Tales of MU

In Which Grace Gets Served

Even though I was expecting something like it to happen in a general sense, I was surprised when Grace showed up for lunch the next day with a slightly-stunned looking Nicki in tow. I’d been thinking I would probably see Nicki in class that afternoon and make a point of inviting her to come eat dinner with us, which would give Grace an opportunity to join us if Glory was already putting our not-so-evil scheme into motion.

“Oh, hello again!” Amaranth said when they drifted over to our table. She already knew what was up, of course, since she’d heard my conversation with Glory. “We didn’t meet properly yesterday… you must be Grace?”

“Yes,” she said. “And you’re Amaranth. I already know all of you… I mean, I know who you are. This is a little weird, isn’t it? Well, I guess now it is that I’ve said that, it’s weirder…”

“It’s okay,” Amaranth said. “Would you like to join us?”

“Yeah,” Nicki said. “If that’s okay?”

“Of course it’s okay!” Amaranth said, glancing around the table to see if there was any objection. Ian’s face was a bit hard to read, but he didn’t say anything. It might have just been surprise. “I know Mack’s told you that you’re always welcome.”

“I know, I know,” Nicki said. “I just don’t want to wear out my welcome. Today, though, I kind of have an excuse… Grace was just saying that she’d like to actually meet you.”

“That is so sweet,” Amaranth said.

That was the moment it occurred to me that while my scheme wasn’t exactly evil, it was a scheme… we’d hatched it without consulting with Nicki, and nobody had clued her in about it before Glory went to work.

Obviously a suggestion from her sister carried the force of an order for Grace, and I hadn’t thought to say anything about whether we were going to be open about this or not. I’d told her that I wasn’t going to be keeping secrets from Nicki, but I’d be putting Grace in an awkward spot if I told her it hadn’t been her own idea.

…though it was also possible that Nicki already knew the truth and was telling a version of the story that she found less awkward. She didn’t know any of us that well… a lot of the people at the table were virtual strangers, even… and “my girlfriend’s sister is making us spend time with you” is probably one of those things that can’t help make things weird when said aloud, even if she didn’t seem unhappy about it.

I decided to ask Glory how exactly she’d played it before I said anything, if I did. If that meant I was keeping a secret from Nicki… for the time being or otherwise… well, it wasn’t like it was a harmful one. And Grace probably had actually wanted to meet us. She was just enough like Nicki that she needed an outside impetus to do so.

“Oh… we should actually go get some food first,” Nicki said, though she and Grace had both just sat down. “I just wanted to make sure we’d have a place to sit before we did that.”

“Yeah… oh!” Grace said, stopping mid-rise and sitting back down. “Would… would you mind getting my food for me?”

“Um, sure,” Nicki said. “What do you want?”

“Whatever you pick out for me will be fine,” she said. “Just get me whatever you’re having, too. I just… I want to see what it tastes like to have someone bring my food to me.”

“Okay!” Nicki said. “I’ll be right back.”

“And see, now you guys don’t have to pointedly avoid talking about me or act like I can’t hear you while we’re away,” Grace said as Nicki headed over to the serving areas. “Isn’t that less awkward?”

“It probably was until you pointed it out,” Steff said.

“But now you’ve gone and made it worse by pointing that out,” Hazel said.

“First meetings are always a little awkward, which means if you think about it, none of them are especially awkward,” Amaranth said.

“That’s why we have rules for how they work,” Hazel said, as Two nodded her approval. “Let’s start with proper introductions, okay? Mackenzie, you know her. Why don’t you do the honors?”

“Um… okay,” I said as everything I’d ever known about making introductions swirled down a drain at the bottom of my mind. “Okay. Um… everyone, this is Grace. Grace… you already know Amaranth, of course. And that’s Hazel.”

“Are you new?” Grace asked her.

“I’m vintage,” Hazel said.

“This is Ian, Steff, Two…”

“Hello,” Two said automatically.

“Oh, hello!” Grace said. “I’ve never spoken to a golem before.”

