6. Helena
Helena
As they sat around the campfire that night, Helena was pleased to discover the dinner Bertram made was Urghk’s old stone soup recipe. She was tempted to comment on this, but given the tense atmosphere, it didn’t seem wise to bring up anything sensitive.
Instead, Helena focused on the warmth of the soup as it radiated through her body, bringing with it memories of the kind, down-to-earth soul that Urghk had been.
When she thought of him, she thought of him laughing, doling out hugs enthusiastically, creating orcish jewelry while singing in his forge, planting whatever the climate of his current home would allow.
No matter where he was, he always had an herb garden on his windowsill and root vegetables in the yard.
“The soup is good,” Helena said, and hoped that this was neutral enough to be inoffensive.
Bertram grunted in response, which was preferrable to him outright snapping at her.
A “thank you” would have been even better.
“Yes, excellent work, Bertram, darling.” Dr. J turned and smiled at Helena.
“As I warned you, we’re limiting magic use in case owl-bears are sensitive to it the way dragons, for example, are.
But one of the few places I chose to place our limited magical allowance is an OmniBox refrigerator, so we’re able to get any ingredients instantly.
That seemed one of the most sensible places for magic use in minimizing anthropogenic disturbances.
We don’t want to have to have People constantly going for ingredients up and down the mountain at all times. ”
“I can’t wait to try it out.” Helena said. “I would absolutely murder for an OmniBox in my apartment.”
“I’ll get you one,” Dr. J said without hesitation.
“Oh, no, I couldn’t,” Helena said quickly. It was one thing to accept Dr. J’s handouts as a child, but to do so as an adult would leave a bitter taste in Helena’s mouth.
“You do know that if you ever need anything,” Dr. J said, “anything at all, I’ll always be there for you, Helena.”
“I know.” Helena swallowed thickly. “And I did need something—a job, and a purpose, and a distraction, and you gave that to me. So, thank you. I really appreciate it. And. Um. Bertram. Thank you for, uh, for letting me stay.”
Bertram snorted. “I have nothing to do with any of it.”
“Yes, but if you had told her you didn’t . . . I mean, I’m looking forward to working together, is all. And the soup is really good.”
“You said that,” Bertram responded, testily.
“And it remains true!” Dr. J said. She swiveled to Helena. “Helena, you’ll have to meet my student Katherina at one point. She’s a fellow leopardopterist who did her PhD on socialization patterns of domestic and wild shroos.”
“Well! You know how much I love shroos!” Helena smiled.
Shroos were adorable creatures, leopardopterans about the size of a human basketball and just as round, with white fluffy fur and tiny, gauzy wings.
They looked like dandelions with black, beady eyes.
In addition to their adorable appearance, their loyalty and friendly temperament had long made them popular pets amongst the fae.
Since the Great Merge, shroos had become more commonly kept by humans as well—with mixed results.
“It’s fascinating work. Katherina published a paper analyzing the efficacy of punishment collars on companion shroos, with the conclusion being that positive reinforcement is the best training method for shroo and handler alike.
She’s a bit prickly,” Dr. J said fondly, as if this were a compliment, “but if there’s anyone she would like, it’s you, and she could use some friends in the field. ”
“I will happily be friends with anyone working to improve shroo welfare,” Helena said. She hazarded a shy glance toward Bertram. “I . . . I was really sorry to hear about Millie.”
It felt dangerous to bring up something as sensitive as the loss of Bertram’s own childhood shroo, but to not acknowledge it would feel even worse. Millie deserved better than that.
“Thanks,” Bertram said.
“I know how much you loved her. I loved her too,” Helena said. “So much.”
Bertram nodded and took another large spoonful of soup.
Helena worried about pushing her luck, but it was the first time Bertram had reacted to anything she said without immediate resentment. She debated leaving it there, but then—
“I sent flowers,” Helena said, her voice barely above a whisper.
“What?” Bertram asked.
“When Millie died. I—I sent flowers. A shroo-shaped bouquet. To your mother’s place, of course!” she added quickly. “I didn’t find out where you were living or anything creepy like that!”
Bertram blinked, surprised. “You didn’t sign the card.”
“Because I didn’t want you to think I was making it about me or us . . . it’s just that People send flowers when you lose a family member, you know? It didn’t matter who the flowers were from. I just wanted you to know that you weren’t the only one who saw Millie as family.”
Bertram swallowed. “My girlfriend said she sent them.”
