Incident 2 Common Sense, Where Art Thou? #4
Maria didn’t look a thing like Keane. She was precisely put together, as clean and tailored as Keane was disheveled and sloppy.
She was short and curvy in figure, skin dusky, and her black hair fell in rich curls, tumbling around a heart-shaped face.
When she spoke, her husky alto had a slight Hispanic accent. “Ross, welcome.”
“Thank you.” He debated how to phrase it for a moment before deciding to spit the question out now rather than later. “I’m still learning about all of you, so bear with me. Can you explain the difference between a wizard and a witch?”
“It’s not a matter of gender, like you see in a certain popular young adult fantasy series.
” Her dark eyes rolled expressively. “Thank you for asking and not assuming. Really, it’s a matter of how we use our power and what our intent is.
I’m truly a Curandero—they call me a witch in English because there is not an English equivalent for it.
What I am is a magical healer and shaman, all rolled together.
I use symbols, objects, rituals, and herbs to invoke the internal process of healing.
Keane, on the other hand, uses symbols and magical coding to organize the elements of the world around him into the result he wants. It’s an entirely different process.”
“That’s incredibly interesting. I’d love to sit down and talk more with both of you.” Ross meant every word of it, too. Magic, he had a feeling, was more scientific than the movies made it out to be.
Maria looked pleased at his interest. “I’d like that very much. Go on, Glenn, introduce him to everyone else before they’re totally sloshed.”
Glenn nodded in agreement and with a touch to his elbow, guided Ross to the next table. The firm touch was nice. It wasn’t meant in any way sexual, that was obvious, but it warmed Ross. A certain part of him liked being touched by Glenn.
“We have two dwarven families,” Glenn explained as he led the way.
“They’re both rather large, and I see a mix of both of them here today.
They’re normally heading up my construction crews, so you’ll meet most of them later.
They’re a fun-loving bunch when they’re not working.
They also brew their own alcohol, which—” Glenn looked the table over with a resigned sigh.
“Which is why they’re already drunk. Do not, I repeat, do not ever drink dwarven mead. ”
Ross took one look at the table in question and had to agree with him. The mead did look dangerously potent.
Glenn waved a hand in front of the nearest face. “Yorick. Yorick?”
The dwarf tried to focus but without any real measure of success.
He looked much like the illustrations from the books Glenn had lent him.
Short, stout, with a rounded beer belly and so much bushy brown hair it was difficult to see his eyes.
The beard completely obscured his mouth, and the mustache threatened to overtake his nose.
He wasn’t in medieval dress but dark wash jeans and a black sweater that barely encased his bulk.
Where did dwarves even shop to find clothes that fit properly?
The dwarves sat nursing a large wooden keg, passing it around.
Their beards stuck to the table due to spilled alcohol, and they more or less listed into each other, each compact body holding the other’s up.
Like a leaning circle. Ross leaned over one shoulder to get a good look at faces, make sure no one had succumbed to alcohol poisoning yet. Or passed out. “All okay over here?”
One dwarf raised his—no, her head. She was just as stocky as her companions but lacked a beard. Makeup smeared around the edges of her mouth and eyes, so Ross guessed female. If dwarves had gender. He wasn’t sure on that point. “You’re Ross?”
“I am,” Ross said patiently. He’d have to get proper names and introductions in later. No one was likely to remember him right now. “What are you drinking out of? They look like…bowls? Made of bone?”
She lifted it proudly into the air for his inspection, not that he could see much around both of her clasped hands. “The skulls of our enemies!”
Her tablemates let out a roar of approval.
Skulls...of their enemies…right. Of course. What else was Ross supposed to guess? Of course dwarves wouldn’t drink out of something normal like glassware. Shaking his head, he turned and called out to the clan in general, “Does anyone know if the skulls of our enemies are dishwasher safe?”
A voice in the crowd called back, “Totally safe!”
Ross would take that with a grain of salt. He’d hate to destroy the skull-cups and have crying dwarves later. That seemed cruel. Maybe he could break Google-sensei’s brain by asking it later.
Yorick finally snapped into awareness and grabbed Ross’s arm with a surprisingly strong grip for such a small hand. “Ross! You musht join ush! The mead ish exshellent.”
The slurring was not a good sign. Did Ross need to take the keg away? Well, no, they were still making sense and not hurting anyone, so probably not.
