“Then why is she living with you?”
“Because we have a deal.” Then, realizing they’d neglected to add a necessary bit of context, added, “The cottage used to be her grandmother’s, apparently.”
“Ah.”
“Anyway,” Ren continued with a wave of their hand, “the only thing about Pansy that I care about is how to get her to leave.”
“Well, you already know how to do that, don’t you?” Thorn said, his lips parting around a downright devilish grin. “Halflings hate goblins. So make it as unrepentantly goblin as possible.”
Ren scoffed. “I knowthat.” The real question here was: how? So far, the dirt hadn’t worked; though perhaps they just hadn’t brought in enough of it. But even so, they could hardly keep banging away at the problem with a single hammer. Not if they expected results, at least.
As they dropped the bottle of toad secretions –no, theyweren’t going to call it “Juice” like it was proper food – into their pocket, their fingers brushed against the pouch of seeds they’d stored there earlier, and the bud of an idea began to bloom at the forefront of their mind. Running Beans had gotten their name for a reason. Perhaps there was a way to “kill two birds with one stone”, as the halflings liked to put it.
7
Pansy
Received a request from a halfling today. First one ever to set foot in my shop, I think. Wanted me to make a diffuser that’ll fill their home with the scent of freshly baked cookies. They were not pleased when I informed them that they did not, in fact, need the aid of a gnomish artificer (nor even magic at all!), as they could simply bake the cookies instead.
PERSONAL JOURNAL OF NELLI LAVALLE
In retrospect, Pansy should’ve left Haverow earlier in the day. Although the cottage wasn’t exactlyfar, per se, it wasn’t close either. By the time she rounded the last bend through the forest, dense foliage parting to reveal the cottage’s thatched roof, gently sloping down to the mossy brick of its foundations,the sun had thinned to an impossible sliver. Once-golden light had turned hazy, purpling like a new bruise. Any longer and Pansy would have been forced to traverse this maze of trees in the dark, her precious kitten-shaped cargo in tow.
The thought registered with a barely repressed shudder. Already the details of her surroundings were fading, drowned in ever-lengthening shadow. Like a charcoal sketch beset by an errant palm, everything smudged together until only the murkiest of impressions remained. The path, at this point, was barely deserving of the name: a tract of dirt through the woods, studded with grass and the usual assortment of weeds. In the dark, she could veer from it and never know, wondering, all the while, as her surroundings got colder and darker and the howls of vicious, hungry beasts drew closer, why it was taking so long to get home.
That would certainly make things easy for Ren, wouldn’t it?Pansy thought with a frown. If she got lost for ever in the woods, the cottage would go to them by default. How else were they supposed to interpret her leaving for Haverow one morning and then never coming back? Any reasonable person would assume she had simply given up. And even if Renhadmanaged to work out the truth, would that really change anything? It wasn’t like they’d come looking for her…
Except… maybe they would? The memory of their first meeting surged to the forefront of her mind, frothing and foaming until she was completely awash with it.You should go home before it gets dark, they’d said; words that now echoed anew. Ren’s concern, though certainly not born of any real affection, had nonetheless been entirely sincere. And it was only at this moment that Pansy understood: the inherent value they saw in all life –all life, including hers – could never be undone by something as petty as mere dislike.
The knowledge dragged over her like a warm tide, filling her chest with a strange, uncomfortable sort of certainty. Too light to be dread, but also too heavy for joy. A realization, half-formed, fluttered behind her eyelids, so close to revealing its truth. But what that truth was precisely, Pansy couldn’t say. And perhaps that was for the best. A bell once struck couldn’t be unrung, and Pansy’s stomach told her, with a pointed, near-vicious twist, that this was one she ought to leave well enough alone.
“I’m going to need you to do your job, okay?” Pansy told the kitten, cleaving once again to her well-established plan and, more importantly, the semblance of security it offered.
The kitten, having napped most (read: all) of the way, roused with a comically large yawn. He blinked at her, each eye opening and closing independently of the other, and cocked his head to one side. His fur, still firmly in that too-fuzzy cotton-ball stage, stuck up in a way that only added to his confusion.
Pansy sighed. “You’re really not inspiring much confidence, you know…”
“Confidence in what?” Ren’s voice, sounding from somewhere to Pansy’s left, arced through her like a lightning bolt.
She jumped, which, while not a problem in of itself, ultimately made for a rather difficult landing. Because landing, it turned out, was not so easily accomplished when one’s legs could out-wobble gelatin. A mercy, then, that the cottage’s old mailbox, a badly weathered thing that had probably seen more animal nests than letters over the years, sat within arm’s reach.
Pansy caught it like her life depended on it. “Don’t sneak up on me like that!” she snapped, her face flushing red with humiliation.
Still crouched amid several rows of freshly turned earth, Ren gave her a flat look, their eyes eerily luminescent in the waning half-light. “I’m literally working in the middle of the garden,” they said, casting an arm out for emphasis. “How could I possibly sneak up on you like this?”
“It’s dark.” Pansy sniffed, scrabbling for some semblance of dignity – no matter how scant – as she hauled herself upright. Best not test the mailbox’s structural integrity any more than she already had. “How can you expect me to see you when you didn’t even turn the porch light on?”
Ren scoffed. “It’s notthatdark. Don’t blame me because you’re more easily startled than a newborn foal.”
“I’m not—” The protest died in Pansy’s throat, half-formed, culled by the scythe of Ren’s arching brows.
“That’s what I thought,” Ren said after a beat, far more smug than they ought to have been – at least, according to Pansy’s own bruised ego. Worse, their accompanying grin proved no less charming for it, and Pansy’s heart, barely settled from its latest shock, threw itself into a new, even wilder set of acrobatics.
“What are you doing out here so late anyway?” she asked, if only to distract herself from the somersaults spinning inside her chest. It didn’t work, but hey, at least she’d tried!
“Gardening.Obviously.”
“Yeah, I can see that, thanks,” Pansy said, her tone bland. “What I meant is: isn’t that something you’re supposed to do during the day?”
