Traps, Tricks, and Beasts [Book 2 Complete][Fantasy, Adventure, Underdog]

A pattern emerged over the next few days as Squirt finished helping to settle greenlings into their new roles, adjusting things as needed, and doing general conflict resolution.

Though usually that last one ended in her snapping at all parties and telling them to fuck off after giving her judgement.

Pakos guarded the herd of greenlings in her stead while she was otherwise occupied.

When they left the carriage storage, the pest would stay behind, quietly bowing to her with those forlorn eyes. While she was gone, he’d try to cajole the elders and younglings who remained, though this time with more muted performances and extremely limited success.

When she returned in the evening, the pest had somehow conjured up food, greeting everyone who came through the door with enthusiasm even if they tried their best to avoid him.

He was wearing them down, slowly but surely, as they realized he was relatively harmless.

Squirt made it her mission to not acknowledge the pest’s existence.

Which was difficult for a whole plethora of reasons. But oddly enough, none of those reasons involved his behavior. He started speaking more quietly, even if he never lost his dramatic flair. He never directly spoke to her, and shockingly, stayed out of her way. He didn’t pester her with questions or overtures, either. He just existed and ensured that the food pots always had a plethora of options without Squirt having to think about any logistics regarding food.

On the fifth night, the autumn chill had worked its way into the air, biting at the heels of all fey, and especially those in the barn. Squirt returned to the carriage storage after an excessively long day to see all the greenlings quietly murmuring, huddled around something in the center of the room.

Instantly alert, Squirt trotted the rest of the way to the inner barn door separating the stables from the carriage storage, Qzi calling out, “Why the rush, pricklebe—”

“Not now,” she snapped back without even looking at him.

The greenlings parted, allowing her through them with a respectable amount of distance, revealing a large pile of neatly folded blankets.

Breezy, near the front of the pack, murmured to Squirt with a bit of awe, “They just appeared, Squirt. None of us saw how.”

Squirt narrowed her eyes, reaching out and touching one, noting the lump of pillows behind the blankets. All looked to be of lower quality.

But reaching out and touching the blankets, they were soft. Warm.

Easily as breathing, Squirt injected a touch of her own magic into the blanket to determine the origin. Instantly, the warm caress of the pest’s magic responded. The tiniest whiff.

So he had conjured them.

Breezy hesitantly asked, “Are they… for us?”

Squirt dropped her hand away and nodded. “They are.”

“But who?”

“Look not to the hand, Breezy,” she muttered, an old greenling turn-of-phrase that meant not to ask where supplies came from when they were needed.

“But—”

“Pass them out for sleep tonight. They’re extras. That’s all you need to know.”

“… as you wish,” murmured Breezy, inclining her head and backing away towards the pile of blankets waiting to be distributed.

Squirt didn’t glance back at the woman, her eyes instead scanning for the pest, wondering when he was going to turn up and claim the gift as his.

Around her, the greenlings gave her space while quietly passing out the blankets, giggling to themselves and more relaxed than they’d been in a week. Their cheeks were fuller than they arrived. Their eyes were brighter.

They looked happy.

Some giggles and laughter drew her eyes over to the pest quietly strumming a tune to the elders peeling vegetables. He sang something and a chorus of genuine laughter quietly passed through the group, his voice and energy matching theirs. Muted, but heartfelt.

Her feet moved without her acknowledgement as she drifted closer, her focus on him. The soothing tones of his crooning voice, the playful way it cajoled the others into fun. Normally, it was an inviting sound, drawing you into fun and whimsy. Now, he’d toned it down, a whisper of secret mischief that had those listening grinning. Even the elders who maintained the home were listening in fondly, humming along to a tune that wasn’t a greenling song at all, but a bawdy tavern song.

His eyes lifted to hers, seeming to sense her attention. The song came to a halt as he froze, his features falling a little.

Everyone else stopped with him, turning to face her expectantly.

That chasm.

He’d crossed it.

She hadn’t.

At some point in the last few days, the pest had been tentatively accepted into the fold while Squirt remained firmly outside it.

