Egbert

Lactose Intolerant

These woods are more home to her in this past week than they have been to me in the past decade. It's with deft mastery that she's able to wind around the trees, step over roots and avoid the scuttling bunnies at every other interval. I just about manage to keep up, and only because of my heightened senses. The only pause in our quick journey is when the snap of a twig behind us suddenly fills the silence. And even then it's a just a pause to scout out the cause, we're being followed; by a cute little fox, nothing to be worried about. There's no more Van Swieten and I can ease up a little about her dying. Still not a good idea to tell her about the blood situation, no matter how queasy it makes me feel. 

We trail until the ground starts to slope downwards and the trees begin thinning until the forest opens out onto the town lake.

The last time I came here was for the school trip. Really it was a disguise to get us to clean up the lake, we all gave up when Vikram fell in and it was deemed a safety risk. I may or may not have pushed him. He volunteered. Well, he lost at rock, paper, scissors.

Beside the once shining azure lake, now more of a rusty blue, Scarlett has set an old blanket down on the floor. I know it's old because I can smell the life permeating from it. That's a nice way of saying- but I shouldn't complain, she's even gone through the effort of packing a picnic basket and setting it in the middle of the blanket, like something from an outdoor magazine.

"Did you make this?" I confirm, crossing my legs under the blanket.

She nods, "it's nothing special. I just threw some things together." With the humility I'm expecting something lavish, but looking into the basket I spot a rough sandwich with the tuna spilling out of it and sorely beaten apples. It's not humility, its honesty. "It's perfect." Because it may not be much, but it's everything I could need from her. She thought of me when making this. I was actively in her mind.

"Liar," she laughs, shaking her head as she sits beside me. I am, but not to her, not right now. I don't argue though, her laugh is too light-hearted to interrupt. From the other side of the basket I can briefly see the two poles she's reaching for and for a moment I think she's brought me here to spar. But they're far too stringy and thin to be halfway decent weapons.

"My mom always says that the most relaxing thing you can do is fish." My mother says it's bathing in the blood of an enemy after a battle.

She's not wrong. But right would be an overstatement.

She hands me one of the sticks, reeling it back and then whipping it into the lake with a splosh.

A fishing rod. It's taken me longer than it should have to realise that. Copying her movements, momentarily expecting the hook on the end to comically catch on my sleeve or lip but no, it dives into the water beside hers with no complications. Almost boring if you ask me. At least then we'd have something to talk about, but she's been silent for almost ten minutes, watching the buoy bob atop the ripples with unfocused eyes.

"Tell me about yourself," she finally says, in an polite voice that's almost as alien as the look on her face. She's faking something.

"Scar-"

"What are your hobbies?"

"What are you doing?"

She smiles rigidly, "I'm making conversation, it's what you do on a date."

"It is, but does this really count as a normal date? Are we really supposed to make casual small talk?"

"What else should we discuss?"