In which no one gets away with being a lousy friend on Sofia's watch.
Inhaling the crisp morning air, Wormwood feels a sudden shiver creep up his spine.
He frowns at the sensation, puzzled. After the night he had, it's incredible that something can still make him shiver. The subtle change, more of a shift of air currents than an actual smell, resembles his avian sense of oncoming storms―he can feel it approach from half a mile across the castle, ready to collide with him as soon as he puts his blistered foot down on the first step.
If it's a storm, it's a very small one.
"You!" Sofia jabs at him with a finger, as thin as a needle into his ribs, putting her whole weight into it. It actually hurts, a little bit. "I'm hearing you've been a very bad friend."
Taken aback for a moment, he wonders if the Amulet has granted the Princess some preternatural sight overnight.
"My, do news travel fast in this castle," he says, shoving the sudden paranoia aside, in the most sardonic tone he can muster. In the first light of dawn, he was able to find his way back―but it still took him longer than his patience. His legs, now used to walking, feel at once stronger and heavy as lead. He fights back a yawn. "Let me guess who told you, a little birdie?"
"Nevermind that, Wormwood," the Princess hisses, eyes narrowed to darting blue slits. "I won't blow your cover only because Mr. Cedric asked me not to. But I wanna know why you were so mean to him."
"Mean? Me? I don't know whatever you're talking about," he drawls, opening his fingers and letting his voice drip with mockery. Sofia squints at him. "You look like a little snake with your face like that. We should have left you a lizard."
What reason would Cedric have to keep Wormwood's identity a secret, he wonders.
"Mr. Cedric," Sofia continues, completely ignoring him, "was out without a coat last night. In the pouring rain." Her voice lowers, "Yesterday, his voice was already all hoarse. If tomorrow he's sick, it will be all your fault. What do you have to say for yourself?"
Wormwood blinks at her. The night past and gone, what happened doesn't feel as much of a big deal. An argument between them was one-sided the other way around for once, what is all this fuss about? As he walked back to the castle, the thought barely crossed his mind. But now, Sofia slapping him with the reminder of his words and actions, he feels that unpleasant tension in his stomach all over again.
When he woke up, he glanced above the trees, to the sky painted orange and violet, to the oblique light cutting through the sparse leaves like a thin pink blade. He was half-lain on the roots of the tree, and the fleeting memory of a dream escaped him the more he tried to recall it, like fish between his fingers―there was a throne, and a rising tide, and a mournful voice saying, you have abandoned me. The night had passed, he was covered in dirt and fallen leaves, spiders had made webs in his robe. His eyes had a hard time coming fully open, as if something had dried on his eyelids.
He never had such a morning before. In a memory of lifelong habits, it all came back to him, all that was missing and would never be his again. Opening his eyes to the bed unmade, still warm, light of dawn and slight draught through heavy curtains. Then, the smell of breakfast in the making, and falsetto humming making its way to him through the open door, pulling him from his dreams.
"Listen, Princess," he says, clearing the slight thickness from his throat. "It's his own fault. You weren't there, you didn't see what went on."
"I've seen enough," Sofia replies, crossing her arms. "I know you've taken his Wand, given him those scratches, and locked him out of the tower. That's mean."
"And just when I thought he couldn't sink any lower," he sneers, though it sounds hollow, a bark with no bite behind it. "He sends the five year old human to champion for him? Incredible."
"I'm nine, Wormwood." Sofia's hands move to the sides of her wide skirt, and she looks him straight in the eye. "And no one sent me. I might be a human, but at least I take good care of my friends."
He exhales from his nose, in a tense sneer. Who is sending him all these people who have so much to say about what friends do and don't do? What do they know about what happened? It never gave him this feeling, this tense discomfort, when Sofia said she and Cedric were friends before, but now... it seems Wormwood has been replaced, almost as easily as he made Cedric believe he was.
