Rosin

2- Agreeable

Kristin snarled at how the child's wings flicked up and down as they skipped along in front of him. Wren was far too at ease with this stranger he had dragged in from the rain. The girl, Rosin Magnolia. The problem currently giving Kristin a splitting headache. The man had no clue how she had managed to kick down the door of her room and come creeping through the halls in the state she was in. How she was even awake was a mystery to him. He had found her half drowned, senseless with cold and snake's venom coursing through her leg. Honestly, the man wasn't quite sure what he had been thinking dragging her here... he should have left her for dead— did he not have enough to worry about, did he not already have one winged frakinlen that existed to cause him bother? He hadn't realised she was a Winged at the time, she had been half sunken in mud. Knowing about those monstrous pink things that protruded from her back probably wouldn't have made any difference though. Logic had told him to forget her and the monster coiling itself around her... and yet as he tried to creep past, forget her, she had made such a terrible sound. Screamed with such terror, so helpless and little as she sunk in the mud, being battered by the rain, crying at the sight of the serpent arching over her... and the sight of the poor thing had pricked his heart.

A mistake. Saving her, bringing her here. Letting Wren see her. Rosin Magnolia was a creature from the east... strong for her small age, with far too much of a scary face for her size. Had he looked through her bag earlier, maybe he would have hesitated to bleed the poison from her leg. A girl from Quercus, roaming the forest alone, equipped with a monstrous blade and nothing more. Supposedly searching for tribes. Searching, or hunting? People from the east of the lake were backwards and wrong. Kristin didn't trust her. He didn't like her— she should not have been able to wake up in only two days after the trauma her body had been through. And yet, she had. And then she had kicked in a door and listened in on the meeting with that insufferable woman and the clowns that followed her... which, even though it unsettled him, was not the worst thing. No, the worst thing was that Rosin Magnolia was showing an interest in Wren.

Worse yet, Wren was showing an interest in her.

"I do not think equal to you, child." Kristin uttered miserably, "Not about this."
Wren continued to skip along the tunnel. Still their wings were light and flittery... putting a cringe in his face. This child had no sense of danger, they were too swept up in their excitement at seeing another Winged such as themselves.
"It doesn't matter whether you agree with me or not." Wren responded, "I am the Elder."
"You have never ignored my words before now!" The man pleaded. He walked briskly to match their speed, inclined his head slightly to see their face, "Child, I do not speak to order you, I speak to help you. You are the Elder and I can only advise. Why will you not listen?"
Wren looked at him. They searched his face for a moment, with big orange eyes blinking, and then looked back at where they were walking.
"This girl is from the east of the lake." Wren lightly frowned. "You read her... her book, she is from Quercus, she is looking to make peace between the tribes again."
"So she says." He scowled at the floor.
Wren, as usual, paid his grumblings no mind, "Can't you imagine it? Everyone getting along, working together... it is something not even my parents were able to do."
Kristin made a clicking sound at the back of his throat. So innocent, you are. Yet to learn that an awful lot of people simply did not want to 'get along', that making peace wasn't as simple as helping neighbouring tribes. There would always be those who looked for trouble.
"Your parents were very great people." The man spoke softly. He muttered something with words Wren couldn't understand, then added, "Do not make little the things they achieved. Some things can't be done, child."
"Well I must try." They immediately put back. And Kristin watched in dismay as a little smile flittered bright on their rosy cheeks, as their wings whisked up a cloud of dust from the floor, "And besides, I... I should like to talk to her."