Author’s note: I hate college. Lowkey some random character inserts. Lowkey black!reader coded? Grammar issues probably, B.S. this while working on my calc homework. Will correct it later.
Nod’s room is cleaner than you expected. The moon glow illuminated his wooden space from the window. He didn’t live underground like you thought, but they made their shelter within the caverns of the trees. You could smell his boyish nature on the sheets, laced with the conifer pine. It smelled nice. He smelled nice, you sheepishly thought, but you let silly observations pass. Perhaps it's an unfair judgment considering you met this person a few hours ago, but on a peculiar day like this, there is no reason or rhyme. Strange things have happened.
You were trying to remember what seemed like such a long time, but it actually happened this morning. You recently moved back in with your dad, and naturally, things haven’t been the same. The neighbor’s dog is no longer. There is a patch in the grass that won't flourish no matter the water, and your friends are planning their senior year. Without you. You huffed and shuffled on the bed, and it creaked beneath your weight. It was rather hard to sleep with the nightlife murmuring in conversation, cicadas, and owls. You wonder if Maya and Imani will remember you, but that is the least of your concerns. You’re no longer in Connecticut. You’re not even at Dad’s house.
It was Nod who found you disoriented in the woods. You don’t remember anything before that because you hit your head. Who are you? Where am I? What is going on? Questions that cannot be answered by Nod and you both, but the stranger offered his hand and said a guy by the name of Ronin might be able to help. You familiarized yourself with Ronin, some information about him being the general of an army of what he calls “leafmen,” and some from Nod ranting on the way about how “he’s always on my ass”.
“You had one mission, and you brought a girl home? What is the meaning of this!” Ronin scolded.
Nod shrugs his shoulders and rubs his arm nervously. "I got off track," he admits.
You interjected their argument, “Listen, I’m from this place called Connecticut, and I really need to get back home.”
Ronin’s brow creased. ‘What’s a Connecticut?’
“That's what I said!” Nod exclaimed.
Ronin shook his head, unsure what to say, “This seems like something that Queen Tara may know. I’ll bring your matter to her tomorrow.”
“Thank you, Ronin,” you repeated.
“I take it you don’t have a place to stay, you’re welcome to stay here as long as you need until you get back home to…Connecticut”
You shift awkwardly, moving on the wooden floor, and squeak out a quiet thank you.
“Nod, allow your guest to sleep in your room. No funny business,”
“What does that even mean!” Nod wailed.
You rub your temples at the memory.
“Strange people,” you mumbled to yourself.
“Rude,” Nod says, opening the door, throwing a woven blanket on you.
“I’m sorry,” you stammered. He had caught you off guard; you didn't even hear him walk in. “I didn’t mean it like that."
“No sweat,” he assured while chuckling, “Tourists are pretty strange too."
“Yeah, you seem different though.” he looked at you, bemused.
“You seem different, too.”
“Yeah, I mean, like the people here. You guys seem very down to earth. No pun intended. Not like the people of Connecticut."
“Yeah? Ronin has a stick up his ass, but he’s can be alright,” he grins and looks back at you.
“How’s your head doing?” Nod asked.
You turned your head to show him the small but deep gash on your head.
“Wow, that's nasty. You totally ate dirt,” he teased.
“Whatever,” you muttered.
“Let me do something about that." he chuckles softly
You didn’t say anything as he touched your face, but you felt the air getting thick and stilled.
“This is going to hurt,” he muttered, applying the ointment to the side of your face. You hissed at the sensation and inched away from his hands.
“I’m sorry,” he says quietly.
“No, no,” you said passively, “Just hurts, that’s all..”
He paused and looked down at you. His eyes were full of sincerity. It’s not that you don’t trust him. You don’t trust anyone. You looked up at him, and you saw his marbled brown eyes with flecks of fire. Wow, I’m going to say…..
What? You wanted to break the tension, but those were the only words that could come up. You instantly regretted it because the boy's face turned deadpanned.
“No. No," he clenched his jaw, "More of a ‘father figure’ to my no longer father figure.”
“I’m sorry about that…” you replied, but he didn’t let you finish.
Nod hastily makes his way out of the room before you can say it back. You heard the door slam and blinked in confusion
I understand. You didn’t want to talk about it when it happened either.
Your eyes begin to slowly close in on themselves. Home seems to be so far away that you could only live with your thoughts and dreams. What about my summer classes at the community college? What was that lip gloss flavor that Imani was talking about again?
You woke to the sound of voices downstairs. You get up and make your way out the door and down the stairs. You trudge slowly, trying to make sense of the conversations.
“Nod, stay within your assignment. Don’t let last week happen again,” Ronin lectured.
“I’m serious. Can you be serious? Think about your father.”
Nod brings his hands together to his face, and his annoyed expression contorts into a bubbling anger, “Don’t. Go. There.”
“Go where? You ought to grow a pair,” Ronin continued, but he stopped by the creak of your footstep. Ronin and Nod looked up and composed themselves quickly.
“Hey,” you muttered awkwardly.
“Hey, yourself,” Nod gawked embarrassingly, “How’s the hothead?”
“Better,” You rubbed your temples together. “Better.”
He nodded at you, and he continued to eat his breakfast. You sighed in relief. They don’t eat bugs. You had a bunch of theories in such a span of only a day, but their world is not as grim as you thought.
Ronin cleared his throat, “I have brought your request to the Queen. She says your departure can happen, but under a few conditions.”
“Conditions,” You repeated.
