Chapter Eleven:
Discovery
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"I am a man of fortune and I must seek my fortune."
-Henry Avery
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"What is all of this?"
Allen immediately felt sheepish for posing the question when Ash looked at him in that 'are you stupid' manner of hers without being overly obvious about it. She looked away after only a few moments of holding his gaze with that look, and opened a cabinet with a glass cover.
"Medicine. All in good condition."
"I…figured that much, but…"
"But you weren't too sure. Despite the fact that this looks like a regular medical ward."
"Not like the ones I'm used to…"
"Oh. Right. Late nineteenth-century didn't have wards like these."
He stared at her, gob smacked at her rather pointed comment. "You-you knew what time I was from?"
He didn't recall telling her exactly what time period, or even the exact date, that he had come from. He knew on some level that she suspected something wasn't right, but he hadn't really said much on the matter. Or completely outright, even.
"Your clothing when you first arrived suggested late nineteenth-century origins. The style was more reminiscent of that of an older military uniform I wouldn't see anywhere else, except in modern day military ceremonies. You stared like a slack-jawed idiot when you saw all those old World War II-era vehicles for the first time. There were also the questions you asked about that war, and the war before it, and then the wars that happened after both of those…yeah. It's kind of hard not to notice you were a fish out of the wrong century, never mind the water."
She shrugged when he continued to stare at her, somewhat amazed and disturbed at her observations. So she knew. It wasn't exactly hard to figure out, and he wasn't denying it, sure, but still. She hadn't said much on the matter, and he could already hear her saying, 'does it matter?' In the end, he figured it really didn't. He was here now.
He busied himself with looking over some other equipment in the room they were in. The counters were a pristine white and very clean, like they had never been used. Ash was perusing through a shiny white box embossed with a green sigil taller than her—he couldn't see it very well, she was blocking most of it—and when she opened it, soft light came pouring out of it. He came closer as she threw the door open. Inside were more vials of what he presumed to be medicine and he could feel a chill sweep over him the closer he ventured toward the box.
"What is this thing?"
"A refrigerator. Electricity is making it run, that's why there's light when I open it. When I close it, there's a button the door presses that turns it off. The fridge is temperature controlled as well. It's meant to keep certain medicines from spoiling. Although most of these look like they're just being stored, they don't really need to be in here…hmm." Ash trailed off, reaching for a vial marked with very fine print on its label. "Morphine. High grade stuff you can only find in hospitals, private practices…and expensive yachts like this. Hmm."
She continued 'hmming' thoughtfully as she perused, taking out bags with filled with clear liquids. She closed the fridge after going through a few items, then moved toward some of the cabinets above the counters. She glowered at them for a long, sullen minute with her lips pressed into a hard line. Then she hopped onto the counter, raising herself up to their level. It hit Allen moments later why she didn't simply reach for them and he felt a little guilty that he didn't realize it sooner. He would have opened them for her.
Ash was unperturbed, however, as she threw cabinet doors open, pulling out items that looked like long, flexible tubes and clear cups with white tops, packages with needles and syringes inside them, packets of gauze, and rolls of bandages and medical tape.
It was a small medical clinic; that much was clear. But most of the items Ash was offhandedly inspecting were items Allen had only seen and it made him recall just how different things were in his time versus now. They were familiar items, most of them anyway, but they were also improved upon in design and perhaps even function and material. He turned away to inspect another cabinet, finding bottles filled with pills that were labeled with names he couldn't even pronounce half the time, never mind spell if it came down to it.
"I am proud to announce that we have hit the motherload treasure trove with this discovery."
"Did you know all of this was here?"
"I knew the boat was here. I saw it floating out in the cove near here, right in a sweet spot where the currents wouldn't be able to pull towards the cliffs to get smashed up. I knew it would end up like that eventually, though. I swam out, inspected the condition, drove it around, tied it to the deck here, came back home, got you. I figured we'd look together."
She shrugged at him, like it was the most obvious course of actions in the world. In her head, it probably was.
"I assume that all these supplies are a rare commodity to come across, especially on a boat so intact out here."
"You assume correctly."
There was hesitation in her voice just then, like she had something else to say. He remained quiet, waiting. The moment passed them by, and she said nothing else in the end.
