Serendipity
The night was at its darkest when Holly woke Artemis. Judging from the depth of the sky, Artemis, in his barely lucid state, surmised it was predawn. Holly was peering at him from the back seat, her face an inch from his. She looked so much like a fairy in that moment, with her curious eyes wide and bright in the darkness. He felt a poke at his side and realized it was Holly's hand trying to shake him into wakefulness.
"I'm awake." He said, fully opening his eyes.
Holly immediately withdrew at a safe distance. She transferred the rest of her body to the adjacent driver's seat, snuggling deep into its backseat. The early morning chill was seeping through the shut windows, and even the heater couldn't battle it off. Artemis, already alert, fumbled his right arm around to retrieve his coat from the glove compartment. He threw it over Holly haphazardly.
"Thanks," Holly wrapped the smooth material tighter around her.
"Why did you wake me, Holly? The sun hasn't even risen yet,"
"I'm…jetlagged." Holly said, plucking the term from her gift of tongues. "It's not the appropriate word but-"
"Fairies have always been nocturnal creatures, correct? And the shuttle ride didn't help your internal clock either."
"Mhm," Holly agreed absentmindedly. "Artemis, can we go for that barn right now?"
"Why?" Artemis could not fathom any situation where it would be preferable to trek through foot-high grass without the light of the sun to warn you of undesirable things. After all, there had been a cow last night. And where there are cows, there tend to be cow feces.
"Uh, I know I don't usually bother you with mundane stuff but I'm kind of hungry. I haven't eaten real food for two days now."
Artemis clicked his tongue, feigning the disappointment of a parent. "That's what you get for insisting on an irregularly scheduled diet."
"Fine," Holly snapped. Just in time, her stomach rumbled, pleading with the Fowl heir for her.
"Alright, we'll go. Daylight will soon break anyway. Gather your things,"
Holly hopped back to her side of the car and started packing up her clutter. From the rearview mirror, Artemis watched Holly throw odds and pieces into her pack, not caring about the mess and hassle it would create when she would want to retrieve an item from the bag later on. Only Holly could pull off being a disorganized soldier.
Artemis blinked several times and flexed his fingers, attempting to fully vanquish sleep. Once satisfied with the speed of his flowing blood, he started gathering his own things from the various compartments in the dashboard. Vaguely he thought about the lucky farmer who would stumble upon his beautiful Maserati, which was worth millions despite its missing tire (they had decided against reinstalling the flat tire; it was no use anyway).
"Holly, you think you could fit this inside your pack?" Artemis asked, bending around to hand Holly the sole possession he couldn't fit into his pockets. He had already pocketed his wallet and useless phone.
"A gun?"
"Just in case," Artemis added, unable to stop himself from mirroring Holly's smile. They were thinking the same thing: only they could manage to turn innocent hitchhiking into a situation requiring firearms. Base from experience, both of them knew the odds of that very situation happening is very high. "And besides, we can't leave a gun wandering around for some drunkard to pick up, especially a fairy-wired gun."
"You should really be more responsible with your fairy tech, Artemis." Holly said, frowning at the idea of Artemis having tons of unregistered fairy gadgetry sprawling above ground.
"I am. That's why I am asking you to take it, correct? Besides, I put a self-destruct on all my gadgetry. I did pick up my phone, remember?" Artemis patted his pants' back pocket, where he had stuffed the worthless phone. He would've placed it at the special phone compartment in his coat, but Holly was still wearing it. "I even traded my memories just to retrieve the C Cube from Spiro. You're forgetting who you're talking to."
"Thanks for reminding me, Mr. Ego." Holly rolled her eyes. After a pause, she spoke again. "Artemis, can you give me five minutes to change? I don't really know how long we'll be walking."
Why didn't she change when I was asleep? Artemis surveyed the dark surrounding outside. He'd been in more dire situations but there's something about stepping into dark woods alone. "Of course, I'll wait outside."
"No, it's fine. It's nothing you haven't seen before." Artemis blinked. Holly was playing him back for his comments yesterday. "Just don't look, okay?"
Before he could affirm or even shift his body into an obvious I'm not looking position, Holly had already pulled her shirt over head. Artemis stared a beat before averting his gaze. He decided upon busying himself with pretending to find his left shoe, which was actually already securely attached to his foot.