Glenn looked ready to intervene, mouth already open, but Ross gave him a small shake of the head.
He knew how to handle this. With a smile at Yorick, he said gently, “I’d love to, but I don’t have a skull to drink out of.
You’re drinking out of the skulls of your own enemy, right?
So, let me go slay someone and I’ll be back later. ”
Yorick nodded approvingly, as did the rest of the dwarves. “Slay!” he roared, raising his cup high over his head and getting mead absolutely everywhere.
“SLAY!” the rest of the table roared.
Ross inclined his head to them like a knight ready to go off and slay the dragon.
It was the hardest thing in the world to keep the laugh in check.
He bit the inside of his cheek to manage it.
Laughing now would entirely give the game away.
Okay, drunken dwarves were rather adorable.
Even while calling out for blood. He smiled at his boss, ready to move on.
A bemused smile graced Glenn’s face as he led Ross further off. Leaning in, he whispered, “I know I hired you for your interpersonal skills, but I must ask. How do you know what to say?”
“I was a bartender for two years,” Ross informed him dryly. “Drunk people I can handle. It’s like daycare, but for adults.”
Glenn’s head canted to the side, the beginnings of delight tugging at his mouth. “Do tell. I’m fascinated by the reasoning.”
Ross lifted a finger and started counting. “You give them sippy juice and snacks and supervise them while they play and practice their social skills. Usually badly.”
The vampire snorted on a laugh, bobbing forward under the force of it.
Encouraged by that laugh, Ross continued in a deadpan delivery, ticking off on his second finger, “Sometimes they’re mean to the other kids, so they lose sippy juice privileges and have to sit in time out.
Or go home early. They talk but don’t always make sense, and you have to nod and pretend to listen anyway.
Sometimes they cry unintelligibly for no reason.
” Ross indicated someone in the far corner doing that very thing.
Glenn laughed outright now, not even trying to hold it in.
“Spills. Lots and lots of spills. And hopefully someone eventually comes to pick them up.” Ross spread his hands in the best impersonation of ‘see what I mean’ he’d ever done before, satisfied when Glenn kept laughing, unable to get a single word out.
He liked seeing the man laugh like this.
So many times when he’d seen Glenn, the man was stressed out and tired.
But for a moment, this moment, he was carefree and relaxed.
The stress lines around his eyes and mouth were erased under the force of his smile, only the barest hint of crow’s feet crinkling around his eyes.
The bonfire and lighting threw golden strands into his hair, lighting up his eyes in a mesmerizing way.
He was, in a word, captivating. Ross strangely found himself invested in keeping this moment for as long as possible.
Then again, that was in his job description, wasn’t it? Lightening Glenn’s load so he could have more moments of carefree enjoyment like this one.
Glenn finally regained control of himself, but the laughter remained in his face. “Your argument is too well-founded. I find I cannot counter it.”
“See? Everyone I’ve explained this to eventually agrees with me.”
“Ye two stop having fun o’er there and come here,” Dunham called over the noise of the party, “and settle this for us!”
Ross shrugged at Glenn and turned that direction.
The werewolves seemed to dominate this corner (the already shifted wolf lying nearby with one leg still in a pants leg gave him that impression, at least), although he did see Annabella had joined them, all of them a little the worse for wear.
And oh dear, was that Dwarven mead he saw on the table?
For the first time, Ross began to be truly worried. For himself.
Annabella gave him no chance to ask as she immediately launched into introductions. “Ross, this is Gretta, Chloe, and Auden. Dunham you know. Everyone, the incredible Ross.”
He felt strangely like a superhero with that title. All he was missing was the cape and the tragic backstory. “Nice to meet you all.”
“Ross, we have a serious debate going on here. We need a tie-breaker.”
“Wait, wait,” Chloe protested. She had a very fair complexion, seemingly even more pale next to her ash grey hair, and Ross didn’t think it was dyed.
A grey wolf, perhaps? The smile she shot at him was certainly wolfish.
“Let’s see if he’s got enough experience to truly weigh in. Ross, have you ever been handcuffed?”
Ross startled for a half-second. What kind of debate was going on over here, anyway? “Sexually or by law enforcement?”
Chloe’s smile turned a little toothy around the edges. “Sexually.”
“Well, he didn’t use handcuffs, per se.” Ross arched an eyebrow and let silence speak volumes.