There’s a wiggling deep panic inside of Clover now, some instinct from being an air fey most likely. Seelie in general don’t like staying in one place, but Spring fey are known for their migrations and changing habits and habitats. Made them hard for feyers to catch, also meant it was hard for them to cause enough problems to get someone willing to pay a feyer to hunt them down in the first place. The life of a bard is perfectly suited to such a fleeting sensibility and most of the time Clover can play off his instincts as being “careful” on the road or having a wander’s spirit.

His fey nature for as much as he complains about it, truly isn’t that bothersome. It took a while to get used to playing human, poor Áine had to chase him around for months after she took him in, smacking poisonous fruits out of his hand and shooing him down from the roof (she still has to do that sometimes, Clover likes being up high and he loses track of time on occasion, not his fault!) Thankfully, most of the instincts from his bird nature he can force down and ignore, he’s not much of a fey anyway.

But some things he can’t, the itching need to never linger in one place more than three days, an irrational fear of being in a closed room alone, and a deep hatred for anything underground. Honestly, Clover got lucky with this sad little cave they’ve taken shelter in, Clover can’t handle being more than ten feet from the exit and fresh air. But the air isn’t fresh anymore, tainted with salt-iron.

If the knight does know Clover is a fey (and Clover is half convinced the human does know and is just getting a sick kick out of watching Clover fumble and descend into a panicked frenzy), he’s doing a very good job at looking like he doesn’t know. ‘Maybe it’s a test?’ some part of him reasons in his mind, ‘If I just keep acting human he will stop suspecting me?’

Considering how effortlessly he handled the past two monsters it feels silly to think he can’t kill Clover, so most likely the knight isn’t acting because he’s not sure, which means Clover needs to put on the performance of a lifetime and no matter what happens… Not. Get. Caught.

“Your glaring bard.”

“I’m not glaring,” he snaps even though he raises a hand to feel the edges of his eyes and finds he is in fact glaring, “I didn’t think I was at least.”

The silence hangs, awkward and stiff, air made extra stale from the sting of iron. It shouldn’t bother Clover as much as it does but hates the quiet, normally he would strum his lute, but he needs to let it dry out first or he’ll risk damaging it. he settles for bouncing his leg and humming softly, but it’s still not shaking away the unnerving nature of the quiet evening. Clover ponders trying to force himself to sleep, but he expects that will result in even more frustration and no rest.

Clover glances at the templar who’s still polishing his swords as if the man hasn’t been doing anything else but making them perfect for the last hour. Clover knows it doesn’t take that long, he’s been forced to help Nor enough times to know.

However, he does wonder what’s on the knight’s mind and why he’s being so quiet. ‘Weird he asked me to stop glaring but not why I was.’ And that stray thought alone is enough to have his mouth moving before the rest of his brain, “Not going to ask what’s wrong?”

Clover stills as he hears his own words echo back in his ears. ‘If the ground could just open up and swallow me now, that would be great!’

The human pauses in his cleaning to admire the perfect shine before saying, “You will just tell me anyway won’t you?”

“Correct!” Clover laughs, though it’s a forced thing. The templar looks up, and he can feel the stare the templar sends him, annoyed and urging him to be done with his chatter. Clover can’t hold the gaze for very long, awkwardly laughing a little more as his eyes slide once more to the salt iron, he knows he can’t ask the templar to remove it, that would be far too weird of a request for a normal human, so he needs to find something else to be mad about.

Luckily Clover has the perfect plan.

“I think we got off on the wrong foot good knight,” he starts getting to his feet with a flourish, “you may address me as Clover, bard extraordinaire, at your service,” and to really sell the introduction, he gives a little bow and tips an imaginary hat.

The knight doesn’t even look up from caring for his swords.

The silence hangs for a few stretched seconds, before an awkward laugh bubbles up from Clover’s throat, “This is normally the part where in return you tell me your name, good sir.”

The human just hums, bored and not even gracing Clover with a verbal dismissal.

Clover feels his eye twitch at the silent treatment, sure he was maybe trying to pull the oldest trick in the fey book and wrangle a name out of the templar, but the human still doesn’t have to be rude about it!

