Garden Of Hearts

Song of a Broken Soul

Eddy nodded with a grin, "They live in a pasture, not too far from here actually so we will be able to make quick travel tomorrow."

At that, Brett flinched, his eyes went wide and fear entered his eyes, "Pasture?", he whispered.

He had no soft spots for that anymore, "It's a good, loving one, right? Not like mine?"

Hopefully it was. It had to be! No one should ever... Brett stopped himself and shook his head, "Forget what I said. You ... you don't have humans here. Sorry. I forgot. The pastures here would obviously not be like the ones I grew up in. I momentarily forgot that fact. I'm so sorry. I ... my mind went blank for a second. I have no excuses. I'm deeply sorry."

"It's okay Brett, you don't need to apologize about it. Also by that word I just meant it's a clear grassy area where they graze." Eddy softly explained to Brett.

"Yes, yes of course. I knew that but... Like... I'm sorry, I think, no I know my mind has gone blank and ... It was like... Everything was erased for some reason," Brett smiled but his shoulders dropped and the excitement from just now was barely there anymore. It was like a pufferfish who lost all its breath. He rubbed over his eyes and stirred the soup again to have something to do since he couldn't fiddle with the ends of his scarf anymore.

"I will do better," he barely whispered. It was more of a thought to himself than to Eddy or even to be heard in the first place.

"You don't need to apologize, it's okay," Eddy watched Brett, deciding he would use different wording next time. Such as grassland. He knew Brett was a traumatized individual and some things still haunted him. Eddy couldn't fix that but he could be understanding.

But Brett didn't understand why he himself could say 'pasture' in the past and not now, today of all days, it was painful to him? He had no idea, so he looked up at Eddy's gentle face and took his hand with his free one.

"Say it again please. Pasture. I want to get used to hearing that." Maybe that would help him.

"Are you sure? Because we don't have to do that, or push you," Eddy said wearily. There seemed to be no use to it really.

The faun shook his head, he didn't know why it was today of all days, but he would bear it, "Just.. just maybe today is a bad day. I want to know if it was a one-time occurrence or not. Maybe it hit me unexpected and that was the problem, but I definitely shouldn't grow it into a future one by hiding from a word. A word can't hurt me. Not this one at least." There were a few that would rip him apart, like 'I don't love you' from Eddy or 'I don't need you. Go away' from Belle or Ray or Eddy. Those would rip his soul and will to life to shreds. But 'pasture' shouldn't be one of those. It was too normal, other people said that as well. He needed to be stronger!

So he lifted his eyes and looked Eddy square in the face. He would do it. And he would do it now! If Eddy compiled of course. Without him, it wouldn't be much of an exercise.

"Please, Eddy. I want to grow stronger."

"Okay, Bretty. Should I use it in a regular sentence or randomly?" Eddy asked, wanting to make sure. But the problem was, the faun had no clue either, so he shrugged.

"Maybe try both? Let's see what I react stronger to."

"Pasture," Eddy decided to say it randomly first, wanting to get one option out of the way.

And this time, Brett had absolutely no reaction whatsoever. Not a flinch, not a black out, nothing. The faun blinked confused and tilted his head to the side, "Nothing. Maybe in a sentence or something?"