Besties are Frenemies

"You have got to be kidding me. You weren't born with magic and yet you can cast spells after spells during our lessons?" Red exclaimed. She couldn't understand why Archer was comparing himself too much with Ari.

"What do you call your hard work for? A fucking joke?"

Archer's eyes widened with the things Red were saying. He was quite unsure whether they were supposed to be her complimenting or admonishing him.

"Why are you mad all of a sudden?" he asked her as he backed up a little.

"Because your self-worth is so fucked up, you stupid man-child!" She huffed, putting her clenched fists on each side of her tiny waist. She looked like a feisty little preschool kid actually.

Archer chuckled so lightly, amused by the thought of Red being a pouty child. Queen of Sass was more likely the title to suit her rather than Queen of Faeys.

"What's so funny you big chunk of meat?" she asked him, her cheeks flushed a tinge of scarlet. "Imma go eat again or else I might strangle you to death even if I feel sorry for you."

"Ahh… don't be like that Queen of Sass, I was only laughing at myself!" he shouted as she went to grab her food near the campfire. "Please come back, I would still love to hear your smart retorts!"

Archer shifted to his sides and craned his neck to watch Red rummage through the remaining embers of dried driftwood which he used to feed the fire.

He was beginning to warm up to the idea that Red could really be fit to become the Faey Queen, she may be small and delicate yet she was feisty and courageous when she needed to be.

Just as she was poking at the leftover char that hid the cooked potatoes, now that she had inspected it closely, the tubers had unfortunately turned dark and were clearly overcooked.

"Great, now these aren't edible anymore." She muttered under her breath.

"You can have my portion if you like." She heard Archer say behind her ear. Her heart made a somersault and almost came out of her mouth. The tiny hairs behind her head stood and she felt her face burn.

Amused by her reaction, Archer teased and blew air behind her neck and she shrieked at the sensations she felt.

It was tingly and a bit uncomfortable, yet they laughed and she playfully blasted him with fire which he nonchalantly shielded with his magic.

"Idiot! Don't come up at me like that!" she shouted as she evaded his attacks.

After his big revelation, their relationship had drastically turned lighter. The banters weren't as warlike as before and they could now talk sense without shouting.

For Archer, it felt like a huge burden was lifted off of him.

It left him wondering though, how it was even possible that Red could make him feel that way. There must have been something in the wind that blew on that very first day he saw her visiting Granny Cane long before he knew she was a queen candidate.

"Ok, now that we are as civil as we can be, can we now address the elephant in the room?" Red said as she finished the last of their food and drank the remaining coconut water. She scooped the meat with clean shells and ate the sweet fruit.

Or was it a nut?

Were nuts considered fruits?

"We are outside future queen, there is no elephant and we aren't in a room at all." Replied the faey.

"Noooooo… that's not what I meant." She face-slapped herself, trying to contain her laughter at his reply. "It wasn't supposed to be taken literally. It was an idiomatic expression you huge bloke."

"Oh… I've been wandering the human realm for over hundreds of years but I never did understand your so-called idioms." He said while he scrunched his brows.

"I meant; we need to address the problem we had been neglecting for a while now." She explained as she sat up straight, trying to appear serious while stifling her giggles at Archer's pensive face.

"Ah yes! Ari!" he exclaimed, remembering the one thing he was trying to get through Red when she was ignoring him for the rest of the afternoon. "We could've discussed about this earlier if you hadn't been so difficult."

"Well, for the record, I'm sorry about that. But there is no denying that it was mostly your fault it happened." she said with a slight raising of her left brow.

'Hella cute she is when she does that.' Archer thought. Her curls were safely tucked in a messy bun and stray locks adorned her forehead.

The noon breeze blew and they swayed playfully in her face. Red pushed them away and Archer noticed her odd birth mark.

Quite fascinating how the two dots were symmetrically placed above and below, as if deliberately drawn by the hands of a master artist.

He knew that for the Faeys, marks were the thing of craze. It meant that the great spirits had favored you, but sometimes it could also mean that a curse was set upon you by a malicious spirit.

Either way, the topic was taboo to speak of between the Faeys so most of the times young ones don't know until signs start to show and someone was brave enough to tell them.

He wonders if she knew.

"Hey Archer! Are you listening to me?" he heard Red say as she waved her hands in front of his face, trying to get his attention as he had completely frozen in a daze while he observed Red.

"Oh yes yes. I'm all ears, eyes, nose, you own all of me future queen of sass." he quipped as he snapped back into reality.

"You are getting too confident with all your random nicknames for me flower boy, its too much for my comfort." Red said while she shifted her sitting position into a lotus squat on the warm sandy beach.

"I thought we became besties already? Aren't nicknames included in that?" Archer reasoned out, making exaggerated hand gestures to point out his opinion.

"More like frenemies still. I haven't completely forgotten how scared I was when we fell from the skies." Red tutted.

"Okay, I'll yield to that so we can peaceably move on." He said, raising both his hands in surrender as he began to realize they were almost about to get into a fight again.

He didn't want to drag the situation much longer, they needed to find his brother.

"How do you suggest we find Ari?" he asked; his tone now serious without a single hint of joke in his pretty face. He wanted to test whether Red could remember the spells he had taught her before.

"I am quite perplexed as well. Do we have any item of Ari we can use to track him with?" she said.

Ahhh, she did remember important things.

"I don't think we have. But we can use your pocket watch and the moon dust."

"The moon dusts? What can it do to track Ari?" Red asked as she took the flask out of her belt bag.

"It can't track him Red. What we can do is check out the terrain of this island we are in and see if there are other people in it. Hopefully Ari is here as well."