Words

A/N: Takes place after “Coping Mechanisms.” - Rachel

Words

Another day walking and Alaster was bored out of his skull. Not to mention, his flask had run dry and he'd been trying to get the nelfkin's attention all day to ask if she had anything to drink, but she'd completely ignored him. He wasn't sure why she was mad at him today, and it irked him. They'd been getting along, somewhat, though he'd never admit it out loud. She was... tolerable, unlike most. And she worked very well as a buffer between Alaster and his sister.

“Oi, nelf,” he called again, because damn, he really needed a drink. She wouldn't ignore him all day, he was certain. She knew what sobriety was like for him and she was an asshole but she wasn't cruel. “Nelf!”

Blue could hear him, he knew she should. She wasn't that far ahead of him, and he could see her stand up a little straighter when he called out, but she still wouldn't turn around. Alaster was getting impatient. And also, he was starting to hear bits and pieces of everyone's thoughts again, which would slowly grow to a cacophony of miserable proportions if he didn't drown them out with liquor.

“...that fucking bastard, everything I do to help him out and he still does that!”

The thought came through loud and clear, and Alaster knew it belonged to Blue. Which meant it was probably directed at him.

“Hey, what did I do?” he demanded, hurrying his pace to catch up with her. He put a hand on her shoulder to get her attention. “Nelf! Tell me what you're mad at me about.”

She turned to him, at last, and Alaster knew from the look of fury in her eyes that he was in for it now. The nelfkin looked as angry as he had ever seen her, her knuckles white from gripping her walking stick and her cheeks red with rage.

“Stop it,” she spat, shrugging his hand off of her shoulder. “I've told you not to call me that name, over and over. Do you just not give a fuck about how I feel about it?”

“What?” Alaster blinked at her. “Oh, you mean 'nelf?'”

“Of course that's what I mean!” Blue raised her walking stick just a little, and Alaster definitely did not flinch. Definitely not.

“It's just a word,” he groused. Honestly, he didn't see why she let it upset her so much. Sure, it was rude, but he was rude to everyone in the group. He hardly ever referred to someone by their given name. Besides, it was really the only thing he had any control over at present, and he wasn't keen to let someone else tell him which words he could or couldn't use. “Hell, you know I don't mean anything by it. Look, I was just wondering if you had something to drink. It's, you know, starting to get loud.”

Her laughter was incredulous. “You talk down to me like I'm less than a person, and then you come crawling to me, wanting me to help you with your problems. Give me one good reason why I should care, Al.”

Wow, she was in an exceptionally bad mood today, Alaster thought. He asked, “Sorry, is it that time of the month or something?”

“Oh, I know you did not just ask me that.” Blue advanced on him then, jabbing a finger at his chest as she did so. “Do you ever think about anyone besides yourself?”

“... Probably not very often,” Alaster had to admit. Honestly though, he had plenty of his own shit to deal with. He didn't really want to involve himself in everyone else's feelings too. After all, he hadn't elected to accompany them of his own free will. He was still kind of their prisoner at this point, even if that was only because he no longer had anywhere else to go.

Then again, the nelfkin had gone out of her way for him. She was the only person in the group he had much interest in talking to, and seemed to be the only one who wanted to talk to him. It wasn't that he wanted to upset her, quite the opposite, really. He was just in the habit of calling her “nelf” instead of using her actual name, and changing that now felt... intimate, on a level that he wasn't ready for yet. If he just started using her name, the others would think it was odd. It would be tantamount to admitting aloud that he was starting to care for her.

“Please, for once in your life, just try to think about things from someone else's perspective,” Blue insisted. She looked kind of scary when she was this mad, like a homicidal child. “That word is so offensive to me. You have no idea how many people have looked down their noses at me and called me that, so just knock it off.”

He did get the idea that the word was especially offensive, which was one of the reasons why he'd insisted on using it from the start. All fairies used it to refer to nelfkins, but it was just a shortening of their actual name, so he didn't get why they hated it so much.

“What is it about that word that you hate so much?” he wanted to know. “Why is it such a big deal?”

A sigh of frustration escaped the nelfkin and she turned away from him. “Forget it. You're never going to understand and it ain't my job to tell you why you're being a jerk.”

Not having her attention sucked. There was nothing else to distract him, unless he wanted to endure listening to everyone thinking. If Blue wasn't going to give him any alcohol, she could at least keep him entertained. But he was starting to get the feeling that she was really serious about ignoring him.

“I'm rude to everyone,” Alaster muttered. “It's not just you.”

“That doesn't make it okay at all.”

“It's just a world, nelfkin.”