“I have spoken to seventeen and a half elves before,” Two said. “Most of them were when I worked in fast food.”

“Really? I’d never had fast food before this week,” Grace said. “I’m a big fan of it.”

“You should try a real restaurant sometime,” Steff said. “People bring your food to your table all the time.”

“And this is… Delia Daella,” I said. I’d saved Dee for last as I internally debated how to introduce her, since she usually introduced herself as ”Dee to my friends”, which seemed to constitute an actual standing offer that I wasn’t sure I should be extending.

“Dee to my friends,” she added fluidly, giving me an almost imperceptible nod of approval. I didn’t know if that meant I’d done it the way I should have or that she understood what I was thinking, but I’d take it either way.

“Could I be your friend?” Grace asked.

“If you choose,” Dee said. “I have accepted less likely friendships since coming to the surface. I liked your sister more than I like most faint elves, and I suspect I may like you more than I liked her.”

Her lips didn’t move while she said the second clause of that sentence, and I would have bet money that her words didn’t travel farther than our ears.

“My sister said you have a great sense of humor,” Grace said.

“Indeed,” Dee said.

“I hope you like macaroni and cheese!” Nicki said as she returned, carrying a tray with two plates on it. I reflexively cringed at her choice, but when she set it down I remembered that the Archimedes Center’s food was always a cut above standard cafeteria fare. Their mac and cheese wasn’t the stovetop kind, it was a cheesy pasta bake with a crust of bread crumbs.

“I have literally no idea if I do or not, but that looks good!” Grace said, accepting her plate from Nicki. “Thank you so much.”

“What would you like to drink… my lady?” Nicki asked, blushing madly as she added the last part.

“Eee! I don’t know!” Grace said. “Strawberry soda. No, grape! No… half orange and half strawberry, with a slice of lemon in it.”

“I didn’t know you were one of those fancy elves,” Steff said.

“Oh, hush,” Amaranth said. “I’ve seen you adding sugar to your soda.”

“Be right back!” Nicki said.

“Nicki, honey, you might find it easier to manage if you leave your plate here,” Amaranth suggested.

“Oh, yes, of course,” Nicki said.

“Breathe,” both Dee and Steff said at the same time as soon as Nicki was gone.

“Oh, was I not? She… does that to me,” Grace said. “Sorry.”

“You’re going to give yourself a condition,” Steff said.

Nicki returned with drinks, and after she sat down things kind of… settled in. This was in large because we all had food to eat, which helps fill awkward moments. Grace learned more about us than we did about her. She wanted to know everything about us, and she wasn’t afraid to ask.

At the time, that seemed natural because she had been interested in us beforehand and she did tell Nicki she wanted to get to know us. Afterwards, I did kind of wonder if she hadn’t been deliberately deflecting attention from herself by asking questions… but she really didn’t seem to have that kind of sneakiness in her. Though it was possible that she was operating at a level that wouldn’t even register as artifice in the society she was immersed in… her sister had really been wrestling with the idea of open and honest dealing.

I was surprised when, as we were finishing up, she looked at Ian and asked him if he would mind talking to her alone.

“You know, you seem really nice,” he said. “But I’ve decided I have a rule about ‘alone’ and ‘elves’… at least ones I don’t know. But if you’d like a word with Mackenzie and me, I don’t mind.”

“Okay,” she said. She looked at Nicki. “Wait for me while we take a little walk around the building?”

“Sure, but don’t forget, I still have class this afternoon,” Nicki said. “I mean, I don’t really have to run off, but I think we should stick to public places.”

“Every day with the classes,” Grace chided. The exasperation sounded like a joke.

We disposed of our trays and then ambled out into the early afternoon sun.

“I think that went pretty well,” Grace said. “I was super worried, but… it wasn’t awful, was it?”

“I really don’t think so,” I said. “If you, uh, happen to come back more, it’ll probably be more natural since it won’t be the first time.”

“You wanted to say something to me,” Ian said.