They left the little medical room and into a stairwell that led down. It led them to a bedroom. The mattress was sizeable and took up most of the room, with only a few shuffling steps' worth of room around it. Ash frowned the entire time, poking at the comforter and blankets.
"I have not seen a real bed in decades," she commented so offhandedly, like she was reporting the weather with passing interest. Ash promptly collapsed onto the mattress and snuggled into it, destroying the once-neat prim and proper arrangement of bedding. "So soft! I forgot what nice blankets felt like!"
Allen stared, wide-eyed and mouth agape at the display. Ash had already entangled herself in the blankets until she resembled a little ball of clothe rather than the small werewolf he knew. Only her eyes could be seen and they were shining with mirth she usually reserved for hunts and socializing with the raptors.
"So soft," she repeated with a fervent whisper, her voice mostly muffled by the very blankets she was wrapped in. Allen finally felt a smile quirk his lips upwards and he burst out laughing.
"You look ridiculous! You're all—wrapped up!"
He leaned on the doorjamb and doubled over, giggling over how utterly and completely preposterous she looked. Ash didn't seem to mind and took it all in stride. She eventually flopped over, still balled up in the blankets and comforter, humming contentedly.
"Laugh all you want. I'll get you back later."
He choked back down the rest of his giggles, his sides hurting in the end, but it was a good kind of hurt. The kind he hadn't felt in much too long.
"I think I needed that," he merely responded. Ash was picking her way out of the blankets, balling them up and tossing them over onto the bed. She pulled herself off of it, leaving it a rumpled mess in comparison to when they had arrived. She was quick to divert her attention elsewhere, which turned out to be a sliding closet door. Inside were a series of drawers and further in, Allen could make out clothes hanging in the back. Ash was already raiding through the drawers, noisily clacking them open and rifling through the items.
As he watched her go through the things, his earlier humour began to fade and turn acerbic. This boat was certainly a godsend, they needed new supplies. But somehow, looking at this room, and the clothes, and thinking of all the other items they've come across—it somehow felt…wrong.
"Wait," he said, drawing her attention towards him. She paused, hands buried beneath rolls of clothing. "This…this used to belong to someone. These things…what if these people are alive? What if they're out there, somewhere on Yamatai, and we're going through their things, stealing them?"
Ash studied him in the faint overhead light. It was controlled, she had told him earlier, to become bright or dim and she showed him how. He could just make out her features, and he was almost tempted to turn to the dial on the wall and turn it up, if only to look at her more clearly.
"They're long gone," she said at last. He frowned at her.
"How can you be so sure?" He pressed with urgency in his voice. "You told me—you found the boat, got it down here, and then came and got me. Did you even check for signs of survivors?"
She didn't answer at first. Allen didn't take it as a good sign. Ash slowly pulled her hands out of the drawer, smoothed out the rumpled clothing, and closed the drawer with a soft 'click'. She took in a breath and then tapped the side of her nose.
"I checked all these rooms, before I brought it in. I actually skimmed around the outskirts of the island. At night, of course. I didn't want to be seen. Unlike the Solarii, I can see in the darkness perfectly fine. I saw no life boats suggesting any survivors. The radio chatter has been quiet for a while. If they found anyone, the Solarii would have been squawking." She ticked a brow upward at him, as though in challenge. She was expecting him to rebuke her. The seconds ticked by awkwardly when he didn't.
"You're…positive?"
"Does it help my argument if I say that this boat hasn't had a real sign of life in what seems like weeks? I don't know if you noticed this, but there's a pretty hefty collection of dust around here. Like this boat was abandoned on purpose." A thoughtful look streaked across her face, and then it slowly morphed into something deeper. Like something was clicking away and it wasn't clicking right with her.
"It was abandoned on purpose," she repeated, rolling her tongue over the words with precision and care. "Someone abandoned this thing on purpose. They left, just out of range of the island, and let it drift. They were hoping for someone to get to it."
When Ash looked back up at him, there was a fevered light in her eyes, a moment of realization, of understanding. "They left it on purpose for us to find. Someone knows we're here and they know they can't come too close to the island. Someone knows about the Sun Queen."
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It turned out, all the clothes and materials and supplies and everything else in between had been organized in such a way that it wasn't meant for someone taking a leisurely vacation out at sea. Allen and Ash, as they picked their way through the innards of the yacht throughout the night, found that there were readied means in which to take out everything. In the cramped storage space, there were empty packs and chests, ready to be filled up to capacity for travel.
