Violet

The elf kept his eyes on the indistinct silhouette sneaking forward before him. Donnie was suspicious of someone’s eyes on him; he looked around and in the shadows of the trees. Ancriol knew the girl was secreted expertly. There was no way the human boy would see her. He creeped closer to the young man’s ankles, feeling him voyage through the flora, cautiously looking about as if he expected a Lonal lion to attack him. What a jumpy child. A small snicker bubbled from his lips as he remembered all the other times he had done this exact same thing, and never been spotted before he scared the britches off Donnie.

The human stopped suddenly, making Ancriol crouch nearer to the earth, hidden by the thick shade of the plants. Closer and closer he stalked, until finally he chose the moment to strike. Leaping from the darkness, he wrapped himself around the human’s body, toppling him over and pressing his face into the ground. Ancriol pinned him down and pressed the blunt side of his cool, steel knife against the nape of his neck. Then he began to laugh. Oh, how he enjoyed these moments.

Donnie stopped his thrashing and settled down with a groan. “An, you raving lunatic!” he yelled, his cheeks flushed with embarrassment. “Get the hell off!”

Complying to his wishes, An stood and stepped away. “I’ll be right up, Allison,” he called into the tree’s dark limbs.

The human watched him curiously as he started to climb the Akil tree, as agile as always, sleek as a jungle cat. When he returned to the ground with a girl on his back, Donnie couldn’t help but grin. Oh, he had been so worried. He came up to her immediately, his hands fluttering over her shoulders and down her arms, as worried as a mother dog with her pup. “Are you okay? Why is there dirt on your hands? Your knees are scratched up. What happened?” He fussed over the dirt on her clothes from Earth, eager to keep them preserved as long as possible. It was a piece of the outside world he would never let be hurt. “Let’s get you back to the house. There I can try and find you some new clothes.”

By new, he meant the homemade plant-based shirts and shorts he had made over time. His mother had taught him well in his childhood.

Ancriol rested his arm around Allison’s shoulders, his hand against one hip. A small smirk was on his lips. “You’re welcome for babysitting your keepsake,” he said, his sparkling eyes guarded by his hat, which had recently been returned to his head.

“She’s not my keepsake,” Donnie said with an angry huff. “She’s the first human I’ve ever seen here. You don’t think I’m a little protective?”

The faerie rolled his eyes, letting them leave in the direction of the tree beside him. “If she were a boy, you would have no interest in her at all.”

Blushing fiercely, Donnie glanced around the forest floor. “I could say the same to you.”

An removed his hand from Allison’s shoulder and crossed both of his arms over his thin chest. “I came looking for you, Donnie. She ran away from me like I was some kind of monster. The only thing I could do was help her when she nearly plummeted to her death in your stupid pit of spikes. I saved her life, and I couldn’t very well walk away without explaining myself a little.” Having proclaimed his plight, the elf grabbed his cloak from Allison’s arm and tied it around his neck.

The two of them continued to bicker quietly for another minute. All the while, Allison watched intensely. Neither of them ever made eye contact with the other. It was like they were talking into thin air, or at her. Finally, she had had enough.

“Why don’t you two ever look at each other when you’re talking?” she demanded furiously, fed up with the weird, rude behavior from these two boys.

Now both human and elf men looked at each other (Donnie’s violet eyes sharp and bright, Ancriol’s a dull and unfocused blue) and burst into howls of laughter.

Bewildered and annoyed, she propped her hands on either hip. “I’m serious! What’s up with you two?”

It was Donnie who answered, while fractured giggles still erupted from his lips. “I don’t have to look at him. He can hardly see me, anyway. Hasn’t it struck you as odd that he can’t focus on what he’s looking at?” He put one hand on her shoulder and pointed at Ancriol’s joyful face with the other. “He’s half blind!”

Allison gasped and stared at the strange man’s vacant eyes. How could I not notice? she thought in utter disbelief. That was just… something you noticed.

He smiled softly and lifted a hand to touch below his eye on his high cheekbone. “I can still see, just not nearly as well as you or Donnie. Everything is incredibly unclear. I can see where I’m going, but if you hold up three fingers I might tell you four.”

Donnie saw her eyebrows shoot up and chuckled. “He has a knack for knowing what you’re about to say.”

“I do not,” the faerie scoffed.

The purple-eyed man chuckled and looked down to brush a bit of dirt from his tunic. “He’s also in denial.”

Ancriol sniffed the air, as if he were being treated wrongly. “I just know what people are thinking. It’s always the same.”

She could feel the rough, experienced tone in which he spoke. “So… how do you know each other?”

Donnie, having realized this, explained to her, “He’s the friend I was telling you about. You know, the one I haven’t seen in a month? This is him.” A pleased smile crossed his face. “He’s pretty cool, actually.”

The elf’s smile was almost bashful. “I just keep your simple mind entertained,” he chuckled.

“And I’m glad for that.” Donnie shook his head, as if remembering many occasions at once. “He’s definitely kept me sane.”

Allison looked from one to the other. Donnie was happily recalling what seemed to be good times. Ancriol, on the other hand, appeared to be trying to forget something. She wanted to bring them both to the present, so she said, “So what do we do now?”

Ancriol snapped out of it first. “Right. Donnie, I was looking for you for a reason.” She thought she saw his eyes flash in her direction. “I have to tell you something.”

“Okay,” he agreed. “Tell away.”

The fae man frowned slightly. “It has to be in private, I’m afraid.”