One thing I will say for the Spriggan sibs is that there’s only ever one trip back from the car. They may be small, at least, most of the time, but they’re super-strong and they’ll carry everything. Somehow, and I figure it’s some kind of use of a talent, we never meet anyone in the parking lot. I don’t know how they manage to veil themselves from nosy people looking past the blinds, but who knows, maybe it’s a complete package.

I was able to unlock the door using one hand, propping up my boxes of stuff against the wall while I did it. I didn’t know what their etiquette rules were regarding opening doors, because sometimes it seemed okay, and sometimes it seemed verboten. I’m sure if I paid attention I’d figure out the pattern, but I just went with the flow. It could be a bodyguard thing, and not just some freaky fey formality. Not everything was about magic, right?

I was looking forward to seeing the new layout again.  It had made my whole place feel a little different, fresh and new. I’m glad my bedroom was off-limits, so I still had a familiar area, like a pillow fort I could return to if I needed. I didn’t feel I really had a lot of anxiety, but everyone has their lair, right?  Just because mine was lined in comics and paperbacks was just like laying on piles of gold.  Or fish.  Whatever floats your horde.  That doesn’t sound like the right metaphor. Whatever gathers your horde?

I rushed to the kitchen with the groceries, not really looking. Once I got things settled on the counter, I leaned against the stove and glanced at the living room.

…and kept on looking.

“What did you do?” I asked.  I don’t know how it came out. I was shocked and appalled and in awe at the same time.

First was the lighting. I have (I had to count) three lights for the living room.  One hanging one over the table, one on my desk next to the computer, and the kitchen LED (the management company replaced the fluorescents a few years ago) that was usually left on unless we were leaving.  The kitchen was still on, and it still looked white with that slight blue tint, but I could see little blue lights glowing and shifting in…the distance?

Something about the use of light and shadow made my living room look like a grotto.  The couch was there, but it looked sunken, somehow more a part of the book cases, which loomed like those huge trees in the swamp.  There was a fountain somewhere in the other corner, water barely running, just sliding and leaving a bit of chill to the atmosphere. It was quiet, not that rush of water that every apartment dweller feared.  It was pleasant.  I recalled the fountain as something I’d picked up from a garage sale and never had put together. I wondered what else Nen had found in my storage.

Everything smelled so nice, I just spent time breathing it in.  I could hear Rayya and Nen setting things up in the kitchen.  There was the moving of plates, quiet sounds.  I sat down on the couch, stretching out my legs.  I closed my eyes, and leaned back for a few minutes.

I hadn’t meant to fall asleep.  I woke up with a growling in my stomach, and my nostrils full of the spices and all the Maillard Reaction goodness of baking something that smelled amazing.

“You looked peaceful,” Rayya said.  She was wearing something different.  I tried to put it together, and I remembered. The babies breath.  She had used it to make a kind of lace overlay, and she smelled like the faint scent of the flower.  There were different silver rings on each of her fingers, all shiny.  She’d done something faintly to her eyes, make-up I would guess.  Some kind of faint line to them that changed their shape.  I was quick to notice only because I’d gotten in trouble so many times for not knowing.  It bugged me that she wore the headscarf so I couldn’t compliment her for something she might have done with her hair.

“Not a bad dream or even,” I stretched it out, “a crick in my neck. You look nice. Is that why you wanted the flowers?”

She smiled, and maybe I even detected a bit of pleasure in her expression.  “In part,” she said. “I am glad you appreciate.”  That was better than my approval, I decided.  Even this old dog could learn some new tricks.

I glanced in to the kitchen.  Nen looked as he did this morning. “Should I dress up?” I asked. I had meant to do a little, but if she was looking nice I needed a bit more time.  I glanced at my watch.  Plenty of time.  For a guy; for Maggie I would need to travel four or five hours in the past, or cheat.

Funny that I didn’t consider the sibs using their glamour as cheating. It was what they were, less who they were, which it was with Maggie.  I thought of magic as being special, and she thought it was a tool to be used for whatever nail she could hammer. I guess that’s being a little judgmental; she had other tools in her toolbox, of course.  I was just being the bitter ex- for a moment.

“It is up to you,” Rayya responded.

“I know what that means.  It means yes or you’ll be secretly disappointed and judge me all evening.”  That wasn’t quite fair, either; I knew them to be true to their word, and if she said it was up to me, it probably was. I was reacting to her as if she was a woman.

That was weird.  I didn’t think of Rayya as a, I mean, yeah, I was aware she was female.  She was just on the ‘no’ list so I didn’t really count on it.

I couldn’t read the expression, but she followed it up with a shrug.  “It is up to you,” she repeated.  She moved back to the kitchen, dismissing me and my neuroses.

I guess I could at least put on a shirt that buttoned up… I got up to look at my wardrobe.

