by Simon Archer
“I love you.” The words slipped from my mouth before I thought about them, but once they were out there in the world, I realized they were true.
Deity paused a second and blinked several times, too quickly, like she was trying to get something out of her eyes. She opened and closed her mouth.
“You don’t have to say it back,” I jumped in, sensing her hesitation. “Not unless you mean it.”
Deity didn’t say anything for a minute. She, instead, stepped back from me and pulled the necklace from the box. She handed me the now empty box and proceeded to put the jewelry around her neck. With a flourish, Deity flipped her back and showed off the necklace. The pumpkin charm sat right where I planned and shone brightly in the firelight.
“I love you too, Rico,” Deity said with a strong voice. Her fingers fiddled with the charm, and a sigh escaped her lips as if whatever had been missing had finally been found.
I couldn’t contain myself any longer. I bent down and took Deity’s face in my hands. We kissed out by the well until Herc hollered at us to come back inside.
27
The first guest to check in to the Pumpkin Inn and Bakery was Gerry.
He shuffled in through the front door, the newly installed bell dinging upon his arrival. I looked up from the new check-in desk in the living room I built to see the gnome moping about.
“Hi, Rico,” Gerry mumbled.
“Hey, Gerry,” I said, trying to keep my face straight. “What’cha doing here?”
“I messed up,” Gerry admitted. He slouched and made himself even shorter. “I should have stayed that night. I should have taken Barth’s place. I should have done a lot of things.”
“Maybe,” I said with a shrug, “but it’s okay. I get that you needed some time. So did I.”
“You did?” Gerry looked up hopefully.
“Yeah,” I said with a nod. “I’m glad to see you made it back to the farm.”
“Yeah, well, I couldn’t just leave Achter alone, you know.” Gerry stuffed his hands in his pockets and sighed dramatically.
“He’s out in the barn if you want to say hi,” I said, pointing to the door.
Gerry rushed for the door, but before disappearing out of it completely, he stuck his head back in. “I like what you’ve done with the place. Can I have my old room back?”
“You want to make an official reservation?” I asked.
“Do I have to pay for it?” Gerry asked with a pained expression on his face. “Cause I’m kind of short on pecuns right now.”
“Nah.” I waved him off. “Family stays for free.”
Gerry grinned, and red flushed his cheeks. He licked his lips and looked like he wanted to say something, but he didn’t. Instead, he looked at the floor and then ducked out of the doorway to head to the barn.
After that, Gerry stuck around and helped out on the farm. Eventually, we stopped listing his room as available and figured he had found his way home.
Lots of people found their way to us. Herc was quick to let travelers know that while Blue Water Bar, as it was now called, no longer had any rooms, there was a quaint inn just down the road. We mostly got short-term travelers, only coming through for a night or so on their way to the city. However, as word got out, a couple of wealthy elves requested a weekend stay.
Deity baked up a storm. She had piping hot pastries out every morning, using fresh ingredients from the garden. The pumpkin muffins were her specialty, but she got creative and experimented with all kinds of delicacies. Gerry was happy to be her taste-tester, and since my diet was no longer regulated, I enjoyed every morsel. She made these cranberry sage scones that quickly shot up to my favorite, right after the pumpkin muffins, of course.
We settled in nicely to a routine of greeting guests, baking for them, and showing them about the farm. We would even let some of the city folk, most of whom had never completed a chore in their life, milk a cow or two. Feed the chickens. Easy work that thrilled them.
One morning, however, a surprise interrupted our routine. We hardly got any mail out in this part of the country, but a letter arrived addressed to Gerry and me. We quickly discovered it was from Barth.
He reported that he was good or as good as he could be in jail. The elf didn’t say much about himself but asked about us. If I was still training. How Achter was doing. What Deity had made that morning.
Gerry could barely get through the whole letter without grumbling. “I should be in there with him.”
“No, you shouldn’t,” Deity said sternly. “It was his choice.”
