23. Pippi #2
“When Onyx came to me with an idea to open a resort on a remote island…Well, anyone who knows me knows I love to take risks.” Rune’s smile shone brighter than all the candles in the room.
And it was infectious. I smiled back at him when he panned that grin over me.
Everyone did. How could we not? “Without risk, there is no reward. I firmly believe that. But this was by far the biggest and most ambitious leap I’d ever taken.
You all should have seen this island six years ago.
It was savage . Cold and rainy 350 days of the year, and muggy the other fifteen.
The ocean was beating the rocks down to dust, and the creatures…
Well, let’s just say they weren’t glammed up and ready to take center stage. ”
A laughter trickled around the room.
“ Just being here for a day would send anyone spiraling into a depression,” Rune continued.
“But Onyx had a vision. And she believed in it, and I believed in her, and now here we are”—he raised his whiskey glass—“feasting with one hundred and twenty-seven of the finest people in the world. Celebrating the five-year anniversary of Niverwick Isle’s opening.
So I am proposing a toast, one of many I’ll propose tonight, I’m sure.
I am fond of my toasts.” He laughed. “To Onyx and her vision.”
“Hear, hear!” someone said. A few other people clapped. And, one by one, glasses were thrust into the air.
Onyx still hadn’t moved. Still hadn’t touched her wine or acknowledged the toast.
“Oh, shit.” Jackson laughed as he raised his empty beer glass. “We should’ve gotten a second round, huh?”
I peeled my gaze away from Onyx and lifted my also-empty wine glass. “Guess so. We were both lushes tonight.”
“And to all of you,” Rune concluded in his resonant voice, “for joining us.” He turned, clinked his glass with a tall, balding man at a nearby table, and then declared, “Drink up!”
The gentle tinkling of glasses knocking against each other filled the room.
Jackson and I looked at each other, tapped our glasses together, and mimed drinking them down. And I laughed after, caught up in the playfulness, but Jackson had already slid his eyes back to Rune.
“Now then, Onyx…” Rune downed the rest of his whiskey and motioned for a waiter to come fill his glass.
“Why don’t you tell us how you discovered this place?
It’s quite a story.” He gave the small, blonde waitress a gentle pat on the arm when she reached his side and refilled his glass.
“And I certainly don’t want to steal your thunder. ”
Onyx moved then, fixing Rune with a look that said, quite plainly, if he even attempted to steal anything from her, she would hit him with the force of a thousand lightning bolts.
Rune just waggled his eyebrows. “She is a bit shy, folks. Always putting in the work but never looking to take the credit. How about we give her a little applause? See if that encourages her?”
Clapping ricocheted around the cavernous room—the pitch so shrill, it drove an ice pick in between my ears.
I cringed.
Onyx rolled her eyes.
Rune placed his whiskey on a table and tapped his hands against his thighs in a mock drumroll. “C’mon, Onyx. You can do it !”
Onyx blew out a frustrated breath, took a long pull from her wine glass, and said, “Me mam told me legends of this isle…”
Her voice was heavily, heavily accented with a brogue somewhere in the Scottish family. English that almost didn’t sound English. If I didn’t really focus on the words, and the shape of her mouth as she formed them, it was all incoherent jibber.
“Ye all know them now, eh? Legends of the curse that trapped humans in this town and turned them to beasts after they died,” she continued. “Me mam thought we had ancestors in the town. Although if our ancestors all turned to beasts, I didna know how she figures we were born human.”
Only a speckle of laughter followed that. Likely because most people were staring at Onyx with concentration, trying to make sense of her words.
“Ach, but I liked the stories well enuf. So I bartered for a trip here when I was in me twenties. Found the isle as Rune said.” She flashed her cold eyes to him. “Savage. And I says to Rune?—”
“That the legends can be real and accessible for everyone,” Rune finished. “And I gotta say, folks, I had my doubts. Until…” He gestured back at Onyx, returning the proverbial mic he’d snagged from her.
“Until he saw the Loch Ness Monster.” Onyx scowled through her finishing lines. “And I says to him that the reef will keep it to the isle, and runes will make the isle safe for people to visit.”
“I love that brand of magic. Runes. ” Rune thumped his chest. “There’s a soft spot in my heart for them.”
Several people laughed.
Onyx just rolled her eyes and pivoted back to the window.
What an odd exchange that had been. Which was fitting, I supposed, for this odd island.
“Anyway”—Rune waved his hand over to the bagpipes, sending them quivering on a long, mournful note—“I’ll save the rest of my toasts for after dinner.
Or…Wait! I have to do this first, folks, sorry.
” He made a cutthroat gesture with his hand and the bagpipes deflated with a whiny eeeeeeee.
“Because speaking of dinner, everything you’re eating tonight has been prepared by our very own Aranis Brightspark. Stand, please, Aranis. Take a bow.”
A sprightly Sorcerer stood from a center pub table and waved self-consciously.
“Aranis is launching MagicBite next month,” Rune said.
“Aiming to make mealtimes magical, even for Standies. So if you’re enjoying the food, make sure to watch for the launch.
He’s on most Standie social media platforms as well, if you’d like to give him a follow when you get home.
Now, no more interruptions until everyone has a full belly.
” Up went his hand again, sending the bagpipes wailing with another battle song.
“I wonder if—” I turned to Jackson, starting to ask if he thought Rune took song requests.
But Jackson was gone.
He must’ve jumped up as soon as the music started and was now standing in a line at the bar, both our empty glasses in hand.
I sighed and popped a half-cooled bite of mushroom ravioli into my mouth.