“Sounds like a merry time. I think I’m quite done being alive now. So if you could KINDLY GO DIE IN A HOLE.”

Her face snapped back and looked at him. “You a fucking idiot if you think you are the only one with problems like that. Or did you forget that my homeworld was eaten too? That I suffered in that too? Idiot.”

Finally, she gave him her hand and she made all kinds of displeased noises as he picked her up. “God you are a douche bag,” she snapped as he put her down in not the nicest of ways. “Thank you for saving me your royal assholeness.” She started to make her way back to the cabin. Her eyes were so sharp looking at him like she was cutting through him. “I’m sure you struggled to actually want to help me. If I wasn’t tied to you, you would have left me in the mud and stayed in the cottage. Really a comforting thought.”

They got back to the cabin and she threw her shoes outside before digging through her bag. Getting out clean clothes. “Gods she packed… a dress.” She mumbled and started to strip not caring if he was right there. “I need a washcloth.” She got the cloth and started to wash the mud off before slipping on the plain dress. “I hate this. I hate you. And I hate this situation.” She grumbled harshly.

Jace's anger deepened as she went on calling him names as he helped get her back onto solid ground and followed several paces behind her as she berated everything on their way back to the house. 

He turned his back on her as she began stripping down and changing right in front of him in the main area of the tree house. 

"You know… This so called asshole that you hate so much saved your hide from becoming that dragon's frozen dinner," he said icily. "Don't make me regret it," he said as he pushed passed her as she finally slipped into her clean dress. He took off his own sopping boots and left them by the fireplace to dry before he walked back into his personal sleeping area that was tucked back behind the main pillar of the tree. 

"I don't like this arrangement anymore than you do. But frankly, if you are going to continue tell me you want to die, and you want me to die, then I have no problems making you sleep outside."

“Well, I don’t know why you even bothered.” Remedy snapped at him. “Since I’m SO much trouble you should have just left me to die in the Tundra and saved yourself. At least then you wouldn’t be dealing with me now. You could have told Grandma that it was a work hazard. I’m sure she would have believed you. So go ahead and regret it.”

There was more grumbling from her as there was rattling. The sound of her stuffing the bag full of her stuff. Rem grabbed her muddied clothes and made her way for the door. “Don’t even bother.” She slammed the door again before she started to clean her clothes. Remedy was stubborn and it showed in everything she did. She was hurt so, therefore, she was being an asshole.

She scrubbed the mud out of her pants and hung them up on a tree branch. Using her wings she got up high and pulled out a blanket before she wrapped it around herself and got a stubborn look on her face. She didn’t need his cozy warm house, or his food, OR his company. Remedy closed her eyes and started to drift off. She was tired.

Her words actually surprised him and stung in a way that was unexpected. It wasn't because she had such a low opinion of him, but more so that she had such a low opinion of herself that she honestly seemed to believe she hadn't been worth saving to begin with. He never got a chance to make a retort before she was grabbing her stuff and storming out of the house again, this time to scrub her muddy clothes in the small bubbling hotspring that welled up just past the door, and hang them to dry before she flew up into the branches of one of the feminine shaped trees and tried to get comfortable for the night. 

He watched with raised eyebrows as she actually started to doze off before the dryad that lived in the tree got tired of holding Remedy up and slowly dumped her on the ground. Jace felt a slight discomfort from the action, but it wasn't as bad as it could have been. The trees had been listening to the conversations. 

He shook his head and set about making a meal. Toasted bread with melted cheese and some salted goat made up the meal, but it was filling. As the evening wore on, he started a fire in his fire place to combat the chill that came with the Venti night, and stuck his head out the window. It appeared that Remedy was still stubbornly curled up on the ground with the thin blanket she had brought with her. He sighed, and walked outside and knelt beside Remedy. 

He nudged her softly to see if she was at least awake. He didn't expect her to respond, but it was too cold for anyone to actually sleep outdoors like that, so he was pretty sure she might still be awake. "Look, I know you don't like me… but I have a hard time believing that you have such a low opinion of yourself that you feel you aren't worth being saved or cared for. But just to set the record straight, I don't save people unless they are worth saving… The door is open if you decide to come inside, and there is some salted goat, bread and cheese if you are hungry," he said before he turned and walked back into the toasty warm house and climbed into his fur covered bed. 

