Page 7 of Ryld's Shadows
This got him a slow blink. “I’ve offended you? The words ‘I’m sorry’ don’t mean anything, I’ve been told, but other sources say it is customary to say the words to make amends. Is it okay for me to tell you I’m sorry, or would you like to hit me?”
There were other people in the room paying attention now. They were kind of hard to miss, standing in the middle of the reception area, and Hank heard a few titters.
He sent a quick glare toward those snickers and lowered his voice so only Ryld would hear. Something was up. Something that he’d seen in some humans, but he didn’t know enough about. Just because the little guy was different was no reason to be rude, though. “It’s good to hearI’m sorrywhen someone means it. And, no, I don’t want to hit you. I just wanted you to know that other goblins and half-goblins might not be, um, understanding about it.Orcis a, well, it’s a racist slur. It’s not meant kindly.”
“Oh…thank you. That’s very helpful. I would like to be helpful in return. It’s very unwise to walk where motor vehicles are supposed to be driven…if you didn’t know that.”
Hank gaped at him a moment before the memory came back of bright blue eyes in the passenger seat of a truck. He hadn’t been a drunken illusion. Sort of a relief. “That was you last night. I was a little plastered.” Then he realized that might be too slangy a term. “Drunk. I was drunk and wasn’t being careful. But thank you, I’ll be more careful.”
A big smile, the first he’d seen on the drow, flashed across his face, then just as quickly disappeared. “If you get drunk often, you might need a minder. They can be helpful too. Sometimes.” He laughed, a quick soft sound.
“Ryld.”
They both looked at the elf who had just called his name. “Come.”
“I have to go to counseling now,” Ryld said, as if Hank couldn’t already deduce that. “Good night.”
He walked to the elf who was eyeing Hank suspiciously and, all right, the asshole wasn’t being threatening, just high-handed. In a moment of contrariness, Hank smiled and called back, “Have a good day.”
Then the receptionist from the social services side was calling his name, and he lost sight of the pair.A minder. Someone thought the little drow needed a minder. Hank shook his head as he went to have his mandatory talk with the nutritionist. Ryld had seemed like he was doing okay on his own.
* * * *
“Just choose one. They’re all the same.”
They are not all the same at all.One colorful box had a cartoon tiger, another a cartoon bird, another a cartoon frog, another a cartoon bear…none of them contained any of those animals. Mostly they contained grain and sugar. With those ingredients one would guess they all tasted the same, as Cress suggested, but that wasn’t true. There was one that was nothing but tiny grains that were so hard and tasteless they were like chewing sand. Awful. He wanted to avoid making a mistake like that again. Food cost money, of which he had a finite amount. Wasting food would waste his money and then he would have neither.
Cress sighed.
Ryld reached for a box. This one had insects on it. He was almost certain it did not contain insects but he had to be sure. Not that all insects tasted bad. He showed Cress the box.
“This one has insects on it.” There was an unnerving quaver in his voice.
“Bees. They make honey and the cereal contains honey. There are no bees in the box.”
Ryld nodded. He put the box back on the shelf.
Cress sighed again. Louder.
Ryld chose another box. This one he had tried before. It was palatable, so he put it in the cart. The next aisle contained shelf after shelf of soft drinks. Ryld didn’t like them. The carbonation tasted like poison, the ones with unnatural sweeteners tasted like death. Even so, he turned the cart down the aisle because he could not resist looking at the bottles. Rows and rows of jewel tones, shimmering black, glowing amber, orange the exact same shade as tiny poisonous frogs. Real ones, not like the cartoon frog on the cereal box. He had been assured none of the beverages were poison, not to humans or drow. He understood why someone with malevolent intent would make a poisoned drink look ordinary, but not why anyone would make an ordinary drink look poisonous.
The next aisle contained many small bottles of pills, bandages, sprays, ointments… There were no dried herbs hanging from the ceiling or crucibles bubbling or mysterious creatures gibbering in cages, but this was a place one could find healing all the same. He didn’t need healing and knew it was acceptable to skip the aisle if it didn’t contain anything he needed, but he turned and read the names on the labels. So many. So very many. How could anyone look at them all? His eyes caught and stopped on the wordscalcium supplement.
The orc—no, that was offensive. The half-goblin. Hank. He’d heard the receptionist call out that name, and the half-goblin had answered so that must be his name. Hank had said he was at AURA for calcium supplements. He picked up the bottle.
“Do you need those?” Cress asked.
“Yes.” It was not a lie. He needed them because if he saw Hank again he could give them to him, and then they might have a conversation about them, and he could discover why Hank went to AURA for calcium supplements instead of the store. He put them in the cart without explaining any of that to Cress. It was so hard to explain anything to him. Cress wasn’t unintelligent, Ryld knew that, but he was slow to understand complex connections such as why Ryld wanted the calcium supplements.
Once the bottle was in his cart he no longer had any interest in shopping for groceries and turned the cart toward the place where he could pay for his items, and they could be packed in the bags he’d brought to carry them home.
“Is that all you’re getting?” Cress asked.
“Yes.”
Cress put a hand on the side of the cart, making him stop. “Are you sure? You didn’t get everything on your list.”
“I’m sure.” Ryld paused. “I don’t feel well. I want to leave. Now.” Not a lie. He didn’t feel well, he felt excited.
