Chapter Text
"Kio, can you pass me the manual?"
Noki, not taking his eyes off his work, held his hand out towards his brother.
“Pino is using it, he’s in his room.” the younger brother responded. Kio was at the corner of their workshop, fumbling with his hand held gun.
Noki frowned and continued working. He took the pliers and cut one of the wires. “58th trial…” he mumbled, grabbing the remote. He pushed the button and the small machine began working, traveling across the floor on its own. Kio noticed this and looked up from his work,
“Hey, good job. It finally worked,” he said. Kio knew that Noki had been working on the same contraption nearly a week now, that’s way longer than the average time.
Noki frowned and shook his head. “No, it’s not supposed to be going that fast.”
He stood up and walked over to pick it up, turning it over to adjust it. “I really do need the manual,” he muttered. He placed the contraption on his table before walking over to the small door and opening it.
Now in the quiet palace halls, he took a sharp left and quickly made his way up the staircase, skipping a step or two to make things faster. After climbing one floor, he took another turn and stopped at the first of seven doors. He knocked a couple of times,
“Pino? I need the manual for the-”
The door opened to Gretel poking her head out, “Oh hey, sorry he’s not here now. Do you need to get something?” she opened the door wider as an invitation to enter. Noki shook his head,
“No, it’s alright. Thank you.”
Before he was about to leave Gretel stopped him, “Wait,” Noki turned around, “You seem a little pale, is everything alright?” she asked him. He paused for a bit then nodded,
“I’m fine.”
“Are you sure?” she asked once more.
Now a bit annoyed, he creased his eyebrows and sighed, “Yes, Gretel. I’m fine.” he told her, “Can you tell me where Pino is?”
“I’m not sure,” she looked back in their room, “he left just recently though so he shouldn’t have gone too fa-” when Gretel looked back Noki was already down the staircase, determined to just get this over with so he could return back to his work.
After minutes of wandering the palace, he gave up and decided to just get back to work. His irritation only grew once he saw Pino there the whole time with the manual. “Seriously…” he mumbled. As his annoyance started rising he started taking note of other things. He took a look at the workshop and saw it was a mess. Kio.
“Hey, I was looking for you.” Gretel came in, “Pino’s right there; woah are you sure you’re alright?” she asked.
“Yeah, you don’t look too well.” Pino stood up, noticing his younger brothers frown.
“Would you guys stop being on me all the time?!” he yelled.
Yelled for the first time. The other three, especially his brothers, were visibly shocked. In all of their twenty years together they had never had a full-blown argument. All of them were always on the same page whenever an issue was brought up, and if ever they disagreed it was always a minor problem and it could be fixed easily. This had never happened before.
“I mean honestly, I had to walk around this entire palace just to look for a book, only to find out it was here the whole time. And my god, Kio, would it kill you to not leave your stuff all over the workshop? And you!” Noki whipped his head to Gretel, who looked visibly concerned.
“Stop asking if I’m alright every time I express a damn emotion. I’m not your brother so just go bother him instead.” he spat out.
Pino frowned at this and stepped forward, “Noki, that’s enou-”
“Oh don’t even get me started on you!" he rolled his eyes and stared at Pino, "You’re always with her now and you never have time for us anymore!”
“Noki, you know that’s not true.” Pino firmly told him.
“Right. Because you’re always correct cause you’re the eldest.” Things that weren’t even related to the problem just started spilling out of his lips, as if twenty years of pent up and hidden insecurities was finally being released, “Papa always gave the responsibility of the workshop to you, and he gave the most attention to Kio because he was the youngest; meanwhile, I’m here trying my best and nothing seems to be working no matter what I do!” he slammed his fist on his table.
No one spoke and Noki stopped, slightly panting from exhaustion. He took one look at their faces and that’s when it hit him. All of their faces shocked, concerned, and confused. The guilt and embarrassment slowly started to creep up on him as he suddenly became scared. Unable to look at them anymore, he ran past them and went out the back entrance of the workshop. Not looking back, not looking forward, he just ran.
He could faintly hear voices calling out his name from behind, but they soon became deaf to his ears as he fled farther and farther from the palace. He was embarrassed nonetheless; tears started forming at the edge of his eyes as he replayed the words he said to his brothers. He was angry at himself, his work, but he didn’t want to be angry with them.
‘Why was I so stupid. Why am I like this? Why do I always feel like this when I-’
“Hey! Woah!”
He first fell down on the grass as he bumped into something. Rubbing his head he opened his eyes to see chopped wood everywhere on the ground, little farther ahead was a person, flat on the ground with their arms spread out. Noki got up and immediately made his way to them.
