Bodil Bera
The unpredictable monarch glanced at her. It was almost like watching a statue move its eyes for a moment. Like he had seen everything, done everything and life held no surprises and was utterly boring. That was Bodil's impression anyway. After all how long could life be interesting when you were as old as the wind? Or t least... wasn't he? She guessed so. He certainly wasn't human, so his life must be very very long to look so bored with everything all the time. And he did as old people do, reminisce about times gone by between the pages of books. And some of these books looked so forgotten they were rotting to dust on the shelves.
Bodil didn't touch anything. She was too distrustful. Who knew what was in the corners of those shelves or hidden under them? Spiders with a hundred eyes or mice that acted like pirana... Who knew! And she didn't want to find out. Testing her limits was reserved for the areas that she knew, like kicking out at your kidnapper or irritating him till he left you alone. She wasn't feeling lucky enough to brave the shadows of this odd library.
When the fae king spoke again, his voice seemed like it was barely there at all. Like he too was turning to dust and his voice was the first thing to go. Bodil hugged her arms and watched him. "Uh...no...they stopped schooling for girls after sixth grade," she murmured absently, looking curiously at the book from afar. Standing on her tiptoes she tried to get a glimpse but was too far away to see anything telling or interesting. Looking at the condition of some of his books and his furniture, she shook her head a bit. "You really should get it cleaned in here some time," she flicked her eyes over the dust covered floor, "Your things would last long if you took care of them."
The monarch said something about her kind being unable to perform magic. She shrugged. "Humans don't need magic to do hard work," she offered, "Though from the state of your Fae buildings you probably do need it." She sighed a bit and looked around up at the ceiling. "...I meant what I said," she huffed softly, "If you Fae took care of the things you were given, you wouldn't have to struggle so much to keep it or repair it." He reached a lean arm up to grab for another book, looking through it. What it was about, only he and the library knew. The Falkon King spoke about 'infrastructure' and 'economy' which Bodil had trouble keeping up with. 'Infrastructure' sounded like 'structure' so it must be some sort of important structure, which was probably the buildings and whatever. 'Economy' had 'eco' in it which the Englisher...er, landlady had complained about being bad if Bodil didn't re-cycle. Re-cycle learning had been weird too, but she had never thought about the little things she threw away as hurting the entire human planet.
Speaking of...were...they even on Earth? The question was dizzying and felt like washing ice water through her veins. Maybe... She might be able to find a map in here. Maybe it would help her get her bearings and be useful for any escaping. Slowly she moved, hand folded behind her back, eyes scanning the shelves like she was just looking over every poor, abused book in his collection. "I don't quite understand," she offered slowly as if thinking, "If the land is what gives you energy and needs to be restored, why didn't you keep up with it while you had it?" Another question as to why the Fae didn't take care of what they had. Oddly enough...a lot of this was sounding similar to the humans and Global Warming... Not taking care of the planet while it was still healthy and trying to backtrack to keep it from dying.
But Global Warming, a state in which all weather patterns were thrown into chaos, summer days in the middle of winter, affecting plants and animals and thereby effecting humans as necessary food dwindled down to nothing... Global Warming was a crisis. Did that mean the Fae were in a crisis? If so they were acting a lot like humans. Some partying it up and being entirely useless. Other struggling to the point of emotion breaking to fix what was extremely difficult to fix. Either way you looked at it, the Fae had very humanlike traits. And it was starting to creep Bodil out. She almost felt...sorry for them.
"So you are trying to fix multiple big problems that not everyone sees as problems," she murmured looking over a big book that might look kind of like an atlas book or be a big beast encyclopedia, "Now that is familiar." She peeked over at him as he talked about the bloody politics of the Fae. Reminded her of that tv show about the dueling lords and ladies of a land where sheer wit and cunning meant you could be a ruler...if you were willing to kill for it. Scary. Bodil had stopped watching that channel after seeing only part of an episode. She had been in the Englisher...er, real world for about a week. Even after a month, the sheer number of shows on the tv had overwhelmed her because she had been afraid of getting another scary show or learning about how little she really knew the world.
"So as you secretly fight your rival Fae in politics...you also have to fix all the buildings, heal the land, restore magic, and keep order of this chaotic kingdom of freaked up Fae," Bodil shook her head and crouched down a bit to look at another book. She jumped a bit when it looked back. "Your job s-storta sucks, huh?" For some reason, it felt like he had looked at her, but she hadn't been paying enough attention to read into it. "Sooo if I understand right," she tapped her chin looking at another shelf, "the Fae," she gestured absently to him, "got so overwhelmed that they brought humans," she gestured to herself, "like me, here to do..." Bodil let her hand circle in the air for a moment. "Grunt work? Stuff easy for humans to do while Fae did big stuff."
Bodil felt heat creeping up her neck. Part of her was still ticked that they thought slavery was the best plan of attack for all their issues. Why hadn't they just asked for help and been the good fairies of the Englisher tales? Well... Bodil thought about it, almost reaching for a book, but thinking better of it. Humans would never help anyone, especially Fae. Human refused to even help themselves. Sighing, the dark-haired woman let her head tip forward a bit. Why why why was she starting to understand the Fae? It made it hard to purely hate them, though it didn't make up for their kidnapping ways. Well, best to try to make due...
"You know, if the humans were treated better, you'd not only get better work out of them but they," she actually gestured to herself again, "wouldn't be so scared and act up all the time." Bodil scrunched up her face a bit. "I mean the auction? Terrifying. The month-long march? Awful. The jerk shepherd who kills and maims people all the time for the hell of it? Nightmare inducing." She held open her arm and looked up at the library ceiling. "Explaining the issues to the captured humans would take out a lot of the fear, give them stuff to think about," she let her arms drop down, "Like, I dunno, 'you're going to work till you repay your wish' or something."
"And I am sure you guys have carts right? Docile animals to haul carts too?" she seemed to be getting more energetic, flicking a hand at him like it was some great revelation and she had to keep going, "That would make transporting faster and easier. We humans are pretty fragile, you know? I've got blisters on my blisters!" Bodil picked up her foot and shook it about.
"And couldn't the guy in charge of the human herd," she winced at the analogy but kept going, "Couldn't he be I dunno, I nice lady who points out landmarks instead? You know, someone who doesn't kill and maim for the fun of it? Desperate humans get anxious and more rebellious the more they are antagonized. Well, I mean normal ones do. The group I came with was full of cow-eyed weirdos..."
Bodil waved the comment off like it didn't really matter. "Anyway, anyway, just some stuff like that could probably make it easier," she peered at a purple book spine, going back to her 'contemplative' stance, "I mean it sounds like you Fae are in a bit of bind... Humans like me only get more awful when treated bad, ya know? I mean, I probably still would have been upset, but I probably wouldn't have gotten into a fight with the Fox had things been a bit different... Maybe."
