“Soo~...”

“...”

 

“...”

“...So?”

 

“How art thou faring, O’ leader mine?~”

“I am well… or are you perhaps insinuating something else, Cain?”

 

“Oh, Come on! You knoow what I am talking about! About a certain thing you picked up in the forest, about this high, small~, cute~, glued to you all day and—”

*SMACK* *GACK!– COUGH COUGH*

 

*Wheeze…*

“I do not see how that is relevant, nor how that is an affair that you should be concerned with. Shouldn't you be in bed by now? Or frolicking with your troublemaker friends in the fields?”

 

“*Cough* That you used violence to answer me, *cough” only proves me right, hehe~”

“...”

 

“You had mellowed out a lot while we were with that kid, even started smiling for once!. The both of you were pretty much inseparable until we got home, and though you were kind of shit on taking care of her– H-hey! Don’t hit me, I am right and you know it!”

“*grumble* ...You didn’t need to point that out.”

 

“After all the trouble we went through just to rescue her, and all the trouble you went through just to let her stay in the village instead of taking her back to Gods knows where her kind lives, we all thought you would be taking her in!... That the handsome, good ol’ Gaviel~ would be making a nest for his likely self– GAH! Ok! Ok! I’ll stop.”

“Have you come here, in the middle of the night, just to test patience?”

 

“...Well, kind of– B-but! But It’s true that we are worried about you. You have been all down and mopey since she got under Sammy and Clau.”

“...”

 

“So?”

“...*sigh*”

 

“...”

“It is… vexing. Even now, I still do not quite understand what came over me… to create such a deep attachment to her… At the time, we all were struck by something unfathomable, fear lining our minds because of a being that so easily breached our barriers…

And then…

And then I find a little girl with pointy horns and a scaled tail, no taller than any other children here. Lying in her own pool of blood and surrounded by the viscera of dozens upon dozens of Arbotect spiders.”

 

“...”

”I thought she was dead, Cain. I-I don’t know… In her face, I glimpsed the fallen corpses of our fellow kin, of our families and loved ones. It brought on terrible, horrible fear in me... You saw her, didn’t you?... How closely she resembles us…”

 

“Yeah yeah… *sigh*now look at what’ve you done, I’m starting to feel all mopey too…”

“*chuckle* I reckon that she has had that effect on all of us… And despite the circumstances, I would not be able to properly follow through with the responsibilities of a caretaker. She will be better with people who are capable and ready to properly nurture her, as I continue to tend to my own duties with the village. And I am happy with that.”

 

“Aha! See? You’re not looking all serious and frowning anymore. Come on now, did you know that everyone’s throwing a party for the new kid? It’s not every day that someone from outside our little piece of heaven ends up living with us. The last time that happened was by my grandpa’s time, and that was centuries ago!”

“...Hmm. Perhaps I will.”

 

——— –– –– -- - -

 

“I don’t like it.”

“And yet, here we are.”

“Oh come on, we have already spoken about this. It is not as if we could just punt her outside and leave her to fate.”

 

“That does not mean I am not eligible to continue to voice my concerns about some outsider we do not know anything about. It is a risk. ”

“A risk that has been proven itself to be negligible, and even then, the majority vote was to let her stay indefinitely, or at least let her go when she reaches’ her race’s age of maturity, depending on her lifespan.”

“And she’s just a little girl, what could she possibly do?”

 

“With the absolute disaster that just happened a couple of months ago? I am right to doubt anything with even a speck of magic inside them.”

“True, but moderation in moderation is a virtue.”

“Pha! That’s just your ancient ass being paranoid.”

 

“Don’t give me that! If anyone’s ancient here, it’s you!”

“We’re all old. Even by Elven standards. *sip*”

“*grumble* just drink your wine and be happy you were wrong about the child. Parties as big as this are exceedingly rare, and I think they are breaking out the good stuff that’s been lying in the big cellar.”

 

“Hmm? Do you mean that thousand-something-old collection of yours? I thought you were trying to hoard those for yourself?”

“Please. Do take care of yourself. Our bodies aren’t quite what they used to be.”

“I gotta drink those treasures one day! Or else I won’t be here to be able to enjoy them anymore! Bwahahaha!”

 

——— –– –– -- - -

 

“So, you managed to snag her for yourself.”

“Yup!”

“...”

 

“Do you even understand what you have just done? The responsibilities, the necessities… We don’t even know if she will live as long as you expect her to.”

“That just means I’ll have to treasure our time together that much more!”

“...*munch**munch*”

 

“*siighh…* This woman…”

“Oh! Try this one, sweetheart, it’s very yummy. I bet you’ll like it!”

“Hm?– MpHFffmm!!!”

 

“Anyways, another thing, I have taken some blood samples out of her–”

“You mean with those very big, very scary needles of yours?”

“*crunch**munch* *sip*”

 

“–Yes. With those very big, very scary needles of mine… As I could not just magic away any poison in her body without knowing what she ate, and with her considerably strange biology compared to ours, I had to resort to the old-fashioned ways and did some tests.”

“Hmm… Well, she looks quite healthy to me. What did you find out?”

“*crunch?* *ptooey* *sip*”

 

“Honestly… I don’t quite know what. But I could make some hypotheses. Firstly, she is very much still poisoned to high heaven with an absurdly foul mix of toxins. I can’t fathom where or why she ingested whatever she did. And yet, her system is apparently unaffected and even slowly getting rid of them, either filtering or absorbing them. Can’t tell which.”

“That’s a relief.”

“*sip**slurp*”

 

“Secondly, is whenever she has an injury above a certain level of damage– And no, don’t give me that look. I did not hurt her, at least not on purpose. Ask Gaviel about it… Anyways. Her skin and muscles seem to manifest something akin to dark viridian roots that knit the wound closed and produce a white amber substance that fills the gaps. Resulting in a full recovery without any visual sign of scarring.”

“Oh my, she’s an amazing little thing isn’t she?”

“*fwaa**burp*”

 

“Yes, haha, she is. And thirdly… well, not much of a test or examination, I just don’t have a single fucking clue of what she is.”

“Hey! Language!”

“...*sweatdrops*”

 

“Sorry, sorry. But still, she isn’t a Minos, a Capricae, Pythae, or Krocos. Maybe a Draconian sub-race… Though she has at least some Elven blood since she could pass through the gate. There’s also the issue that she has a flower stem that is either attached to her head or a naturally occurring trait of hers. What causes it to bloom is unknown to me.”

“...In the end. Does it really matter all that much? She is here.”

“...”

 

“Well, I guess we have all the time we need to satiate our curiosity. Hmm, I wonder if those scales shed…”

“Hey! At least wait for me to teach her how to speak before you go on with your weird research!”

“...*yawn*”

 

——— –– –– -- - -