The Offer ~ GG Onslaught

   Acorn Count: 11/743

   Onslaught Bounty: Contain The Contagion

   Characters Depicted: 

   -   Seelie Hollow (Mine)
  -  Pipsqueak (Grimsby Grove NPC)

   Word Count: 895

   Collaboration Parts: MinTea-Leaves did the background on this piece!

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   You can’t take something if it’s freely given…

   Wow, we’ve really been spending a lot of time examining Seelie’s awful upbringing! Once again, the Hollows have left Seelie with bad life skills and anxiety– this time around their heritage. The Hollows had some recessive druid heritage, which flared up in Seelie! Unfortunately, this just further isolated Seelie from their family and peers…

   Thankfully, Pipsqueak isn’t putting up with any of that.

   Coming from the Cove– which had just welcomed back a generation of pure witches, Pipsqueak knows that the kardia doesn’t make the folk. Hopefully, she can smack some sense back into Seelie’s head there.

   (Also, this is the first time I’m uploading art to the new submission system and I am Dying, oh god. If anything’s gone horribly wrong here, please let me know.)

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   Monitoring the pyres wasn’t an enviable task, but someone had to do it. Most of the volunteers had jumped straight at checking on the healthy, treating the sick, or culling those who’d gone too far (and that, Seelie could understand. Most had joined this onslaught to feel like they were doing something– refusing to admit any defeat).

   But Seelie couldn’t stand by themself as a gravekeeper if they didn’t tend to the dead.

   A couple of fellow gravekeepers joined them, laying the bodies to rest on the pyres the druids built, watching over them to make sure they burned all the way to ash. They took it in shifts, tending to the fires, stoking them to their full potential with magic or gravekeeper tools turned pokers.

   The fire-tenders didn’t talk much, and the steady stream of folk dropping off dead bodies tended to scurry off the second they could.

   That’s probably why Seelie nearly jumped out of their fur when the Jarl just plopped herself down on Seelie’s log. Thankfully, Seelie, retaining some shred of dignity, did not hit the Jarl in the face. They did, however, hit themself.

   Pipsqueak laughed as Seelie sheepishly rubbed at their snout. “Sorry, mate! ‘Y’alright?”

   Seelie nodded, their glittering blush shimmering in the firelight as the Jarl clapped them on the back with a big, toothy grin.

   “Good to hear!” she chittered, looking Seelie up and down before cocking her head to the side. “Saw ‘ya at that first meeting– ‘raised your hand before Lilly was even done talking. Say– weren’t you the kid who got themself in the med tent the first week of the Hunt?”

   “That would be me, yes.”

   “Ha– don’t make a habit of it.”

   Seelie winced, fiddling with the webbing between their fingers before signing. “I apologize, but I believe it’s ‘too late for that,’ my Jarl.”

   Pipsqueak paused for a minute before snorting, tossing her head back. “I’d tell ‘ya off, but I was right in your spot at your age. ‘Lotta young druids were.”

   They did their best not to flinch as the Jarl just kept rambling.

   “But still, glad to see you’re taking it easy this month– ‘how’s the fire tending been going?”

   “Oh, we’ve been able to keep this one going for a few hours now– shouldn’t need any more fuel for it until it burns itself out,” Seelie explained, pausing their signing to poke the embers back to life. “It will take care of the bodies– and their blights, of course.”

   The Jarl hummed thoughtfully, though she didn’t watch the fire, instead turning her attention to Titania. “Huh– ‘seen some pretty unique oars in my time– but never one that doubled as a musical instrument.”

   Again, Seelie blushed, their hand gripping Titania’s handle even tighter. The strings thrummed in the wind. “Ah. I suppose it is… unusual,” they answered with a shrug.

   “‘I ain’t mean it in any bad way,” Pipsqueak huffed, her brow furrowed. “‘The oar’s as unique as the druid that wields it’– sorry, you call them shovels back at the Grove, ‘no?”

   “No, it’s an oar,” Seelie corrected before blinking.

   Pipsqueak blinked as well, leaning in. “An oar, eh?”

   “Well, uh– traditionally, shovels in the Grove are held upright,” Seelie explained. “And mine obviously isn’t. It’s one of the Cove’s supply, so I suppose it just… wished to remain an oar.”

   Again, Pipsqueak huffed, rolling her eyes. “The tool matches the user– if it’s an oar, it’s because an oar fits you.”

   It was said lightheartedly– as if it was obvious, and Seelie was silly for thinking otherwise.

   Seelie cringed into themself, muttering.

   “What was that?”

   “I said I’m sorry, my Jarl,” Seelie signed, ducking their head apologetically.

   “...Why?”

   They pulled Titania up to their chest, rapping their claws against the wood. “Well, an oar is a druid’s tool– and I’m no druid. It’s… improper, isn’t it?”

   Pipsqueak shrugged almost immediately. “‘Doesn’t say much. A lot of folks ‘ain’t druids. ‘Lotta Covers ‘ain’t druids. What makes a Grover any different?”

   Seelie didn’t have an answer for that.

   “I’m assuming there’s some kind of ancestry going on here,” Pipsqueak asked after Seelie went silent, gesturing casually to Seelie’s gills and pouch. Their tongue suddenly felt swollen in their mouth.

   “I… believe so. But I can’t know.”

   “‘You had problems with languages growing up?”

   “Yes.”

   “Bright colours as a kit? Bit people a lot?”

   “Uh, I’ve been told I did.”

   “Bit of an ingrained wrath towards anything and everything?”

   At this point, Pipsqueak was smirking, her head cocked knowingly to the side.

   Seelie finally snapped.

   “I can’t know for certain. It’s not my place to take something that doesn’t belong to me,” they hissed, their pale teeth flashing in the firelight.

   Of course, this didn’t do anything to stop Pipsqueak. In fact– she seemed almost vindicated, like she’d won the argument. Her self-satisfied smile dropped into something more understanding as she clapped Seelie on the back.

   “You’re not taking anything– you’re being offered it. If you don’t want it– fine, nobody would blame you. But you don’t need a teardrop ‘kardia to fit in around here,” she chittered, mussing up the curled fur on Seelie’s shoulders before she stood. “I hope I’ll still see you around, kid.”

   And off the Jarl went, leaving Seelie staring into the silence she left as the flames flickered in front of them.