A Garden of Flowers and Bones [Lloyd Garmadon x Reader]

Chapter 8: You'll sing a song of your heart's complaint

Y/N looked to the side with a small smile. She had no plans of joining, but it was nice of them to offer. Besides, if she kept joining once every two years, then in time it would become very obvious that she killed once in the spring/summer, and once in the winter each year, and that would surely call suspicion to her.

"I'll definitely think about it. Like I said, I was just bored so I tried it out. Who knows if that'll last, though."

Benny gave her an encouraging wink before disappearing into the backroom, the door shutting automatically behind him.

"You're not just clumsy, but you're also impulsive," Balthazar snickered, "You're a recipe for disaster."

Y/N glared and punched him in the arm- not too hard as to hurt him, but hard enough for him to know effort was put into the assault.

"Am not!"

"I strongly disagree. It's the reason you should quit sword fighting and save us both the trouble."

"You're both terrible."

Said terrible pair laughed as she made her exit, following behind her at a leisurely pace.

It was a bit of a chilly day today, hence why Y/N was wearing a button up coat. She was, however, heading straight home. Dwyn had gotten very sick yesterday. Headaches and stomach aches- a bit of vomiting. So much so that she couldn't seem to want to eat anything. The fever she had wasn't very high but Y/N had still felt the need to monitor all night and for most of the morning, too. Thankfully, she was lucid, so it wasn't heat stroke or anything. Still, she made sure the girl got plenty of water and ensured she had a cold,wet rag on the back of her neck as she was sleeping it off- since rest is good for the body.

The reason she'd come into town was to let her work know she'd be taking care of Dwyn for the next couple days, and to give in the deer (which was set to go bad soon if she didn't take it out of her cold basement). Dareth was understanding since Dwyn had gotten sick like this before.

"You can't help it. Kids can be like that. I don't know how you do it," Dareth had shaken his head before placing a hand on top of Y/N's, "You should bring her in when she's better, eh? I always hear how she's complimenting our food but I never get to see her!"

She had headed off in the afternoon once Dwyn had teetered off into a nap again, and she was sure that the girl wouldn't be sick once more, but she was keen to get back to her and nurse her to health fully.

"If you knew what was best for you, you would be careful about going into the woods," Beathán's voice came from beside her.

"Yep. If something happened to you out there, we'd have no idea, and Dwyn would be alone until one of us figured it out."

"Certainly. Venturing into the dangerous forest because you need to is one thing, but doing so out of boredom is another. You are a woman living on your own, Gloria. You of all people should understand how dangerous it is."

"I get that it's hard to hear, but we're just trying to look out for you. You're starting to worry us."

"You must cut down on your reckless habits."

"I'll say."

"Yeah, you are, and yeah, you have," Y/N sighed.

In fairness, it was absolutely reasonable for her to already be tired with these two bouncing agreement off each other. Like, when's the wedding, right?

"If everyone is saying it, then perhaps you should listen," Beathán suggested, almost sassily.

"Rude. I do my best, y'know? And I wasn't in any danger this time or else I wouldn't've gone," A blatant lie but he didn't need to know that (he was giving her a look that she avoided, suggesting that he already knew that), "Actually, Fey activity has died down a whole bunch since a bit ago. We haven't had another Black Annis attack since."