Page 6 of Monster Married
Lissir clicked, and so did the others. “No, and you don’t need to be sorry. I’m quite aware that it could have been much worse. By rights, it should have been worse. I look like I was in a fight, and that adds some distinction.”
Inkiri clicked. “You don’t need distinction, Lissir. You were in fights before this, and we all think you’re very distinguished.”
“Thank you for that, but a good mark makes for a great story.”
Lissir smiled and patted Inkiri on the arm before dragging me over to sit next to him at the table. Inkiri folded his legs under him to my left, Nokim sat down across from us next to Fellisse, and I finally got the chance to gape at all the strange food on the table. It was colorful and prettily set out on individual plates, and not knowing what anything was or what I was getting myself into was exciting.
While Inkiri poured me something from a decanter made of pale green glass, I asked, “What out of all of this isn’t going to kill me or send me to the bathroom for days?”
Fellisse hummed. “It should all be fine. Vergis tells me his human father ate everything we have here, with no adverse effects.”
Vergis’s human father? That was something to investigate later. For now, I was excited to try all the food. Ravenous too. The utensils were pretty self-explanatory: a two-pronged spork, except it was narrower than your average spork, and a set of one big and one smaller spoon. They were placed at twelve o’clock by the little plate in front of me, and with any luck, my human table manners were acceptable.
The others were eating already, but like with that sandwich they had fed me when Inkiri had first found me, it seemed me eating was the main attraction. Inkiri and Lissir put bits of this and that on my plate. Hopefully, that was considered a normal thing and not them thinking my arms were too weak to hold serving bowls.
With all eyes on me, I tried my first bite of Aër food. It looked like a round shortbread cookie. There were seeds—or something that looked like seeds—on the top, dark purple ones, and the cookie itself was a golden brown. It was sweet, but not overpoweringly so. Crisp, but a little chewy on the inside. It tasted fruity, fragrant, almost a scent rather than a flavor. I moaned even as this first taste of food made me truly notice how hungry I was.
Lissir clicked. “He likes vinné.”
Nokim nodded. “Everyone likes vinné.”
“Want some more of them, sweet thing?” Inkiri asked, already reaching for the serving plate.
I nodded and barely remembered to cover my mouth with a hand before I spoke. “I want to try everything.”
Nokim beamed. “I’m saying it now; he will enjoy honkora week. Inki, we can take him to all the food stalls and let him try the different foods.”
Vergis groaned. “Goddamn. Are you really going to do sightseeing, of all things?”
I was feeling daring, and also, I was sitting between Lissir and Inkiri, so I felt pretty safe and smug when I said, “It beats getting shot at and meeting big orange murder spiders who want to eat you.” Then I spooned up some whitish doughy thing about the size of a walnut and stuffed that into my mouth. It tasted oily, and a lot like cilantro mixed with raisins. It was absolutely disgusting.
Vergis watched me as my taste buds rang the alarm, and a mean little smirk ran over his face. “You look like you like massa buns. They’re a favorite around here. It is very impolite to refuse them when they’re offered.”
Inkiri tensed. “Sweet thing, you mentioned spiders before. What happened back on the beasts’ world? Did something scare you there?”
“Hmmmmm.” I was desperate for a napkin to spit that massacre bun into. Cilantro was bad, but mixing it with raisins was just plain diabolical.
“Want another?”
Vergis’s tone was saccharine. He held a plate full of the massacre buns up in front of my face. I told myself spitting the stuff out would be bad. With as much self-control as I could muster, I kept my mouth shut tight, unable to swallow.
“We can order more. Or go out and see what the vendors have on offer,” Nokim said.
Inkiri straightened. “First, I would like Vergis to promise not to take my mate back to the beasts’ world.”
Like back at the church, before the attack, Inkiri’s tone made me feel sorry for Vergis. I still had the massacre bun in my mouth, and that was a problem in so many ways. But there were no napkins, and since I really, really didn’t want to cause a scene, I went for my water glass, forced myself to swallow, and washed the disgusting, oily bun down with a big swig of a lightly flavored drink.
“That was foul,” I said as Inkiri poured me more of what I figured was cold tea or some type of juice. “But about the beasts’ world, Vergis saved me, you know? Like you did at the ladies’ clothing store. Only messier.”
Inkiri frowned at me, but he relaxed.
Vergis put the massacre buns down. “Everyone’s a fucking critic. Did you say he saved you from a women’s clothing store? Any particular reason you were shopping there?”
Why oh why was my brain’s quality control so into messing up and letting my mouth spill all the embarrassing details of my life? Things had been going so well.
Nokim, thankfully, didn’t seem to notice, just held out another serving plate to me. “You want to try fried massa, Rory. It changes the flavor.” He ate one of the massacre buns as if it was a chocolate-covered marshmallow or something.
I made a face. “Thanks, but that’s a hard pass.”