Should have seen it coming, with all this... teaming up and adventuring going on, he thinks. At risk of looking like he's forfeiting the confrontation, he sweeps his long robe around and stalks off, down the front stairs again.
It's a relief to put his feet in the damp grass. It's not a relief to hear Sofia's small steps patter behind him.
"Wait, what is the problem with you two?" she queries in her high-pitched, grating voice. She's following him, the pesky brat. "Will one of you just tell me, so we can fix it?"
"It's not something that can be fixed," he spats. He turns away, arms crossed, when she steps around him to look him in the face. "And I'm not talking about it with you."
"Why not?" Sofia pursues, unbothered by either his tone or attitude. "I'm the only one who knows about this, and the only human you've talked to before you got transformed."
"I do not care," he groans, lifting both his hands. "You do not care either. Nobody cares. Stop following me."
"I do care," she rebuts. She is eyeing his hand, and Wormwood realises with horror that the yellow ribbon is still wrapped around his fist. He shoves it in his sleeve, but it's too late. Sofia has seen it. "And you also do. You look like you haven't got any sleep, and you made a face when I said Mr. Cedric could get sick. You are sorry. You feel bad that you've hurt your very best friend in the whole world."
My very best friend, his mind echoes. He curses all the treacherous facial muscles he can't control well enough, he curses the painful wrench in his middle, and the haunting memories of easy, slow mornings. If a child can read him, he must be showing a lot more than he hoped―hurt him―or she's bluffing. She must be bluffing.
"Not at all," he evades, taking extra care in keeping his voice even and neutral. Your move, snakeling. They spend a moment squinting at each other, like shortsighted scholars trying to decipher some archaic footnotes. Then, Sofia inhales threateningly.
"Well, it seems that none of us got any sleep last night," she says, in a voice excessively low and insinuating―tell of the novice manipulator, "since you made poor Mr. Cedric so upset, he cried all night."
Wormwood knows he has no reason to believe her. There is no advantage to revealing this information to him, beside a fruitless reach for his heartstrings. There is no reason at all for it to be the truth. And yet.
"And what do you expect, telling me this?" he retorts, too weakly and too late. He resumes walking, speeding up the pace of his long steps, circling around the castle. "Make me repent, or something?"
"The whole night," Sofia hisses, almost running to keep up. "Not even my special blankie could cheer him up. You broke his heart."
The picture has slammed into his head and lodged itself there, and there's no getting it out now. He made Cedric cry, he realizes, guts twisting―shouldn't it bring him satisfaction? Shouldn't he feel powerful, now that his actions have influenced the mood of a whole night? He wants to laugh at the idea of Cedric weeping into Sofia's special blankie, he wants to laugh at it until it's so covered in derision it won't make his chest tighten anymore.
He manages to arrange some sort of smile on his face, and it must be the least convincing smile ever produced by a human face, because Sofia's stern expression actually softens.
"There is the face." Sofia points in quite the churlish manner, catching up with him.
"What face?" he insists, though he himself can't see the point anymore. "There is no face. It's my face. The face I have now. Wormwood's face."
"There is nothing wrong in admitting you still care, you know," she continues. "Even if now you're angry."
Wormwood stares down at her. Why won't this child relent? Has she just no sense of danger, no survival instinct? He always thought Sofia was sort of―dense, in a way. Every time Cedric had tried to trick her, no matter how obvious it was, she had never caught on. She always believed in his good faith, no matter how clearly his bad intentions were written all over his face and the slips of his tongue. It could be interesting, this blind spot of hers... but for now, it's only a nuisance.
Or maybe, something in him suggests, it's not Sofia who has a blind spot, but Wormwood himself who sees too much. After all their years together, he got used to every shape Cedric's expressive face can twist into. The guilty tilt of his eyebrows, and the shift in his eyes when he's lying; from his frowns, that always border on the pouting side, to the odd derailed cackle that he loves to call evil. And then those strange, soft smiles that he gets on his face sometimes, that make him look so serene and childlike.
