12. babysitting

The days were beginning to drag on for the fae.

All she would do was pace her little tower amongst the trees, circling around the windows of the cabin and using her keen eyesight and hearing to detect any ice fae near. She had seen a few at the corner of the woods, but they were only commoners searching for food. She tried her best to stay far away from the Ice Kingdom and everywhere its cruel, frozen tentacles reached, but she had witnessed the pain that Eira was inflicting even on her own race of fae.

Even in the Ice Kingdom there was an hierarchy outside the one that Al and her group were thrown in. Every ice fae lived in the ice castle, yet there were the class of poor who lived in mud and were on the brink of starving, a middle class who worked every hour of their days to bring luxury items to the Queen, then there were the soldiers who beat every other fae around because their egos were so inflated to be the Queen's army. Then there was Eira, sitting on her throne at the very top of the castle and passively committing murder every day.

The fact that Alastair and her people were the only fae besides ice fae left petrified her to her very core. That was why she paced around her watchtower everyday, searching for signs of danger or threat or attack. Nowadays, her black and red-glazed feathers on her wings were always stiffened, always tense and on alert. Her muscles were beginning to ache from remaining so constantly rigid. She never slept, and she could feel it start to get to her.

Having the human girl around gave her a little entertainment, at least. It had been years since she met a human who was so inquisitive and independent as Nyx—in fact, she had never met a human girl like her. Alastair took after Nyx's father in the way that she liked to mingle in the human world only a little bit, even though the majority of them were pathetic little rats to her.

Nikolaus had been Alastair's best friend. Al's father had led Nikolaus' father's army when he was King, and Al followed in his footsteps by leading Nikolaus' army when he was given the crown. But never was there a sense of superiority or inferiority with them—that's how Nikolaus was with everyone. He was kind and just, viewing every creature that walked the planet as an equal to him. Alastair had always wondered if he was too kind for his own good, and perhaps she was right. He was dead now, and she was using his young daughter to blackmail the evil bitch who killed him.

"Al."

The fae's head snapped around to the doorway which she had not even heard open, and there stood Caspian who looked both amused and concerned to see the way in which he had frightened her with his presence. The fae had been so deep in her thoughts that she had dissociated to another realm.

"You need sleep," he immediately pointed out, focusing on the dark circles underneath her red eyes.

"No," she growled, turning back around to stare out the window at the same treetops she had memorized the past several weeks. "Did you come all the way up here and interrupt me just to mother me?"

She heard him chuckle behind her. "No, actually. I came here to let you know that Catori and I are about to go hunting. We won't be back until morn."

Al chewed her plump lower lip between her teeth. "Make sure to get some fish while you're out. I'm tired of all the ham and bacon we've been eating, even if wild hogs are plentiful in supply." She pursed her lips and raised her chin, her hands that were folded behind her back softly trembling. She couldn't remember the last time she had eaten anything besides a leftover strip of bacon or a piece of celery as her meal for the day.

Caspian's watchful eyes noticed the way her fingertips trembled against her palms. A concerned look flashed over his face, only because Al wasn't looking at him and would have turned him into ash if she saw any hint of pity in his eyes. "Aerwyn and Abitha have offered to take watch for tonight," he blurted, clenching his teeth and preparing to use his water to extinguish any flames the fae might throw at him.

She scoffed, raising up on her toes before coming back down on her heels, never moving her eyes away from the window. "Have you ever even met Abitha? She's practically a woodland elf with wings who gets distracted by every butterfly she sees." Her chocolate locks bounced at her back as she shook her head. "And Aerwyn is so old he's basically senile."

"They fully understand the seriousness and responsibility it takes to keep watch. They are the figureheads of the earth and air fae for a reason, you know." He sighed quietly, his aquamarine eyes softening. "How can we be a united group if you don't trust anyone but yourself?"

Al snapped her eyes over to him, her orbs flaming with hints of burnt orange. The bone at the corner of her jaw raised from her skin as she clenched it, warning for him to not psychoanalyze her the way he always tried to do. "You water fae were always such nonconsensual therapists. Maybe you should die out." She rolled her eyes and turned back to the window, ignoring the way her eyes nearly drooped closed and thanking the gods above that Caspian didn't catch sight of it.

"Take the night off," Caspian commanded more firmly, his deep voice sounding like crashing waves of a sea that demanded the fish below to cooperate. "The girl can stay with the air fae while we're gone."

"Absolutely not," Al immediately snipped, now turning her body fully towards him, her eyes threatening. "If you insist that I take the night off, she will stay with me. Those airheads don't know how to stay focused and would lose her within the first hour."

Caspian smirked at Al's blatant prejudice of the different races of fae, even though she was the one leading the way to end fae inequality. "But you need sleep, Al, and I already know that you won't catch any shut-eye because you'll be too busy watching her like a hawk."

