Wanderer [I'ka] [GoblinFae]

[Nightcrawler]

Eln stared down at her, still flummoxed. She had never been quite this way towards him before. He wondered if the drink had caused this. Or maybe, with the veil lifted, she was beginning to show signs of who she was before her loss. He stood there while he thought, planted like a tree. "Hmm," he grunted finally. Then he turned and left to find her some food as she had asked, shaking his head as he walked away.

Eln returned some minutes later with two of a flat, soft thing called a "bread", and on it, a stack of skewered and roasted fishes. He found the wind and sat so as to block it from chilling At-Id. Then he divided up what he had brought, and he offered her the one with the larger fishes. "Anything more?"

[GoblinFae]

"No this is good," she replied, immediately moving to press into his side. At'Eed shifted his cloak so they could share it and the plate of food more easily. "Make sure you eat your fill," the healer instructed while switching the fish so the bigger one was in front of him and she took one of the smaller ones.

"What do you eat and do at your feast parties? You said they are like this?"

[Nightcrawler]

He cast a sidelong glance at her as she moved closer, but gone were the days when he would have startled from it. Her presence did not feel like a threat anymore. He wondered, with how comfortable he was, if he had settled into this life a little too much now. He frowned down at the fish as At-Id switched his for the larger one, but his only argument was a low grumble.

At her question, he straightened up a bit. "Too much to say in one night," he replied with the hint of a smile. "Some feasts like this: for pairing, or woman fighting for a man. Others are for remember, or make evil go away, or for hunt. Yours like this? Or...just for man and woman?" He took a ginger bite of the bread. Then his stormy eyes widened and he stopped talking altogether in favor of wolfing the whole thing down. "Is very good," he managed.

[GoblinFae]

"We have these too," At'Eed replied with a nod. "Women don't fight for a man. Or, well, sometimes that can happen, but that is not a celebration event. But if we are victorious in a fight with others we celebrate. We have potlatch where we celebrate prosperity and cast out greed. In the hot months we eat good and stay up telling stories by the central fire. We dance and play and laugh. It is when I fell in love with my husband," she reminisced smiling without realizing before grief stung her and she sighed away the watering of her eyes. "He loved to crow and dance. You'd hear him returning with the other fishers before you ever saw them on the horizon."

She grinned behind her fingers at him and his enthusiasm while taking up her own fish and pulling strips to fold into the bread and eat. "Eat up. You will need your strength and a full belly after all the work you did today."

[Nightcrawler]

Eln made quick work of the fish. He would not tell her this, but he was glad that At-Id had told him to eat. He had been so preoccupied by his plans to leave that his stomach had worked itself into knots. He had not realized how hungry he was until this moment, or how agitated that hunger had made him. When he was finished, he sat in contented silence and allowed her some space to weep. "The good memory," he said finally, making a fist and pressing it to his chest. "This is what to keep. He will stay here, in your heart. Keep you warm."

[GoblinFae]

At'Eed nodded before quipping. "So warm I will not need your cloak then?" She shook her head in amusement, eating far slower than him and not even managing to finish her fish as she nudged it over to him to eat.

"It is a good cloak. I know you said to keep it but it's yours and you need it more than I do."

[Nightcrawler]

Eln moved the fish back to At'Eed with a skeptical glance. "You always cold. I not. Why I need more than you?"

[GoblinFae]

"Nights are cold away from the fire." She said simply with a shrug, pushing the fish back towards him and 'washing' her hands off in the sand. "And it is only warm because you've worn it first."

[Nightcrawler]

Eln did not understand her this time. There was a fire in the house where they kept him, after all. And he kept plenty warm by exerting himself with the tasks that they gave him. He assumed that she was once again arguing for argument's sake. He grumbled. "Arguing fun for you," he muttered beneath his breath. "You keep it," he insisted. He returned the fish to her again, flipped the cloak off of his shoulders, and rose to his feet. "I...go find a tree to water. I back soon."

[GoblinFae]

"Will you though?" She replied softly. At'Eed climbed to her feet, dusting off her skirt as she removed his cloak. "Bring back some seeds when you come home," she spoke louder, tossing his cloak at his head. "And take this. I'm going inside. I will feel better knowing you won't get sick again."

At'Eed waved him off not even allowing him the chance to try and return the cloak one final time. With her back to him he could not see the way her face fell with knowing and sorrow. She would miss her friend.

"Be well, Eln. Be well."

[Nightcrawler]

He narrowly caught the cloak before it tangled in his horns. If she had not spoken up, he would have missed her words in his confusion. Seeds? Bring seeds? "At-Id," he called after her, but she was already halfway across the sands to her home. He stood there pondering what she had meant, and why she had risen so suddenly, but he could not make sense of it. Perhaps it really was the drink. He would have to hope that her mood had shifted again tomorrow.

Eln swung his cloak up over one shoulder and made his way past the revelry, past the brush that marked the end of the sands, and up into the forest. He really had come out here to water a tree. But as he stopped to do so, he turned back. There, in the distance, the bonfire shone against the blue-black dark. Faint laughter echoed out against the huts and into the sky. And he became keenly aware that for the first time in months...he was alone.

It was time. Wasn't it?

He finished his deed. He pulled the cloak back down and donned it. He took one last look at the village. He fled into the night.