He's seen him cry as well, of course, though only when no one else was around. Wormwood had always found it an odd reaction, eyes that leak without injury or infection―some form of weakness, maybe a passing ailment he didn't want the other humans to see. It gave Wormwood a strange sense of pride, being the sole custodian of that weakness.
He tries to think if he ever caused that reaction before, but nothing direct comes to mind―except maybe...
Decades ago, young and full of mischief and blatantly ignoring Goodwyn's ban on building enchanted contraptions, Cedric had gone out to test one of his first flying machines. Wormwood, so concerned with the spell failing and having to witness Cedric plummet to his death, wasn't paying attention to his own trajectory―and steered straight into the wheel of a carriage.
Cedric had to run straight to his father―Wormwood remembers his hands, shaking so hard under his mangled wings―and while Wormwood was being put back together―that, he fortunately doesn't remember―he had just endured the scolding, silent tears running down his face. All because I got hurt. The same man who now attempted experimental spells on him day in and day out.
"Angry―what am I, some fickle mutt?" he argues. It sounds too much like justification, but he can't really stop himself, "Just―you've seen just last week, how he was chasing me down through the castle, trying to duplicate me! I had no other way to make myself be heard."
"Wormwood, I talk to animals." Sofia gestures at her Amulet, like it should have been obvious. "You and I might not be the best of friends, but I would have helped you explain yourself! You aren't on your own, you know."
He glances at Sofia with distrust. The Princess is disarmingly naive―taking advantage of her should be as easy as impressing the King with magic tricks. And yet, if he pieces together past happenings... Sofia has already outsmarted him, at least twice. And she defeated a powerful fairy, much older and experienced than she is. One time, it can be luck. Four times... hardly. Furthermore, for a thing so young, her powers of diplomacy and conciliation are nothing short of fearsome. There is no other conclusion: underestimating Sofia up to this point, Wormwood has miscalculated by a landslide. And they say ravens are smart.
Still―he considers while noticing she is, in fact, capable of silence, simply trailing next to him through the gardens―he likes her more than Princess Amber. At least Sofia never hit him in the face with a broom. Maybe he can tell her, maybe she'll understand.
"He wouldn't have listened. I've been making myself clear for years, even without words. I... thought I knew him," he ends up saying, sullen. He slows down, almost involuntarily. The Princess simply falls into step with him, short legs trotting alongside his longer, sweeping steps. "But not as well as I thought, I suppose."
"He said the same," Sofia half-smiles. Then, she perks up, "I have an idea! Why don't you bring him roses? Roses are a nice start when one is apologising."
"Not all of them are nice," he sneers, glad to switch topics. "Did you learn nothing from your encounter with the trickster fairy and her overgrown weed of a companion?"
"You mean Miss Nettle?" Sofia gives a small shrug. "One bad rose won't make me hate roses."
"Unwise," he chides, but the child just giggles. "And, actually, who said I have any intention of apologising?"
Bickering so, they have reached the rose garden. The closer they get to the back gardens, the more the grass crunches under their feet. Wormwood stops in his tracks, realizing where he's going―gravitating towards the Well without noticing. He can't risk the Princess recognising the place, she'd be onto him immediately.
"They're not holding up so well, are they?" he notes, glancing up as Sofia, a bit ahead, circles a lilac rose with a small frown on her face. At some point, barely noticing, he's taken to following Sofia's steps in the garden instead of the other way around.
"Yeah, Dad's a bit worried about it," Sofia says. "He says it's all this rain... but that can't be right, can it? Why would they be dry, if they were getting too much water?"
"How would I know?" he spats, shrugging. In his mind's eye, he sees the Well's clearing, the lush green grass turned dry and brownish as in the throes of summer heat. Wormwood looks around for a healthy rose, and spots a bush that looks freshly planted, soil glossy with fertiliser. "This one seems fine."
"Oh, the new Sunflower Rose!" Sofia claps in delight. "It's still green, I'm so glad."