She didn’t get the chance to figure out what the fuck the emotions were as they wreaked havoc through her system. Instead, he dropped his eyes, inclining his head to her respectfully just like he’d done every other night that week.

It wasn’t fair.

She turned on her heel and stomped back out of the storage room, furious for reasons she did not care to think about.

Like most thoughts, they did not listen to her denials.

Had she noticed that he wasn’t paying attention to anyone but the elders? No. No, she hadn’t. She hadn’t clocked the two fleeting attempts at flirting by two of the more outgoing, younger greenlings, and definitely hadn’t assigned them sewage duties for the next week, just like she hadn’t noticed that he’d openly rejected them both.

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Not just ignored, either. Full rejection. Kindly worded, but enough of a firm rejection that neither would ever risk attempting again. Everyone else had read the room and not bothered.

Or, maybe, read her and not bothered.

Damnit, he was not growing on her, this was stupid—

Just outside the doors, she caught Qzi once again slinking in a nearby storage room, slowing just long enough to register he was once again hunting rats between the hay bales. Upset as she was, she dropped her head down as she ran to escape the emotions chasing after her.

Squirt didn’t get far.

Without thinking about it, she ended up in Mole’s stall, in a clean corner, huddled in the straw as Mole nipped affectionately at her knees.

Need me, mother?

No. She didn’t. She couldn’t. She needed Pakos there to alert her if something went wrong.

You do realize, mother, that you have a demigod already acting as protector, don’t you?

She did.

She’d been expecting him to leave. To be bored by helping with mundane chores and switch back to pestering her, or the Guard, or any number of things, really.

She didn’t want to get too close to him.

His words echoed in her mind, rattling around rent free.

As you wish, Squirt.

Gods, she hated the way that one sentence of his played on repeat. She wasn’t special. He was respecting that.

She just didn’t want him to.

Knocking her head against the wooden stall walls, she muttered, “Stupid, stupid, stupid,” repeatedly, reminding herself that romance was stupid and so were the fey.

Out of the shadows around her came small, thin tentacles, gently touching her, caressing her skin soothingly. She ignored them, even as several put themselves between her head and the wall she’d been lightly banging it against.

Though she did stop banging her head.

Perhaps that was the point.

Moping as she was, she did not stop Zhadin from wrapping her up in their tendrils.

It wasn’t the same as the large piles of fey she’d slept in as a child, and yet there was something nostalgic about it all the same. She’d lived with being touch-starved for so long that seeing her people interact so casually with each other had been a shock to her system. Perhaps if Puds had been with the collective instead of the quartermaster, Squirt would have found her way back into the fold. Or if she just admitted that she wanted to be held.

But if she did, and they learned of the Sia-bitch’s fate, the pain would be that much more visceral.

She’d been rejected too much to court more.

Zhadin’s head appeared over her shoulder, their arms slipping around her waist. She considered fighting it. Stiffening against their hold and lashing out.

As you wish, Squirt.

She grimaced, baring her teeth as she struggled against the threat of tears.

Zhadin’s head pressed against her own as they murmured quietly, “Let me take you somewhere?”

Please. She choked on the words, the very act of saying anything making the first tear fall, “Anywhere. So long as it’s away from here.”

“As you wish.”

She drew a deep breath and held it as they pulled her through the shadows.

Every minute or so, they’d resurface, and Squirt would gasp for air. Then once she regained her breath, Zhadin would shift, she would inhale deeply again, and they would pull her back into shadow. No words were spoken. They didn’t need to be.

It was strange to admit that Zhadin likely knew her better than anyone else ever did.

Strange, but not as terrifying as it should be.

On the last return to color and vibrancy, Squirt inhaled the sweet scent of the Wylds. The deep Wylds, not the fringes of the forest closest to the city walls. Instantly, her shoulders loosened. The grip on her heart eased. Her jaw unclenched.

For the first time in a week, peace.