"Someone knows," Ash kept repeated, sometimes more forcefully than necessary. "They fucking know we're here."
Allen couldn't quite tell if she was elated or angry. It was a bit blurry at this point. But he personally kept feeling a fluttery lightness in his chest. Life was suddenly surreal and airy. He kept focusing on the positive in those muttered words cracked out like the gunshots and not held with the reverence they should have been. It was almost a relief when the rain started sometime in the night, the gentle patter of rainwater drumming against the sea and the boat. It would almost be soothing, if his thoughts weren't so rattled.
Someone knew. Someone on the outside world, perhaps some of the people that Ash has rescued and successfully sent off the island, ensured this boat had been sent to them. Their benevolent benefactor, whoever they were, wanted to give them hope. They know we're here and they want to make sure we survive. Or at the very least, they know she's here.
It could have been that rather large group they had housed not too long ago, the group of benders and the two Avatar-figures.
But why haven't they come to the island proper?
The question came to him more than once, and every time, he had to recall what Ash had told him in the past: "I can't leave. The Sun Queen won't let me leave. I haven't figured a way to stop her from coming back permanently. Until then…I'm the one who has to stay behind. And everyone else gets to leave. That's just the way it is."
By the time they had thoroughly inspected the yacht, it was nearly dawn. After a while, Ash had finally moved away from her mutterings and focused on inventorying everything, and that eventually came to packing. Exhaustion made Allen feel heavy and sore from all the exploring, lifting, carrying. He found himself passed out on the couch later on, an actual pillow under his head and a blanket over him. It was nearly midday, he noted sleepily, as he sat up and stretched, yawned, and promptly cringed right after when his stomach gave a hungry growl in protest.
He quickly found out why: the air smelled delicious. Like, cooked proper food, delicious-smelling and hunger-inducing. For once, he could actually follow his nose and he found himself in the kitchenette. It was small and cramped, much like the rest of the boat's limited space, yet it also appeared surprisingly cozy. Food was laid out on the counters, plopped on clean plates and clean utensils. He showed none of it any mercy and before he knew it, everything had been devoured, right down to the crumbs. He barely even noticed some of it had been lukewarm at best. It was still some of the best food he's had in a long time.
Only after he had gone through it all did he notice how awfully quiet it was. He could hear the waves lapping against the hull of the ship, and the cry of the gulls outside. But any telltale signs of Ash rifling through this part or another of the ship was null and void. Allen glanced at the counter where he had piled up the dirty dishes.
He wandered about the boat, running into empty rooms void of any of their contents.
She must be ferrying the supplies back home without me, he thought glumly. She let me sleep in and made the food for me and left to carry everything on her own.
He groaned in frustration. What a stubborn woman.
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Allen resorted to packing the rest of the things Ash hadn't gotten to yet. He grabbed a number of packs and bags, and tried stuffing in as much as he could into each one. The medical supplies, thankfully enough, she seemed to have taken away first. That much was good. He was afraid he'd break some of the more delicate-looking equipment or drop a precious vial of rare medicine.
The kitchen was the first place he hit, although he had to clean up the sullied dishes up first. Figuring that out was a bit of an experience, but he adjusted quickly enough in figuring out the sink. After he cleaned everything, he toweled them off when done and carefully packed them away. Or as carefully as he could. He just hoped they'd make the journey back.
When he finished in the kitchenette, he took to the other rooms, but found them already packed or even emptied out, much like the medical ward. The last place he checked was the bedroom. He was half-expecting it to be packed up, one of the first to go besides the medical equipment. Instead, he was surprised to find it untouched and sitting on the bed was Ash.
She had something clapped over her wolfish ears, a headband of some sort he reasoned, and her hands over all of that.
When he flung the door open, she snapped her head in his direction. The lighting here was marginally better than it had been last night, and it was clearer to see she was crying.
Again.
He didn't believe he'd ever see that again, not for a good long while. Strangely enough, she was smiling; her face painted in pure awe and it was, for once, drained of all tension. There was no mask, no hardened gaze. She stared at him as she slid the headband down from her skull, eyes wide and wet with tears.
"Ash?"