"Does it... turn to follow the sun or something?" Wormwood inquires, unable to hold back on his curiosity.
"Oh, probably not." Sofia points at the young blossoms still wrapped tight, all green around the base. The petals are so dark and dull they look brownish, and are striped in white. "I think it's a type of Jocelyn, and the stripes make it look just like a sunflower seed! And it smells really nice, kinda like Hallow's Eve cookies."
Wormwood leans in to look. He actually knows this plant, he's seen it in Cedric's herbarium.
"Is that what you call a Helianthus?" he says with disdain. If this is the plant he's thinking of, it actually has remarkable magical properties. It must be the reason it's holding out... and also probably all that would make it valuable in Cedric's eyes. "Well, I suppose I could bring back some of these, if I ever wanted to... try and make amends."
"It would go so well with your pretty Begonias," Sofia says, clasping hands. "I'm sure he'll love them."
Wormwood won't waste his time explaining that those Begonias aren't there for decoration―are they?―but to be used in their potions and experiments. He doesn't even know if Cedric actually likes flowers.
"As long as it's not dandelions, I guess..." he mutters and shrugs, making the Princess giggle. His eyes slide on the soft brown of young rosewood, on the dark blossoms striped in white. He has never seen a human with hair like Cedric's, striped in white since childhood. The slim branches are still damp from the rain, dappled in moisture, soft thorns spiked like wet eyelashes. Drat.
"I was... I guess one could say, from a human standpoint, I was kind of―well, yes, mean," he hears himself say, in a tentative series of false starts. "I knew the things I said would―I wanted him to be upset."
Sofia emits a hum of sympathy, spreading her arms wide. "Alright, but why? All because of the experiments?"
He gives a glance at his own hands, the broken nails of his right that don't bleed or hurt anymore, but still remind him of a night that would be better off forgotten.
"Hm, I was also tired of some―situations we have going on," he evades. "He's not exactly the kind to learn his lessons the mellow way."
Sofia rubs her chin. "You know," she starts, "this actually proves you two are best friends. Only people that are very close know exactly what to say to make the other upset."
"So, I'm not wrong?" Wormwood gives her a most perplexed head-tilt. This counteracts a lot of what he's been told, and a lot of what he has read. "Is this what you call friendship, human? Collecting weak spots and then striking them through?"
"No, no, you are totally in the wrong and should apologise," Sofia says, gathering up her skirts to crouch by the rose's boles, trying to snake her arm through and reach the other side. "I just mean... you've been Mr. Cedric's confidant for a long time, and you know things he wouldn't entrust anyone else with. So, knowing where weak spots are and not striking them, but wanting to protect them instead: that's what I'd call friendship."
While the Princess spoke, Wormwood's insides have grown laden. He watches her reach a pair of shears, abandoned behind the rosebush, and manoeuvre them carefully to cut a few long stalks. She hands the blooms to him one by one. The thorns, though new and soft, still prick his hands.
"This is a waste of time, Princess," he croaks. The roses seem to wilt a bit just by him looking at them, holding them in the rough hands that have struck, instead of protecting. "Even if I apologise... it's all ruined now. I've destroyed it. I've never seen him forgive anyone in all the years I've known him."
The Princess hums pensively. "My mom always says that forgiveness is not something you do, but something you feel. You can't force it, you have to be patient! And even if he doesn't forgive you, you still tried to make things right."
"You are better at this than me, snakeling," he hears himself say, between bitter and forlorn. "I shouldn't be surprised that he came to you, after all... you wouldn't say the things I've said, or take away his most cherished possession―I should have expected that, sooner or later, I would be replaced with a human." He glances down at himself. "A... real one."
Slowly, Sofia blinks up at him. She looks bewildered, at the nickname or at the raw confession he just spilled on her.
"This has nothing to do with being a human," she spells out for him, slowly. "You just need to use your words, tell him how you feel and be honest... and what do you mean replaced? Wormwood... you do know we both can be Mr. Cedric's friend, right?"
