The month was peaceful in the Ohtamacil home, though Erik's recovery seemed to hit a troubling plateau. Erik still would not speak, nor would he eat without someone handing the food to him. He began to move about more on his own, though, mostly following Oro or Tess about the house like a child. Oro gave him little prompting, hoping that if he was given his head, so to speak, he would begin to make more of his own decisions.
Tess, though, was becoming quite clingy with Erik, dragging him about the estate with her by the hand, much as she had pulled him around when they first met. Oro seemed to find it amusing though Tess was not sure why it was so funny.
The three of them were sitting on the bank of the creek in the garden. Tess was trying to show Oro how to skip stones, but as she failed more often than not herself, it wasn't a very successful lesson. She had been quite reticent with Oro for a long time since coming to his home, but his gentle prodding had her relaxing for the first time in her recent memory. She found it very odd that she did not miss Hunting much. She missed her nights spent on wild worlds, perhaps, but the frantic chasing she normally engaged in had no pull on her.
Erik sat quietly with his bare feet trailing in the water. They now spent much of the time in the garden by the shady creek bank as Oro decided that fresh air and a bit of sun was a vital part of Erik's recovery. Tess gave up on the stones and randomly poked Erik in the flank. She frowned crossly when, yet again, he didn't react.
"You know Erik, I'm getting rather fed up with this."
Oro laughed at her and she stuck her tongue out at him. She was rarely so petulant and immature but her growing frustration with Erik's passivity was beginning to seep through.
"Have a little patience with him, Tess."
Tess stood up and stomped a few feet away.
"I've had plenty of patience with him! I think he's just being stubborn."
Tess left Oro confused and sitting on the bank with Erik and went back into the house. Erik spontaneously stood up a few seconds later and traced after her steps.
Tess was in the kitchen throwing a quick cheese sandwich together when she felt a presence behind her. She glanced upward to find Erik staring down at her from directly behind and she turned around to face him, having to crane her neck back due to his close proximity as he passively loomed over her.
"What is it, Erik? Are you going to say something finally?"
He didn't speak, but leaned over her, pressing into her and bending her backwards over the counter with his solid angular body while he picked up the sandwich behind her. He stepped back a few paces to stand in the doorway, picking at the bread and cheese, swallowing the small bits he pulled off slowly. Tess stared at him bemusedly.
"You've totally lost it, Erik, you know that? Batshit!"
Tess bolted past him out the door as tears burned their path down her cheeks. She ran all the way back to her room and shut the door behind her before burying herself in the blankets on her bed without even bothering to take her boots off.
She heard the door open some time later, but ignored the footsteps that stopped beside her bed. If Oro wanted to berate her for lack of manners, he could do it some other time. She was still busy crying and he could just damn well wait for her to finish.
The blanket was suddenly pulled off her head and she sat up with the intention of telling Oro off only to be met with sight of Erik kneeling beside her bed. They stared at each other while a few leftover tears clung to Tess's skin. Erik unexpectedly reached out with both hands and took a firm grasp of her face, hesitating only a second before planting a brief, awkward kiss to her forehead.
Tess stared in wide-eyed shock at him for a heartbeat before jerking herself from his grasp and shuffling backwards. He simply dropped his hands and stared back. Tess was frantically trying to decide whether or not to run when Oro appeared in the doorway.
"Ah, there you are. I was wondering where the two of you ran off to."
He took in Tess's red face.
"Are you alright, Tess? Well, come on, it's time for lunch. Both of you."
Tess gave Erik one more suspicious backwards glance and followed Oro to the dining room. She did not hear Erik following, his bare feet making no sound on the stone floor, but the weight of his presence behind her was unmistakable.
Lunch was silent and tense, leaving Oro to wonder what had happened between his grandson and Tess. He gave her several questioning looks but she offered up no information. Oro alternately ate and handed off bits to Erik while Tess picked at her own lunch. They had both been relieved earlier that Erik's appetite had returned, but Tess was now feeling rather ruffled at the odd theft of her snack earlier and the strange detached affection.
