We're not in Andalasia anymore... (Bartok)

[Bartok]

When Bartok let go, he had no idea what he was flying towards. He had time to think, for a split second, about how she might be grateful that he was willing to throw himself into spaces unknown to ensure that she was all right...maybe that would save him some points. Then he landed with a jolt, and stopped spinning...although it definitely didn't feel like the world stopped...it was still spinning away in a nauseating blur of motion and color.

He realized after a moment that his left hand hurt terribly. For a moment, he thought he'd landed on it, but then he realized that it was sitting in the middle of a whole lot of horrible stickers. He stared at it momentarily, wondering how he was going to pull out the seven or eight pokey things that had embedded themselves in his skin.

Giselle's voice startled him, so absorbed was he by the sight of plant matter buried in his flesh, to the point where he gave a little gasp and jerked his hand back. That had the positive result of ripping most of the thorns out of his hand, leaving only two or three attached. It didn't feel very good, but it did the trick.

"Ohhh." he whimpered. "I mean, yeah, yeah, I'm fine." He removed the remaining thorns gingerly, tossing them aside as if they hadn't hurt him at all (except for the last one, which got stuck in the finger he'd pulled it out with...he had to flap his hand a few times to get rid of that one). "Did...are you all right? Are you still dizzy?" The dizziness seemed to have faded a little on his part, although he might have just been distracted by the welts quickly rising on his hand. He jammed the hand into his pocket and stood up, trying to look as if he was swaggering casually instead of nursing an injury.

[Deleted]

Giselle was very concerned upon sitting up to find Bartok’s hand in a pricker bush. That must have hurt a lot. She’d run into pricker bushes in the forest back home in Andalasia all the time. They were just awful. They tore her dresses sometimes and they got stuck in her hands and she cried. Thank goodness Pip had been there to help her or she didn’t know what she would have done.

She attempted to get to her feet, though she was quite dizzy and only managed to fall over again. But she was determined to get up. She wasn’t going to let her dizziness get the better of her. Bartok needed her. So she picked herself back up and hurried over to him as best as she could with the dizziness still subsiding. “Bartok, let me see your hand. You must be very brave. I probably would have cried if that had happened to me. But you didn’t shed one tear. You must have been very brave indeed. But we should look at your hand. Are you sure you’re alright? I don’t want your hand to get infected or anything. That would be terrible! But we should make sure.”

Giselle was off on another one of her many ramblings, but it was purely out of concern for her very very best friend. Very very best friends don’t come around very often so she had to make sure that he was going to be alright. And who else was Giselle supposed to meet and dance with upon knowing them for only a few moments? Honestly, Bartok was probably the only one.

[Bartok]

Bartok did not understand why pricker bushes had to exist at all. Whose stupid idea had that been, anyway, to make a plant that viciously tore at the skin of anybody who went near it? What a horribly anti-social organism. He hoped Giselle wouldn't fall into the pricker bush when she came over to help him, because then he would probably have to pretend to be brave and get her out of it, and...ugh, his hand hurt.

It felt like little tiny holes had been punched in his skin and were now being drenched in lemon juice. Or salt, like somebody was putting salt right onto the swelling welts caused by the rather violent way in which he'd gotten most of the stickers out of his hand. It was awful, and he wished he had ice cubes or something to put on it, to numb it or some such thing. Oh, the pain. Pain. Agony. Probably the most painful thing he'd felt in the last year, with the possible exception of that time he'd rolled out of bed and hit his shoulder on the nightstand the other night. He was surprised it wasn't bleeding more. It was just a few little dots of blood, but it felt like it should be gushing buckets of red liquid all over the ground.

"It's not bad," he said, shrugging and holding his hand out for her to look at. "I don't think it'll get infected. It's just a little stick."

[Deleted]

Giselle was really quite concerned for Bartok. Prickers were really the nastiest thing she could ever think of. They were much nastier than ogres and probably dragons, though she couldn’t be sure. She’d never met any dragons. She’d also never been almost eaten by a dragon, but she thought that dragons were just misunderstood. And she certainly wouldn’t wish for a dragon or an ogre to tall into prickers because who would save them?

Giselle took Bartok’s hand gently. She didn’t want to make it worse and cause him even more pain! That would not be a very good thing to do to your very very best friend. She examined his hand seriously. “Does it hurt?” she asked. “If it hurts you could mud on it. I’ve done that before and it helped.” She was really trying to be helpful, but she was no nurse. She had never taken care of a single thing before. Everybody else had always taken care of her. But she was really trying. She really wanted to help Bartok because he was being so nice and helpful to her. She wanted to be helpful back. That’s what you did with your very very best friends.

[Bartok]

Well, he didn't want her to think he was a wimp. If there was one thing Bartok had had to fake more than anything else in his life, it was bravery. People didn't usually like you much if you ran and hid behind a tree when they needed you the most, and they also seemed to laugh at you if you made a big fuss out of the little aches and pains in life. Now, Bartok did not consider this a "little" pain, he considered it horrible agony, but if he could stick it out and just smile through it, hopefully he wouldn't lose any reputation points over it.

"It hurts a little," he said, thinking to himself that was the understatement of at least the last week. "Mud?" Mud in gaping open wounds (all right, little tiny holes) sounded awful, and he chewed on his lower lip dubiously. "It's all right. I'm sure it'll be fine. We should get to the school, I can find a tourniquet or a bandaid or something there and I won't die." He hoped he was being reassuring. He didn't want her to worry about him...even though it was really nice that somebody bothered to worry about him. That did make him feel better.

[Deleted]

Giselle would have never thought that Bartok was a wimp. She understood that prickers hurt and she wasn’t one to judge. Besides, very very best friends didn’t judge each other. They just accepted each other for who each other was. So Giselle would never have thought Bartok was a wimp. But she was a little worried about him. Prickers tended to hurt a lot.

