The rejection stung deeper than anything else had stung before. Throughout the year I've felt pain constantly within my heart, to the point that I once a couple of months back had trouble breathing due to the pressure that had begun to build up within my chest. It felt like a nut had developed inside, and at this moment that feeling of my chest being condensed into that small nut of despair had erupted, my chest being torn and my senses being drowned by rejection. In a word, I was in pain.

Mother would no longer stare at me, and my presence had just been rejected. Ard had requested for me to follow her, and refusing to had brought me a pain worse than what I was feeling now, so I had little other option but to run after her. Maybe a more brave man would've chosen death at this moment, to suffer through the pain and to let myself die here on the spot instead of having to bear the shame of becoming the slave of my father's murderer. But I wasn't such a man.

I didn't keep track of how long I ran for, my legs were taking me now and my body was following the single request she had given me. Thought was something I didn't allow the presence of within my mind, the pain of further realizations of my situation wasn't something I could handle. Running beyond any semblance of rationality, I waited for some command to tell me to stop.

I didn't have to run for eternity as the command did come, or rather the presence of the person I was running for had appeared in front of me. It was still day, the sun was still shining upon the world with his untiring rays. The trees, birches with the same colors of Ard's skin seen dotted along the landscape. In a natural clearing where the grass could be seen growing freely, and not even the occasional bush could be seen, Ard was waiting.

She was easy to see as she was standing in the middle of the field, not trying to hide her presence, and although she wore a cloak of green the sight of the single thing standing tall within the middle of a meadow wasn't easily overlooked.

"Glad you've decided to follow me. I don't know what happened back there, or why that man had thought he could threaten me and forcibly steal from me, but it seems I had made a poor choice in killing him. That only placed me in greater danger. Why did you want me to meet with those fathachs?" Ard tilted her head, beginning to speak in a tone that spoke she hadn't just murdered my own father.

I had already stopped my sprinting, and instead continued to walk closer towards Ard. My breathing wasn't as heavy as I thought it would be, which was fortunate, but that didn't concern me right now. "Murderer." I spoke in my tongue rather than in Ard's, as I didn't know the word for murderer in hers. Ard tilted her head again.

"Murderer? That is, unrighteous killer? I acted in self-defense. You saw that he had tried to grab me, I feared for my life. Why do you accuse me of this? You had helped me escape, why would you do this if you thought I was in the wrong? Your actions don't make sense to me. How does this connect to you wanting to stay within the village rather than with me?"

"Father, Neill was father. My father. You killed, why? He not want to hurt, you overreact. He dead now." Speaking through smoldering anger was a new experience, and the itch of my limbs to explode in movement was forcing me to do something less stupid with my impulses. This entire scenario, from the moment I left the village, no, from the moment Brenna had tried to kill me, is just destruction. There's nothing to be gained here, there's nothing that I could redeem at this point. Beyond anything else I've experienced before, this is the worst.

"What is a father?" Does she want me to explain how children are made to her? Or does she not know what a father translates to her in her own language? I breathed, long breathes, trying to get a strong control over my temper. I sat down on the grass and placed my hands on my head.

"Father is, man blood. I have his blood, so he is father."

Ard sat down as well, looking around the clearing while doing so. Perhaps she's worried someone may have followed me, which admittedly someone might've. But considering Ard's ability, I don't think that would be a problem even if it were to happen. Ard made a small nod, "Sharing blood? Who else do you share blood with?"

"Sister, mother, brother." I'm the only man left in the family, I realize. From both my parents I know I have extended family somewhere within this region so I wasn't the only man left within my lineage, but considering my situation I don't think I should go around trying to find them.

"Are those names of people?"

"No, sister is Ita, mother is Rowena, brother is Kevin. Kevin is gone. Died."

"So those are titles? And they share your blood? Are they your fathers as well?"

"No." Gradually my blood lust started to simmer down into something much more manageable. I know what Ard told me about breaking oaths, and even the idea of having to relive what had happened when I first disobeyed her was making me panic slightly. I need to calm down. I need to talk to her. "They are... Ita is sister, she share blood, yes. But she not parent. Rowena is mother, she and father make child. Child is me, Ita, and Kevin. Childs are siblings." Expressing the idea of blood relations to someone who is acting ignorant of it is hard. She has sisters, and her own tongue has a word for sisters. Although not one for either father or brother, perhaps they have none of those?