"Done," Artemis heard a click. Holly had already stepped out of the car, stretching her lithe figure in the chilly morning air. The tiniest amount of sun already blushed the sky, painting Holly's silhouette. A thought sprawled across Artemis' mind: how can she be real?
"The barn is just a few miles away. A couple of hours of walk, I'd say, even with me as your trekking companion." Artemis told Holly, joining her on the asphalt road. Now that there was adequate light, he saw that the cow was gone.
"I say we go that way," Holly pointed to the meadow, a direction perpendicular to the road. Slight fear gripped Artemis: when an idea besets Holly's brain, she goes through hell to make him go through with it. Upon the thought, he realized he was the same; he was just as insistent as Holly when he gets an idea, though granted that his ideas tend to be more calculated than hers.
"Holly, certain shelter is that way. Why would you want to stray from the road?"
"Think with your heart for once." The phrase was vaguely familiar and it took a beat before Artemis recognized that he had thought the very same words once before. The words got him killed, if he recalled the feeling of Bruin Fadda's soul-freeing spell correctly. "Look at that spectacular horizon. Those trees. Don't you want to know where the cow went?"
"I am certain that the cow is now in the barn, waiting to be milked." Artemis replied tersely. "Holly, you haven't had a vacation since before I was even born. I can fully assure you that we won't encounter a sauna that way."
"It's my vacation, and I can do what I want. If you want to go that way, then fine."
She knows I would follow her wherever she goes. Artemis grimaced. Her assumption was correct. There was no way he was going to leave her alone above ground without her recon gear even if his intellect and the limitless credit card in his wallet were the only things he had to fend for her; moreover, it was he who was supposed to be her host during this vacation.
Holly was already two meters in the meadow, walking farther and farther away from Artemis and the road. The grass was almost half as tall as her, engulfing her. Artemis waited on the road, pride refusing to bow down to the elf. How long was she going to spindle out her bluff?
She had already reached the end of the clearing, and was about to step into the shroud of still maturing trees. After a second, she was gone behind the trunks' shadows. Artemis sighed and ran as dignified as he could after her.
Xxx
They passed through two fields, a bog and a stile, occasionally indulging each other with light conversation and bickering. Soon Artemis had added an invaluable knowledge to his already vast collection: leather loafers, no matter how expensive, are not made for marching through raw nature. The shoes were intact and still in one piece, but mud had long ago replaced its customary shine. The familiarity of the shoes didn't do anything for Artemis' already aching feet; not to mention his rumbling hunger aggravating his irritation. For the first time ever, Artemis wished he was in rubber shoes.
"Why would you choose this, Holly Short? We could be eating eggs and drinking milk right now."
"It's funny how I'm the one who lives underground yet I see so much of the world than you would ever want. I bet you won't have a problem living all your life in Haven; we've got tons of computers there."
Artemis was silent for once. Holly had spoken to him in her usual light bickering tone, but what she had said felt like something deeper. Often he forgets how important the world's wonders are to Holly, and how little she gets to see of it.
A gasp pulled Artemis from his thoughts. The elf had been walking a few steps ahead of him, but now she was completely gone from his eyesight. He searched for Holly and found her atop the hill they were about to climb. She was frozen; whatever sight that met her above that height must be either catastrophic or truly majestic. As quickly as he could manage, he marched up the incline. What he saw atop the hill chilled his soul.
After trekking through two fields, a bog, a stile and finally, this hill, the two best friends have come upon an ancient oak tree, bended over a rushing river. They have been here before, back when they were different people: a broken boy and an incomplete elf.
Neither said a word, afraid that voices would break the magical moment. Slowly, they walked towards the tree together. Holly quickened her pace, racing slightly ahead. Once under the protective embrace of the oak's branches, she sat snuggled between two roots. Artemis walked up to join her.
It was the rarest sight of all: an unadulterated smile broke Artemis' impassive features. He was unable to resist it. He had not thought about this place for years, but he never forgot. Never. For his extensive vocabulary, Artemis couldn't find a single word to describe how he felt. It was happiness, and so much more.
"Stay back, human." She said, feeling each syllable spill out of her mouth. The words almost made her cry.
Instead, she laughed. Incapable of denying his similar elation, Artemis joined her.
Everything was surreal. It was like a time stop was over them, trapping them in their own little world under The Tree That Changed Everything. They spent the next couple of hours in silence, listening to the river's song and drowning in their memories.
