#i’m actually terrified i haven’t studied the vocabulary half as much as i should have

[awfully-sadistic]

Blackwater

It wasn’t a sudden realization. She had been looking things up in the dictionary because she could use to expand her vocabulary …or at least that was what she had been told. It was an insult thrown at her by one of her brothers but it wasn’t like they had extensive vocabulary themselves when their go-to was any curse word plucked from the forefront of their minds and hurled at the object in front of them, only becoming frustrated when it failed to do as much damage as their fists could do. But it did make sense the insult came from Luvon who had told her to go study a dictionary instead of standing in his way.

               What was he doing? She didn’t know but it wasn’t like Dot cared to find out. They had bumped into each other in the hall—bump being a relative term when she more or less collided into this stone wall that belonged to someone she called a brother. She retorted that his fat-head sent her off course and unamused by her go-to insult retaliated with her to extend her range of insults and maybe she’d get a better reaction out of any of them. Dot thought she was triumphant because she managed to get a response from Luvon anyway, celebrating inwardly even as he promptly picked her up and moved her out of the way like she weighed absolutely nothing at all.

               It sounded like a good idea at the time; she’d show him with a new word to hurl at him that it’d probably make him unintentionally speechless (rather than making the decision on his own to ignore her) when she commented on the size of that gargantuan melon supported by his neck and shoulders. So, she was flipping pages in one of rooms in the Haus that held its own library.

               “Blackwater means what?” Dot asked out loud, eyes narrowing at the word her finger had been pointing to. With such small print, she had to nearly press her face upon the surface to keep track of her place.

               “Why on earth are you researching Blackwater?”

               Dot turned half-way, a look thrown over her shoulder to see who interrupted her pointless revenge plot. Well, it wasn’t pointless to her. She’ll definitely get the upper-hand on an insult to give to her brother and to use from here on out. It was just a sibling thing!

               Keil stood at the doorway, having passed then back tracked when he realized who had been in the room. He was about to greet her when she voiced her question out loud. It made him stop in his tracks and take on a puzzled expression about why she would be interested in Blackwater.

               “I’m not researching it!” Dot protested, greeting the consigliere nervously. A dry swallow caused his gaze to catch on her throat before lifting back to her face to study the rest of her expression. She continued, regaining her composure as she had always wanted to give the Frenzy’s the best impression of her. “I just ran into the word, a word I thought I knew the meaning of but evidently I didn’t.”

               “Ah, I see. That makes sense.” Keil nodded his platinum colored head as a pale hand came up to push loose strands over his shoulder as he walked forward. Dot pretended not to notice… or seem like it didn’t affect her as he came to stand behind her with a hand on the back of her seat. She especially tried not to seem like she cared when he leaned so far forward, his hair spilled back over his shoulder and tickled the top of her hand, resting at the book’s ends.

               “Why are you studying the dictionary then?” he asked.

               “I’m…” she paused. She suddenly realized she did not want to indulge the reason. At least, not to someone like Keil. She cleared her throat and started again. “Just… trying to extend my vocabulary.”

               “That’s very impressive!” he praised her and Dot felt a warm feeling stir in her belly and flush right up to her cheeks, warming them until she realized she was blushing. She ducked her head in an attempt to not let him see.

               “N-Not really,” she laughed nervously.

               Keil being the good man that he was—or rather that he didn’t want to scare her off—gave her a break and brought the conversation back to the term she had been stumped on. “Blackwater was not what you expected?”

               “For some reason, I thought it was the same as dark water but… that’s not it.”

               “I can see why you would make that assumption though.” He chuckled, “Most wouldn’t make the connection that Blackwater refers to waste water.”

               Dot made a face and Keil chuckled heavily upon seeing it.

               “I take it you would have preferred dark water over Blackwater.” He stated.

               “Oh definitely! Despite dark water being… a big fear of mine. But I can’t think of anything worse between the two, though! You’re either in shit water or you’re in water you can’t see through. That’s… they’re both terrifying.”