She didn’t realize she was leaning against Zhadin. Truthfully, they had just never let her go, and she hadn’t bothered to step away. Instead, they held her in their true form, hovering between shadow and material plane, their cheek pressed against her temple. Squirt pressed back, using it to steady herself against the onslaught of emotions. They complied, lending her the strength to shove the emotions back down where they belonged.

Leaning was one thing. She wasn’t ready to heal, and Zhadin silently accepted that.

Closing her eyes, she inhaled, listening to the finches in the forest twittering about. Their fledglings were timed to take their flights about now, when it was safe from passing feybeasts keen on a pint-sized snack. Many didn’t sing in early spring when the feybeasts were first forming. The forest steadily grew louder over the course of the seasons as the feybeasts outgrew different species of insects, birds, and mammals in ascending order of size. Now, by fall, the Wylds came alive with sounds and songs of all species claiming their various branches or nests in the tangled weave of green.

Opening her eyes, the trees that would lose their leaves had started to change color, dottings of red, yellow, and orange glinting in late afternoon sun amidst the veritable sea of vegetation.

About a third of the trees would lose their leaves between now and the first snows of winter.

Standing quietly as they were, eventually a little finch landed with a flutter on the ground before them. It strutted and danced, the colors a plain brown until it artfully flapped its wings, revealing the bright red and orange feathers hidden on the inside.

Squirt’s lips tilted up. The smallest hint of a smile.

Zhadin murmured, “Which is this one, then?”

“A Sergeant finch. His colors are plain until he dances to keep him safe from hungry predators.”

“It seems more a strut.”

“Yeah.”

“Why does he strut?”

“To look pretty for the females. It’s a mating display.”

“Do they not mate in spring?”

“No—a lot of birds here mate in the fall, lay in the winter, and hatch in the spring. By the time their eggs hatch, they are just a week or two shy of being fledged.”

“Hm.”

The pair fell silent.

Then—

Zhadin murmured, “Do not show this to Qzi. It will give him ideas.”

Squirt snorted.

Then the most magical thing happened.

She giggled.

It was short. Just a couple of chuckles, really. The image of the little strutting finch in his patch of cleared area on the forest floor replaced with a tiny Qzi flapping his arms and bobbing his head while chirping so enthusiastically was just…

Well.

Her thoughts drifted lazily, circling around the redcap without a particular direction. He’d been just as diligent as Pakos or the pest at guarding her people, helping to keep them safe as they traveled to and from their commitments, even if he terrified them while he did so. Frankly, Squirt was impressed that he’d not even playfully threatened one of them. Possibly because he was often hunting for rats in the barn when he wasn’t guarding someone.

That thought should have led to another.

Instead, it went down a different path. One that was weirdly grateful for his manic, crazy self that conspicuously tossed blades casually while staring down fey three times his strength. A frustrating type of fearlessness she admired more than disliked.

That flustered expression of his the other morning.

Qzi had made her feel many things. Angry. Flustered. Irritated. Warm. Safe.

But he had never made her feel alone.

“Is that the female?”

Zhadin drew her attention out of herself and to the little drama happening before her. Two new birds with the same bland plumage had joined the first, and she smiled a little more. “The third one is playing like it’s a female, but it’s a male. See how he struts when the other male’s back is turned?”

“Why do they not share the female?”

It was such an unexpectedly innocent question, Squirt was momentarily stunned. “I… that is not how it works.”

“Why not?”

“They’re animals, they aren’t fey. They don’t have the concept of sharing. She’ll only mate with one, not both.”

“Strange creature.”

Utterly ridiculous, this fey. “We need to go back.”

They nodded. “Say when.”

She didn’t.

Instead, they stood there in silence, extending out this brief respite for as long as the guilt wasn’t killing her. It was the meal hour. It was an hour where most fey were released from their jobs for early supper, and no one needed to be at their next placement until it ended.

So for this brief hour, she simply leaned against Zhadin, listening to the sounds of the Wylds and watching a Sergent finch unsuccessfully try to woo females to his side.

Before the bells tolled, she whispered, “When.”

Zhadin responded, “As you wish,” and pulled her through the shadows once more.

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