Ogreness, Black Lake-book5

Chapter 32
~

Nuel swung at me with her open hand. I didn’t fade fast enough and the impact spun me around. I should have gone to the ground for sympathy sake, since Darshee and Wizper watched on, but I stubbornly stumbled upright.

“Ouch.” Lava sunk into my cheek. I pressed my jaws around a bit to make sure they were still connected right. My eyes had to be stuck up in my skull somewhere. I licked at my tusks to make sure they were still in place, and appropriately tight. Takes a lot to dislodge an ogre’s tusks, I would think, but she’d hit me pretty hard. I’m glad, open handed.

“Ya were supposed to improve our lives, not ruin them.”

Darshee and Wizper weren’t runnin’ to support me. My mama looked on stoically too.

“Don’t scar up that pretty face,” she finally murmured.

I think Papa chuckled.

“I’m not cleanin’ up any blood,” Ezra said. “Ya flood the dining room floor and ya’re on yar own.”

Yeah, my kin are really gonna rush to my support. With a sledge hammer to help cave in my head.

“Did I mention, the kitchen is closed,” Ezra added.

That wasn’t a surprise. It’s after midnight. I could feel the indention of Nuel’s print across my cheek. Would go well with my fadin’ shiner. Did I taste blood? It could just be my brain leakin’.

“I could kill ya,” Nuel hissed.

“There’ll be a line,” Papa mumbled.

I shot him a look. He didn’t appear apologetic in the least.

“We’re always savin’ those trolls,” Mama said.

Nuel jerked her rage Mama’s way, thank goodness. Her glare was about to make me melt.

“Saving the trolls?” Nuel hissed.

“Don’t hiss at my mate,” Papa said.

Nuel turned an even deadlier look his way. “Because someone two hundred years ago paved the way for trolls to get their own mines back, they’ve been saved by someone?”

“Maybe poor choice of words,” Mama said. She never was that great a diplomat. It was more, “Pick up yar room or ya’ll be pickin’ yarself up in the next holler.”

Never thought she was kiddin’ when she uttered those words. I’ve seen her shake my brother by the ankles, and that’s when he’d already been away to college. He was no ogreling.

“I can’t be under the same roof as ya,” Nuel spit my way. She looked at the hens. “There room on the floor where ya’re staying, for me?”

“I’m on a king sized,” Darshee said. “If ya don’t snore too bad, I’ll share.”

Nuel strode out of the Inn, slammin’ the door, rudely. It occurred to me, how was she gonna get to my cousin’s, since he lived about five miles into the hills, on the other side of the cove?

Darshee and Wizper both shrugged, and followed her out.

“Why didn’t ya invite her to the summer place?” I asked Mama.

“I think she’s mad at everyone ya share DNA with,” Papa mumbled.

Funny he should bring up DNA. And besides, didn’t we share a bit with the cousins?

The hens’ bikes murmured to life, and five seconds later the rumble faded away. I dropped my jaw a bit. Nuel had to have saddled up behind Darshee. So she might despise bikes, but to get away from me, she’d sit on one.

“I’m feelin’ a little insulted,” Ezra mumbled. “But I’m tired. Ya walk with?”

I nodded, peerin’ at the folks. Were we done? Neither moved. So I didn’t either.

Ezra said, “Ya may have those marks on yar cheek in the morning.”

She was prolly lovin’ this. We’ve always been really tight, tight enough to tease each other like twins.

“Ya’re walkin’?” Papa asked. “It’s a length. We’ll give ya a ride.”

“Usually I like the time to wind down, but tonight—” Ezra walked to the far wall and dimmed the dining room lights.

Outside, stridin’ down the grand stairs, the darkness of the Range struck me again. Despite that, the sliver of moon blazed eerily bright. The four of us walked in silence. The night air prickled at my burnin’ cheek. First week of September. Prolly have the first dustin’ of snow in days. The peaks are already capped. My blood is really acclimated to the warmer weather on the plains, now.

Nuel’s angry face kept flashin’ in my mind’s eye. Erg. Don't understand at all what was behind all that emotion.

Ezra grabbed my hand. The contact felt nice. We’d grown up together, born days apart. In most of the same classes through elementary. Attended each other’s games in high school. She was always just a bit of a flower child. A lot of the clan was put off by her a little. As a loner like me, she’d been grateful that I made her trudge to every event with me. She might have complained, but I know she liked being with me, and usually Kriz, wherever I dragged her. I usually didn’t want to be there either, but being the youngest of Bliar, my presence was expected from the Hamlet residents.

“Ya like her, huh?” Ezra whispered.

I lie to myself, but I won’t lie to Ezra. So I gave her question a moment of consideration.

“So ya do,” Ezra said. “Figgers she likes ya too, or she wouldn’t have been so mad at ya.”

“Ya think?” I asked.

“That ya’re a moron? Yep.”

“I was a moron to think she’d be happy I was takin’ the situation seriously?”

“I think she expected a different direction.”

“Ya think?”

“Is this gonna work out?” she asked.

“It’ll be ugly, no way around it. But I don’t see an alternative.”

“Ya had alternatives flittin’ around in yar head when ya flew North.”

I took in a breath, gave her hand a bit of a squeeze. “That was before I saw how ugly it is, first hand.”

“Gonna be hard to fix things with Nuel,” she said.

I was pretty certain there was no fixin’ that. There was no thing to fix.

~ Nuel ~

I acted over the top. No one has to tell me that. Why had I behaved like some crazy banshee? The words and emotions simply flooded out of my face. Why? I’m a rather reasonable, calm ogre.

I shivered against the arctic blast as Darshee accelerated onto a four-lane blacktop. Oh. I was freezing.

A harder shiver ripped over me. Darshee had to have felt it in her hips.

It had been a long time since I’ve been on the back of a bike. The terror as a youngling had been—exciting. Then Papa got hurt, and he had his bike hauled off. We never talked about riding again.

But this moment, I remember thinking as a ten-year-old, how cool it was to have a papa who rode a motorcycle. It was rash, and brave, and adventuresome. He looked awesome in those knee-high boots.

After he recovered, he didn’t quite seem like the same bull. Maybe coming near death made him want to be around us hens more.

Or, loosing the bike ripped a bit of life out of him.

~