"It's music," she whispered as a pair of tears rolling down her wet cheeks and she laughed in earnest and it was so strange hearing it come from her. Strange but oddly enough at the same time, it was a welcoming sound all the same in spite of the situation. "It's music."
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The ship was quickly stripped of everything that wasn't nailed down, and even that didn't stop Ash. Some items she commandeered with relish. She had Báthory and Carmilla become pack-mules of sorts, although the raptors she strangely left alone. The former two couldn't make their way to the hidden alcove, but once Ash and Allen got past some of the more perilous cliff terrain, the two rexes were standing by patiently, awaiting for more gear to be loaded into makeshift saddlebags Ash had jerry-rigged for them both.
When they completed their task of taking every piece of gear from the ship, it had been absolutely gutted. Looking at it from the outside in, one could never tell. It was a shell and a clever one at that. When the last items had been taken, Allen asked about what if the Solarii found it.
"They'll find it all right. And they'll be in for a nasty surprise when they come to investigate," she merely quipped back. Ash had even taken the boat's engine. That was how dedicated she was to stripping it down to every part she could possibly get. She claimed it was for parts. He thought otherwise, but said nothing in regards to it. It took them the better part of three days to complete it, but in the end, it was fairly rewarding.
Their home was suddenly a packrat's dream: boxes and bags and chests and footlockers galore were filled to the brim with all kinds of gear, equipment, supplies, and more.
A working generator that wasn't decades old was put into working order first and its buzz saw hum filled up the air until it faded into background noise. Over the next several days, they sorted through everything, catalogued it all, and stored it away in appropriately marked containers. The renovations that those benders who could move the very earth were a boon in disguise; with more rooms created and the homestead phenomenally expanded, they had more than enough ample room for storage. Even his own room had a good amount of space in which he could store items in now. It was no longer a tiny cubby in the wall with a mattress and beat up dresser stuffed inside it.
It actually, oddly enough, looked like a home and not some makeshift campsite they just happened to live in.
They even had a new couch! It was infinitely more comfortable than the ragtag cobbled-together pilot seats from the old war planes they had melded together. He actually fell asleep on it several times, and while he got a mild kink in the neck, it wasn't terribly bad, versus the ones he gained from the last set. And every time he did, he'd find himself with a blanket draped over him when he awoke—something he didn't fall asleep with, that much he knew.
He even sensed a change in Ash. He couldn't quite pinpoint it, but she was less reserved around him. She was a little more open, and she spoke a bit more as well. It was in broken bits and pieces here and there, but he noticed the progress more often these days. It wasn't necessarily an instant overnight transition, of course. She had her bumps to traverse, but regardless, he could articulate she was attempting to actually connect rather than simply exist alongside him.
He could first tell the signs of change in her when he noticed that she smiled more often. It wasn't a smirk or a tight-lipped grin, either. It felt genuine, like he was seeing the real her, the one she'd probably buried deep down for years.
And he found that he was right: she was prettier when she smiled.
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Nearly a month passed since their discovery of the boat. He talked to her often about the possibility of who might have sent it. She had often repeated that she barely remembered half the people she rescued, let alone their scent marks. Some from the beginning of her time on the island, whenever that had all started, she couldn't remember at all. She highly doubted any of her early rescues were even alive, as a majority of them had been human. That much she was confident about, as well as it not being the group of benders.
In the end, it remained a highlighted, yet welcome mystery. He could engage with her more freely without overly worrying about overstepping his bounds, or fearing he might trigger that temper of hers. She didn't sulk in brooding silences as often, either. And with the change that came with her, it slowly ingratiated with the raptors. Or so he believed. They were less snappish around him, and they actually responded without needing extra prompting from Ash like they normally did.
It was almost as though they saw him as one of their pack mates. It was a startling revelation when it occurred to him, but it was another welcome change at that. Clover was especially was fond of him. She even let him preen her feathers from time to time. His newly furnished mattress was covered in feathers and the smell of feather dust permeated the air in his room.
As the weeks continued to stretch on, the numbers of the Solarii dissipated. Strangely enough, they weren't death-by-werewolf related, either. Not directly. Ash slowly, painfully, but surely, refrained from actively seeking them out. Instead, she tried to avoid them altogether. Whether it was for his sake or not, Allen couldn't weasel an answer out of her. It was the one subject she remained mum on. He had to reluctantly chalk it up to the Solarii's risky behavior and death-by-dinosaur-inhabitants instead. The Oni themselves were a completely different story. Those, Ash had remained adamant about defending against, actively or not.