"I'll manage," she immediately countered with a tight smile that looked more dangerous than kind.

But Caspian knew he had won, anyways. He had known that mentioning the girl would have been the only thing that would make Al agree in any sense. "Good then," he remarked with a nod and a slightly smug smile. "Catori made some dinner and left it in your cottage. It should be enough for the both of you."

"Alright then," she quipped, nodding slowly with that tight smile that silently screamed for him to leave her alone in peace.

The water fae smirked, eyeing Al with a glint in his eye before he slowly left through the door and closed it behind him. Al listened to the sound of him flying away before she turned once more back to the window and sighed, trying to convince herself that it truly was okay to let someone else handle the reigns for once. Although she wasn't too excited to babysit the human.

♔

The girl dug into the bowl of corn ravenously, only halfway chewing her food before gulping it down and cutting into a piece of ham. She stopped momentarily to drink down half of her cup of water before going back to eating her food like a wild animal.

"Did the earth fae not feed you while you stayed with them this afternoon?" Alastair asked with her voice edged in both amusement and seriousness—of course those mindless fae would forget to feed her. After Al reluctantly let Abitha and Aerwyn take watch for the rest of the night and Caspian and Catori left to go hunting, Al let the earth fae take watch of Nyx until sundown so that the fae could catch up on some sleep. The second that dusk fell upon the forest, Al ordered the girl be brought to her cottage. If Eira was going to strike, it was most likely going to be at night.

The girl's honey brown eyes flashed up to the fae's, and the bridge of her nose turned pink in humiliation at realizing she was eating improperly. She set her fork down and chewed her food more slowly, gulping it down carefully and taking a tiny sip of water to wash it down. "Sorry," she mumbled, wiping her mouth with her white napkin. "I'm just... not used to having so much food. I guess my instincts are to eat it all before I have none again."

The fae, who sat across the small wooden table inside the cottage which was lit by the incessantly burning fireplace and a few candles above the mantle, eyed the girl with inquisitive crimson orbs. "You and your mother were poor," she declared rather than questioned, for she already knew the answer.

Nyx nodded timidly, chewing her lip and rolling the metal tips of her fork over the corn in the bowl. "We came close to starving many times," she whispered with embarrassment of her words. She had been harshly taught the cruel classism of the human world many times when she would play with children in the village only for them to point at her dirty clothes and laugh with their shiny new boots and the ability to not panic over a few pennies falling from their pockets.

Al situated herself more comfortably in the wooden chair, her charcoal and auburn wings tensing and untensing. "But you didn't," she observed with a hint of playfulness in her tone. Little did the girl know that Alastair and her fae were responsible for that fact.

The girl smiled softly, her pink lips only curt in their grateful endeavor before her face went solemn again. Al had noticed that Nyx hardly ever looked her in the eyes, and usually it had been because she was intimidated, but in that moment it was out of embarrassment that she let her eyes fixate on the wooden tabletop. "We didn't," she softly repeated. "We were honestly blessed with some sort of luck, I've always believed. For every time we prepared to not have any food for days or even a week, food would appear on our doorstep." She took another sip of her water from the metal cup. "The townspeople were really nice for donating food to us, but I always thought it was so lucky that they would feel compassionate right when we would feel doomed, every single time."

The fae's dark pink lips twisted upwards slightly into some sort of knowing smirk. "That's because I would send Erlin out with food to your house."

The girl's eyes lifted from the table and darted directly into the fae's red ones without hesitation. "You what?" she asked in disbelief.

Al pursed her lips, feeling that gross discomfort that came with being praised for good deeds overcoming her. She nodded and hummed, tapping the rim of her cup of water with her fingertips. "I apologize for not sending out more food. I could have, but you were always quite the inquisitive thing." Al smiled, remembering all the times Erlin would come back going on and on about how the girl almost caught him leaving potatoes and carrots at their front doorstep. "I believe you never slept for the first ten years of your life."

Nyx blinked, the shock of that fact overwhelming her brain. There were so many mysteries of her life being solved, so many puzzling aspects being worked out right before her. She almost felt like her entire life was just a falsehood, an imaginative perception that she had lived in for 18 years. "Wait, Erlin is only fourteen. Who brought the food before he was old enough to do it himself?"

Fingertips tapped slower along the rim of the metal cup, the ends of fiery feathers ruffling. "I did," Al answered smoothly, concentrating her eyes on her cup as she cursed her ears for visibly twitching.

"You did?" Nyx echoed, setting her fork down on her plate. "That's surprising."

Al shocked the girl when she chuckled, her lips spreading wide and revealing her pearly teeth that sparkled even in the dark. "Well, there was none of this back then after Eira had just taken the throne." She motioned her hand in the air, referring to the entire camp. "We were all separated and in hiding, too scared to try to band up just yet. It was just me back then, and I made sure to stay close around you and Valerie, to keep the both of you alive, as I promised your father."