"Don't be absurd, child," Wormwood scoffs, clicking his tongue in pique. "If a friend is yours, how could he be someone else's?"
"Oh gosh." For a moment, Sofia looks around as if looking for aid. "Wormwood, a friend isn't something you... use up until there's no more! You enjoy a friend's company, laugh with them and stay by their side when they're feeling down, and they do the same for you. It fills back, or..." she glances at the rose, searching for the right word, "regrows? Like―"
"Like a weed?" a muffled voice butts in from behind the rosebush.
"Replenish. The word you want is replenish." Wormwood straightens his back, glaring down at the grey rabbit when he comes into view. "Dropping eaves, furball? The fairy sure hasn't made you hate roses."
While Sofia chuckles and picks him up, Clover swallows a mouthful of leaves and vines. "Yo, Wormwood," he grins. "How come you grew twelve feet overnight? Got sprinkled with some crazy magic stuff?"
"And yet, I still cannot escape your ewer mouth." Unexpectedly, the rabbit cackles.
"Okay, here's the plan," Sofia says, after a thinking pause. "While it's still early, we go and set the workshop back into shape. And then, as soon as you see Mr. Cedric, you give him back his keys and his Wand. And his robe."
"And, most importantly, say that you're really sorry, and mean it," Clover chimes in. Then he blinks. "Hang on, Sof, what did I miss? Why are we helping crankbird here?"
"Because they're both miserable, and I don't like seeing best friends fight each other," Sofia explains as they walk back into the ramparts, towards the backdoor of the tower, rabbit hopping alongside their differently paced human steps.
"I'm not miserable," Wormwood objects, looking from rabbit to Princess. They both just blink at him, their expressions identical. "And what do you mean, we? I can do it on my own."
"You? Clean up?" Clover laughs, slapping his knee. "Hah, trust the pro here, it ain't so easy."
Vexed, Wormwood pulls the backdoor open with a bit more force than intended.
"But do I really have to say it?" he insists. "Isn't fixing the workshop going to be enough?"
"A wise Princess once taught me, actions speak louder than words," Sofia explains. "But words are also important. Since you've been really mean, I think you should go out of your way with your apology, you know? And really use all your might."
"But I don't want to say it," Wormwood whines, eyes trained to the endless stairs they're climbing. "Why is it necessary? How can humans have so many useless rules, and still be so complicated?"
"We aren't that complicated, really," Sofia shrugs. "In fact, in a pinch, you can still sing to him!"
Wormwood balks, almost tripping on his robe. "I can still what?"
"It might work! We can totally teach you our Best Friend song! Clover and I wrote it together, that time he ran away. Well, we wrote it down after we got him back, of course."
Still reeling, Wormwood barely hears what she's saying. Singing something the damn furball wrote. Singing to Cedric.
"Never," he states. "Not in a hundred years. Not on my deathbed."
"Aw, come on," Clover coaxes. "Say another raven steals your worm, don't you sing to the guy to settle the matter?"
"Sure," Wormwood sneers, "I'd sing his coronach to him."
The joke, though, falls a bit flat on this audience. Ugh, he thinks with a stab of longing, Cedric would get it.
"You don't... have any other friends, do you?" Sofia asks delicately, after a while. He just gives a shrug. She adds, "Why?"
"We ravens are rather... the solitary type, so to speak," he says, a bit through his teeth. "If we find someone we get along with, we pair up and stick with them, and not need anyone else. We'll fight for territory more than befriend each other."
"Cough―roosting―cough," Clover butts in. Wormwood glares down at him once again.
"That is a safety measure. It has nothing to do with friendship, or with this conversation," he says, sullen. "And I, personally, haven't done it in a long time or felt the need to, for the matter."
"Sure thing, bro."
Sofia, holding her gown up with a hand and rubbing her chin with the other, emits a pensive hum. "Why are you friends with a human like Mr. Cedric, then? What makes you stick with him?"
