Chapter 341: Nuances and filters
It took a few minutes for the gasps and weeps to simmer down. The whole time, he remained glued to her.
"I thought you were gone!" he murmured.
"Well," she chuckled, "I am still here," tears continued to run down her cheeks, "I am really glad your father allowed you to come even if it is with an escort,"
Indeed, behind the boy, at some distance away, stood two wolf people that Arabella did not recognize.
"Please, come this way," she invited them to follow along while guiding Remus back towards the manor with her.
The boy marched by her side without once letting go of her hand. Although, as they got closer to the manor, he stopped wiping at his tears to take a few sniffs of her.
"What is it?"
They halted which allowed him to focus his sense of scent on whatever had, apparently, ticked him off.
"You smell different," he stated innocently.
"Different?" she asked, "Different how?" her eyebrows knitted together despite the smile she struggled to maintain.
"I...," he took a few more sniffs, "I am not sure,"
"Well, do I smell bad?" she chuckled awkwardly.
"No, you still smell good, but just... Different," he insisted on that word.
To call it most perplexing, was an understatement, to say the least.
After all, she’d spent most of her days glued to a vampire with a scene of scent which riveled that of a wolf person in strength. So, silas should have been able to pick up on such a shift.
And yet he hadn’t mentioned a thing about that.
Was he keeping it to himself just in order to spare her feelings? Or could the boy have picked up on something the vampire couldn’t?
"Does it bother you?" Arabella’s features adopted a more serious outlook.
"Not at all! You’re still the same person! I can see that!" he chirped, flashing his canine teeth to render his brightest smile yet.
His statement threw her off the tracks for a bit, but she did her best to keep going.
Wanting to steer the conversation into a different direction, Arabella decided to ask a new question that would, null doubt, delight the boy.
"Are you hungry?"
"Yes!"
His eyes practically spelled ’cooked meat’ with sparkles around it, so she didn’t even bother asking him if that was what he craved.
"I’ll have them send us some cooked meat then,"
"I will handle that," Ada who’d remained quiet up until then, volunteered her time for the task and gave them some space to talk.
"I really am sorry for what I put you through," that was the first thing she said upon settling down on the chairs of one of the lounge rooms.
"What did you put me through?" he quizzed.
"Your father was very right to not let you come here after what happened, do you understand that?" Arabella had an apologetic little grimace on.
"Yes, I understand," his words said one thing, but his head shook from left to right as he spoke.
"It is because you were almost killed by my fault and there was no one there to protect you," she took his little hands and gave them gentle squeezes.
"But I was the one to come looking for you so, it wasn’t your fault," his eyes were round and glistening.
"You went looking for me all by yourself and that almost got you killed,"
"But the vampire told me to keep you safe. I was doing my job,"
Even through that dim expression, Arabella managed to push a chuckle.
He called him a vampire instead of a blood sucker. That was one step forward, at the very least.
"Sometimes... Grown-ups say things that they don’t mean in order to convey a different message," she scratched at her scalp while attempting to find the right words.
"So, he lied," the boy half asked.
"Well, technically, yes, but also no... It’s a little more complicated than that,"
Arabella stammered many times throughout her sentence.
It sure was complicated to explain nuances and social filters to a child who seemed to have no prior training for such topics.
"Oh! I know!" he chirped, his face lighting up, "It’s like when Ayyura mouths off about how much she despises my father but in reality, she wishes to breed with him!"
He’d declared so loudly... So proudly that there was no way anyone in that room would have misheard him.
"Wha... That’s... Pardon?"
Her mind swirled with many questions, with the loudest being, what would bring a child to claim such a thing?
"I can smell it on her when she gets all worked up. She mostly whines about him when she is in heat. The hormones and pheromones her body secrets are very distinctive which usually means she wants to-"
"Alright!" face beet red, Arabella clapped her hands together, stood at once and chirped, "Should we go see what’s taking that meat so long to be ready?"
"Yes!"
Luckily, the attention span of the boy was not the best.
Arabella’s eyes flickered onto the two, wolf people that had accompanied him and they, not surprisingly, seemed so interested in the paintings hanging on the walls surrounding them all of the sudden.
Although she had to at least admit, Remus still got the point she was trying to make.
People lied for various reasons. Some were more nefarious than others while other people claimed things that weren’t true for the sake of protecting those they cared about.
It wasn’t always ideal and Arabella sure wasn’t as categorical as she wished to be on the matter.
Only an hour after Remus’ arrival, some of the Fata fairies made their appearance.
Once the excitement and twittering upon seeing Arabella subsided, most of them wished to stay outdoors, in the gardens and enjoy the remaining rays of the sun before nightfall.
"You already look like an angel, my dear," Liriel’s voice brought the young woman much solace as it did per its usual.
"Thank you so much for coming," Arabella’s cheeks hurt from smiling as her eyes followed Remus who ran after the fairies in the garden.