The Seed - part 2

by KM Scott

iTo BC Happy Birthday, and have many more!/i

She took no notice of the time crawling by as she went to work on the unconscious Arnold.

It took everything she had in her not to give in to the panic that pounded in her chest as she gently sliced open the three wounds along his ribcage. The surgery itself was nothing new to her; serious, perhaps, but routine, and easy enough now that the necessary magic had been performed to kill the parasitic monster inside.

But the flesh she cut into had a quality about it that made it precious to her. It was, after all, his skin. Arnold's. That silly, thoughtless simpleton who somehow or another got himself involved with the Lumasi, the stale joke of a religious sect who's leaders were exposed as frauds decades before either of them were born.

Apparently through some idiotic misadventure, Arnold must have figured himself responsible for the task of forging a sword. As elegant as his hands were with the paintbrush and the lute, he was no smithy, though he had been adopted by one. And here he was now, out cold, wounded, forcing her into the misery of slicing his skin, delicately reaching into the incision and pulling out the graying body of the tentacled hydra, no longer a threat to anyone.

Doubtless, she reasoned as she pulled the last of the thing's extremities from his chest, oily slime oozing onto the breakfast table where Arnold lay, the doe-eyed fool had nothing to do with the Lumasi. It seemed a credible theory to her that perhaps some raggedy, disheveled mountebank in a monk's robe had approached him about donations to his cause. Maybe the ruse would have involved the ridiculous lump of a sword Arnold had forged. He would have done it out of unthinking, selfless kindness, as he did everything. This time it nearly cost him his life.

"Trusting dolt," she sighed as she massaged his chest, squeezing out the last of the putrid sludge from his body. It would be like this for him, Arnold. Arnold who's charity had actually cost him dearly before. Fool. He was a fool. A lamebrain. An odd-skulled philanthropist-with-empty-pockets who dedicated himself to the thankless and oft-unwelcome task of improving the world around him. She had enough difficulty already in her life, to be sure, but certainly there was room for an idealistic buffoon to come barging in with an evil squid grasping onto his guts! Of course! No trouble at all!

She pointedly began to slow her suturing. Can't let that famous Helga temper get lose while holding a sharp object. But how she HATED him for doing this to her. Invading her life at this delicate time. She loathed, loathed his short-sighted stupidity for what he was causing her! Absolutely LOATHED HIM FOR IT!!!

And yet ….

It took an hour for the hydra to die, after she had performed her healing sorcery. Were there some other incantation, magic powder, extreme force of will, or anything else short of a sharp blow to her skull that would have kept her from stroking that soft hair perched on that adoringly almond-shaped head … well, she wouldn't have employed it.

It had been five years since she'd seen him last. Five years since she had made her final decision to stay with the Scinta. It was the most heart-breaking decision she ever made, and it had taken a considerable amount of doing to convince herself it was the right one. Granted, there wasn't much she left behind, but Arnold had been a part of it, a part she had yet to let go.

As the years went by after leaving her hometown, she had thrown herself into her studies. Her thirst for knowledge was uncompromising, and she attempted to drowned herself in the history, philosophy, and magical practices of the Scinta. Her temper and her attitude were calmed over the years, but her spirit and stubbornness made up for that. She was a wonder as a student, a controversial figure whose love of the old ways clashed with her innate curiosity, pushing her ever in search of new and untested magic.

But she was loyal to the order through and through. And that's why she left the boy who was currently asleep on her table.

Or so she thought. So wrapped up in her last few stitches, she hadn't noticed the fingers gently touching the ribbon that hung from the recesses of her long locks.

"I like your ribbon," wheezed a weak voice. "It's pink … like your gown."

Helga considered it fortunate that she was done with her sewing. Otherwise her startled jump may have caused her to accidentally tear the skin further.

"You're awake," she said, working the surprise out of her voice.

"Hello, Helga," Arnold smiled that smile of his. The irresistible smile.

Damn him.

She sat up and walked over to a shelf in the kitchen, poking through various bottles and containers. "You're lucky to be alive, Almond-Head."

A light cough escaped his lips, which she realized was a giggle. "Never knew I'd ever hear you say that again," he adjusted himself on the table, to see her better.

"You almost didn't. Stop moving, I just finished with that wound." She was back at his side again, firmly moving him back into position. She had brought over some of the mixture she had used earlier on Gerald, and was mixing it again.

"I can't remember what happened," said Arnold as she began to apply the poultice. "I think I was attacked by something. An animal. I can't remember …"

"And you shouldn't bother." She gently took his chin with sticky fingers. "You need rest, boy. You should go back to sleep."

He blinked at her for a second. Took a breath. Smiled the smile again. "You look so beautiful, Helga."

Helga removed her hand. She looked at her poultice mix, back to Arnold, his wounds, the poultice. What was it about this boy and those five silly words that caused her, a respected and feared sorceress, such consternation as to what she should be looking at?

