15
Jase
As I passed through the main living area, my eyes raked the room. Sir Obey My Will was nowhere to be seen. That pissed me off no end. What was with this guy locking people up and leaving them to be babysat by strangers? A length of red silk rope by the door hanging from a hook caught my eye. It looked like a leash. My eyes dropped to the console table next to it, where a nest of matching silk lay jumbled in a glass bowl. I had a bad feeling about those, a very bad feeling. I was nobody’s Fido.
“The kitchen’s this way,” the tiny woman said, tugging on my elbow. I followed her, not wanting to get her into any kind of trouble. She seemed a nice lady. It was just a shame about our mutual employer.
The kitchen was more of that strange juxtaposition of old-time fantasy kitsch and ultra-modern chic. A state of the art double door smart fridge freezer with an ice and water dispenser kept company with a pioneer days looking stove that Ma Ingalls would have been proud of, albeit the metal it was made of was brushed steel to match the fridge and not cast iron. The triple sink with the chopping board over the small middle section for washing fruits and vegetables was also brushed steel. The lack of a faucet made me stare. How did they get water to wash? I shook myself mentally. They must clean everything with magic, and the sink was for show, I decided.
The cabinets were nice, too, a sort of light sage green high gloss. I wasn’t up on kitchens and bathrooms, but I watched enough TV to know the kitchen was reasonably new.
“Lord Willow certainly gave me a lovely space to work in,” the woman said, noticing me taking in the room.
“Um, yeah. This style is popular at the moment back on Earth,” I replied, not knowing what else to say to her.
It must have been the right thing as she beamed. “Oh, my, yes! He ordered it all from Faekea as soon as it came out.”
“Faekea?”
“Yes, Odin and Fenrir do imports. They alter the appliances to work within the other realms and offer a few appliances the human store doesn’t so it’s more to our tastes.”
I didn’t know what to think about that, never mind say. Norse gods importing shit from Ikea? It was beyond bizarre, but then, that seems to now be the story of my life.
“Just you sit down at the island, and I’ll cook you some eggs and make you some toast.”
That sounded good but as little as I’d eaten recently, I needed to eat lightly or risk vomiting it all back up.
“Umm, not fried and only one egg, please,” I said, hoping not to offend her.
“Oh, my,” she laughed. “I was only going to poach you one anyways. Dodo eggs are quite large.”
Dodo eggs?
“Aren’t dodos extinct?”
“Not here they aren’t. They’re a very common farmyard fowl. Why, did your kind kill them all off in your realm?” She looked aghast at the notion.
“They only lived on this one island, and yeah, they were hunted to extinction, sadly.”
“Just the one island, huh?” she said, opening the fridge and taking out a basket of rather large eggs. She took one out and set aside. “They must have wandered through a portal or rift of some kind, then.”
“Maybe,” I agreed. “I have to ask, though, is the fridge actually connected to wi-fi?”
“Wi-fi?”
“The internet. That screen, there. It should connect to the internet, and you can order food from the grocery store.”
“Oh! It’s connected to the ethernet. We run low on something, it sends a message to a store sprite, and the needed items materialize inside. And if I need supplies that we don’t usually get, I just tell it.”
Their ethernet and our ethernet were so much not the same thing.
“And the power to run it?” I didn’t see any sockets anywhere to plug anything into.
“The appliances run on powered dragon stones, of course. Ice dragon for the fridge, fire for the stove and oven, and water for the sink, though we’ve recently opted for water economy, so for most things now, we just summon Wash, who’s a water sprite.” She giggled over the pan holding the egg she was poaching. I hadn’t even seen her light the stove or anything. And how was she suddenly the right height for the counter? “You really don’t know anything about our realm, do you?”
“I’m starting to learn the rules.”
“Yes, the rules,” she whispered, the air now suddenly heavy. “Pay close attention and be sure to not break any.”