“A tourniquet?!” Giselle cried, suddenly very worried. “Oh, I hope you won’t need a tourniquet! That would be awful! And then I’d feel terrible because you aren’t supposed to let your very very best friends get hurt and you’re hurt. And I’m very sorry because it’s all my fault. If I hadn’t wanted to spin in circles this never would have happened.” She felt positively horrible and there was nothing she could do to ease Bartok’s pain. And it was all her fault. This was terrible. Really, really terrible. “I’m very sorry, Bartok.”

[Bartok]

Bartok was starting to feel a little bit awkward. He didn't want her to feel bad about him getting hurt...he certainly wasn't going to blame her for it and he didn't want her blaming herself for it either. It distracted him from the pain in his hand for a moment, and he shook his head.

"No, no, it isn't your fault," he assured her. "Spinning in circles was fun, remember? I liked it. I just need to learn how to land better. Don't worry, Giselle." He immediately became far more concerned with her being happy than with the minor injury he'd suffered. If she wasn't happy, why would she want to be around him? And if she didn't want to be around him, why would she want to be his friend anymore?

"Please don't feel bad about it," he practically begged. "I fall a lot. I'm a little clumsy. It's nobody's fault but mine."

[Deleted]

Giselle still felt bad. Whatever Bartok said she still felt bad. She hadn’t meant for anyone to get hurt when they were spinning in circles. She just wanted to have fun with her very very best friend. She hadn’t meant for anyone to get hurt.

“I can’t help but feel bad,” she told Bartok. “You’re my very very best friend. I’m supposed to feel bad that you’re hurt. I didn’t mean for you to get hurt though. Prickers are terrible. I should have warned you that there were prickers behind you. I saw them right before you let go.” This day was turning out terrible! First she had been pushed down a well and separated from her Edward. Now her very very best friend was hurt and she couldn’t do anything to help him. And now they were both feeling bad.

“And now I’ve made you feel bad too,” she said sadly. “I must not be a very good friend. I didn’t mean to make you feel bad too.” Then she flung her arms around Bartok in a hug. “I just wish I could make your hand stop hurting.”

[Bartok]

Sometime later, Bartok might start worrying about the very very best friend thing, but fortunately, Giselle was pretty much the first person who'd acted like this, and he hadn't realized anything was out of the ordinary. Sure she seemed to like him a lot more than the average person seemed to, but...she didn't seem like the average person. She sang and danced at random times too, so obviously she was cooler than a lot of other people just because of that.

She was hugging him now, and he hugged her back, a little surprised but not objecting to it in the slightest. He couldn't remember the last time somebody had actually initiated a hug with him.

"No, no, it's okay. It's all okay. You are a good friend. You're the best one I have." He was surprised to find that that was actually true. He'd said things like that to other people, but none of them really acted like good friends, and he was usually just trying to make them like him. Giselle actually was being a good friend, as far as he could tell, even though he'd just met her about ten minutes ago. But she sang and danced! So yes, she was definitely his favorite. "My hand hardly even hurts anymore. It was worth it."

[Deleted]

Giselle had the tendency to think that everyone liked her. So to have just met someone and then declare them your very very best friend wasn’t weird or strange after knowing them for a grand total of ten minutes. Besides, Bartok sang and danced to! So how could he not possibly be her very very best friend? She had known Edward for even less time than that and she had known that he was her one true love.

It did make Giselle feel better to know that she was being a good friend. It made her feel even better to know that she was Bartok’s best friend. Pip had always told her that she was his best friend, which was very nice, but she’d never had a human best friend before. She was beginning to find that human best friends were a little bit nicer than animal best friends, but only because they could dance! And wasn’t that just lovely?

She beamed at Bartok. He really was a very lovely person. “I’m very glad that your hand doesn’t hurt so much anymore. I wouldn’t want it to hurt. I don’t like other people to be in pain. It’s just so terrible. But I’m so very glad you’re feeling better!”

[Bartok]

Between the two of them, Bartok and Giselle probably could have had at least a good start on a certifiable mental disorder. He wanted everyone to like him, and she already thought everyone did. Well, whatever, he liked her, and she seemed to already think he was her very very best friend. It evened out.

"I'm feeling so much better," he said, striving to come up with something people would do if they were feeling better, something he could handle whilst in pain and could use to help himself ignore the pain. "We should go somewhere and...do something enjoyable! A museum! Do you like museums? Or I could help you find your room first, and then we could go to a museum, or for ice cream." Ice cream sounded very nice. Bartok liked museums a lot, but the thought of wrapping his injured hand around a cold cup of ice cream sounded very nice indeed, and he thought it would probably be really nice if they could do both.

He scrambled to his feet, put on a brave face, and jammed both hands into his pocket, giving her a smile that was probably a little bigger than it needed to be.

"See? I'm fine. Everything will be alright."

[Deleted]

Giselle was willing to believe that Bartok was feeling better for real and not just saying that he was. She was really quite gullible like that. But he must have been feeling better because he was suggesting that they go to a museum. Or get ice cream.

“Well I’ve never been to a museum before. We don’t have museums in Andalasia, but they sound nice. I would like to go a museum. That sounds lovely. And ice cream is lovely too. I do like ice cream very much.” Giselle thought that Bartok was really just the very very best friend she could ever have. She was really quite glad that she had run into him.

Giselle slipped her arm through Bartok’s. “If you’re very sure that you’re alright then we should go for ice cream. I can find my room later, I’m sure. It should still be there. I’d much prefer ice cream. And then we can go to a museum after if you want.” Bartok really was just delightful!