“I think he’s paying for other crimes,” I reasoned.
“There’s got to be something we can do for him,” Gerry said with a stamp of his foot.
“Don’t go throwing a hissy fit or anything,” I said with a chuckle at Gerry’s reaction. “He told us what we can do. Write him back. Tell him we’re okay.”
So we did as Barth asked. We settled into a writing routine where Gerry and I would trade off letters. Sometimes we stuffed two in an envelope, and Barth, to be clever, would send two separate ones in the same envelope too. It was nice to hear from him, and I liked to believe the letters gave him hope about an eventual release.
“It’s good to hear what’s going on out there,” he wrote once. “It’s depressing in here, and you forget that a whole separate world exists. I mostly get through it by offering to train some of the other males in here. So, in our yard time, we run drills. Seems everyone dreams of being a MFL fighter.”
I laughed at the thought of Barth whipping his jail mates into shape around the yard. But if anyone could do it, it would be Barth. The man was a natural coach, and that didn’t go away just because he was in jail.
I enjoyed life at the inn. It wasn’t much different from the farm except that it was livelier. The air was thick with stories and creatures of all kinds. The scent of Deity’s pastries permeated through each room. Creatures would gather on the porch and eat her latest creation while watching some children play with Graham. Poor dog never got so much attention in his life. He soaked up every minute of it.
I woke up that morning, expecting it to be another normal day. I kissed Deity in the kitchen who had been up rolling dough since before dawn. I peeked in on Gerry to see if he was up and ready to feed the animals. The gnome followed me out to the living room just as the first traces of dawn peeked out over the horizon. A beautiful pink hue spread throughout the land. It was a sight to see as the sun rose higher in the sky, brightening the world.
Gerry balanced on a post and threw feed to the chickens when he posed a question I hadn’t considered in weeks. “How do you think their investigation went?”
“Well,” I pondered, “we’re not in jail with Barth, so I don’t know what they found.”
“You’d think that they’d have said something by now,” Gerry mused as he tossed out more chicken feed. The birds clucked beneath him, but the gnome was safe upon his perch.
“The tournament’s been long over,” I said, stating the obvious. “They must have decided I wasn’t worth bringing back into the running.”
“It just seems weird that they didn’t give any official ruling on it,” Gerry said, frustrated. He curled his fingers into his palms and pressed down hard. “I wish they would have told us either way, you know? At least, they could have given us the respect of an official no.”
I shrugged. “I think they gave us a clear no when the tournament concluded, and I was no longer competing in it.”
“That isn’t fair,” Gerry complained. He sat on the wooden beam of the fence and swung his legs back and forth. “You passed their inspection, you got into the tournament, you should be allowed to fight.”
“Except that we lied to do all of those things,” I told Gerry. I spread out more chicken feed, giving the birds a little more than usual. “It’s okay, Gerry, really.”
“How can it possibly be okay?” the gnome asked suspiciously.
“Because I got my shot, and I did a great job
,” I replied. As I said the words, I realized I meant them. “I proved what a fighter I can be. Now that I’ve done that, I can live here with Deity and run this inn. So, it’s all good. I’m good.”
“So you’re telling me,” Gerry said as he leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees, “that if you were given the chance to fight again, you wouldn’t take it?”
“Not if it meant losing this.” I stretched out my arms to indicate the farm. A little of the seeds tumbled out of the bucket, and the chickens dashed over one another for the few extras.
Gerry scoffed and leaped down off the fence. “It’s just sad is all.”
“What is?” I asked with crinkled eyebrows.
“That the world won’t get to see you fight again,” Gerry said. “It’s a damn shame.”
I walked up to the gnome and reached down to put a hand on his shoulder. “Thanks for your support, coach.”
“Gah,” Gerry said while shoving off my hand. “I can’t stand sentimentality.”
“You’re starting to sound like Barth,” I laughed.
“Oh great,” Gerry said as he threw his hands up in the air. “Don’t you go telling him that.”