‘Guess I don’t need to pretend to be mad about something else now,’ he at least reasons with himself as he makes a show of putting his hands on his hips and giving the human a glare.

“Would you like me to keep calling you knight then? Maybe good sir knight?”

The human doesn’t respond and Clover is half convinced the man can’t hear him, but he can hear the quiet strain of metal as the knight tightens his hands on his sword, so he is annoyed at the nicknames at least. ‘About time he gets to be the annoyed one for a good reason.’

“Or would you prefer something more casual? Friend works great! Or I can try darling instead if you prefer that?”

This time Clover gets a hand twitch, but the knight continues to give him the silent treatment. Most likely in some misplaced belief that ignoring Clover will get him to shut up, sadly for him, it only does the opposite.

“Clover,” he can almost hear Áine growl in his ear, “stop picking a fight!” and she does have a point, this isn’t exactly his smartest move, but Clover has never claimed to be smart, just pretty and good at carrying a tune.

But Clover is doing this for a reason. While he never had any interest or talent in holding a sword, Nor’s anti-feyer teachings were useful in some ways. She knew all the best fey tricks to help him gain the upper hand. Names were the biggest of course, not that Clover knew how to use a True Name even if he did have one. But humans tend to have a pretty hard time killing things they know the names of. If nothing else Clover can hopefully bank on this sympathetic aspect of human nature to keep his head off the chopping block and if he ever does figure out how to use a true name hopefully, he could at least use it to stop himself from being the newest contract this sellsword knight takes.

 “No?” Clover asks with a feigned disappointment, “Maybe something more formal then? I don’t mean to offend good sir knight. How about wonderful knight of my wildest dreams—”

“Landreth,” the knight snaps, helmet raising just enough to send Clover a glare he can’t see, but he knows it’s a glare by the annoyed tone, “for Tyr’s sake bard, just shut up and go to bed.”

‘You sleep in a cage asshole,’ Clover thinks to himself as he plops back down, eyeing the knight with renewed interest, he’s at least a good distraction to the still buzzing alarm coursing through his veins.

‘Landreth,’ Clover repeats in his thoughts watching the knight work as he memorizes the name. It’s strange how fey magic works sometimes, Clover is careful to never speak full names out loud (even though he can’t do anything with true names, better safe than sorry), he can’t tell lies from the truth, and he can barely feel the Fluxx on a good day. But he can tell when a name is false, this one rings with something… that is neither. It’s the first time that has happened. ‘A lie and a truth at once?’ Clover itches to ask, but there’s no way a human would know that. Sadly, this will need to remain a mystery (for now at least, Clover will try asking in a roundabout way later).

“Sleep bard,” the knight orders lifting his darkened helmet to give Clover another glare.

“I don’t…,” Clover trails off his protest dying as the knight, the human, Landreth, stares at him and it the firelight reflects in just the right way for Clover to catch the smallest fragment of the man’s bottom jaw, and the deep frown hidden by the helmet.

Clover suddenly has the thought that it would be a very bad idea to argue with the knight right now.

“Fine,” he crosses his arms to show he’s not happy with this, but he forces himself to at least try getting comfortable, pushing his mostly dry clothes around to make a ramshackle pillow to lay down on. Doing his best to not be a complete fool, he makes a point of putting his back to the wall and facing the human.

‘I’ll just pretend to fall asleep but keep an eye on him instead!’ Clover thinks to himself as he lays down, closing his eyes to really sell the part, unaware of the gentle hands of sleep starting to lull his senses. ‘I need to make sure he doesn’t stab me while I’m pretending,’ he reasons, thoughts filled with unhelpful images of all the ways the knight could kill him.

He shivers at the horrible scenes his mind creates and banishes the thoughts to think about something nicer, getting to go back home to Áine and Nor. He feels his lip curl into a smile as he pulls his mostly dry scarf over his shoulders like a blanket, the tension slowly bleeding out of him as his thoughts slow, ‘Just… pretend to… sleep.’

Exhausted from the evening’s events, Clover slips into a deep sleep, unaware of how the knight’s calculating gaze settles over his form. For the Seelie fairy is not the only one scheming to gain an upper hand, and Landreth’s plan is just beginning.