Children of Ragnarok 2

Teagan tiredly wiped sleep out of her eyes as she woke the next day, grunting a little as she stretched. Was it time to get up already? It still felt early. And for the little elf who had been making an effort at nocturnal raids only, it was. She tumbled out of the tissues with a little squeak before noticing the fading light of dusk peeping in through a crack in the floorboards. Well, she supposed, it won't hurt to see what everyone is up to. With that, she began working her way from room ceiling to room ceiling, checking in on her temporary neighbors.

Haydn returned to his room once the sun was under the horizon, still sore and stiff but a little less depressed than he had been the last several weeks. He stretched his back and shoulders after closing his door, announcing his presence with a loud yawn. Just in case. Flipping the light on, he made his way to the mouse hole from last night and knelt down beside it. He knocked on the wall and set down a small cube of cheese he'd saved from dinner, smiling to himself as he stood back up and began his nightly routine.

Teagan made note of several of the inn's guests heading out, she presumed, for dinner. The mere thought caused her stomach to growl as she pondered what she could tide herself over with. Food had been scarce. She remembered, though, that some of the children in one of the rooms had been messy eaters and some of the crumbs from their snacks had sometimes fallen through the floorboards. Grasping at her handholds, she began scaling down from the ceiling, along the wall, and towards the floor. A knock further down the wall and closer to the ground caused her heart to jump a bit and she almost lost her footing. Curiosity drew her in that general direction and before she knew it she'd arrived back at the entryway to Haydn's room.

It was the smell that caught her attention first. Then the color. And finally the shape. Was that... cheese? Cautiously she approached it, eyes a little wide in disbelief. The small girl barely poked her head out into the room, scanning for its occupant and quickly finding the black-clad giant. She returned his knock with a small rap on the wooden framing.

With the rustling of his clothes going on, Haydn could barely hear the knock but instead noticed the small spike of heat behind him. "Is that you?" he called.

Teagan couldn't help but grin to herself as he called out to her. Had he been waiting for her? Maybe he was just as much in need of someone to talk to as she was. Suppressing a pang of emotion she suddenly wondered if he'd mind the company. A series of tiny raps answered him in return.

Tossing his shirt to the floor, Haydn wasted no time in sitting himself at the hole, giving the tiny creature a large enough berth to come out as she liked. "I hope you like cheese."

Teagan popped her head out the rest of the way and beamed at him, taking him up on his unspoken invitation to enter the room. Crossing her legs as she sat, the girl dragged the cheese into her lap and began gnawing at the corners of it contentedly.

"You don't say much," Haydn pointed out rhetorically. "You always been that way?"

< I hurt my throat when I was very little >, she signed out automatically. A second too late she realized her error. Shyly, she nodded.

The giant cocked his head to the side as he watched her sign her reply. "Well, I imagine someone somewhere understands what you just 'said'." So much for asking for her name.

Teagan smiled weakly. Yeah, there were. But as for where they were now... Her eyes dropped and she studied the cheese in her lap intently.

"Any easy way to tell me your name, by chance?"

She looked back up sharply. Her name, huh? The little girl tapped her fingers across her lips in silent thought. Suddenly she jumped up with a grin splayed across her face and motioned for him to move closer. She wanted to make sure he could see as she began tracing out the letters of her name with a finger.

Haydn moved in close as she instructed, no small feat for the space versus his height, but he managed it and watched her trace out the characters, “ᛏ ᛇ ᚷ ᚾ”. He nodded in understanding and read it aloud.

“Tihgan.”

She pursed her lips out awkwardly at his effort. He almost had it. She retraced the rune for the "ee" sound on the floor for him and waited expectantly.

The man raised an eyebrow. "Ih."

Teagan puffed out her cheeks and let out a little hiss of air. Apparently it was just this one rune they couldn't agree on. Rather than tracing it out again and trying to argue with him she simply tugged on the edges of her mouth and mimed out a long e sound.

"Ee?"

The little elf bounced in a happy circle and clapped her hands.

Haydn frowned and traced a line on the floor. "That's ee. You wrote it wrong.”

“ᛏ ᛁ ᚷ ᚾ”

Teagan pouted at the giant looming over her.  She stared at where he'd traced the line. Well, yes and no. There were different ways to pronounce vowels. His accent was different from those of the other elves she'd grown up with but Teagan was by no means a world traveler and had no hope of placing it.

"Don't make that face," Haydn bade. "You elves don't write properly."

In return she wrinkled her nose and stuck out her tongue at him, folding her arms a bit huffily over her chest.  She then spelled out her name for him the way he insisted on it being and cocked her head at him as if to say both "That's not how it's spelled but does that make you happier now?" and "Have you got my name now?" with one meaningful twitch of her features.

The redhead gave her a pensive look, not appreciating the patronizing. "Look, it's not my fault the only way you can communicate with me is by writing. I don't have to use your name."

She hung her head abashedly at his comment. True she'd been a little frustrated with him but he was right, that was no cause to be rude. Apologetically she rubbed her fist in a circle around her chest to sign out a "sorry" as she glanced up at him with tiny brown doe-eyes.

Haydn cocked his head to the side and raised an eyebrow. "Is that an apology?"

Teagan nodded and made the gesture again.

"Alright, then." Haydn sat back up. "At any rate... So..." he made an effort to sound out her name. "Tee...g...n.  So, Teagan?"

The little girl nodded with a smile and then pointed at him questioningly with her own little cock of the head.

The giant gave a cheeky grin. "What's it matter? You can't pronounce it."

With a wrinkle of her nose, Teagan stuck out her tongue at him with a mischievous twinkle in her eye before pointing to herself and signing out her own name and then pointing to him. Surely she could figure out how to sign it if she knew the spelling.

Haydn chuckled at her gesticulating. "What, you think your little flailing means anything to me? Do you even have anyone you can tell about me?"

Her smile faded at that and her eyes dropped as she gave a subtle shake of her head and began tracing out invisible letters on the floor again. "ALONE"

"That's what I thought," the man said quietly. "At any rate," he continued, getting to his feet, "it's better if you don't know who I am." He gave a swift couple cracks to his back and neck. "I need to bathe. Enjoy your cheese, Teagan."

She backed up a few paces as he stood, momentarily intimidated by his height and proximity. Gathering up the cheese into her arms, she signed a thank you and gave a hesitant wave before turning to venture back into the walls and give the man his privacy. There were still rooms for her to scavenge through tonight, anyway.

A short while later, Haydn sat in the tub of hot water, silently debating if he should continue trying to befriend the little elf, seeing as he'd just move on in a few days' time.