“Only that you didn’t say much to me during lunch,” she said. “But you stared at me an awful lot.”

“I wasn’t meaning to stare,” Ian said. “But I guess that’s what happens when you look at someone without talking… honestly, I don’t know what to say. Ever since you… expressed interest in Nicki… I’ve been spending a lot of time trying to figure out if I’ve got any right to be protective of her when I hardly know her, and now that I’ve met you, I’ve been trying to figure out if I have any reason to.”

“That’s a compliment, isn’t it?” Grace said.

“As far as I’m concerned, it’s just an explanation,” he said. “I don’t mean that I’m giving you a pass, or that I’ve made up my mind that it’s my place to. I’m still… evaluating.”

“Oh, okay,” she said. “That’s fair. I just wanted to make sure we weren’t going to have a problem if I showed up again.”

“I can’t say we won’t,” he said. “But right now, we don’t.”

“That’s all I ask,” she said. “Thank you! I’m going to go collect my Nicki. And thank you, Mackenzie! I’m going to hug your girlfriend now, if that’s okay.”

“I’m cool with hugs,” Ian said.

Grace’s hug was… really careful. Like an elven whisper that just grazed past my ear, she technically wrapped her arms around me and there was definitely contact, but it was the bare minimum necessary to qualify for a hug. I don’t mean the kind of ginger dude-hug that guys sometimes give each other where they’re keeping as much space as possible between as much of their torsos and lower areas as possible… I’m sure from the outside, it looked plenty enthusiastic. She just managed to stop short of actual pressure.

“Thanks again!” she said, and then she was gone.

“So, that was a thing,” Ian said. “I’m not sure what kind of a thing it was, but it was a thing and it happened.”

“Yeah,” I said. “What were you expecting?”

“Dunno,” he said. “Grace seems on the level, and Dee said Glory seems to be basically honest, but they could be… the elven version of on the level, or however Steff said it. If they are up to something, I wouldn’t expect to be their target… but I’m the one who hasn’t trusted them from the beginning, and they’ll both know that.”

“You didn’t really think they’d lure you into an ambush?” I said. “Even if they were up to something.”

“No,” he said. “If I thought that, I wouldn’t have gone with her… but it made sense to take some precautions. Like when Glory wanted to interview you.”

“Yeah… well, you must be starting to trust them since you only asked for me,” I said.

“Hey, there wasn’t anyone at that table I wouldn’t rather have watching my back,” he said. “Except for Dee, but I thought it might be pushing to ask her again. And Steff, but only if I was sure I could trust her. Actually, now that I think about it, I get the impression Hazel’s not someone you want to push into a corner.”

“So what you mean is that apart from Amaranth… who is a total pacifist… and Two, you can’t think of anyone else you’d rather have fighting beside you,” I said.

“Yeah, although… I’ve never actually seen Two fight,” Ian admitted.

“I have,” I said. “She holds her mace in front of her like it’s a shield and hopes that her opponent runs into it.”

“See? I made the right call,” he said. “Anyway, you don’t even like fighting… and honestly, there are a lot of people out there I wouldn’t pick over you, they just didn’t happen to be sitting at our table… and that’s got nothing to do with the fact that you look like you’re becoming more of a fighter.”

“Better at fighting, please, not more of a fighter,” I said. “And please don’t tell me that you picked me because you love me, Ian. Love can accomplish a lot of things, but it can’t win a fight. It didn’t matter this time, but that’s a terrible reason to trust someone with your life.”

“Yeah, but trust isn’t,” he said. “And that’s why I picked you… why I would pick you again. I’d trust Hazel or Dee as being basically decent, I’d trust them to back up their friends, I’d trust them to do the right thing, but I don’t know them the way I know you, so I couldn’t trust them the way I trust you.”

“I think you’re just saying things to make me feel better,” I said.

“Is it working?” he asked.

“I don’t know yet,” I said. “Try saying more things and I’ll tell you.”

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Characters: Amaranth, Dee, Hazel, Ian, Mackenzie, Steff, Two