Can you keep a secret?

“Did I do something wrong?”

“No,” Málmr immediately bit out, distraught. “No, Lucie, never. It’s just something that is, like,” He looked over the glimmer of faint starlight over her, struggling for words, for something to comfort her. “Like the stars fixed in the sky, or that you have your mother’s nose.” He lightly tapped her soft button nose, saying gently, “Either by chance or by your Fortune’s will, regardless, it’s not your fault.”  

Maybe that worked, because her reaction to his tusks was met only with surprised fascination. He let her inspect them, something that would’ve made him uncomfortable had it been anyone else but her, and his tense mouth risked a smile. “Carve them, you mean? ....It’s a thought.” Doing so would mean accepting them, letting them be a part of him now, and he wasn’t sure he was ready for that yet.

Her little hands felt delicate over his coarse hair as she patted him, and when she promised to keep his secret, leaning her forehead against his, his heart twisted with a sharp breath, and hot tears pricked at his eyes. His burly arms brought her in for a gentle hug, and he leaned his cheek against her frail shoulder, letting the fragile moment exist with no one else to interrupt it.

Lucie continued, and the hug parted a little to let her talk and to let him gruffly brush at his eyes with a sniff. Once that was out of the way, he gave her all of his attention. “....I don’t know what your father is like, so I can’t speak on that,” He replied quietly. “And you’re a good daughter, to think of your mother so. But she wouldn’t want you to be scared and alone like this, Lucie, she’d want to know, and comfort you, and tell you that it’ll be alright.” 

 He ventured another smile, though it felt hollow to him. He’d repeated this to Sylen not a week ago, only to end in a look of painful betrayal in the lad’s eyes. “Whether your magic is like your father’s or not, in the end, it’s more like a tool you wake up with one day. You’ve seen your mother work in the forge, haven’t you? She might’ve told you to keep away to not risk the sparks and the heat, and it’s a hard trade. But if you learn how to listen to it, to wield it, it can make beautiful things. Like my jewelry. And in a magic-way, like this.” He nodded his chin to the shimmering quality over her arms.

He would’ve said more, turning to conversation to something lighter, something to make her laugh, had his attention not been stolen by a rustle in the surrounding brush. Being so deep in the autumn woods had already made him tense, and he turned towards the source.

It would’ve been hard to make out, had he not seen them recently. Pinpricks of ghostly attention, like candlelight flickering in the dark. One of the witch’s servants was watching them, their scraggly-stick fingers moving yellow branches slightly to peer at them both, silent, without judgment or violent action.

“We should go back,” He said, hushed, moving slowly. If there was one of them, there were more, and he wasn’t about to risk them thinking they were trespassing. “Before the witch decides to say hello again.” 

He opened his arms in a silent question of allowing him to carry her home, as he did months ago at the docks and many times since.