"They're bound by a supernatural oath to serve their queen. They are physically, mentally, and emotionally incapable of not following their orders."
"But Himiko is dead."
"For now," Ash would reply breezily. "And unlike the Solarii, who are actual men, human beings, even…the Oni have slowly changed into something…else. Something not human. More beast than man. They eat people, Allen. They have an entire room filled with corpses that they store away and feed upon inside the monastery. I'll respect your decision to not harm the Solarii, but you had better damn well listen to me when I tell you this: the Oni aren't human. They are monsters. Literal ones, not figurative ones."
He didn't disbelieve her, especially when she emphasized the point so much more than she ever had with the Solarii. After the few isolated incidents when they ran into the Oni, the former Stormguard for Himiko, he had decidedly reflected that perhaps she was right. He decided, if reluctantly, that he could indeed extend the courtesy of putting the Oni out of their long-lived miseries. It was perhaps the only instance in which he'd raise his clawed left hand against a living enemy on Yamatai.
It didn't mean he'd enjoy it.
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"What…is going on?"
Allen stared at the assorted paperwork that lay scattered on their table. The campfire was, as usual, roaring away. It was wonderful having the air not stink like smoke all the time. And being able to actually breathe was a bonus. The change in design those earth benders had made were once again appreciated so greatly, even now.
Ash stood slowly from her spot, carefully pulling the piles together. She actually looked sheepish, genuine and true. He was still getting used to the fact that she could appear as such. He had grown used to her hardened features that seeing anything else was still mind-boggling at times.
"You ruined the surprise," she stated with a resigned sigh. Allen blinked several times at her, taken aback.
"A…surprise?" He parroted slowly back, lips faintly quirking as he glanced around them. "You mean, a bigger surprise than our boat full of things?"
She shrugged back. "Something like that."
Allen took a longer cursory glance at the papers on the table. The sheets of paper were filled with drawings; and they looked suspiciously like starry skies and constellations. He met her eyes and she shrugged again.
"Astronomy," she said, as though that was all the answer he needed. He stared blankly back, not quite getting it. She sighed and continued, "I've been here for hundreds of years. While I don't recall how many, exactly, I always have a vague sense of the seasons because of the position of the stars."
"Oh…oh! Right! Because they aren't in the same places each season, all the constellations like…um…Leo and-and the bear, what's it called…Ursa Major," he blurted, feeling a mite bit proud of himself for the tidbit of knowledge. She nodded in return slowly, acknowledging his answer. He beamed back.
Ash was taking her time in gathering everything and putting it back together again in a more comprehensible, neat stack. Then she pulled something else out from the bottom of the pile, clutching it close to her chest.
"I know, roughly, how long you've been here and what season it is. Even with Himiko interfering, you can tell it's getting colder outside."
"I have, now that you mention it."
Among the clothes from the boat they had scavenged, there were plenty of longer sleeved shirts and sweaters, and something called a 'hoodie jacket'. He came to find he liked hoodies, if only because they were warm, thick, had pockets, and of course, a hood. It could never replace his Black Order coat, but the hood on the jacket helped him stand out less on the island whenever they went out. White hair, as it turned out, did not do too well when it came to applying stealth on an island that was otherwise vibrant in colour. It made him more of a target than usual.
Allen dug his hands deep into the pockets of the hoodie he was wearing, tilting his head at her. If there was anything Ash wasn't, it was shy. Reserved, maybe. But never shy. She took her time gathering her thoughts, culling the right ones to say, before she opened her mouth to speak again.
"I used to…well, I never actually kept track of the days or the months, not even the years, obviously, before you came here. I knew the seasons, but I never kept record of how many passed. And…that's okay for me to do. I can get away with losing track of the passage of time because I honestly don't care anymore. You can't afford that, though, not really. You're human, you…I used to know what that was like. Vaguely." She paused to clear her throat. She pulled the item she had clutched to her chest out and inspected it. "I don't have it down to the day, but I figured you could use this more than I ever could, although I kind of estimate we're in or around December timeframe. If my calculations with the constellations are correct."