They got to the workshop's door, the stairs are over and can't buffer him anymore, and he has no idea how to answer that.
There are answers that smell like the sea, and delicate nails on the itch of his first moult, keen eyes never tired of studying and learning. Answers that smell like change, a youth growing into his gangly limbs, and new plumage stretching smooth into the light of morning. There are answers that smell like the yellow bow he clutched in his hands, in his moment of weakness, herbs and book-dust―a body that grew angular, weighting so much and so little. Eyes of brown, keen rosewood. There are way too many answers, and none that he could give to a child whose entire life amounts to a third of the time he and Cedric have spent together.
"He is―such a berk," he ends up starting, once again pulling the key from his sleeve.
Sofia gives a small, dainty snort, but sobers up immediately. "That's not very nice."
"But kinda accurate," Clover notes.
"I mean," Wormwood continues, glowering. "He has all these... projects and plans and dreams. And he spends so much time building them up... and when it's time for action, he trips and everything crashes down, and he is the most sore loser I've ever dealt with. And I want him to succeed, I want him to win. I―" I want him to be happy. He halts, and clears his throat, wishing that hateful soft lilt out of his voice. Disgusting. He pushes the door open, letting the three of them into the empty workshop.
Sofia is smiling a little bit, as if she heard his unspoken shame. But the smile falls from her face as soon as she sees the place.
"Uhh, it looks like a hurricane went through here," she whispers. "Did you do this?"
"Yes, I... do that," he admits. In the crisp, overcast light of morning, with Cedric locked out for the night and unable to run the usual repairs, Wormwood truly sees what his destruction amounts to for the first time. Ink and broken glass litter the floor, books scattered all around, ingredients gone to waste. "I was―cross."
"Is this why last year Mr. Cedric needed me to help him clean up?" she says forcefully. "Wormwood, this is awful. Friends don't do this."
"You guys are so weird," the rabbit chimes in. "If you hate it here, so much you pull stuff like this, why do you stay? Can't you like, migrate?"
"I could, if I wanted," he bristles. "And I didn't do all of this. He's messy enough on his own. We just had a misunderstanding."
"Dude, you threw the guy out. You know how humans get all sneezy and sniffly when you leave them out in the cold, they got no fur! Not cool, man."
"My, I must be going deaf, because I didn't hear anyone ask for your opinion."
Walking through them as they keep arguing, Sofia takes the roses and finds a pitcher with a bit of water in it. Her gestures and glances have something accusatory to them.
"You do not understand," Wormwood finally bristles, leaning down to set his perch upright in a forceful snap. "We grew up together. We used to have... impeccable understanding, back when it was only the two of us. And... when he couldn't hear me."
"But why would it change things, hearing you?" Sofia asks. "Shouldn't it make it even better?"
"Evidently not. He... must see me differently now." He forces his hands, balled into fists on their own accord, to unclench. He's never seen me as an equal... just something like a servant, a mere minion. Nothing more than a pet. He pulls the Wand out, and busies himself with the only repairing spell he recalls, practicing on a smashed beaker. "He didn't want to talk with me at all. I guess he only liked listening to his own voice."
Repair spell are not as easy as they look. He has to try two or three times before he gets it right. Cedric made it look so easy, never complaining about it, just some normal inconvenience to get over with. Deep in his chest, something goes tight.
"I'm sure it's not true, Wormwood," Sofia says, too gently for him to bear. He trains his eyes to the broom, as she sweeps together all the glass of the same colour in little piles for him to restore. "Mrs. Winifred said I'm Mr. Cedric's only friend. She must have meant the only human friend... so it looks like you're all he's got, too."
Wormwood can't bring himself to reply. Working in silence, they finish the bulk of it, giving the lair its busy charm back. He has to admit it, but the furball is a professional at this. Taken by a competitive urge to do more, he recalls Cedric has wanted to alphabetise his ingredients for ages now, and never got around to it.