"Siblings? Ah, you are like litter-mates, then. Or like my own sisters. Ah. Oh. I killed your progenitor, then. Did he give birth to you?"

"No?" What? "No, mom, Rowena gave birth. Father plant seed in her, I grow inside, she give birth." Outside of all this, I didn't know much about how children are made. I do know about sex but, well, I've never participated in it.

Ard tilted her head, getting lost in thought for a while. There was no fire for her to stare into this time, so she decided to look into the far distance instead. "Understood. Fathachs reproduce like red-blooded animals, then, and not like láchs do. I do not understand what your father's motive was, but I did feel threatened. I realize that he was a fathach you must've shared a close bond to, and for that I apologize. But such a dangerous man, who would threaten me and try to steal from me, I do not think he is deserving of your sympathy."

"Ard!" I yelled, my temper flaring beyond my control. She jumped in place, not standing up but becoming startled from my loud voice. Her ears twitched under her hood, and she almost looked like she was cowering from my presence.

"Yes?" She whispered, her ears no longer twitching as much.

"Ard unforgivable. Father more than close bond, father raised me. Taught me. Cared for me, loved me. Ard took, because she scared, but father not ever hurt you. Ard unforgivable." Tears started to well up, my anger transmuting itself into deeper depressive depths. I hid my face behind my hands, I didn't mean to cry, and crying would be a sign of weakness. Maybe not to Ard, but to me it was undeniably a sign of my inability to protect the ones I loved, once again.

"Attie is wrong, he had meant to hurt me. He stood over me, trying to intimidate me, and he made to grab me. I don't know what might've happened if I didn't retaliate. You're letting emotional attachments obscure your ability to reason, Attie. It's alright now, everything is fine. You can stay with me now, I will be your new sibling."

"Father not come back. I do not want Ard, I want my family back. I want to go home."

"Attie-"

"You took father out of fear, I not one who emotional! Why? Why do this? I did nothing wrong." I felt like everything was collapsing, meaning itself has become an obscure concept. Is this what master had felt when she lost her husband even eventually Brenna? How could she have forgiven me for having killed her daughter? Nothing makes sense, I don't want to be in this situation anymore. Where is the purpose here?

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"Attie?" Ard's voice sounded desperate, and her tiny hand was placed on my shoulder. Out of instinct I slapped it away, and she recoiled from my slap. No existential pain exploded from my attack, and I had sworn and oath not to hurt her, what does this oath even mean if things like this don't count? All of this is bullshit, with inconsistent rules and an ending that had arrived at a pointless dead end. There's nothing to live for here. No, I still had mom and Ita, Doireann and master as well. I could figure things out from there, I still had people I could say I loved.

"Attie. I don't know what's happening here, and I am willing to acknowledge that I had done something that you're finding hard to accept. But know that I didn't do it in order to harm you, and that while yes, I was at the time afraid, that doesn't make my actions were irrational. This isn't about whether or not you've done something wrong, you father had made a grave mistake in antagonizing me. The fault is on him."

"I brought him there. Father only want protect me, I brought him to you."

Ard looked at me in the eyes, or at least tried to. I kept diverting my gaze away from where she was placing her face in, but she was persistent, and after minutes of this constant back and forth, this constant game of chase, I relented and let her meet my gaze. Her emerald green eyes felt as if they were absorbing my essence into them, as if my world was collapsing into that single intense gaze of hers. It wasn't a spell, I just never had many opportunities to look at her as she was doing now.

"If you want to take responsibility, then I will as well. Know that you weren't responsible for his death, I was. Regardless of how he had threatened me, I was the one to cast the spells, and I was the one who had acted out of fear in order to protect myself against what I had felt to be a threat against my life. You may have brought him, and for what reasons you've never told me, and if you want to take responsibility for that mistake than I could only commend you. With time these wounds will heal, and just know that while you may be my property I have grown to become very fond of you. I will not leave."

What is this girl saying? Why does any of this matter? Her gaze was still trained on me, her eyes straight and although I couldn't see what she was feeling as her ears were behind her hood, I felt her eyes were sincere. Some part of me wanted to trust her, but I rationally knew this wasn't something that could be fixed through blind promises, or taking responsibility. This wasn't some sort of teenage night of passion.