Who would have known, all those years ago that one day they would return here, together and in friendship? If anything, being here, right now, made both of them realized how far they have come and how inseparable their threads are ever since it was knotted together right under this oak's wise branches.
"How come we never thought of coming here before?" Holly said, her voice soft, still afraid to break the magic.
"That would be the megalomaniac pixie keeping us occupied."
"I remember everything about that night. It's funny how I thought about it only now, amidst all these years."
Artemis nodded. "Yes. The memory of that night only recurred to me right now. This tree was the fifth stake-out. We had been stalking ancient oaks for four months until we found you here."
"Wow, five is really your lucky number, huh?" Holly goaded. Then her voice turned gentle. "What if you never found me under this tree?"
The question felt like a punch to Artemis' gut. He never fathomed it before. What would his life be if he had never met Holly?
"I'd probably be in Haven, still working. Opal would probably be queen of everything down there." Holly continued, answering her own question.
Artemis was silent. Until Holly asked the question, he had never realized. Where would he be now without Holly? He'd be somewhere on this world, still broken but already beyond repair.
"Thank you, Holly." Artemis said. Right now, he was sure that there would never be a moment in his life without Holly, lest he get lost and wither.
Silence and deep thoughts engulfed them again. They sat in silence for a long stretch of time.
"I've returned to this place a couple of times throughout the years, for the Ritual, but it never felt anything close to now. It's the surprise. Somehow, being with you, unexpectedly stumbling upon it did the trick."
"Serendipity," Artemis supplied. "Discovering something through chance and fate."
Xxx
They left their tree deep into the afternoon and began hiking back to wherever. Artemis has long resigned himself to the fact that Holly is intent on making this sporadic backpacking trip across Ireland and trudged after her. Their years of friendship held back his whining mouth; this was the one thing he could give to Holly without easily spending money to get it. It felt right.
What didn't felt right, though, was the day-old cotton shirt glued to his back with sweat and grime. He and Holly only dared to wash their arms and faces by the river. Even if the ancient oak and enchanted wood made them feel otherwise, it was still the twenty-first century and no sane-brained being would go bathe in a river this side of the era.
Holly was feeling a little fresher, having wiped her body with yesterday's shirt that she had dampened in the river. She had offered Artemis, but he declined on whim. It was a declination he now regretted.
His memory of the place was hazy, but he does recall the general direction of the nearest road where Butler had parked their jeep a decade ago. It was in this direction they headed, and eventually they found the man-made path back to civilization. Holly went without complain, having satisfied her fair-share of nature tripping.
The tree had softened them both, but eventually it wore off and soon Artemis' unexercised legs were screaming. The chilly climate didn't help the fatigue and hunger. Even Holly ran out of words, being too tired to waste her breath. They walked in silence as their thoughts morphed from whimsical nostalgia into downright regret and visions of Butler's Belgian waffles.
Their companionable silence was broken by a loud squish.
Holly stopped in her tracks and looked back to where Artemis was lagging behind. The human had all but stopped. He just stood there, wearing his usual indifferent expression. She jogged back, her backpack going up and down as she moved.
Upon closer inspection, Holly ceased her approach and laughed her soul out.
Artemis' early morning theory proved correct. Where there are cows, there tends to be cow feces. Case in point: the poo coating one of his twenty-thousand dollar topsiders.
"Gods, you have the worse karma!" She squeezed in between her gales. "What did you do in your life? Sell the last of an endangered primate to a crazy animal hater?"
Artemis simply refused to dignify Holly's ribbing with a reply. He abruptly extracted his foot from the lump. He did so in Holly's direction, sending splatters of the brown, green-specked goo onto her jeans. It shut Holly up.
Without a word the two had reached a consensus: they resumed their trek in total indifference to the digested grass smell following their steps.
"Don't look so dour, Arty." Holly said, shifting her pack. It was really heavy. Speaking of her backpack, how she wished she could go change into her clean, poo-free extra pair of pants, even if the only pants she has left were her gym leggings. "This was your genius idea, after all."
Then, Artemis' aforementioned karma came around to collect toll again. It had begun to rain. The water fell in sheets from the sky; the two lost wanderers were immediately soaked.
Artemis groaned in the most theatrical, spoiled-by-millionaire-parents manner.
