Bel: Visit even more rainbow drinkers.

You swat at her pushing hands; wow, rude. "I... no, what? I came to ask for advice. Please stop touching me."

 

"Wow, okay, rude," the woman says, and holds her hands straight up in the air. "Right, you're the little highblood guy here about Aspera. Well, the first time's free."

 

"I'm rude?" You shake your head. "The first what's free? You're being very ominous and I'm starting to think you're messing with me."

 

"I'm really not, you're just being sleep-paranoid," she says, and pats his cheek. "Go to sleep already, kid, you're safe here, cross my gross old dead heart. We'll talk in the evening."

 

"Stop touching me," you grumble, and she finally does. It seems to take forever after she's gone to relax enough to go back to sleep, but it's probably only about ten minutes. The fluffcheep starts kneading your scalp with his tiny claws, and it's surprisingly soothing. Almost despite yourself, you sleep like a grub.

 

The evening breakfast table for guests doubles as a dinner table for residents. It's a collection of rough planks haphazardly slung over rocks and loaded with fruits, jams, oinkbeast slices, a variety of eggs, and milk in glass pitchers. towards the end there are a cluster of dark, opaque pitchers with whisks and straws on plates. The sandy ground is covered in bright rugs and pillows, still warm from the low red glare of the setting sun.

A young boy, maybe six sweeps, is standing with his arm propped over one of the pitchers, bleeding cerulean steadily from a small cut while eating a thick wedge of ham with his other hand.. His expression is unusually calm for a kid his age, even confident. The fat girl— Hess— is sitting nearby, knitting an intricate zig-zag swatch of moon-pink and -green, sipping occasionally from a tall glass of ochre blood. A few live trolls are clustered around her, sorting and winding yarn. They're deep in discussion, though the bleeding boy seems to have no opinions that don't involve ham.

 

You're a bit embarrassed about your earlier behavior; you were graceless in the extreme, and resolved to be much nicer tonight. This is at least partly because you finally contacted Pancho for the chewing-out you know you're due, but she was just a little bit sarcastic and mostly reassuring. She thinks networking with non-asshole rainbow drinkers is a good idea if Erskin's going to be into that scene. So you're not in nearly as much trouble as you expected to be, and that's helping you be calm and pleasant as you nod greetings and load up a plate. The bleeding kid kind of creeps you out, but at least he's not wall-eyed and covered in chomp marks like Erskin was when you rescued him.

Your fluffy head ornament is making a lot of noise. He doesn't understand why you have to carry the scrambled eggs and ham around on a plate looking for a good place to sit, and he's not allowed to jump down on the plate and dig in.

 

The knitting circle has paused a heated debate to goggle at the fluffcheep.

"It's not for sale," Hess says, to a chorus of aw's. "Good evening, dear, did you sleep well? You were out for a good long while."

 

"I slept extremely well, thank you. Sorry I was such a grump before, you've been very kind." To the nearest knitter, you say, "He's not for sale, but if he gets big enough to comb for fiber I'll send some to Ms. Hess, I already offered. He's just a hatchling, and one of his parents is yea big. It could happen."

 

The girl Bel addressed leans forward to stroke the fluffcheep along his arched back and is roundly ignored in favor of eggs. The girl with the bangles wanders out of the hive to lie face down on a rug.

"How long are you planning on staying, dear?" Hess asks. "Not that we're not enjoying having you over, of course."

 

"Now that I'm capable of driving without embarrassing myself, I'll be heading out after breakfast. I understand you need, er, a quest done?"

 

Hess nearly snorts into her drink, and puts it hastily back down on the table and wipes blood from her chin. "Oh, what's Grue been telling you about me? No, dear, not as such, our collective runs on mutual assistance, not, oh, not hit points and levels or whatever it is you must be thinking of. We were more than happy to help you out with no expectation of reciprocation last time you dropped by, but this time, we'd certainly appreciate any little favor you might care to grant."

She licks blood from her front teeth. "Especially for the book," she says.

"Books," Grue grunts, still face-down.

"Books, then. Not that we could ever begrudge a viewing of them to such an eager young man. Education's certainly important."

 

"That's fair," you say cautiously. "What sort of thing would be useful to you?" You're hesitant to make an offer, lest you insult them by lowballing, or give them too much and be remembered as an easy mark. Even so, though... "Your information about Cloris's preferences in hives helped me narrow my search enough that I found Erskin alive. I'm not going to begrudge you some errands or repairs or monster-killing or what-have-you."

 

"I want a drink," Grue says to the carpet.

"There's plenty on the table," Hess says, but adds, "That is, often, a standard fare. As I'm sure you can see. Cooking a meal or two of regular food for our guests wouldn't go amiss either, if you're any good at that sort of thing. Hmm. If I gave you a picture of a certain succulent, do you think you could bring a few bushels back? Only it's a dreadful nuisance to harvest ourselves, and you're a fit young thing."

"I want a drink," Grue says again, and tilts her head to the side enough to spear Bel with a predatory green gaze. "A fresh one."

 

You meet her gaze steadily; you know when not to back down. "Is that really a one-time favor, though? Won't I be compelled to come back again and again?"

Though it's Grue's stare you're matching, it's the living trolls you're watching out of the corner of your eye. Their reaction will tell you whether you called it.

 

"Only if you can't get enough of my winning personality," Grue smirks.

"A bite isn't like Slab or Crystal Slam or anything," one of the knitting girls cuts in, amused. "You can take it or leave it, you know."

"You can take it or leave it," another girl mutters.

"Would you shut up about your moirail already?" a third groans. "She had issues, it's not like Greenteeth set out to ruin her life—"

"Not that they cared much when they did," the second mutters.

"Ladies, if you please," Hess cuts in, and they quiet. To Bel: "We don't ever take the unwilling, dear. If you don't want to, of course you don't have to."

Grue grins challengingly.

 

You raise an eyebrow. "I think it's pretty important that I understand where my kismesis is coming from. He was extremely independent before, standoffish even, and then Cloris got hold of him and suddenly he's anyone's juicebox. I need to know why. But I can't do anything about it if I'm in the same boat. What does it do?"

 

"Well, you have to understand that Cloris was one of those that preferred to incite a dependency, and she was a bit psychic, besides," Hess says, half-gesturing with a needle. "Poor Aspera would have been, ah, influenced, for quite some time before their first transaction. Regularly, the compounds we introduce to our companions function primarily as an analgesic, so we don't cause any undue distress, and secondarily as an anticoagulant. Any other reactions depend heavily on individual contexts— we certainly don't intend to hook you like some common hiveslum dealer."

Hess looks a bit insulted at the very notion. The troll with the ex-moirail snorts darkly. A few of the other trolls roll their eyes at her.

 

The one with the ex-moirail is giving you pause, but neither of these is the one who wrecked the ex-moirail's life, so. "For science," you say to Grue, and nod. "If I think I can drive when I clearly can't, I'm relying on you to keep me from getting in the flyer." You flip your hair back over your shoulder.

 

"I'll take care of you, kid," Grue says, then rolls over and sits up. She runs an index finger up along Bel's throat, licking her front fangs. She presses her fingertip against an artery and seems to count for a moment, then nods, pulls his hair back with one hand, and pulls his body close in towards hers with the other arm. A shallow bite is placed up from the shoulder muscle, nearly under the jaw, and she disengages to lick over the site a few times before pressing further in to drink. Her skin goes from bone-white to a starry, pulsing shine and she purrs.

"Grue," Hess says disapprovingly, but makes no move to interfere.