Ren swallowed, the words they’d wanted to say piling up in the back of their throat. “I-I suppose one sweater is fine,” they murmured, ducking their head in shame at their own uselessness.
“Oh, I think it’ll be a lot more than just one,” Pansy said with a grin, already twining a bit of yellow thread around one needle.
And Ren, unfortunately, couldn’t bring themself to say no.
9
Pansy
Roll Call
Halvenshire Harvest Festival Planning Session
10:00 a.m. Emergency session to discuss potential challenges to Haverow’s successful nomination (“the Pansy Underburrow situation”)
Adjournment
11:00 a.m. Tea and biscuits to be served
HAVEROW COUNCIL AGENDA, 14 HEARTHFIRE 768
It was amazing what a bit of decoration (along with the appropriate amount of furniture) could do to a living space. By the end of that ten-day, the cottage had finally started to take shape into a proper home, even with Ren’s unique goblin flair. Though, if Pansy was being perfectly honest, she didn’tmind the mushrooms or the moss or even the strange mobiles Ren had cobbled together from discarded feathers, pebbles and sticks, all arranged at precisely measured angles. It suited the cottage, with its strange mishmash of halfling and goblin sensibilities, which, at this point, seemed nigh on impossible to disentangle.
That being said, as much as she was learning to tolerate the more singular aspects of the cottage, Pansy couldn’t say she’d come to accept it in its entirety. Not yet. Not when there were animals living in every nook and cranny, including a family of squirrels who had somehow collectively decided that herhairwas the ideal place to store their bounty of nuts for the coming winter. While Ren had immediately burst out laughing at the sight of a handful of acorns dropping from an especially tangled nest of her curls, Pansy had been far less amused about the whole thing.
Granted, as her mind turned yet again to the sound of Ren’s laughter – replaying the memory for the who-knows-how-many-th time, as she refused to keep count – Pansy couldn’t help but smile. Her chest filled with what had quickly become an all-too-familiar warmth, and though she rushed to dismiss it, the sensation lingered nonetheless. Out of spite, she presumed. Because there was a part of her – a small but infuriatingly persistent part – that had become… notenamored(she refused to stoop that low), but, perhaps,fondof Ren. In an entirely friendly sort of way, of course. Nothing more.
She liked that she could learn from them. When it came to developing her skills as a chef, the last ten-day had been more instructive than the past several years combined! Whatever rut she feared she’d fallen into was no more. Every recipe was fresh! Exciting! Never before had she felt so inspired.
And to think she owed it all to a goblin.
It felt weird to put it like that. Only a few short days ago she’d been furiously plotting how to get Ren to leave as soon as possible. But now – now, Pansy wasn’t even sure shewantedRen to leave. Which, ultimately, put her in a tricky position when it came to her parents.
She grimaced, remembering what she’d told her mother prior to moving out. That joke about getting a new goblin housemate hadnotaged well, to the point where it probably had about the same consistency as soured milk.Ugh. But that wasn’t even the worst thing she’d said. No, that honor went entirely to that silly, thoughtless little promise she’d made about moving back at the first sign of any goblin.
Needless to say, she had not done that, even though finding a goblin already living in your new home was more than just a “sign”.A giant, flaming fireball of danger is what it is, her mother would probably say. Right before she fainted from shock.
Best not to tell her about Ren, then, Pansy thought as she climbed the last few steps to her parents’ front door.No point turning an otherwise pleasant family dinner into absolute chaos.
Unfortunately for her, chaos seemed to have made a point of finding her anyway.
Pansy should’ve known something was off the moment her mother didn’t immediately sweep her into a bone-crushing hug after opening the door. She should’ve seen it in the tightness around her mouth, the way her smile thinned, never quite reaching her eyes.
“Hi, Mum,” Pansy said with as much warmth as she could manage – anything to undo whatever strange snarl had come between them. “I missed you. Where’s Dad?”
Her mother’s smile tightened further. “Let’s go sit in the front room.”
Pansy frowned, confusion twisting across her brow. Never before had her mother made such a suggestion, not when it was just them. That sitting room was reserved exclusively for guests, a practice Pansy’s grandmother had often derided as “unfathomably useless”, much to her own daughter’s (equally unfathomable) frustration.
It was a major point of contention between them. One of many, to put it frankly. Every time the subject came up, Pansy’s grandmother would scoff and say, “What’s the point of a sitting room where no one’s allowed to sit? Waste of a perfectly good space, if you ask me.” And like clockwork, Pansy’s mother would snipe back, “Well, no one did!” and they’d be off to the races yet again, the same tired argument, regarding the merits of practicality versus propriety, unfurling between them with no end in sight.
All this to say, the chances of her mother changing her mind on the proper use of the front room were so small they might as well have been zero.
So, my parents invited someone else. Not a big deal, Pansy thought, with a nonchalance that didn’t quite land, her stomach curdling around a solid chunk of ice. This wouldn’t have been the first time her parents had invited someone without telling her. The neighbors, Mr. Sweetbriar and Mr. Sourbloom, had shown up at the dinner table more times than she could count, and that was fine! ShelikedMr. Sweetbriar and Mr. Sourbloom – and not just because they always made sure to sneak her a piece of homemade taffy. So, why was she so damnanxious?