“I’m so sorry. Are you okay?” he asked, worried for their wellbeing. He hadn’t noticed where he was going.
The person scrunched their face as their eyes opened, slowly adjusting to the dim light. Noki looked at their features and saw that she was a woman. “Mmrgm...who..” she looked to her right and saw a little green dwarf looking down at her.
“Who?!” she immediately sat up in shock and Noki moved back in surprise...which was a bad idea given that it only hurt her head even more. “Oww…” she groaned, her hand rubbing the back of her short, messy, yellow hair.
“Are...you okay?” Noki asked once more. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t looking where I was going. Is your head alright?”
“No..no, yeah I’m fine. This happens a lot,” she said. Her face winced a bit as she touched her forehead, a small bruise forming there. “How about you?” she turned to him.
“I’m fine,” he told her, “Please, let me get your stuff up for you.” Noki got up and started picking up the individual logs of wood. The girl looked at him for a bit then started picking up logs as well. “Are you headed anywhere? Let me help you carry this there. It’s the least I can do.” he offered. Dwarf or Human, the qualities that made him a member of F7 still remained.
“That’d be really nice. Thanks!” she beamed and stood up, “I’m headed to a cabin nearby. It’s a bit of a walk but we should be there in a bit.” Noki couldn’t help but question her sudden change in attitude as he looked at her, eagerly picking up the logs as she hummed.
‘Strange..’ he mumbled in his head.
As the two of them walked the woman began making conversation, “So what are you doing out here?” she asked. As much as he wanted to be polite to this woman, he really felt like it was none of her business.
“That’s not important,” he told her.
“Sure it is,” she said, “oh c’mon you can tell me. I promise I won’t tell anyone!” she grinned.
Noki only frowned at her, ‘That’s not really the issue…’ he thought. “What about you? What’s a girl like you doing out in the woods? It’s getting late.” he asked, changing the subject.
“I was chopping wood here for tonight. It gets pretty cold and I kind of forgot to do it this morning,” she said. The woman began talking about something else, but Noki unconsciously began tuning her out as he thought about what happened almost an hour ago. The depression was starting to take over his mind as he looked at the grass. He wondered if he could just invent a time machine so that he could go back and this wouldn’t have happened.
If only…
“Hey!”
Noki looked up from the ground and saw a ray of sunshine. Or...at least that’s what it looked like for a split second as his chest felt warm. The woman's face was only a good few inches away from him as she crouched down to his level, he couldn’t help but stare at her bright blonde hair and sapphire eyes before he realized he was indeed staring.
“Oh, sorry!” he said immediately, “Did you say something?”
The woman shrugged, “You were so quiet when I told my joke, I thought something was wrong with your head. Turns out you were just spaced out.” she giggled as she poked the side of his head.
Noki grew pink as he stepped back in embarrassment and shook his head, “Sorry. Are we close?” he asked her.
She stood back up and gestured ahead. A cute little cabin just a few meters ahead. Small enough for just one person but big enough just to have guests over. It almost reminded him of his old workshop with his family.
“Over here,” she called him as she walked ahead. Noki followed her to a smaller storage as she opened the door, throwing the logs inside and keeping just a few with her. She closed the door with her foot as she walked back to the entrance.
“Well, thanks for your help. I really appreciate it!” she grabbed the rest of the logs from him, “I’m Goldie by the way.” she managed to reach her hand out to him. Noki looked at her smile, having a quick internal debate on which fake name to tell her, as he didn’t want word out that he was here. Instead, for some strange reason, he told her the truth.
“Noki.” he reached out his hand and shook hers.
“If you want,” she told him, “You can stay here for the night. It’s getting pretty late and I doubt you’d wanna be out there alone.” she offered. Noki only shook his head,
“That’s alright. I wouldn’t want to intrude. Have a goodnight, milady.” he bowed.
Goldie stayed there and raised an eyebrow as he walked away. As Noki reached the entrance to the woods again, he then realized: Where on earth was he going? He had nowhere to go. He couldn’t take back what he said to them. He couldn’t possibly return now. Even if he did decide to go back, where was he? He didn’t look where he was going when he ran off, who knows how far away from home he is. He didn’t have resources to camp out as well.
His only option was…
Noki turned his head back slightly, “Goldie..?” he called out in a weak voice.
“Still here.” she smiled knowingly.
“I changed my mind suddenly...I think I’ll take up your offer,” he said, averting his gaze.
Goldie kicked the door open by lifting her leg up, “Why don’t you start the fire and I’ll get the food ready.” she beamed at him.