She settled on the poultice. Good enough. "You've been poisoned for a day and a half. You're exhausted and incoherent. You don't know what you're talking about."

"Well," he said as he lifted his arm, "If that's the case, then I can't be blamed for my behavior."

He started caressing her face. And not simply caressing it, but with his knuckles, up from her chin and slowly towards her temple. Just how she loved it.

She grabbed his hand to stop him, but she already knew what would happen next, and indeed, he twisted his hand in hers so that their fingers were intertwined. He may have been weak and a fool, but he wasn't entirely unclever. She prepared a volley of sharp words to hurl at him when, as she should have predicted, his other hand was at her wrist, gently dragging its fingers up and down her forearm – the other thing she loved.

Only Arnold would do these things. Only Arnold knew to do these things.

Damn him!

The flood of anger she was to unleash upon him had suddenly evaporated, and she struggled to find the strength to say "Stop."

Arnold stopped. Not because of a demand or a spell, but because she said stop. Many a man throughout the countryside would find that word incitement to continue, or cause to beat his intended conquest for resisting. Arnold stopped because she said so. That was what made him Arnold.

He did not drop her hand, however.

"Helga," he whispered, "do you think about me?"

"Why would I think about you?" she asked. The question would have carried more weight if she hadn't stuttered so when saying it.

"I can't stop thinking about you," he said. His eyes never wandered from her face. "I heard you lived in Swallow's Cry. Is that where we are?"

"Yes," she continued to rub the poultice, maybe more than there needed to be, on his wound.

"I heard there was a famine out here. Remember? About ... what, a year or two ago? I wanted to ride out, but we were so busy at the shop." He glanced around the room. "Was there a famine?"

"There was. I got along. It was some of the nearby villages that suffered, but they're still here, too."

Arnold closed his eyes. "Good," he said. "Balmoral had it pretty bad too. I felt kind of selfish."

She began to cut bandages to place over the mixture. "Why?"

"I dunno," he replied. "It's just that I was surrounded by all these hungry people. I would try to get them grain and salt and water, but I kept thinking about you, getting something out to you the whole time. But, you're a sorceress. You could take care of yourself."

"Yes I can," she responded.

"But, I guess I need to tell you …" and here, he leaned forward, much to Helga's protesting hands. "…I'll never stop worrying about you, Helga. Never."

Helga put her hands on the table, a look of restrained frustration snapping over her face. "Arnold …." she started.

She did not finish. Before either of them knew it, her mouth was at his, their breaths mingling, their tongues dancing in a rhythm that was as familiar to them as it was five years ago, when everything she and Arnold did was in concert, of two hearts.

Those hearts were pounding as she gently eased him back down onto the table, her passion attacking his as they kissed like fire and oxygen. He grasped her torso as they broke the kiss, burying his face into her neck, squeezing her sides like a prize in a grip of strength that was every bit as powerful as his longing for her.

At once rapturous and gentle, Helga wrapped a hungry arm around his shoulders, clutching and petting his head as she relished the feel of his body, the taste of his skin and the scent of his hair. Well, it wasn't his scent; it was the scent of the soap she had used to clean his hair. It smelled amazing on him.

He grunted something into her chest and she knew at once it was her name. He said it over and over as he nuzzled her heartbeat.

"Arnold …" she said again.

-------------------------------------------

She was found in the foothills of Leith, scratched, bloodied, but otherwise healthy. She had a unibrow back then, the characteristic common among the Gathi nomads. Her tribe had been on their bi-annual trek to Balmoral to participate in the renowned county fair. Her father, a loud and boisterous boor, fancied himself Prince of All Merchants, and often ruminated on leaving the tribe and staying in the capitol permanently.

The day's journey through Leith had barely begun when the bandits had swooped down upon them. Helga, only six at the time, was caught directly underneath an overturned wagon. Surrounded in darkness and unable to move, she could only listen to the screams of her people, the begging of her father, as the bloodthirsty bastards cut them all down. Not a soul was left alive.

She had stayed there for two days. A fortuitous broken plank in the wagon fed her air, and the trash that had devastated her tribe was in too much of a hurry to check everything. As the third day dawned, the first drops of an emerging rainstorm announced itself with its slow tap-tap-tapping, bursting into a growing fury after a short few minutes. The ground beneath her became muddy, and in her young mind, a sharp new fear of drowning was sparked.

Then she heard the hoof beats.

Something - someone - was approaching. There were a number of them, for she heard many voices. Men, women, shouting orders, picking through what the bandits left behind, and though the rain beat a relentless, chaotic rhythm against the floor of the wagon, she could hear those voices coming closer.

The world around her rumbled, and then there was light. A large, bulky man with deep set eyes and arms like tree trunks had lifted the wagon up in the air with all the exertion of changing a bedsheet. He gawked at the little girl in surprise.