She presented the item to him and it immediately connected in tandem to what she was speaking about the moment she did. It was a calendar; hand-made, hand drawn.
Gingerly, as though it might slip away from his grasp if he wasn't careful, he took it into his hands and inspected it.
The front cover was done in charcoal, a gorgeous reincarnated drawing of the raptors, their arms spread and their legs kicking out, like they preparing to take flight and not take off running. He flipped through the pages, found more drawings. All of them, predictably, were of dinosaurs, but they were also engulfed with lively backdrops and environments that coupled nicely with the hand-drawn calendar days. January had Báthory, front and center, her jaws gaping with steak-knife-sized teeth bared in full, her eyes focused with zest on her next target. She was charging out of the forest, with leaf litter crunching beneath her massive weight, and trees bent out of her way as she came pushing through. He could practically hear her furious roar and his ears rang slightly in remembrance of just how loud and terrifying a sound it was.
February featured a pair herd of sauropods, the long-necked dinosaurs, and in the far corner, a tiny etching of what Allen assumed to be one of the raptors watched from a safe distance. March showed off a Dilophosaurus, its proud head-crest complimenting its flashy neck display. He could almost hear the rattles chattering away and the raspy hiss they always made when trying to intimidate prey and foes alike.
He moved on, vaguely skimming the days that had little pencil tick marks on them—tick marks, he realized, that he could easily erase and then redo later on. Days I've been here, perhaps?
Trikes and Compies showed up, as well as Hadros and Gallies, and others he had never seen before. They were all immersed in rich backgrounds and she somehow managed to bring the black, grey, and white toned charcoal drawings to life with impressive details. It was an immersive and diverse ecosystem she had managed to bring to life and put onto paper.
Carmilla made her appearance in the very end in the December entry. Her eerie snowy white scales were complimented nicely with the soft grey backdrop she was placed in, standing atop a cliff overlooking the pale, almost smooth-as-glass sea. He closed the calendar and found Ash wasn't tidying up any longer. She was watching him, her frame tense, looking ready to bolt or fidget or any number of things that didn't quite fit with her lately.
"It's…not perfect, I'm sorry. I've estimated that you've been here for nearly a year, give or take a few weeks, but I—" She started, but she immediately cut herself off when he moved forward and threw his arms around her. She froze up, and that much about her was predictable. She simply stood there, and he could feel the tension in her, tight and rigid, and dear god, was she really that small? She was tinier than he was!
And all this time she had him fooled with puffing herself up and the like, and yet she barely reached his shoulder. He suddenly felt very tall, since he normally didn't—couldn't, even—get this close to her on a normal basis. Pah, 'beansprout'. More like beanstalk now. A few seconds passed and she still hadn't responded, nothing beyond the softly and fairly quickly asked, "What the fuck is this?"
"You're so out of touch; it's called a hug."
"I know what a hug is."
"Just hug me back, would you, you're making it awkward."
"You're making it awkward…" she grumbled back.
He felt a hand pat him in a stilted motion on his back, just at the bottom of his shoulder blades. His throat tightened and went dry and he squeezed his eyes shut. A sob wracked him. Ash stiffened even further, if was possible. Somehow she made it so before breaking from his embrace, holding him at arm's length.
"What-why, why are you crying, you shouldn't be crying. Stop. Stop that." She looked more than a little uncomfortable, staring up at him. Up. She was actually close enough to be staring up at him and not just…well, at him. "I thought you'd like it."
He laughed, although it came out in a series of hiccups. "I do, I really do! These drawings, they're great! I knew you could draw, but these…these are amazing. And now…" He paused, skimming through the pages, stopping at the last page. "I know the dates. I mean, it's not perfect to the day, but it's better to have an idea rather than not at all. Thank you. I mean it. This is…"
Allen grinned at her, and he felt his face heating up and his eyes grow itchy and wet. He was going to cry. This simple gift was more than enough, more than he could have asked for. He hugged her again, although Ash was better prepared the second time around and her pats weren't as awkwardly paced. That was fine. He didn't expect her to suddenly change within the last five minutes. A pat was closer to a hug then nothing at all.
"Thank you."
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Notes: Ash doesn't know how to person sometimes. She's a ball of awkward.