"You were alone?" Nyx repeated, her head tilting. She had previously assumed that all the fae had been together for the whole 18 years since Eira overthrew the throne. "For how long?"

The fae hesitated, something dull and deep drilling darkness into her eyes. "Ten years."

The girl's lips fell open. She couldn't imagine how anyone could be alone for ten whole years. "Didn't you try to go find the others?"

Alastair's eyes suddenly flashed to the girl's, and they abruptly changed to a different tone, one that held a sparkle of something near adoration in them. "I couldn't," she nearly whispered.

"Why?"

"I had to keep you safe." Her voice was firm and unwavering, but not in the strict and threatening way it usually was. It held a delicateness to it, something that made the girl relax with comfort. "So I lingered around in the forest around your cottage for ten years, always watching, always waiting for any sign of danger or attack. Then Caspian found me, and then the others came along. After that, Erlin would take you food and I would have earth and air fae take shifts watching your house." She left out the part where she sometimes would still take the food herself just to see how much Nyx had grown to resemble her father since the last time she saw her.

Nyx didn't know quite what to say. Little did she know that for the first ten years of her life, Alastair was always around protecting her, and continued to make sure she was safe and fed for the next eight years. She literally owed the fae her life. "Wow," she breathed, gulping and running all this new information through her brain. "I... I don't know what to say..."

"A thank you would perhaps be in order," Al said with a smirk, watching the girl's serious eyes meet hers before matching her amused look.

"Thank you, Alastair. I don't think I could ever thank you enough, really. I truly do owe you my life." She leaned forward and smiled hopefully at the fae, wishing that she could somehow repay all the things Al had done for her.

"Well, don't feel too flattered," Al spoke with a careless change of tone, leaning back in her chair and glancing at the water that swirled in her cup as she moved it in small circles. "It was only because I needed to ensure the throne and fulfill what I promised your father, since he was my best friend and my King."

The smile fell from the girl's face and so did the flattered blush. She leaned back against her chair and cleared her throat. "Yes, I know." She reprimanded herself for getting too sappy and selfishly thinking that Al protected the girl just to protect her. The only reason the fae cared about her was because the future of the entire Fae was, apparently, dependent on her.

Al sighed and stood from the table, setting her cup down and crossing the room to look out the window beside the front door. She glanced up at the full moon that peeked out from behind the trees.

Nyx watched the fae from where she sat at the table. Her wings never ceased to amaze the girl every time she caught a good glance at them. They were so large and so powerful, their tips dragging at the floor as the fae walked. They were seemingly holographic—jet black with burnt orange tips at the end, but an overall red glare every time light hit the set of wings at just the right angle. Her hair was the same way, except its forefront color was chestnut brown, until a mahogany glaze was apparent in certain lighting. Nyx wished to touch those feathers, to feel their softness and the muscles beneath them. She wished to see them fly again as she did that night during the performance, except she wanted them to fly her up in the sky with them.

"You should go to bed," Alastair spoke, her husky voice drawing the girl from her wandering thoughts. "It's getting late."

The girl's eyes focused on the way the moonlight fell through the window and cast across the fae's face, casting shadows down her high cheekbones and contrasting the rest of her structured face and jaw. Her eyes were a deep red that night, calm yet always watchful. The fae's ears seemed to twitch at every slight sound, for as the girl set her empty bowl of corn on top of her empty plate, they perked and moved back towards her.

As Nyx stood from her chair, her eyes remained on Al who was still focused on looking out the window. She couldn't help but admire how strikingly beautiful the fae was, how ethereally poised she was at every moment. She looked like she was drawn right out of a fairytale book, both because of her wings and pointed ears and vibrant eyes, and also because of how otherworldly pretty she was.

"I'll take care of those," Al immediately stated in a blank tone right as Nyx went to pick up her plate from the table. This confused the girl because the fae's eyes had not once moved towards her, and Nyx's hands hadn't even reached the plate yet.

The girl retracted her hands and left the table, walking towards the doorway of the room that Al had showed her to earlier. Before she entered, she stopped, turning around to glance at the fae once more. "Goodnight," she whispered.

Al turned her head towards the girl, eyes watching her with slight confusion as to why the girl was softly smiling as she told her goodnight. She said nothing back, only watched as the human disappeared into the room and closed the door behind her. Al then heard the sound of the lock being locked on the door, and some sharp emotion came crashing over her like a wave of needles on her chest. Why did the girl lock the door? Did she not trust the fae? Was she scared of her?

Al sighed, her eyelids fluttering closed as she turned back to the window and leaned forward, pressing her forehead against the cold glass and feeling the heat that came with her worrying thoughts melt away from her forehead. She couldn't blame the girl.

She would be scared of her, too.