The guard was so much taller than her.

He looked down on the much smaller gnome, face unreadable to him.

"No entry unless you have an appointment," he told her.

Shrub frowned up at him. "But I'm a ruler, rulers don't need appointments!"

The guard's face twisted as he stared at her. "No entry."

He resisted the urge to flower at him. He was being so rude, but that didn't give her the right to be ruder and just bloom in his face.

With a deep sigh, Shrub asked, "Can you at least tell Lady Katherine I'm here?"

He sniffed. "Absolutely not. My post is here."

Why did he keep shifting so much? Were there ants in his pants or something?

Shrub asked as much, which earned her a vicious glare, and even more fidgeting. What was going on?

She missed his home. Everything made sense there. People would have their flowers out and Shrub could tell how everyone felt on the colors and shapes, and the other gnomes understood her by his flowers.

No one had flowers here. According to Scott, they used their faces to tell people how they felt, something Shrub would never understand. How could you show someone emotion and talk at the same time? What if you were eating? Or sleeping, how would someone know if you were having a nightmare and wake you up?

Scott had just moved his shoulders and left; Shrub assumed that he had been giving her some emotional signal then, but he couldn't remember all the little twists and twitches and movements that had meaning and the ones that were just bodies moving.

This guard was incomprehensible, and she just wanted to see his friend. Katherine had promised that Shrub could come over anytime, but apparently the message had not been passed on to her guards.

What if I read it wrong? The thought horrifyingly occurred to her. What if Katherine had been giving some sort of signal she couldn't read when she had said that? What if she had been saying she didn't actually mean anytime, or that it was a secret, or that she was just being polite??

The guard tapped her roughly on the head, startling her. He jumped back, the mushrooms on his shoulders and hair popping brighter and shifting to a scared and offended green-purple. "Excuse me?"

"Get out of the way, gnome," the guard said, and Shrub wasn't sure but it sounded like the tone (voices had emotions too, this was so confusing) had anger? What had she done to make him angry?

He had just walked up and asked to see Katherine, how had she somehow offended the guard?

And get out of whose way? There was no one here but her and the guard.

"Sir-" he began, but was interrupted by the guard attacking her? What in the Everbloom?

She dodged the blow from the spear, wishing she hadn't sent Mercury back to the Undergrove after riding here. She could use some help, since this guard was being completely unreasonable and trying to kill him!

"Hey, what-" Could he just stop attacking for a moment so she could talk? Her blooms were rippling with agitation, green fear and red adrenaline pulsing throughout the little mushrooms spotting her skin and poking through his hair.

Someone shouted distantly, and the guard suddenly stopped, rushing back with wide eyes. Shrub stood uncertainly, panting slightly from being chased around by the deranged guard.

People arrived, other guards and a noble who began to berate the guard. They all ignored her, and she just gave up and slipped into the castle. No one noticed her go, despite the noble shouting at the guard about 'diversity' and 'accepting other species'.

Why did everything have to be so different here? Shrub missed home, missed understanding people around her, missed being able to communicate and be understood.

Missed not being looked down on, both literally and figuratively.

She wandered for a bit, poking his head in this room and that, trying to find Katherine and ignoring the insistent thought that Katherine didn't want to see her.

Finally, he turned a corner into a small library, and there she was, nose buried in a book. The cover read Herbology 101, and Katherine was so engrossed she didn't notice the gnome standing in the doorway.

Shrub automatically bloomed a 'hello' mushroom, even though he knew Katherine wouldn't be able to smell the pheromone nor understand the small, brightly colored mushroom now draping from her ear.

After a few minutes, Katherine looked up absently, and nearly fell out of her chair when she noticed Shrub. "Oh my goodness, hi, I'm so sorry I didn't notice you, so sorry," she gushed, getting up and dropping to a knee in front of Shrub to be at her eye level.

"Hey, Katherine!" Shrub replied excitedly. Her mushroom frilled with pink joy, dotted with yellow excitement and a few spots of silver relief.

They talked for a bit, Katherine listening and doing the head nod thing that Shrub knew was an affirmative, the same as a blue 'yes' bloom.

Shrub had tried explaining her blooms and gnome communications to Katherine a few times, and while Katherine was always fascinated and always wanted to know more, they still hadn't figured out a way to help Shrub understand social cues from this realm.

Katherine understood her blooms, but no one else did, and Katherine only understood because she had spent hours with Shrub going through every bloom and its meaning. And even then, she was only able to understand the visual cues, not the scents or the growth movements or plant communications.

She tried, at least. And Shrub tried his best to understand the nods and head shakes and the face changes and all the hundreds of little cues.

It didn't erase the loneliness of knowing she was the last gnome, that he would never hear another frill from anyone other than herself, never see someone blooming in excitement at him, never feel a scent, never speak to another gnome again. Her home was gone, destroyed by the demon no one believed existed.

Shrub would do with what she had; a friend who tried her best to understand her, allies to help him against enemies, her wolves to keep her company.

It would never be the same as being able to be with her kind, but life moves on, and Shrub had to keep living, for everyone who couldn't.

So she squashed the grief down and showed Katherine another bloom, this one the pale blue of contentment for Katherine to write down for her study.

Time would pass. The grief would hurt less, eventually. She would learn how to understand the people of this world.

Life went on. 

A/N:  Chapter 2 of the disability fic! This one is autism folks- not saying that autism is a disability per se, don't get offended- it diverges from the neurotypical, abled view of the world and so it is included here, because autistic/ADHD/neurodivergent people and the disabled community have always been hand in hand. This world is built against all of us, and we have to work together to support each other and make this planet we all share a place where everyone can live safely and healthily in your own way

Shrub is autistic, and the fantasy explanation for this is that gnomes communicate entirely different as a plant-based species, using flowers or mushrooms that grow on their bodies and are connected to their nervous systems as social cues, such as the flowers changing color or size and moving in different ways to show different emotions, so human social cues make no sense to her

I use the canonical he/she pronouns for Shrub here as well, if you noticed the pronouns switches, they are intentional :> 

Leave a comment telling me what you liked best and who you want to see next, and if you want any specific disabilities to be covered :D

As always, if I did something wrong or you don't feel I've represented it right, please do tell me so I can make it better!