Calder had been unable to move. He had tried, but he couldn't get up. Fester had left him, leaving in frustration at how the boil had not called for help or tried to get up again. Calder was tired, but more than anything, he was heavy.

He had been cutting through the woods between classes so that he could rest. His leg was burning and more than swollen at this point. The bandages he used to hide everything only felt as if it was cutting off his circulation now, and the wafting heat from his leg was troubling. It seemed to travel and now that every time he got up too suddenly or moved too much, he felt flush and ill. But he didn't want to be a lame horse, and he felt that, with a proper disguise, it would go away on its own. Walk it off, and all would be well.

And this is how it had happened that once he took a break in the woods, he couldn't get back up. His body decided that if his mind was being difficult, it would go on strike, and he laid in a patch of moss and closer, watching students further off walk to class, and knew he was going to be late. Then later than late. Until at last he missed class entirely.

Then another class passed, and other, till he knew he wasn't able to move no matter what he did. He needed help, and tired and exhausted, he laid down on the grass and pulled out his phone.

And then his finger paused over his contacts list. He wasn't experienced with technology but he was learning. It wasn't that. He knew how to make a class, but it was the very few number of people on his phone that got to him. A few people he managed to worm a phone number from, but when he considered who would be there for him, to help him, he paused.


There…………wasn't anyone.


Naturally of course he would have thought of Christof, but he had been wary of the boil for some time ever since the dance. First off, he didn't want to explain that he hurt his leg falling on him. It would place guilt on the Igor, or so Calder thought, and that's not what he wanted. Not when he had been the one to hurt the Igor. He hurt the boil enough as it was. It was just that he didn't know that, if he called Christof, if he would be coming in response to an automatic command or if he would actually care. In the end, Calder had been wondering for some time if the Igor was a friend or just tolerating him. It wasn't like Christof to yell or be used to yelling, and he had once called him Master in his weird language. In the end, he wondered if the boil was just letting him be around and being dragged to places because he wanted, but because Calder was seen as just another master to him. Then there was the idea going to this was that the Igor didn't even NEED him as much as Calder needed Calder. The Igor probably would have been happy with no friends, digging holes and doing backbreaking labor with a great, big smile on his face. As much as Calder tried to justify that he was helping, he always seemed to be doing more damage. In the end, he seemed to be a nuisance to him, and he wondered how long it would be before that hate that Christof displayed to him wasn't just off and on, but constant.

He scrolled down his list, and looked at Yaya. The girl had been his friend of sorts, but they rarely talked. They went to swim squad together, but they didn't talk much. She had a boyfriend to share her time and well, they never really were close. At least not yet. She seemed to yell at him and want to put him in his place, and while mindful of him, he wondered if she was just trying to keep him from getting expelled. She probably thought he was an idiot. She'd think that now if she came.

He went down his list, but the few names he had were all just passing meetings. A demon here. A monster there. Names he had but never to the level that he could call them up for help. To lean on them. To appear vulnerable.

There was a sweeping feeling of crippling loneliness that he hadn't expected to feel again since going to school.

Turning, he looked up, thinking about the hopes his parents had for him. He would go to school and make friends, and learn to be a better kelpie. To control himself and to grow.

What had he accomplished in his short time here?

He had gotten into fights, nearly drowned a student, made everyone hate him, got on probation that kept him on campus and away from water. He managed to get two marks, one for a friend he wasn't sure was a friend, and another to learn how to control himself because he had no friends that cared. He went against the primary principles of his kind about independence, free spirit, and will, and now held two demon marks and a sad contacts list. He had done nothing in his short time, and he didn't have anyone to blame but himself. It had to be him, and he wondered why that was.

Was it because he hadn't gone to school with other boils and ghouls? Could they tell he was some low-class monster from the woods that still was amazed by the water fountain at school? Or was it like those fauns had told him long ago when growing up? That he looked disgusting and no one would ever want to play with him.

He turned on his side, curling his arms and the phone to his chest. Fester crawled atop his brow, looking down, and he gave a weak smile. "Guess it's just you and me again, hey Fester?" His voice broke, and he looked back down. The leech crawled off, looking at the kelpie and his lack of movement. Giving the leech equivalent of a sigh, which was more of a quick chomp of its teeth; it turned and started the slow, long journey to find help. Calder didn't mind. He guessed that that after a while, even the leech would get fed up with him.