Her whole life had been protecting Astrid. It was stopping Astrid from ever feeling so sad like she was. Her sister was innocent and never knew her parents that well. She knew the finer times of being with their grandmother. She knew growing up with their adoptive grandfather. She knew the happiness and not the hardship. Remedy had protected Astrid from that bad life. She most certainly didn’t value herself as much. She was broken and undeserving of the happiness her sister had… or did have. It broke Remedy’s heart to watch Astrid go through heartbreak after heartbreak. It was nowhere near what Remedy had but it was enough to just see her go through relationships.

The dryad that dumped her got a solid glare from Rem as she looked up at the tree. Plants were so fickle. Spirits were fickle to but still, the half angel wrapped herself up in the blanket and closed her eyes. Screw it, she would figure out a way to make this work.

The Venti night was what surprised her the most. She was so used to Sularia the night chills caught her bad. So she brought the blanket around her more and stubbornly laid there shaking. When he came out and nudged her she kept her eyes closed defiantly.

Rem cracked an eye open as he went back inside the house. It had a nice cozy atmosphere to it and before long Remedy dragged herself up with her blanket. Gently she closed the door not to make any noise and had her fill of the food. Not knowing where else to sleep since they hadn’t quite gotten that far she curled up in front of the fire and passed out.

In the morning, when she woke up Remedy went back outside before he got up. She fluffed out her extra set of clothes, restrung her bow, worked on some arrows, and did anything she could to offset her mood. “It’s not that I don’t like you,” she stubbornly yelled at the house once he was up. “Don’t get the wrong idea. I just don't like people being near me."

He had remained still and quiet when Remedy had snuck in. Truthfully her discomfort had kept him awake. So when she had come inside, he had known and he cracked a bit of a smile before he rolled over and went straight to sleep. 

When he got up, he wasn't surprised to see that she was up and out again. He looked out the window and she seemed to realize that he was up and immediately began yell out conversation to him. At first, he thought that she was yelling at him again, but it turned out that she was actually giving him and explanation. He opened the door and stepped outside. 

"I can't imagine why," he said as he came out with a basket full of dirtied clothes and a smaller bag of soap flakes. He knelt down by the small spring that he used for cleaning and began washing the clothes. "I mean, you grandmother is the picture of hospitality and kindness," he pointed out with a hint of sarcasm. "No, but in all seriousness, why is that?" he asked looking up at her. "I mean I have my reasons for being a grumpy recluse, but why would the granddaughter of a Sularian Queen hate being around people?"

“Because Jace… Nothing is as it seems.” There was a sad smile as she looked at him. “Even Grandma has a reason for being an asshole. Life hasn’t exactly been kind to us even before the fall of our homeland to the Void.” She turned her face away from him as she thought about it more. It was the first time she had bothered explaining herself.

“See… Mom and Dad raised us in this beautiful garden like place in a small cottage just big enough for the four of us. Ma was an angel and she was a beautiful spirit. Suppose that’s what made Dad fall in love with her.” She laughed and gave Jace a smile. “Astrid was just little when we got the news… Dad had been killed by a vampire hunter. A stake through the heart would kill anyone… They didn’t realize Rosenites were different. Not that it mattered much to them. Grandma lost her ever loving fucking mind… It caused a rift between her and Grandpa Seth… I’m still not sure what happened.”

She shook her head and looked up at the sky. “Ma was so in love with Dad that the weight of his death made her so sick. Her mother had been sick too and she died from it… So just like her mother before her Ma died young.” There were tears a bit. “Grandma came and buried Ma next to Da. Picked up Astrid who had no fucking clue what was going on. She just kept asking where is ma? Where is da? Why are we all alone? Are they coming back? Grandma didn’t know how to respond. She took us in and her downward spiral of drinking started to happen but she was nothing but kind to us. She found Grandpa Blaine not long after that. He helped raise us and soon we had Uncle Jayden in our little group of misfits.”

