Page 46 of Escape from the Green

"Human realm," I supplied. "There is a store with lights that make your eyes ache that has rows and rows of nuts you can purchase in bags as heavy as a babe," I explained, grabbing a handful for each of them, knowing full-well that half of Sal's pile would be handed off to Smoky, but knowing it was the only way she wouldn't balk at getting more of a cut of the food.

For me, my stomach twisted and groaned, used to eating more to sustain my muscle mass, but having found myself too consumed by my homecoming, then racked with guilt to eat.

I forced myself to eat my share, refusing any of Sal's supplies.

"Why did she leave?" Smoky asked, breaking a long silence where we all sat chewing, watching the dancing flames of the fire. "Your girl," she clarified.

"She's not mine," I was quick to correct. Even as my gut squeezed with the idea that anyone could possibly think she could be - a not altogether unpleasant sensation. "She didn't want to marry Jet."

"But why?" Sal pressed. "She'd be drenched in riches. Would never know hunger, never experience powerlessness."

"Except she would be powerless to control her own life," Smoky piped in. "She would be slave to her throne, slave to her people, slave to her husband. She'd be expected - forced if she was unwilling - to bed him, bear him heirs. She would be forced to lose her sense of right and wrong, would bear witness to so much ugliness, so much cruelty, that she will become numb to it all, will become cruel herself. She will be nothing but an empty - but fruit-bearing - vessel brought to heel by a man she did not love. I can't think of a better reason to run. Even if she would have to struggle, get to know the sensation of an empty stomach. A life on her own terms would be worth all the trials she would have to endure."

"She's soft," I added as Smoky's words sank in. "Sweet. Good. She tried to save me many times before she finally freed me. She wasn't meant for the Dark Court. She wouldn't have been able to see so much pain around her. And, well, she likes humans," I added, shaking my head. I couldn't claim to have spent a lot of time with them, and while all the ones I had crossed paths with seemed friendly enough, there was nothing exceptional about them, nothing about them that made me want to spend more time in their presence.

"I've watched them," Smoky declared, making Sal's attention move to her profile while she spoke, one brow quirked up. "Through the veil," she explained. "In the Autumn, they gather up all the fallen leaves, create a pile, and then they... they jump in them," she finished, face scrunched up in an amused confusion. "They squeal and laugh, then gather them up to do it over and over again."

"I think it's charming," Sal chimed in, shrugging when Smoky's gaze went to him. "Their innocence. Frivolity. It's endearing. They pick flowers to pluck off the petals, looking for answers in them."

"In flowers?" Smoky asked, disbelieving. "Without a witch, mage, or seer?"

"They don't - almost as a rule - believe in witches, mages, or seers."

"But they believe in the wisdom of basic flowers? They do realize they are nothing but a seed brought forth through dirt, right?"

"See, Draca?" Sal asked, shooting me that laid-back grin once again. "It isn't simply my charm she is immune to; it is all charm."

"What good is charm?" Smoky grumbled. "It doesn't fill the belly or build shelters or fight off foes."

"Maybe not, but perhaps the purpose of it is to make life worth living, Smoke," Sal suggested, to which Smoky didn't have a comeback, just sat there finishing off the last of her food.

"You take the first shift," she suggested. No, demanded. Of who, I wasn't sure. "Wake me in a few hours. I will watch so you can rest."

With that, she turned her back to the fire, curled up protectively, and slipped off to sleep, belly likely full for the first time in months.

Sal and I sat in silence, his gaze mostly focused down on Smoky's sleeping form.

"She doesn't have to live like this," he murmured, half to himself. "My family have offered her a home, a bed, a full belly, guaranteed warmth and protection. There is even want in her eyes when it is offered freely, without any strings attached. But she won't do it. She won't give this up. I guess when you are raised by the woods, you become a wild thing, something that bites and scratches on instinct even to hands meaning only to feed it, love it."

"If you feed something wild for long enough, it starts to come back to you."

To that, he snorted. "She thinks I stalk her, and you think I can be more present in her life?"

"Just saying... it's a long winter. Your stores are fully stocked. Make her a deal. She likes those."

"Yeah," he agreed, shaking his head. "She does, that. Any idea what she wants from you in exchange for getting you to the veil?"

"No," I admitted.

"Oh," Sal snorted. "You poor fuck."

--

"I've got the shortest legs here, yet I am always yards ahead of you two," Smoky yelled back at us, arms spread wide.

"Give her a few solid meals, and she is like the Head of the Dark Guard," Sal chuckled, shaking his head at her.

"How far are we?" I asked, restlessness a crawling discomfort across my skin, bugs bent on driving me crazy.