“No, you don't get it. It's not just a word to me.” She still wouldn't look at him. “All my life, I've heard that word. That was what they called me when they kicked me out of taverns. They called me that when they spat on me for walking past them on the street, they called me that when they tried to steal from me or beat me. They called my mother that while they took every penny she had to pay tenancy for our own house. It's not just a fucking word, it's a license to treat my kind like garbage. Every time you call me that, you're telling me I'm garbage in your eyes.”

She raised her arm and wiped her face on her sleeve. “Shit, just forget I said anything. I don't know why I care what you think.”

A peculiar feeling washed over Alaster. She... cared what he thought? He couldn't for the life of him figure out why in the realm she'd do something so stupid. He wasn't a nice person and he hadn't been nice to her. It wasn't like he wanted her to care about him. And was he supposed to care about her just because she cared about him?

It was a moot point, he supposed, because he did care about her. A little. He'd deny it outright if anyone asked him. But despite everything, he liked her.

“Okay,” he said, after a long moment of silence.

She glanced at him, surprised. “Okay? Okay what?”

“Okay, I won't say it anymore.” He avoided her gaze because he didn't want to see her reaction, especially if she laughed at him. “You don't like it, so I won't.”

“For real?” Blue asked. She didn't sound like she believed him. “Just like that? Just because I said so?”

“Just shut up about it already,” Alaster snapped. “And I'm still calling you 'nelfkin.'”

“What the hell's wrong with my name?” she wanted to know.

“Nothing is wrong with your bloody name, nelfkin.”

“So use it!”

“No!”

“You're insufferable.”

Alaster finally looked back over at the nelfkin and realized she was grinning at him. He felt his face heat up in embarrassment. Why was she smiling? She was supposed to hate him. For that matter, he was supposed to hate her. If his father could see him now...

“You kinda like me, don't you, Al?” the nelfkin asked, amused.

“Hell no,” Alaster replied. “You're loud and self-righteous and you bloody kidnapped me.”

“I think we can both agree now that I did you a favor by kidnapping you,” Blue pointed out. She wasn't wrong, as much as Alaster wished he had room to argue. “Look, you might survive this whole quest thing. After that, you could always go home and try to talk them into taking you back.”

Ha, that was a riot. Alaster imagined himself in his father's shoes and knew that before all this bloody quest nonsense, he knew he would never have been lenient. That wasn't how things were done in Vana Vale. Once you were banished, that was it. Banished fairies were a source of shame to their families. Aster hadn't even shown mercy to his newborn daughter. He definitely wouldn't show mercy for his grown son.

“What are you going to do? If you survive?” He told himself he was just making small talk, from sheer boredom. He didn't actually care the nelfkin did with her life.

“Probably keep working as a guide,” Blue replied. “Unless we find some hidden store of treasure along the way, I'll still need to make money to help my mother.”

“I don't know how you stand it, being on the road constantly like this,” Alaster grumbled, hunching his shoulders and glancing around at the trees and rocks that surrounded them with distaste.

She shrugged. “I guess it's in my blood. Besides, I'm good at it. But I guess it's not what I want to do with the rest of my life. You're gonna laugh, but I wouldn't mind having a family one day. I don't think it's in the cards, honestly.”

For his part, Alaster didn't think he was enthralled with the idea of settling down and having children. Babies were awful, from what he'd heard. Of course, in Vana Vale, infants were cared for by nannies. That might have been alright. He'd been expected, as Aster Gwillimen's son, to carry on the family name. He just couldn't imagine he'd be a very good parent.

Blue, on the other hand, was already kind of a parent. She looked after the whole group, not just Alaster, like it was her job to make sure everyone ate three square meals a day and got enough sleep and stayed hydrated.

Instead of saying this out loud, he said, “children are horrible. They scream and shit on themselves and expect you to do everything for them.”

“In that case, why have children when I have your sorry ass around to take care of?” she snipped. But he noticed she was still grinning.

They'd fallen behind everyone else at some point. Up ahead, Gwuryn turned around and cupped his hands around his mouth before calling out, “Get a room!”

Blue's grip on her walking stick tightened up once more on her walking stick and she strode forward, brandishing it like a sword. “Ugg, you perv. I should kick your ass!”

With a sigh, Alaster pulled out his flask and brought it to his lips. His eye twitched when he remembered that it was still empty and he hadn’t managed to get more from the nelfkin. She off ahead again now, seemingly in a better mood. He trailed a good distance behind her, watching her talk and laugh with his sister and the elf.

For once, he found himself wondering what she was thinking.

FIN