The fiercesome beast of the grocery was a multi-segmented creature.  Its head and tail is a thing called ‘parking,’ and that was a nightmare of small children and multiple large machines with little patience.  While we were taking the bus, the fangs and breath of parking still meant we had to run the gauntlet of impatient monster trucks (okay, just the ubiquitous black SUVs) and aforementioned small children who seemed to have no survival instinct whatsoever, or at least not one evolved for asphalt roving engines.

Rayya and I made it long enough for me to flash my membership card (I always do it just like Old Ben in his ‘droids’ line, even if it’s totally legit) as we went into the big warehouse.  “Do we need a cart or a flat?” I asked. I realized I was making it kind of challenging in tone. I don’t know why I was so aggressive, but maybe I was still off-kilter from my home being rearranged.  I don’t know.  I liked it, but at the same time, there was a violation of the norm and my brain needed a little adjustment time.

On the other hand, Rayya took it in stride, as if either was entirely acceptable. “We do not have the facilities to sate the appetite of all invited guests,” she said. She also said it simply, which made me dream up otherwise unimaginable horrors, like pickled human toes (apparently a garnish in some small city in the Yukon, according to an article or two I read once while researching Wendigo) and the occasional nutria.  Hey, your unimaginable horrors are probably far less tame than mine. I have plenty of imaginable horrors that’ll pickle your toes.  Or something like that. “However, we should do well to provide options and alternatives.  Hospitality requires some effort,” she said as if chiding me.

I pulled out the flat, and did a quick check on my bank allowance. I don’t recommend shopping without a list and a budget, but this was the party mood and I had a number it couldn’t go over and no expectations.  This was a luxury, indeed, and I thanked the guilt of the sorcerers once more. After all, being nearly eaten by a Dragon had to be worth something besides bad press and other Dragon grudges. I was going to have to find a job eventually, but I was constantly surprised at the modest lifestyle I was living, despite being seemingly eaten out of house and home if by house and home you meant sugary breakfast cereals.

“Where first?” I asked.  Left to my own devices, I meandered. I was the worst of the frugal sorts; I bought on impulse if I could justify it with it being, “On sale,” or “useful to have around even in this bulk capacity,” but then, most of my meals were still of the frozen variety except when the sibs insisted on something with less salt.  It sounded healthier to me, and they were fairly good cooks, not that I’ve been to an actual doctor in years.  I mean, I did date Rohana, and that should have counted for at least an office visit, right?

The long neck of the grocery beast are the aisles of treats. According to Rayya, dried fruit was a different beast than fresh fruit, but still had much of the same properties, only with added concentration.  At the airport was a kiosk that included dried hibiscus, goji and golden berries, mulberries, green and yellow pomelo, and yes, every time I start listing fruit, there’s this urge to shout, “Come buy! Come buy!”  I can’t be the only one, right?

The belly of the grocery beast is in the frozen sections, beckoning quiescent confections and delicious things you never even knew you wanted.  Okay, as treyf as it gets, I really like scallops wrapped with prosciutto, and then barbecued with a sweet bourbon sauce.  I guess I could drink a jug of wine and eat it with a bacon cheeseburger and really fail many of the world’s major religions, but I’m not the kind of person who snubs their nose at such rules. It was odd, though, because when I went grocery shopping with Maggie, she’d talk money, and value per ounce, and Rayya, when she spoke or indicated an item mostly talked about its potency on a magical level.

“What happened to a kernel of corn making a feast?” I asked. After all, I thought they clothed themselves based on that premise.

“There’s a price to pay that you’d be better off withholding,” she replied. “Although,” she looked for the third or fourth time at the flowers.  I rarely went to the refrigerated plant areas, seeing as I thought dead things generally not a pleasant gift, but maybe if I had two dead teckla…

I moved the cart over there. “There’s something you keep looking at,” I said. “What do you want?”

I expected some kind of mystic bouquet, a combination of the simple wealth of daisies, maybe a rose or two for abundance, but she went to the baby’s breath.  At least, I thought that’s what it was, those funny little filler flowers of white.  “Pure heart,” she said. She laughed.  “I like the common name: baby’s breath.  Stolen by a cat, no doubt.”

“Did you want them?” I asked.

She was caught by her nature, I supposed.  I couldn’t read her expression.  I picked them from her hands and laid them in the cart.  “There. Solved.  Now, they don’t sell the ambrosia of the gods, but I do believe they have cola.”  I turned the flat towards the soda aisle.

“They sell Balm of Gilead-scented car sachets in bundles,” she said.

“Really?” I asked.

“Or at least fir and cotton scents,” she demurred, but she had a smile on her face.  I liked that.

We came in well under budget, but I hoped people (and this time I used the term “people” broadly again) were hungry.  At least we never got anything one of us wasn’t willing to eat, so I’d call it a win.