“Conditions. It will be under a full moon, a tradition in Moonhaven where we pick a pod as an heir."
“A few days? A few? I need to go home now, I have classes I have to take at the community college,” you wailed.
The two looked at each other. Ronin couldn’t be bothered enough to figure out what a community college is. The world of stompers is too freaky.
He hesitated but clarified, “It’s not something to be rushed. This pod is not just anything. It’s the life of the forest. Our home. It’s everything."
You look up and you feel a pang of guilt. Home.
“It may not matter to you, and that’s ok. But we are connected to it. Many leaves, one tree. That includes you,” Ronin acknowledged warmly.
“He’s a big metaphor guy,” Nod rolled his eyes.
Ronin sighed and rolled his eyes back, “Nod, why don’t you be a gentleman and take our guest to your training. Show them what Moonhaven is.”
Nod huffed, and he looked back at you, cueing “come on”.
Moonhaven? Don’t they mean New Haven? But you don’t bother asking. The world of the leafmen is too freaky.
You didn’t see Moonhaven – Nod described it on the way back, but to see it from a bird's eye view was something else…An entirely different world, hidden and encompassed by the canopy of leaves, swaying in the wind hypnotically. You were trance by it. You could see what Ronin was talking about, this life living in itself. Nod was also a leafman, but from what you observed, he didn’t seem as noble and earnest about it as Ronin did. You question his thoughts about it, carefully trying not to pry like yesterday.
“I just don’t fit in,” he shrugged he said putting on his gear, “Besides, I’m like better than everyone else here.”
“Is that so?” someone quips, bumping into him purposely, but then he fixes his gaze on you, “And who may this pretty be?”
He looked at Nod, bemused, and looked at you, “Watch me kick his butt in sparring today.”
“We will see about that,” Nod grins back at him.
You watched them go at it, and you smiled to yourself as you found a place to sit. You observed Nod and his appearance. His soft brown eyes were framed by his angular but soft face. He has a nice smile, you thought. Imani and Maya would probably say he needs to get a haircut.
You were lulled by his shaggy brown hair swaying as he wiped the sweat off his brow. Nod doesn’t seem to be like a lot of the guys back home. He seems rather confident and laidback, not drenched in 'toxic hypermasculinity juice'. Even if he was getting his butt kicked.
“You’re totally cheating,” Nod cried out.
“You sound like a sore loser.”
“You saw him, right?” Nod called out, “He was totally cheating.”
You broke out of your trance. Ugh, focus.
“I wasn’t paying attention,” you said, and he groaned.
He shook hands with his sparrer and called it a day. His friend waved and winked at you.
“Yeah, yeah, goodbye,” he shooed him off.
“Geez, he was totally cheating,” Nod muttered, walking back to you, “Are you ready to go?”
You looked at him, observing him again -- dazed.
“Are you sure your head is ok?”
He raised his eyebrows but shrugged it off.
“Where you live, what's that like? I ought to ask what a community college class is,” he asked inquisitively.
You told Nod about everything back in Connecticut. You told him about your friends, Maya and Imani. He laughed when you told him that if he met Maya, she would tell him to cut his hair. You told him about your own hair and the pain of washdays. What you’re learning in community college, calculus – derivatives…..
“Sounds like a pain,” he laughed softly and hummed. As you guys are walking, you watch him shuffle in his pace.
“So this morning. Did you hear all of that?
Not if you didn’t want me to,” you said coyly.
“No, no, I mean,” he pauses and then explains, “Ronin is doing his best. It can just be a lot sometimes, y’know?”
“I get it with the world of responsibility."
“You do?” he quips and looks at you.
“Sure, I do after my mom was sick,” you replied. You guys found yourself sitting on a log watching it turn twilight, the moon creeping into the sky. “I was kind of holding everything together with my dad…”
Yeah, I know Ronin is trying, it’s just that…”
“Things will never be the same?"
“Yes. I’m not sure what to make of it,” he murmured, “But you can’t go back into the past, that’s all I know."
“Of course, but hopefully going back home is something I can change. I hope the Queen can make it happen,” you smiled hopefully. You think Imani and Maya would believe that you were with an advanced society of tiny people living in the woods?
Nod dropped his gaze at your words and felt a lump in his throat. He doesn’t know his feelings towards you yet, but there was just something. A dulling ache, to which he’s not a stranger. The feeling of the time before his father’s passing. He remembered it vividly, his father out the door saying he would be “out for a while” and it was a “different kind of mission”. Nod knew something didn’t feel right, and he wanted to voice it, scream it even, but the words snagged in his throat. Please don’t go. Please don’t go. It ranged in his head like an untuned lullaby. So when Ronin told him the news, Nod didn’t say a word. He didn’t even cry. He internalized his passivity and the lack of action, and acted outwardly to the world in a rebellious manner. For Ronin to make him a leafman when the position took his father was jarring. But not this time, he won’t contemplate. He won’t try to make sense of the lump in his stomach. No reason or rhyme. He faces you and swallows the thin air. I will say it this time, he thought. He slowly grabs your hand with his own, calloused, and you freeze.
“Nod?” you whispered, meeting his gaze, “What are you...”
He didn’t want to scare you, but unknowingly something else was scary itself. He continues with his words. “Please don't…” Nod says hoarsely, but he couldn’t finish. The earth seemed to turn itself into the sky, and harrowing screams filled the air. The fauna responded with a howl to the wind as the silhouettes of bats consumed the moonlight. And then he sees it.