“I plan to write it in my next letter this afternoon,” I teased.
We walked back up the walkway towards the farmhouse. The slop for the pigs was up that way, and there was a lot of it to carry down this morning.
“Don’t you dare!” Gerry demanded with a sharp finger pointed at me.
I chuckled. “You don’t get to tell me what I can write to Barth.”
“He’ll never let me live it down,” Gerry grumbled.
When we were halfway up the path, I noticed two figures walking towards us. One was taller than the other, and the shorter one had a sharp and determined gait that I recognized. The sun lit up her face, and her braids flew back as she ran towards us.
“Rico! Gerry!” Nyah’s voice rang out into the air. “Deity said you would be out feeding the animals.”
The half-elf female crowded us and scooped each of us into an enthusiastic hug. Gerry looked like his eyeballs were going to pop from his head, and he didn’t hug her back, as surprised as he was. I, on the other hand, hugged Nyah just as tight back.
“What are you doing here?” I asked as we pulled apart.
“I told you that I would come to visit,” Nyah said with a dashing smile. “Now that it’s a hot new inn, I thought I would come by and see what you’ve done with the place.”
“You’re here awfully early in the day,” I commented. “We don’t have any rooms ready yet if you want to spend the night, but we’d happy to get one cleaned for you right away.”
“That’s so great of you,” Nyah said, “but I don’t think we’ll be spending the night.”
“We?” Gerry wondered, picking up on Nyah’s hint. He gestured with his head to the elf coming down the path. “That male part of your we?”
“Yep,” Nyah said proudly. She turned her head and called up the way. “Hey, Dad! I want you to come to meet some creatures.”
I blocked the sun streaming down into our eyes with my hand. Just then, I could make out the wider elf. His face was one I had watched for several years, with its crooked nose and slight grin. I recognized his voice almost instantly. Tenjer Opulus, one of the two MFL announcers, walked towards our group.
“Did Nyah just call Tenjer Opulus dad?” Gerry said out of the corner of his mouth.
“That’s what I heard,” I mumbled back.
Tenjer approached us and nodded at each of us in turn. “It’s a pleasure to see you again, Rico. Gerry.”
“Hi,” Gerry said with a weak wave. His voice jumped up to octaves due to his nervousness.
My chest tightened at the sight of the MFL announcer. The last time we’d seen each other was when he kicked us out of the arena and arrested Barth. I rolled my lips together in an attempt to keep my face friendly and not falling into a grimace.
“Hello, Tenjer,” I said politely. “What can we do for you?”
“Well, from the sounds of it, you have already done quite a lot for me,” Tenjer said. “I hear you saved my daughter’s life.”
“I saved Nyah’s life, yes,” I conceded. “I had no idea she was your daughter.”
“I don’t like to use the family name,” Nyah said with a half-hearted shrug. “It tends to have a reputation.”
“No wonder you know so much about fighting,” Gerry chimed in. His voice adjusted back to its normal tone. “With Tenjer as your father, you must have been around it all the time.”
“Pretty much my whole life,” Nyah confirmed. “Unfortunately, I missed your MFL debut Rico, but I heard about a half-giant getting expelled from the tournament.”
“Not expelled,” Tenjer corrected diplomatically. “He was under investigation.”
“An investigation that purposely lasted longer than the tournament itself,” Nyah chided back. She smiled falsely at Tenjer who huffed in response. “I wanted to know who that fighter was and what he had done. It must have been truly heinous to be removed from the tournament. Then Warpin confirmed it in a live interview, telling the whole city you were human, even though the MFL didn’t officially confirm the rumors.”
“It was then that Nyah told me who you were,” Tenjen continued, picking up the explanation. He put his arms behind his back in an official manner. “She convinced me to pull some strings as a thank you for saving her life.”
“Pull some strings?” I repeated, confused. “For what?”