She was weak and beaten, starving and exhausted. In the days to come, she would ponder where she had found the strength to leap at the man, and how she had managed to get ahold of a knife.

Of course, she was no challenge for him - Green, a butcher who lived in Balmoral county - and with the same large, beefy hands he disarmed her with, he held her close to his chest, less out of comfort, more out of an attempt to keep her from getting free. He felt like her father, she would recall.

Upon her arrival at Balmoral, she was swiftly taken to the local healer, a sweet-natured drunkard named Mother Miriam. Helga could smell the fruity wine on her breath as she managed to string together some sort of greeting, before turning her over to Olga, her statuesque young daughter.

Olga. If ever there was a more forcefully genteel and winsome person on the face of the planet, Helga never wanted to meet her. In fact, the little girl had come to regret meeting Olga fairly quickly. Her lilting voice was like spun sugar, as soft as her golden hair and unblemished, alabaster skin. It was enough to cause vomit fits.

She and Miraim watched Helga like mother hens while a courier was sent to find a Gathi tribe that would take her. None would. Thanks largely to her father, The Pahtachi clan was not a popular clan amongst the nomads, to put it kindly, and her singular eyebrow had been regarded as a cursed mark anyway. At nine years old, Helga had no home and no family.

It was with grudging acceptance, and eventual gratitude, that she gradually began to take to her new and unexpected mother and sister - or, as Olga would gently insist, "Big Sister" to her "Little Sister". It was through Mother Miriam, after all, that she learned of the way of the Scinta; the death of her husband in a logging accident inspired her love of drink, whereas her dabbling in the practices of the ancient order kept her from becoming a total drunk. It meant foregoing men, which was of little concern to her, after she lost Hyun.

They provided a home for her, warm in the winter, with good food and clean clothes. They provided her with quill and parchment, and she had learned to read and write six languages by the time she was 12. Her mind was a library of ancient songs and stories that told the history of Emir, and a vast repository of formulas and recipes for potions and elixirs both archaic and new.

What they could not provide, and could never hope to, was a sense of security. Helga was scarred by the insane fury she'd seen the day her tribe was slaughtered. Everything she'd ever known was gone, and in the void left behind where peace of mind would be, a spiteful and plotting anger was born. She had gained a reputation among the other children in town as a bully and a witch, the latter earned from the prevalent prejudice against gypsies such as her.

The Bremanian boy, Gerald Tall Hair Johvis, from Hillwood, would make up the most insane stories about her drinking blood and turning others into newts. That stupid, fat-headed son of the butcher Harold was constantly trying to insult her, a feat made all the more difficult considering he always had food in his mouth. That ... insufferable ... daughter of a local merchant, Rhonda, betrothed, as she was constantly reminding them, to a lord of a lower house. They made sure to make every day for her miserable.

Of course, it wasn't always so terrible, not with all of them. Often, Mother Bliss would come to visit Mother Miriam, bringing along a girl who'd been orphaned, just like her. Phoebe was a welcome friend to Helga, a kind and gentle girl willing to lend an ear when something was tearing at her heart. She was no pushover, however, oh no. Gerald and Harold both would live to understand that.

And then there was Arnold. A young boy who lived with the smithy. Helga often wondered if some terrible curse had fallen upon the children of Balmoral, or if it had been limited to the three of them - for Arnold had lost his parents too, only to far more mysterious circumstances. Of all the children that caused Helga to endure pain every day, Arnold was without question the worst.

He did not insult her, however. He did not make up stories about her, throw rocks or call her names. Arnold was, without question, one of the most kindest and self-sacrificing boys ever born. His hooded eyes and encouraging grin had made him welcome in every corner of the town, including some of the royal houses. His was a disarming personality, and he had overcome even the curmudgeonliest residents with his gentle words, tireless helping hands and irrepressible attitude.

Helga hated him.

The world of pain and horror that she had suffered found no logic in his loving behavior, and, for reasons she would not be able to fathom if she had questioned herself, she unleashed wrath on him on a near-daily basis. Certainly, she was brutal towards the other children of the town, but it was with Arnold that she took particular pride in her focused and relentless tormenting. Name-calling, arm-punching and hair-pulling soon gave away to more supernormal damages upon her learning of the Scinta practices.

Cursing him with an all-day skunk spell had been fun, but tearing his breeches from a distance was a favorite. Pelting him with spitballs from every angle at once, causing him to swat furiously at the air in the middle of town square, had been worked out to a science by the time they had hit their early teenage years.

Puberty ran in fast, and with it came a shocking revelation, as Helga, then fourteen, a scholar and sorceress in her own right, was mixing an especially nasty potion up for her hapless target. Grinning and snickering through her plot, the obtrusive Olga had come into her room (failing to knock, once again), startling Helga while adding a crucial and particularly sensitive element to the mix.