"The spell should be in Intermediate Utility Charms, Volume III. Last time I saw it, it was on the upper shelf," Wormwood instructs Sofia, who is helping him sort through the piles of books scattered at the foot of the shelving. "If you find it, give it here."
"How do y'all ever find anything?" Clover muses out loud, glancing up at the endless rows of books spiralling up to the ceiling.
"Good memory. Occasionally, the crystal ball." He shrugs. "I don't know what they have against indexes in that family. Cedric's probably the third generation that will postpone making one until it's time to retire."
Sofia taps her fist on her open palm. "Here's an idea! You could make the index, Wormwood!" Then she, too, looks up. "Well, at least start it."
"Indeed," he scoffs, glancing down at his hands. "If I could write."
The previous evening, when he had trouble feeding himself, made him rethink this whole human form business for a moment. The more he inhabits this flightless hybrid form, half human and half threatening nonsense, he gets the feeling of being stuck between the two, with no real advantage from either side. He draws in a sigh.
"Oh, it's not that hard, I can teach you!" Sofia springs up immediately, spying his fell face. "Let's start with this bookcase. Maybe we'll find the Alphabetising spell in the meantime."
As they sit on the floor side by side to begin their task, Wormwood squints at the Princess. She found some parchment rolls and one of Cedric's quills, and is laboriously tracing a grid.
"What is your endgame, snakeling?" he ends up asking, so direct he startles her a bit. "Why are you helping me, what do you get out of this?"
"I'm just nice, I like doing good deeds," Sofia says, almost defensively. "And mostly, I like helping my friends."
He got upgraded to friend so easily, it's sort of offensive. Friends, that's what the two of them are, according to her. And this measly, one-sided conviction is enough for her to spend her whole morning helping him out. He's more used to deals, or the exchange of favours, and all of this is so alien to him he doesn't quite know what to make of it.
"So, you have more than one friend," he starts. Sofia hands him the papers, and supervises as he traces his first, wobbly letters from the titles. "And you have no qualms adding more."
"Yep, no friend limit," she chuckles. When she sees him confident enough in his copying, she gets up to restock the shelves that she can reach. "And my mom says we are too small to be the world to someone... or something. For me... there are so many people and animals that I like, it would be impossible to have only one friend! How could I begin to choose between my two best friends, or between them and Clover?"
"Keep the one you like best, I suppose?" he attempts. Clover, who is dusting off the distillation unit on the desk, gives a snort.
"But I like all of them, and they're all important to me. I've known Ruby and Jade since forever, and Clover was the first that made me feel at home here at the castle. When I'm with them, I always feel stronger, like I can handle anything that comes my way!"
Wormwood writes in silence, mulling over Sofia's words, until the whole bookcase is back in shape.
Maybe it's this multiplicity that allows the child to go days without seeing the other humans? But the mere thought of sharing Cedric... it gives him the same clench of anger turf invasion does. The Alphabetising spell finally found, he taps the list of titles and watches the lines on the page re-arrange themselves in order. Pity he can't do anything about his penmanship, he thinks with displeasure.
That done, he goes to pick up the purple robe―still there where they left it, crumpled on the reading stool―and rummages the pockets for the escritoire keys.
The fabric bunches so easily in his hands. It's not warm anymore, but the feeling of it is just the same as when his sensitive fingers were scaly talons, as he perched on the sorcerer's shoulder. The robe smells the same as the bow, soap and dust and candle-wax. He forces himself to put it down, his grip on the key unsteady as he opens the escritoire and starts spelling the ingredients in order, as if tidying up could placate the roil in his mind. It doesn't work.
"I am... not enough, then," he says slowly, bracing on the wooden frame as the realization collapses on his shoulders. The jars and little vials in front of him become blurry for a moment, until he blinks. "If I'm all he's got, I... I have never been enough."