"At least the poo will wash-off!" Holly shouted through the sound of pouring rain.
"You seem happy," Artemis commented, somehow cheered by the carefree smile that materialized on Holly's face.
Holly tilted her face upward, letting the drops fall on her features in startling intervals. "We don't get much rain back home. And when I do get rain, I'm too preoccupied with a deranged pixie or a rogue troll."
"I have never been drenched in rain before, either." Artemis said. Butler had always been ready with an umbrella. "In fact, I don't recall ever stepping out in the rain, even in a light drizzle."
Holly looked at Artemis through the translucent wall of falling rain drops. His dark hair was plastered flat around his head, dragged down by the water. The day of walking under the clouded sun gave a flush of color across the zeniths of his sharp cheekbones and his aristocratic nose. The muddy clothes he wore were almost see-through in the damp parts that stuck to his skin.
"You're like a whole different person, like a normal person." Holly remarked, unable to let go of the sudden realization in her head.
"So this is what a normal person does." He mused. And thus he concluded: "For today, we are just two normal people who got caught in the rain."
Holly did not respond, absorbed in her thoughts. What if they were normal people, regardless of their species, her responsibilities, his intellect? What if he was just some scientist and she was some police woman and they met on that cursed road when she came over to help him with that cursed flat tire?
The conversation had kept them warm. Now that it had petered out, the two began to feel the cold sink through their drenched clothing and into their bones. Holly more so, as elves were warm creatures by nature.
Fortunately, Holly's karma earned from all those years of guiding a criminally astray human boy took its turn in the ongoing karma toll collection. A wooden cabin slash ancient gasoline station emerged in the road bend. Holly and Artemis ran for the roof. Halfway, they started laughing; Holly infected Artemis with her happiness. There was something about running through the rain, and running with your best friend heightened the experience.
Once under the cabin's overhang, their laughter petered out and they pause to catch their breath. Protected from the rain, the two began shaking off the excess water and wringing their clothes, reducing their status from dripping wet to just waterlogged. Artemis took this time to observe their surroundings: the wooden housing was actually a convenience store. Antique metal signage bedecked the front wall and on the door itself; the "open" sign barely distinguishable among the soda and gasoline ads.
"I'll go and see if they have dry clothes and a phone."
"Wait," Holly dug through her lone luggage. Her soldier pack was water-proof, salvaging its contests from the rain's onslaught. She retrieved two fairy band-aids from a first aid kit and handed them to Artemis. "You think you could wrap these around my ears like you did during our Extinctionist escapade?"
"I doubt that's going to work. It's not safe."
"I'm going to go in to change anyways. Unless you're expecting me to strip in the great outdoors and -"
"Shield," Artemis interrupted.
Holly went on as if she hadn't heard the genius. "Besides, there's probably one drunk Irishman manning the register. My hair can cover it further. No one's going to notice."
Artemis just looked at her in silence.
"Artemis, if I'm not in that well-heated cabin in ten seconds I'm going to body slam you and feed you your broken phone."
"Alright," Artemis consented, too cold to argue. He took the bandages from Holly. He exposed the adhesive of one, kneeling to get a better reach. His fingers wrapped the material across her ear tips, ever so slowly and lingering as to make sure it fitted properly. Artemis could feel Holly's warm breath on his skin, and he was sure she could feel his, which was still heavy from their run through the rain. Artemis did the same to her other ear, just as slow; his fingers unintentionally grazing and lingering.
"What do you think?" Holly asked once Artemis had finished his work. She hid her fluster well.
The man stood up and stepped back, admiring his handiwork. He reached back down and carefully arranged locks of her matted, red hair against her cheeks. "Passable," He deemed.
As he followed Holly's almost iridescent image skipping to the front door, he idly wondered why the universe was gracing him so.
Xxx
A/N: Almost anyone would start laughing if they ran through the rain (unless of course they were running through it to get to some car accident or something). The thing about Artemis is, aside from being the son of a crime lord, his opulent upbringing denied his childhood the simple joys in life, like feeling the rain on your skin. Artemis and Holly going back to The Tree That Changed Everything was the first thing I wrote, and it was around that that I wrote the other stuff. The Fowldom's lack of response, is as usual, disappointing. Is the fandom dying or is this fic that worthless? Pretty please give me your thoughts on the story. Criticisms are, as always, welcome. Actually, they're well appreciated.