The explosion could be heard from the other side of town.

As Mother Bliss worked her magic over Helga, whose angry scowl could still be made out even as her pinkish, swirling form bubbled in the cauldron she'd been scooped into, she'd asked Helga why she'd even think of using such a dangerous potion on someone who meant her no harm.

"I wasn't going to use that mix on him," Bliss was able to make out through all the bubbling and popping. "I was going to use a modified one - just for his clothes."

Bliss raised an eyebrow. "You were going to liquefy his clothes?"

"Yeah, well, I guess ..." burble glub pop. "I didn't mean any harm. It's just that stupid Olga came in without knocking - again! - and ruined everything."

"I wouldn't be so quick to blame this on her, Helga," said Bliss, who had begun administering powders into the cauldron. "You had no business at all trying to use this potion, as you can plainly see. And you've yet to answer my question: Why would you do this to Arnold? What has he done to you?"

A quiet separation of chemicals had commenced in the cauldron. Water had begun to separate from the pink liquid, which was becoming increasingly flesh-toned. "Uh .... I don't know ..." said Helga. Whatever she said next was lost to Bliss, as a flurry of bubbles and gurgles obscured Helga's words.

It was not lost to Helga, however, who continued her reasoning, unaware of Bliss' inability hear her: She despised his ridiculous attitude about life, about how things are only as bad as you see them, or some such nonsense. Life was bad - an ugly, torturous, miserable collection of meaninglessly painful horrors that you endured until you thankfully, mercifully, died. Perhaps if he knew the tragedy she knew of losing her family, perhaps his thinking would be a little more ....

... well, no, no. He had lost his family. Of course. But that wasn't the same thing. Somehow. He was stupid. And that was the difference. She was smart and he was stupid. She was better than him, far better, and would live a much happier life if he wasn't there to constantly torment her with his stupid happiness, his useless optimism. Oh, how much more pleasurable life would be is she didn't have to see his kind face, his warm smile, to never have to deal with his LEAPING into every situation where he thought he might be able to help, like the time the Lorenzo brothers had tried to ...

... they hurt him pretty badly for that, too. He almost lost a tooth. Served him right for interfering with something she could handle. What business was it of his anyway? Why did he care? No one else did! Why did he care?!

How could he care?

How could he care about her? She wasn't nice, kind, or even thoughtful. She was everything dark and angry, a vengeful and violent person who would pursue her tormentors to the ends of the earth for vindication! She had no soul, just a black and terrible thing that kept her going. He had no place to care for her. And there was no place in her to care for him. None. She did not care for him. She did not.

That night, when she woke up at three bells, mostly solid and with nary a hair on her head, her maturing mind finally understood. She had lied to herself. There was room to care for Arnold. It was the reason why she focused on him so.

When Mother Bliss brought the boy by later that day, completely without warning, Helga found out just how big her lie had been.

"He came over to help rebuild your room," said Bliss, pushing Arnold forward. He couldn't see her smirk for staring at Helga.

Helga realized that Arnold was not seeing the traditional, scowling Helga, but a pail, somewhat translucent Helga with no hair. Her brow would've raised in surprise if it were there.

"Uhr, Arnold ..." she stammered. "I was just ...."

"I like your ribbon," he said.

Ribbon? She glanced at her neck, wrists, body. No ribbon, just a pink gown covered with a robe. She opened her mouth to say "What ribbon?"

She didn't get the chance. Arnold gently reached forward and gingerly touched the pink ribbon that was dangling from the side of her head. She felt a gentle pulling, as if the ribbon was attacked directly to her skin.

Mother Bliss grimaced sheepishly. "Did everything I could with that separation spell. Couldn't pull out the ribbon, though."

Helga wasn't paying attention. She'd been fingering the lace, feeling the slight tug on the side of her skull, before she accidentally brushed Arnold's hand. She pulled away.

" ... it's pink, like your gown," he complimented.

-------------------------------------------

Helga slowly began rocking Arnold in her arms, deeply drinking in the moment. She would have to let him go, let him lie back on the table. He had to sleep, to heal, and she could not be touching a man right now, she knew that.

But he was obviously not ready to let go of her, and she was not going to force him. She just listened quietly to the soft wheezing of his breath, which seemed to become less forced minute by minute ….

******

Hey, folx!

Okeydoke, this here's part 2 of The Seed, a gift AU HA! (bless you) fic for Blonde Cecille. I meant to get this done much earlier and in two parts only, but it just got bigger and bigger! It became so long, in fact, that I had to even partition part 2!

That's right! What you see above isn't even complete in its truncation! Ah, BC, what powers have you over mortal man that you can summon a great, walloping tale with merely a "Hey Arnold with swords" prompt?!

Again, happy birfday. More to come!

Oh, and Ichigo - Thanks for the comments! You rock!