"Grandpa, grandpa —whyisitttt sooooo warm?!" "Larissa, she's one of the folks. A Bleeder." "Sosososo... Bleerders are different?"
"Aye... Bleeders, gal, break stone with 'er warmth." Their discussion took on a darker undertone really quickly. Though I found the true meaning to be lost on her.
"Butbutbut! It's soooo cuuuuteee~." The bundle of positive energy shouted as she flailed her arms around, making the youth in her embrace giggle nonstop.
The very same she'd caught just in time before she burst on the ground lie a ripe watermelon. Yet her remorse didn't endure for long, since she seemed to forget whatever had happened seconds earlier.
I didn't need to emphasise just how harrowing this was for my brittle heart? Just the thought of what would happen to little old me were she late by even one second... "Damn!"
"Don't take dat to heart, lad. Larissa's the fountain of boundless energy." "If," my voice sounded like two sheets of sandpaper gating against each other, "I'm unlucky?
Will you revive the youth then?" A thick thumb nudged me on my forehead, the other hand occupied with producing sparks as the limb rubbed against the chin.
"Nah, lad sounds beat. Not mad. No, not mad." I stared as deep and hard as I could into these three shiny obsidian pearls that were his eyes.
"Lookie-Looksie! Grandpa!!" Though it wasn't long before fear gripped my heart, forcing me to abandon the staring contest and almost break down in despair right after.
Larissa, that unbridled member of the stonefolk, repeatedly threw the youth up in the air where she happily caught some leaves and twigs before inertia took its toll on that tiny body.
She didn't forget to catch her safely... but the mere thought that what she played with was my very life gnawed on me like termites on delicious roots.
"Please...," I almost sobbed there. The mighty Thoth looking down on everyone and everything was about to sob! "...stop this dangerous play."
"Fret not, lad. Larissa's a responsible gal." I could've trusted the guy after a million years of constant preaching, but the young stonekin slipped on a root, falling face down first.
So did my heart. I panicked and tried to mobilise a bit of my power, no matter how insignificant. But what answered my call was an uncivilised fart for all these efforts I put into.
The ground beside me cracked open, the old stonekin gone by the time I glimpsed over. Instead, he appeared right on time, catching the youth and cradling it with his mighty thumbs.
She... laughed beautifully. "Just what's so funny about getting caught by arms seven times your size, fondled by digits that could crush you in an iffy...?" Then stone sure wasn't soft enough to boot!
I didn't understand. As relief washed over me, I slumped down on the ground below. Only now did it become clear just how much stress I'd put my recuperating body under just to save her.
As I didn't even manage to do that... the whole undertaking was just doomed to be this useless. "Larissa..."
The stonekin didn't say much more. Only the accelerated inhalation of smoke from his long pipe, smelling akin to cured socks mixed with intensive herbs, did suggest he wasn't as calm.
"Uhhh... sorry...?" The young stonekin awkwardly waddled over, the ground rumbling below her feet.
As she wasn't needlessly jumping around, running about here and there, I could finally lay my tired eyes on her.
She wasn't half as tall as her supposed grandfather. Quite thin too, comparatively speaking. And while the older stonekin wore some coarse textiles nearly as grey as his complexion, she didn't.
The colour of her stone was akin to smoky quartz, her clothes limited to some pants I'd have long since discharged.
That held true in the face of resting on the ground as good as naked too... "I-I-I really mean it!" As I didn't respond, she was growing fearful.
Or rather, wasting seconds she could've happily run around, her big pink ribbon jumping left and right frightened her to no end. Not the fate of this youth I was bound to.
"Sorry... and that's it?" The tone I spoke in was harsh, the voice laced with more poisonous anger than I realised.
Her grandpa looked my way, his eyes unreadable. There was just this something in these jewels that made me calm down, ashamed.
"Now, my dear Larissa. You've got to see this through." I chose my words wisely. "Care for the youth, go play or what. But if there's a tiny scratch on her, I—"
"Ain't dat good for yer, gal? Go play. Go run!" Larissa immediately perched up upon these words. She took the youth from her grandpa's arms, dashing somewhere.
"Yer... ain't half bad." "Says who? You? Without your timely reminder, I'd have chewed her out." Quite literally too... He chuckled, offering me to take a drag.
I followed up on his offer, wheezing the air out of my lungs as the poisonous fumes did their number on my poor respiratory organ.
He laughed even louder, yet no longer offering me his long pipe. "Stonekin on the prowl... last time I heard of this place, it was the central node of high elven sovereignty still."
"Aye..." His merry mood was gone just like that. The stonekin even lost interest in his pipe, laying it down in the grass in front of him.
"Elves ain't welcoming sure...," Grinding his teeth, he clenched his fists too, the knuckles grating ominously under the hard layer of skin.
It seemed like me trying to infer any kind of news of these lands I'd visited so many centuries ago opened up a can of worms.
"You don't need to—" "...pests follow where might slacks. And the homeless, the persecuted, the cursed..."
He fell silent, having said already too much. I'd been around places long enough to catch on about enduring smouldering conflicts.
Yet with this much time whizzing past, things should've changed. They didn't, apparently. "I don't ask of you to lead me to your heap.
Merely to the biggest tree not occupied by elven rascals." I had little to give him in return. And if my field of perception wasn't wrong, the stonekin found a liking to my necklace.
But that was impossible to trade away, given Spice gave it to me before sending me off. It contained memories that were essential for my future path.
Only a bit of rest separated me from taking full advantage of his gift. "Larissa, this gal... the world's new to her."
"Fine... I shall keep her content. But—" "She ain't gonna hurt yer love." My love...? The youth surely wasn't. She was a drag if anything. A damn. Bloody. Drag!
Yet this misunderstanding was to my advantage. "We have a deal. I also won't interfere with whatever you've come here to do." "Th's I hope." And so, we had an accord.