Blood, Frost, and Cheerful Tongues

[FennWenn]

Startled at the verbal acknowledgement of his thoughts, Fenn accidentally swallowed his honey candy.

Embraces were not foreign to him, but it took him half a moment to process the idea of initiating this sort of affection himself. Normally, hugs were initiated by other people. Ones who had decided Fenn was the cutest little child-looking-thing in the vicinity and couldn’t restrain their “coddle this” instincts any longer. Everything from phauns to curious briar-fae had squeezed him in a warm arm-blanket of squee. Of course, Salvar would melt before Nevin would do such a thing. But for Fenn to initiate the hug? The boy thought about it hard enough to make his buggy green eyes cross over each other, and a frown to squish his face. How strange!

While Ven continued to do the business-talking thing with Nevin -- Fenn bothered to understand none of it -- the little fae flitted out from behind the desk and clumsily swooped in for his promised hug. Ka-squish!

Hrmm. Nevin was bony. And his robes smelled faintly of blood. And he wasn’t really good at the whole hugging-back thing.

What a disappointing drain of dignity.

“Tall” was not a word one would ascribe to Fenn. After a moment of awkwardly clinging to the alchemist’s waist, he let go and skittered back behind the desk as if nothing had ever happened. This was about the time he decided to address the one bit of talking this Ven-man had aimed at him. What did Ven mean by “haven’t said anything?” The fae had said many things today! It was just that none of these things had been verbal. Fenn sighed. The elf was not the nimblest wire in the pick-locking kit.

A patch of foggy ice crystals appeared on the desk, underneath his ready hands. TALK IN ACTIONS AND FROST, the little fae explained in writing. TALK TO MUTT FRIEND WITH HANDS.

On second thought, he added an aside mostly meant for Nevin. MORE CANDY? GONNA HIDE HERE FOR A FEW HOURS.