She rolled her shoulders. “But there was this guy that I absolutely loved at one point… I was young and stupid and should have seen the issue. He would just go between me and this other woman. I had no idea but I was so angry and upset. I learned that people were assholes and that I should just stay away from them. That people are no good and they will only hurt me. So I did my best to protect Astrid from it all. She didn’t remember. She doesn’t remember. She doesn’t need to. I love my little sister and I want to give her the world. I suppose that’s why I flew off the deep end when that boyfriend of hers was an asshole and played with her heart. It broke her and Grandma sent her away to Laeto to get better. She was with our cousin Daphne. That’s my story anyway. Not the greatest of tales nor the happiest… but that’s why I hate people.”

After a few moments, she turned to Jace. "Why are you so interested now?"

Jace washed and listened to her story. Suddenly a lot of her treatment and behavior towards him made a lot of sense. He really couldn't blame her, in all honestly. He probably would have been very much the same. When the question arose why he suddenly cared, he sighed and put his now scrubbed clothes back into the basket and carried them to the drying line. 

"I could justify being short and harsh with you when you were just visiting my island. It was a way to distance myself from you, the same way you do to others. Now, I could go on doing that, but it would make for a pretty miserable year for the both of us. I don't know about you, but if we are going to be forced to live together for that long, I don't want it to be absolutely miserable," he replied. "So, this is me making an effort to better understand you, so that perhaps we can at least live civilly enough to not rip each others heads off," he said as he hung up his clothes. 

"We…" he sighed. "We actually have a lot more in common than you'd think…"

“It would be a pretty miserable time wouldn’t it?” Remedy sounded defeated about it all. Her green eyes watched as he put up his clothes for a moment. She was musing what he said. “When you say we have a lot in common what do you mean? You don’t have to tell me today… but someday when you are ready.” She didn’t want to force me. She told him because she was ready to tell someone.

–

A few weeks passed by and things seemed to have settled down. They were more tolerable of each other. They helped each other and the small dragons seemed much more comfortable with the two of them being around each other.

“The Dryads on the north end are fighting again… over water this time. Though there was a guy that went through and they tried to nab him. I think we should probably make our way over there and try to tell them that it’s not acceptable. I really don’t need them nabbing dragons… or you for that matter…” She shivered a bit. “It might just be that season for Dryads. They only started this behavior after spring kicked into full gear.”

Looking up from the little board she had notes jotted on her eyes went wide for a moment. “Jace… there is a huge ass shadow coming from the mountains going towards the hydra grounds. THEY HAVE THEIR BABIES OUT THERE THIS TIME OF DAY!” She threw the board down and made a sprint for it. Luckily her body had healed fully thanks to keeping near him. Her heart was racing so hard as she thought of the absolute worst.

Jace was silent at first, as if trying to decide if he was willing to tell her anything at all. After all that she had told him, it would have only been fair.
"We both lost our worlds to the Void," he answered, his voice barely more than a whisper. There was pain in his face and voice, but his eyes were distant and haunted. That was all he said about it. 

——————————————–

Three weeks later, Jace, while still annoyed that they had to be forced to live together, was coming to find that he was appreciating that Remedy was around for several different reasons. One, by now he had completely healed from the egg snatcher debacle. Two, menial chores took up a lot less time since Remedy was around to help with them. Three, she helped him keep track of where work needed to be done on the island. Four… despite what he had originally intended with his life of isolation, he found he had actually missed having someone around. Possibly because Remedy was a lot like the sister he had lost. 

"I've never had a problem with nabbing any of the dragons," Jace replied with a bit of a shrug. "Though reminding them that attacking island visitors would probably be a wise idea," he agreed. He smirked a little bit at the thought of being snatched up by the dryads. "I think they would miss me too much. They wouldn't have something pretty to watch in the hot springs if they snatched me," he chuckled. "But the pollination from Terra might have put them in a tizzy," he agreed from the rock he had been perched on, surveying the Igni flats where the drakes were stalking. 

When Remedy mentioned the shadow coming down the Terra side of the mountain, he turned and looked towards the rocks. She wasn't wrong. But what would have been coming down the mountain? Well, if it was trying to be sneaky…

"Oh no…" Jace muttered, and felt Remedy's heartbeat rabbit as she was tearing across the ground towards Terra where the hydras were sunning with the newest hatchlings. They would have made a nice target for a certain aggressive Boreas Dragon. Jace grabbed his staff and ran after Remedy. 

"You get the herd out of there! I'll deal with the dragon!" he yelled at her as he turned his trajectory towards the bottom of the mountain.