doorway, arms around each others waists, and stared at him.

A sinking feeling was beginning to work itself into his stomach. Granted, the impish grins on both their faces were both allaying and contributing to his symptoms.

Rich and Judah stopped their conversation and looked on with great interest.

Linnaea stopped her grin, looked at him very solemnly, and began it.

“Eric…. You should know that even though I forgive you, and I’m not angry anymore….”  

Here she paused to exchange loaded glances with Sophie. 

“I’m still mad at you. Really mad, in fact.” 

Her face had lost its solemnity somewhere along the line, and the impish grin was back. Only now there was something else backing it. He couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was…. But it looked dangerous!

"Um..." He nodded slowly. "Okay... So..." He laughed nervously. He had been sure that everything was over and he could finally have some peace, but now... She was scaring him. He wasn't sure quite how to respond to what she was saying, but he remembered suddenly the cookies that were even then cooling on the counter and he grimaced involuntarily. "What do I have to do to make you not mad at me anymore?" He grinned sheepishly and desperately hoped it didn't have to do with the cookies.

The girls grinned at each other again. He wished they wouldn't do that. It was extremely disconcerting.

"Just... Stand there... In the middle of the living room," Linnaea said contemplatively and mysteriously. He obeyed, albeit skeptically. "Now..." She said dramatically while Sophie hid her giggles behind her hand. "Don't you dare move an inch. Okay?'

He kept a wary eye on them as they disappeared into the bedroom.

He kept an EVEN warier eye on them as they came back out, both of them with arms overflowing with…. Pillows???? All kinds of pillows, big pillows, little pillows, there was even a squishmallow or two in the mix. 

He raised an eyebrow wonderingly.

But he was not given overly much time to wonder, because in a matter of seconds there was a barrage of them sailing at him at great rates of speed, and with remarkable aim, too.

He was smacked squarely in the face by a squishmallow kitty and a large feather pillow simultaneously. It was all happening so fast he couldn't even manage to react and so for a long time he just stood there while pillow after pillow came crashing into him.

Rich was the first to return to his senses. He was laughing so hard he could hardly stand up straight. The next thing he knew, his face connected with a teddy bear pillow and Linnaea was grinning impishly at him. He scooped the offending pillow from the floor and joined in the fight with a fierceness that was fearsome to behold.

Judah was in the fight within the first thirty seconds, as Rich sailed a particularly large pillow at him. Not even bothering to throw it back, Judah simply used the pillow as a sort of club, whacking Rich over and over whilst Rich helped pelt Eric with squishmallows. Rich had decided that squishmallows were his ammo of choice, albeit not as effective as giant feather pillows. There was just something ridiculously amusing about being smacked in the face by an adorable, chunky little stuffed kitten...

Eric was still standing there in shock, even though everyone around him had gone mad with Pillow Fight Fever.

Linnaea, who had been watching him carefully even whilst chucking cushions at his head, suddenly dropped her ammunition and darted under a low flying missile that Rich had sent. Sailing it back with an accuracy beautiful to behold, she turned back to Eric, and without a word, gave him the fiercest hug he’d had in a long time. He was still speechless, half because a stuffed cat thunked against his head at this point, and half because she looked right up at him in the middle of the hug she’d sprung on him….

And then she was laughing up at him.

“No, I’m not mad anymore, Eric…. I forgive you completely and all the way.” She gave him one more tight squeeze before letting go. 

“Now for goodness sake, start defending your territory! That’s the fourth time in a row Rich has gotten you in two minutes, you gotta make up for lost time now!”

Eric grinned at her and suddenly came back to life. Within the next second, he had swooped up a pillow and beamed it at Rich so hard that Rich reeled on his feet. 

"What have we done?" Sophie cried in mock horror as she found Linnaea in all the chaos. "We've started another fight like unto the last one... Just thank goodness they're using pillows this time and not throwing each other..."

"We should've checked Rich's pockets for duct tape before we started," Linnaea yelled back.

Before Sophie could answer, she was hit full in the face with an enormous pillow. Laughing hysterically, she snatched it up and went after Judah wildly.

She got in several very satisfying thwacks before a shell of enemy fire malfunctioned upon contact, and there was great confusion and swirling of feathers. And in the middle of the blizzard, something happened. She could never tell quite how afterwards, but her pillow vanished, and out of the whirl of whiteness, a figure materialized. And then there were ocean eyes staring straight back at her, pulling her in as he stepped so close, a pillow could not have been wedged between them, even if Rich tried. And then her hands were captured as surely as her gaze had been, and her heart followed them both in fearlessly, because he did not stop there…. And she didn’t so much as have time to gasp. She was in a circle, a circle of arms…. Strong arms. She got that much before the head on the shoulders that belonged to the circle bent over hers… and she was kissed. Swiftly and sweetly and over much, much too soon…. But then the figure vanished, the eyes were gone, and the feathers were still swirling. 

And then she did gasp. 

She blinked. The feathers must have gotten to her. There was nothing there except feathers, she must’ve dreamed it…. But for a dream…. She snatched a pillow as it flew by, swinging it with sudden burst of joy. If THAT was a dream, she never wanted to wake up. 

The feathers were beginning to settle now and, exhausted and laughing, the befeathered opponents dropped their weapons and collapsed on the couch and chairs. Rich didn't even make it to a decent sitting place, he simply flopped down on the floor amongst the pillows and squishmallows and feathers and lay there, staring up at the ceiling. 

But Sophie... Sophie didn't move. She was standing in the middle of the living room, staring far off into space with an indescribable look on her face. She didn't seem to hear when Linnaea spoke to her.

"Shouldn't we go get those cookies before they cool off too much?" Linnaea bounced up from the couch and Eric grinned wanly.

"So... Linn..." He chuckled. "You said you ain't mad at me anymore and that is a relief... But you said that AFTER you made the cookies. Are they... Um..." He didn't finish, but Rich yelled from the floor.

"He wants to know if they're fire cookies! Hey... What's the matter, Soph?" These two completely unrelated phrases were uttered without a break and in the same tone of voice.

Linnaea burst into peels of laughter, and without giving Rich time to repeat his question, marched in one circle around the living room, snagging Sophie by the elbow as she went, and did not stop until she stood before the well loaded rack on the kitchen table where the cookies had been waiting patiently.

All three of the guys filtered into after her, eying her very warily. It had not escaped their attention that she had not answered the question. 

She grinned slyly, still hanging on to a dazed Sophie, (nobody seemed to notice that Judah was also being pretty quiet) and reached slowly towards the cookies with her other hand. Every eye was trained on it.

She deliberated for a moment, picked one up, and hoisted it aloft with a salute and a mischievous little twinkle in her otherwise expressionless face. There were two faintly audible and simultaneous gulps in that verily crammed little kitchen.

And then there was a loud crunch, and there was only half a cookie in her hand.