"And at the bottom of all this, I'm not letting you go. You are mine. You have sworn to it, and until I could say you are free to leave and do as you please, you will be mine. Perhaps until the day you die. Take assurance in the fact that this is an oath, it is unbreakable without your existence vanishing and your soul fragmenting, and if you wish to hate something, more than anything you should grow to hate the oath you've made to me a year back. I love you, but I will not accept the foolishness of a rebellious spirit. Do you understand me, Attie?"

No. But I knew she wasn't wrong. I tried to move my gaze downward, but her face tracked my every movement. I nodded, and she nodded back. Finally releasing me from her gaze she sat down next to me, her legs crossed, and sat in silence for a few minutes. I was left feeling endless despondence, unable to think or do anything else. I was trapped here, and there's no longer any escape. I miss mom. I miss Brenna. I miss master's teachings, and I miss teasing and playing with Ita. I miss teaching Kevin odd words and helping him learn to walk, and I miss dad's life lessons, and even missed our spars.

"I think this all could've been avoided if we had discussed more intimate details related to our kind. I have never told you how láchs are created, have I? I don't think the atmosphere matches the one needed for an entire retelling on our history and how we've developed, and who our ancestors are, but I'll start with the basics. We are born from a tree, you have not seen this tree. I hesitate to say which tree, but it is a tree within the domain housed inside our little dimension. Every sixty years a new member of our family is born from a flower growing on this tree.

"There are three castes, the first that comes into being is what Aoibheann and Saraid belongs to: the Móráns. Literally just means many, because within older families they tend to be the most numerous. Our naming convention isn't as complex as your kinds, thankfully. The next are the Ards, my name comes directly from the caste I belong to. When another of my caste is born then I will be given a new name, but just as Aoibheann had originally been named Mórán, I am named Ard.

"The last of our kind are the óg, the little. They are made much more rarely, but they are technically the fertile seeds from which another one of our trees could develop. They are not literally seeds, they're roughly seventy centimeters tall, and they barely stand above my hips. To your kind they must seem like babies among babies, but they're the only fertile members of our kind. I don't think any lách has told a fathach about how our kind reproduce before, you're lucky to be considered the first."

I don't care. Why should I care? This brings me nothing that I care about. But at least this explains why there's nothing, not even a slit, between Ard's legs. She has nothing there because she can't reproduce. Other questions are of course unanswered but I don't want them to be answered either, right now this is the least important thing I could think of.

I sighed.

"It's your turn to speak about the fathachs, Attie. Or have you told me everything there is to know? You don't have to explain to me how children are born, I more or less know enough about that in relation to most animals. Much like many things, your kind aren't as cutely developed as the láchs.

I didn't answer. I'm surprised I had enough energy to even think about not answering, or to even be surprised. I'm surprised at being surprised.

"Fine. I won't force you, I do not want our relationship to be one based off of me making you act more agreeably. Do you wish to stay here and rest for the day, or do you want to come back to your new home?"

I didn't answer.

"This time I am forcing you, this immature display won't be something I'll tolerate. Answer me."

"Home." I didn't want to experience that existential pain once again, I wanted to go somewhere that I could call familiar. I feel lost, rejected, without hope, and violated. But I am forced to do what Ard has told me regardless, I have no other option. Ard nodded, got up, and started to walk towards the direction of home, somewhere we both knew the direction of. I got up myself and began to slowly follow Ard, unable to muster up enough energy to truly commit myself to the walk. But I needed to at least keep up with her pace, but that was proving to be difficult.

Maybe I didn't need to be silent. Maybe Ard would understand that I can't live without my family, the only reason I had been able to stay alive for the entire year was because of the idea that I could have a happy reunion with them. Of course, my survival was also heavily supported by Ard's own help. Perhaps I'm exaggerating, then, but I needed to talk to her, to have a clear conversation about her intent. She told me hers, but I had yet to tell her mine.

"Ard," my voice barely came out as a whisper. I feel demoralized to an extent that I had never felt before, the feeling of emptiness was indescribable in its painfulness.

Ard turned around, somehow hearing my tiny whisper. I guess her large ears aren't just for show.

"I want go back to family. Want say goodbye, want meet sister again. Have many things to say."