               “That’s interesting,” Keil mentioned as he finally pulled the seat out from besides Dot to sit down. She glanced over to question what he meant to find him staring at her with a hand posed on his cheek, elbow supported on the table. “I had no idea you were afraid of dark waters.”

               “W-Well, we haven’t known each other for very long,” Dot chuckled nervously and withdrew her hands from the pages of the dictionary to settle on her lap. She laced her fingers together, sitting a bit nervously besides this man. She knew a bit about who he was because Felina had given her some details about the different members of her family but meeting them were always different stories.

               “I suppose that’s true,” Keil murmured in an almost absent tone despite having directed it towards Dot. It might not have been clear to Dot why he sounded like that but he was thinking about how he had also obtained his own information about Dot from the files that were being made for the Dreadful’s. It was assumed that the Dreadful’s were also compiling their own files on the Frenzy’s because Keil knew Helen and that seemed like something she would do—if only because he was doing it himself. The thought was humorous to him because it wasn’t a matter of trust but because both families were curious about each other. It was why he was finally able to get his hands on Dot’s file after having to wait for a very long time for it to miraculously find its way back into the filing cabinet.

               But it was nothing compared to actually talking to her because he was finding out information that a file wouldn’t contain besides basic information. Sure, fears would be on there in due time but Keil would have the added enjoyment to see how long he would have privileged information to himself by the time it would finally make its way onto a file.

               “Tell me more about yourself,” he stated suddenly that it took Dot off-guard. She sat there blinking at him for a good moment before asking again to ensure she heard him correctly.

               “W-What? About myself?”

               When Keil nodded, she got her answer which only seemed to make her even more nervous. What the heck could she say about herself? Where the hell should she even start? Keil’s gaze dropped down to her hands which were wringing nervously on her lap and he realized he put her on the spot.

               “What about dark water is terrifying for you?” he asked to help her. “Don’t you like the ocean?” he asked. It was a well-known fact he had read on the file that Dot had an affinity with the water. So, a dark water fear was interesting.

               Dot relaxed as she realized what he might have been thinking. She laughed, waving a hand in a gesture to distract herself from how she was feeling. It was always intimidating to talk about oneself and doing it in front of someone like Keil was very nerve-wracking.

“S-So you know about that, huh?” she asked in regards to her love of the ocean. “It doesn’t make sense, I know, and I love splashing around in the ocean but you don’t know what’s in dark water because you can’t see and things can be so… big. S-So… it’s scary.”

               “Despite in Blackwater, you know exactly what’s in there.” He grinned.

               Dot surprised herself by laughing at Keil’s joke. “Exactly!”

               “Would it make you feel better to go in dark water if someone was with you?” he asked then. Dot seemed to take a moment to really think his question over because she honestly didn’t know how to answer it either.

               “It… would depend on who I was with… and how scary this dark water was.”

               “How about with me?”

               “O-Oh.” Dot fidgeted, aware of Keil’s presence all over again. “I…I think I would be alright.”

               Keil’s face relaxed into a smile; it seemed all of him was able to relax just talking to Dot. When he smiled, it prompted her to return it, genuinely. It was exactly what he wanted to hear. He reached over and patted her hand, still placed in her lap.      

               “Don’t worry, it would be absolutely horrible if I made you go out into dark water knowing this was a fear of yours. But you know, we’ll get you to conquer that fear sometime too. So you can enjoy water all you can, in any aspect.”

               Dot found herself nodding despite the thought putting knots in her tummy. She wasn’t sure if it was the nice and believable words Keil was giving her, where she believed she would eventually get over this fear or the thought of going into dark water was terrifying to her. But he seemed so sure of it, that one day, she would be able to wade around in dark water or other bodies of water that she would have avoided before. It was something she wanted to put stock in as well, to trust this man who was virtually a stranger to her. Would she gamble to put her trust in someone she’s just met? If it were anybody else, and not a Frenzy, she would have told them to fuck off. But something was telling her that Keil was trustworthy and it wasn’t the way he made her feel at ease or the gentle smile he was showing her in encouragement. She did truly believe him.

               “That’d be very nice,” she said and she meant it.