"Sheesh, birdbrain, you got it bad," the rabbit whispers derisively, before Sofia can speak. "It almost sounds like you're in l―"
"Enough." Fed up, Wormwood turns to him. "Sofia goes many days without seeing her human friends, Clover. Why don't you tell her how many days you can go without seeing her?"
"Hey, now, don't out a bunny like that," the rabbit protests. "I can go a whole of twelve hours, alright?"
"Clover, what does he mean?" At Sofia's inquisitive tone, the rabbit heaves a deep sigh.
"Yeah, Sof, hate to admit it but... he's kinda right. Domestication can mess you up." He makes a circling motion with his paw next to his ear. "Once you get attached to a human... you kinda need them afterwards. All the time. It's nice, but not always."
"Oh," Sofia says, her eyes a bit wide.
Wormwood feels spikes of anger flare inside him once more. Hearing it being called domestication is like a stab straight through his stomach, where the awful clench of longing has been sitting from the moment the backdoor slammed shut before him.
"Do you think the loyalty of a raven is anything like your dogged dependence, you dim colony critter?" he barks at the rabbit, his hand swatting the air. "A pair is a bond between equals, an unshakeable union, divided only by death."
"Psh, some bond you got there, you creep," Clover says, unexpectedly sharp. He taps his furry foot down on the desk, where Wormwood's claws have left markings in the wood. "At least I don't trash Sofia's room when she's away. And I wouldn't even think of laying a paw on her."
"Hm, did your fox friend teach you that, I wonder?" Wormwood sneers. "Before or after slaughtering some other rabbit for lunch?"
"Now you listen, you―"
"Quit it, you two!" Sofia intervenes. "Clover, you're not helping. Wormwood, start making an effort to be nice, please?"
"I am not nice!" Wormwood finally shouts, exasperated, letting the escritoire's lid fall shut with a slam. The rabbit flinches, but the Princess stands tall, facing him. "Even if I cared to try, I cannot make an effort to be something that I'm not! I don't care how humans do things, this is all completely pointless―I'll never be truly human, or equal―I'll never be enough. He'll never..."
His shout has trembled to a lament, so he elects to stop talking. Sofia scoots under his hunched form when he averts his eyes, keeps looking straight up at him, as dense and fearless as he's always known her to be. He's breathing shallowly, like his lungs couldn't fill all the way.
"It's okay," Sofia says slowly, her hands raised in a placating gesture. "First of all, you know it's not true: I know plenty of nice things you've done in the past. Secondly, you just made an effort to control your temper right now. It means you can do it."
"Yeah, but who says he'll be able to keep it up?" the rabbit says, still on the far edge of the desk. "He just said basic decency goes against his flow! I'd say we ditch him, Princess, before he gets you into trouble."
"I can hear you," Wormwood says hollowly.
"I'm not gonna ditch you, Wormwood," Sofia says, ignoring Clover's groan of exasperation. "I believe you can still be yourself, but still make exceptions at least for your best friend. If making things right is important to you, you can't give up like this when you've barely started! You have to try and go all the way."
"I don't even know how," he laments. "I don't follow."
"Don't worry, it's easy: the same way you knew how to upset Mr. Cedric, you certainly know what to say and do to make him happy instead. Because you know him well, you know all his favourite things."
Attention is the only thing that comes to mind. Adoration, awe, reverence... all in a very specific way, choral and grand and impersonal, nothing someone like Wormwood could provide. He's only one raven, not an army, or an entire adoring crowd.
"I'm all out of ideas," he bemoans, turning away and mechanically opening the small drawers to set order to what's inside.
Even the Helianthus won't be enough, he just knows it... it is powerful, but not particularly rare, and pretty much only valuable when combined with―just then, he notices the green jar, that has been sitting empty for almost a month now.
Maybe, he thinks, after all there is a something that could win him Cedric's approval back.
No one gets Wormwood's crow memes, Sofia should look into a career as a marriage counsellor, and Clover has 0 chill.