After lunch, Tess fled outdoors before Erik could follow and walked about a quarter of a mile from the house into the untouched wooded area at the back of the estate. She climbed up into a tree and hoped that Erik's uncanny homing ability would not be able to track her down. His behavior worried her on several levels. He wasn't a threat to her, surely? She didn't think he'd ever harm her, at least not intentionally, but the odd kiss he'd given her scared her somewhat. She'd never actually gotten a proper kiss from a boy, having been rather shy when still living on the Earth, but she doubt they were normally like that. She wasn't certain what she would've done if he'd kissed her on the mouth. She didn't quite want to admit that she would have hit him, most likely. Tess stared up at the small points of sunlight filtering through the blue-leaved canopy. Small yellowish bat-like creatures were hanging from the boughs several feet above her, eyeing her warily. She returned their suspicious look and dropped from the tree to the leaf litter below.
She wandered around aimlessly until she was suddenly approached by a servant from the house.
"Master Ohtamacil wants you back at the house. He's waiting in the dining room. You'd better hurry, he seemed angry."
"Over what?"
"I don't know, but his grandson was rather upset over something as well."
"Upset? What do you mean 'upset'?"
"Well, he was crying over something."
Tess wondered what the hell could be so bad that would set the hitherto mute man off and jogged back to the house. As soon as she rounded the corner into the kitchen, Oro pinned her to the wall with an angry glare. Erik was curled up in a chair with his knees against his chest, shaking with sobs. Oro had a hand on his back, for what little good it was doing.
"Tess! What in the name of the Four Winds did you do to him? He's been like this since you bolted off after lunch!"
"I didn't do anything, I swear!"
"Well you obviously did something!"
"I swear I didn't!"
"Don't lie to me, child. Something happened before lunch, so you'd better just confess."
Tess scratched her head and stared at Erik.
"I didn't do anything, he walked up behind me while I was making a snack, and leaned over me and stole it. I ran off to my room and later he showed up and…"
"And what?"
"Nothing! It doesn't matter!"
"If it didn't matter, why were you crying over it when I came to get you for lunch?"
"I was crying before he showed up!"
Oro scowled at her. He was obviously not satisfied with her answer but did not press her further. Tess stood and watched while Oro turned back to Erik, pulling at the arms wrapped tightly around his knees and trying to calm him. It wasn't Tess's fault, so why did she feel like she'd just kicked a kitten across the room? She sighed deeply and walked over to stand beside the two of them.
"Listen, I'm really sorry but I don't know what the hell I did wrong. He showed up in my room and sort of grabbed my face and kissed my forehead. I pulled away from him because it scared me, I didn't mean to upset him!"
Oro did not look up but nodded.
"No, Tess, you didn't do anything wrong. Thank you for telling me though."
Oro rubbed at Erik's back a minute longer before hooking an arm under his knees and then his shoulders, carrying him back to his room and placing him in his bed. Tess followed. Erik was still crying, though less noisily and Oro tucked the blanket over him and pulled Tess from the room by the elbow, leading her back to his study.
She sat down on the couch and Oro seated himself at his desk, closing his eyes briefly to collect his thoughts. He opened them a moment later and stood to retrieve something from chest of drawers against the opposite wall. He pulled a few candies from a bag and handed them to Tess, and took some for himself.
Tess popped one of the strange sweets into her mouth, finding something that tasted a bit like peppermint and a bit like chocolate.
"I apologize for my assumptions Tess. This little episode is not your fault. Even if it were, I think, I should probably thank you for it. If he's responding enough to the world around him again to get this frustrated with it, he must be trying to come back to himself. I think it's a good sign. I am sorry if his actions disturbed you earlier, but I do not think you have anything to fear from him. I think I will keep an eye on him though, and you should probably not be left alone with him."
"I'm not scared of him, not really. It was just kind of unexpected. I don't really think he'd try to hurt me. I wonder if it was really me he was even kissing? His face turned all blank again right after, like it hadn't even happened."
"Who knows, child? His mind is still in fragments. He may have thought you were any number of people, or maybe several at once."
They sat in Oro's study and worked their way through the entire bag of sweets over the next hour or so before Oro decided he'd better check up on Erik again.
Erik slept for the remainder of the afternoon and by the time dinner rolled around, he was back to his mute self as though nothing had happened at all. Tess wasn't sure whether to be relieved or not and gave Erik another experimental poke. She laughed loudly enough to scare a young servant into dropping a tray and have Oro questioning her sanity when the action earned her a small squeak and glance.