“Oh! Then I’m sure she did!” Helena stammered out.
It didn’t matter who had actually sent the flowers, Helena figured. Bertram clearly didn’t want her on the project, so the last thing she needed to do was create drama between him and his girlfriend.
“Shroo-shaped bouquets aren’t uncommon,” Helena continued, “they’re so cute and round—please don’t say anything to her—”
“Girlfriend at the time,” Bertram clarified. “Ex-girlfriend now. Her taking credit for something she didn’t do is not surprising. The relationship did not last long.”
For a while they ate in silence.
Then it was Bertram who spoke first.
“Thank you,” he said. “For the flowers.”
“Oh! Well”—Helena blushed—“like I said. It was about Millie. She deserved to be loved and remembered.”
Bertram nodded, and Helena thought his eyes looked a little glassy.
“To Millie!” Helena said, raising her thermos of oat milk with cinnamon and sugar. “A very good girl.”
“The goodest girl,” Bertram agreed. He leaned forward and clinked his own thermos against Helena’s. They drank at the same time, making more eye contact than Helena expected.
“This is going well!” Dr. J said gleefully.
Bertram looked away, frowning again.
Helena couldn’t help but feel like it was now going less well after Dr. J’s declaration of how well it was going.
The conversation between Bertram and Helena died down again after that.
Dr. J filled the silence by telling them all about the other research projects she was currently involved with—one on Arctic blue fairy penguins, two on desert phoenixes, and one on pink fairy armadillos, which were actually a mundane animal completely unrelated to fairies.
She also told them more about antisocial Katherina Minola’s fascinating work training shroos, emerging theories regarding certain subspecies of jackalope possibly being a separate species entirely, as well as a new recipe for orange sherbert that her draconologist friend Syr Hippolyta from the Midsummer Knights Dragon Protection Society had sent her, and how Dr. J couldn’t seem to quite get it right, or else Hippolyta had lied about how good it actually was.
Bertram had just returned from getting a giant turnip out of the OmniBox for his own dessert when Dr. J abruptly stood.
“Well, time for this old lady to turn in for the night,” Dr. J said. “But you youngsters have fun catching up!”
Bertram glowered at Dr. J’s retreating form.
Helena tried not to feel stung at Bertram’s clear desire to be anywhere except alone with Helena. She instead tried to relax into the silence that Dr. J clearly hoped would be broken with deep, relationship-fixing conversation.
It wasn’t.
The silence stayed silent.
Instead, Helena watched as Bertram bared his vampiric top fangs above the turnip. He sank his teeth in easily before sweeping up the juices with his tongue.
Oh, to be that turnip, Helena thought against her better judgment.
Helena remembered when Bertram had lavished such attention on her body. Sucking at her, biting at her, all lips and teeth and tongue and tusks . . .
He had been so scared to hurt her when they first started sleeping together.
He had spent so long as her de facto protector that the idea of causing her pain was the antithesis of what he wanted.
Helena had to plead with him not to hold back from biting her, literally begging for him to pierce her skin.
Bertram, as it turned out, enjoyed it when Helena begged, so this worked out rather well for everyone.
She wondered if Bertram remembered the way she cried out the first time she convinced him to sink his fangs into her, the panic in his voice when he was worried he had hurt her badly, the lust in his eyes when she assured him that it had been a good yelp, she promised it was a good yelp, and could he please go back to fucking her.
If this many memories were flooding back to her, just from watching Bertram devour a root vegetable . . .
“You’re staring,” Bertram snapped.
Helena blushed deeply. She wondered if he knew what she was imagining, what she was remembering. She wondered if he was remembering it too. If he ever imagined it over their years apart.
“Sorry,” she mumbled.
“If you didn’t want to eat with monsters, you should’ve joined a human-led research site.” Bertram threw his now-drained turnip to the ground and stormed away.
Helena sat for a moment, blinking. Bertram never used to have a problem with humans. Helena was three-quarters human, and Bertram never used to have a problem with her. She wondered which had come first, his hatred of humans or his hatred of her.
Sighing, Helena walked over and picked up the turnip.
She held it in her hand, fingers running over the divots Bertram’s fangs had left behind.
They made her more nostalgic than she would have liked.
She had covered similar fang marks on her own neck with makeup that never quite seemed to hide the evidence of their encounters, and Bertram would smirk when he saw Helena wearing scarves even on hot days . . .