“Well,” Nyah said as her eyebrows bounced with excitement, “we want to show you. Come with us back up to the house.”
Nyah didn’t wait for us. She took her long legs up the path and led the way. Tenjer followed behind her, hustling a little to keep up with Nyah’s determination. Gerry and I shared a glance before the gnome shrugged up at me.
“It sounds like it could be a good thing,” Gerry reasoned, though his voice sounded unsure.
“I trust Nyah,” I said, “but I don’t trust that father of hers.”
“Me neither,” Gerry agreed, “but let’s follow our trust in Nyah then.”
Without a formal agreement, Gerry and I walked up the path in the wake of the elf and his daughter.
We entered the living room of the farmhouse, Tenjer holding the door open so Gerry and I could enter first. In the living room, Deity sat with a new guest. They shared a section of the couch while Nyah stood in the center of the room with her arms outstretched.
“We brought him home,” Nyah said through a wide smile.
Barth looked up at Gerry and me. His beard was trimmed, and his face a little sunken in. He was wrapped in clothes that looked a little big for him, but the elf’s tall frame held strong. He stood up and wrapped me into a large hug.
I slapped his back jovially, in complete disbelief that my coach stood in front of me. “I never thought I’d see you again.”
“Neither did I,” Barth said in my ear. He pulled out of my grip and looked me square in the eye. “It’s good to be back.”
“I’m sure,” I said because I couldn’t think of anything else to say.
The elf turned to his old friend, and the two of them stared at one another for a moment. Then, Gerry held out his hand, and Barth took it. They shook hands cordially and then vigorously, with beaming smiles. The two friends laughed and eventually stopped shaking hands.
“I should have been in there with you,” Gerry said suddenly, forcing the reunion to take a serious turn. “This was our mess.”
“No, Gerry, it was mine,” Barth said with conviction. “I needed to pay for more than what happened with Rico.”
“Not by throwing yourself in jail!” Gerry protested. “I had plenty of other things you could do for penance, but jail time wasn’t one of them!”
Barth chuckled. “Well, we can start on those punishments after we start training.”
“Start what now?” the gnome asked, baffled.
The elf looked up at Nyah
and Tenjer. “Have you not told them yet?”
“Not yet,” Nyah said excitedly. She clapped her hands together as if to get everyone’s attention. “So Barth’s release wasn’t the only string Dad managed to pull.”
Tenjer shook his head slightly, embarrassed by his daughter’s enthusiasm. “As you know, Warpin the Relentless won the North MLF Tournament.”
“But only because he never had to face Rico,” Nyah interrupted matter-of-factly. “That match was canceled, giving Warpin an automatic win to advance to the next round.”
“Nyah attests, as do other members of the viewing public, that Warpin never would have won if Rico the Resilient hadn’t been taken out of the tournament,” Tenjer continued, with more of an informative and monotonous tone than his daughter. “Therefore, we have organized a match between Warpin the Relentless and Rico the Resilient to take place three weeks from now.”
The reactions in the living room varied from creature to creature. Gerry jumped into the air with a zealous whoop. Barth clenched his fist and muttered to himself. My whole body tensed with anticipation and excitement.
I found myself leaning forward as if getting physically closer to Nyah and Tenjer would get me closer to the fight itself. I couldn’t believe that this opportunity had fallen back into my lap. But suddenly, a tiny suspicion curled its way up my throat, and I had to voice it aloud.
“Would I compete as myself or as a half-giant?” I wondered.
“That’s the best part,” Nyah said with a smirk. “You would be the first human to fight in the MFL.”
“How did you pull that off?” Barth interjected incredulously.
“When the rest of the MFL found out that Rico was human, they were stunned,” Tenjer explained. “Though it took some convincing because many were confused when he appeared to have magic.”
I glanced sideways at Gerry, who looked off in the distance as his ears turned pink. The elf looked down at the gnome with a sly smile.
“You’re quite the illusionist,” Tenjer complimented Gerry.