Snow ✓

An Unfortunate Discovery

The girl wedged a boot over her bandaged foot before Gran could see the green bleeding through and walked out and down the corridor of snow that now had walls as tall as she. Mat lost sight of her around the first bend as he absently played with the hem of his sticky shirt, already solidifying with her blood or sap or whatever had oozed out of her. That's what it smelled like: the sap that oozes out of a freshly cut stem.

Not purely cosmetic, then. It was the first time he thought Gran's superstitious misgivings about the girl might be apt.

"What's gotten into you?" Gran asked, startling him out of his thoughts.

He grunted a noise of inquiry and busied himself by using the rag he'd been white-knuckling a moment before to wipe his already clean hands.

"You care for her like she's your own blood."

"What's that famous quote of that Gone World prophet? Love thy neighbor—"

"Don't get cheeky with me, boy. She's not one of us, not even human—"

"Why don't you just tell me what it is that you're so afraid of?"

"They're all supposed to be gone," she said distantly, as if looking inward on a stained memory. "Sure, there are stories; maybe there are a few werelings still prowling around that dead forest surviving on nobody knows what, but all the faeries and their halfling demon spawns are supposed to be gone—"

"We know what faeries looked like; she doesn't—"

"A witch, then," she spat.

"You act as if she starts chanting in tongues when you come into a room. She's not brewing potions, concocting spells—"

"Not yet," she mumbled.

Mat laughed derisively.

The old woman clamped her mouth shut and her jaw worked like she was chewing her tongue into a bloody stump.

"No one knows who started the war—"

"What started the war was humans leaving a world they'd destroyed for one already occupied by an intelligent species unwilling to bend the knee—"

"—but what caused the tensions was interbreeding," Gran blazed on. "For every human child that died in the womb or was born dead, a mutt with magic was born."

"People had trouble reproducing long before they came to Helithica—"

"It went against the treaty, against nature—I'm telling you," she said, shoving a finger into Mat's face as he opened his mouth to refute, "she's a halfling."

"The faeries have been dead for more than eighty orbits! You sound crazy suspecting a girl who can't be more than 10 who has obviously experienced some sort of trauma."

Gran purpled and began to shake, then, all at once, the eye of the storm passed over her face. "Your mother did you a great disservice raising you in the company of those experimental creatures of hers."

With a cold grin, Mat grabbed his jacket and stormed outside.

It's called having compassion, you old crone.

Gran had always been prone to rants and, usually, Mat got away with deflecting, but the girl was a constant reminder that the old woman harbored a deep-seated fear. And unfortunately, it seemed she was right: the girl wasn't human. Maybe leaving Gran to speculate about fantastical possibilities was dangerous, but she had demonstrated that she couldn't handle the truth, whatever it was. Now, it was a matter of keeping the girl away from sharp corners. If any accidents were suffered in front of the old woman, heads would roll.