Warm Welcome

"So, um, I take it you ain't been out of the Ivory Tower in a while, sugar?"

Gretel blinked. He rubbed the back of his neck, biting his lip. "Is it that obvious bit?"

The cart hit a bump, causing him to nearly drop his notebook. Beside him, the farmer's daughter Maye giggled as she bounced against his side. "A li'l bit."

She patted him on the shoulder. "Don't fret about it none, though, wizard. We've got no problem with folks from the Tower. You ain't the first we've seen this year, even."

"Oh, r-really." Gretel gave a little smile, trying not to show his nerves. The copper-skinned, red-haired Maye was dressed in practical, sensible trousers and a cold-weather jacket, clearly dressed for the farmwork she and her mother had been on their way back from this afternoon when Gretel had hailed them and asked for a lift. It wasn't exactly suggestive garb, but she was sweaty from a day in the field, and pressed against him like this (there wasn't much room in the cart, she'd said), it was awfully hard to focus. "And, um, you're sure it's customary to sit so, um..."

"Yeah, yeah, a'course!" She giggled, kissing him on the cheek. "We're a, um, very affectionate people. Nothin' suggestive about it. Why? Are you gettin' suggestible?" She winked.

Gretel knew he was being fast reduced to a blushing, babbling mess, and he fumbled for what felt like a minute before managing, "No, just... just making sure."

"You're just green about our norms! Nothin' to be ashamed of, sugar." She patted his head. Her fingers entwined slightly in his medium-short curly hair. "My, you're as pink as cotton candy up here. That somethin' they teach you in the Tower?"

"Um, something my benedician gave me, actually." Gretel ducked his head, embarrassed at how red-faced he was getting. He didn't mind the question, but he wished he wasn't getting so... so bothered by her proximity. If all the farmers were this cozy here in Springroot, it was silly to be so bashful. "The day I was born. She said I was destined to be a wizard, and wizards should have m-magical hair colors. Or something."

"Oh, really?" She snuggled up against him - clearly because it was cold, Gretel supposed, feeling absurd for how his breath caught at feeling her full bosom squishing against him beneath the jacket. She was just trying to get warm. This was common behavior outside the Tower. "Say, y'mind loaning me your cloak?"

"M-My - what?" Gretel stared at her, biting his lip. She had such pretty hazel eyes. Asie from his pale cloak, he was dressed only in a simple formal suit and vest. In this wet, muddy weather, the cloak was all that was keeping him clean.

"It's cold." She rested her chin on his shoulder, grinning innocently. "And, well, I was thinkin' maybe we should share it. Just for warmth." She batted her eyelashes up at him. "Oh, do they not do that in the Tower?"

"I... I mean, I suppose..." Gretel blinked rapidly. "I mean, um, no. Do they... is that really..." Her fingers were taking the hem of his cloak, fiddling with the simple clasp, and he was hesitantly following suit. Following her lead. No harm right? The thought of sharing his cloak with Maye made his heartrate quicken - could she feel that, all cuddled against him?

"Very common 'round here," she said, her voice light and teasin. "Nothin' odd about it. Thaaat's right, just..."

"Whoa!" called the gruff voice of her mother up ahead. The mule drawing the cart came to an abrupt halt. The jolt made both Gretel and Maye lurch forward slightly, and Maye slid about three feet away from him in an instant as Terrin - quite resembling Maye, save for a pair of deep brown eyes and about twenty years' worth of scars and laugh lines - looked back at them. She adjusted her fishing hat slightly in a sort of salute. "This here's your stop, Gretel."

"O-Oh! Thank you!" Gretel gave her the warmest smile he could muster, nodded bashfully to Maye, and hopped out of the cart. He let Maye pass him back his staff and satchel. "Thank you very much, madam!"

"Ha!" The farmer snorted. "'Madam'. You're gonna wanna drop those words, boy. Bein' too respectful to anyone makes the good folks suspicious and the wrong folks interested 'round here."

"I... I see!" He kept nodding, even though he only half-understood. You're nodding too much, his wits warned him. Stop nodding! "Thank you. I'll keep that in mind." Whatever it means. He glanced at Maye, who smiled brightly at him.

"You wanted the nearest farmhouse." Terrin pointed down the dusty road. "This forks off towards the Wheels family homestead. It's bein' rented to the Wheels right now, I mean. The farm's called the Glimmer Farm, after the girl who plotted it."

"Right. The village owns it, yes?"

"Mm-hm." Terrin's pointing shifted slightly to the right. "The Wheels are nice folks. A bit fey-friendly, but you gotta be when you live so close to the Evergreen, I reckon. Been tryin' to get us a patron fey for years, that lot." She laughed, as if this was an old joke in Springroot. "There's a branching path right up to their house. The left or right will take you the same way - doesn't matter one bit. Don't take the middle path."

"What's wrong with - "

"Trust me." She leaned down from the cart, raising an eyebrow - as if sizing him up. "Someone like you'd best stay off the middle path, and well away from the Greens Farm, 'til you learn to manage yourself. This ain't the Tower no more."

He blinked big eyes, swallowed, and adjusted his large, round spectacles. "Got it."

"I'll pick you up tomorrow, in case the Wheels ain't willin' to take you the rest of the way!" She cast a scowl back at her daughter, who was suddenly very keenly interested in the seed bags. "I expect my daughter'll be busy canning with her ma tomorrow, but my son Henja might be with me. He's a lot more... cold-tolerant than my daughter seems to be."

"We'd better go, Mother," Maye said, clearing her throat loudly. "Ma and Henja must be wonderin' what's keepin' us."

Terrin snorted and turned back to the road. "So you ain't poised to die from chill, Maye?"

"No, Mother." Indeed, with her flushed cheeks, Maye looked rather warm right now.

Gretel was not sure what was going on, and had a feeling it wasn't his business. So he just gave a big smile and did a sort of curtsey-bow combination, hoping that this at least got him close to a proper local farewell. "Um... thank you very, very much! I'll see you tomorrow, then!"

"Tell the Wheels we want our spoon back!" the farmer called, as she drew the reins and the mule started walking. "Aeril Wheel will know what I mean, the old heel."

"W-Will do!" he called, as the cart started to wheel away.

As Maye glanced back at him, she smiled and blew him a little kiss. There was a tempestuous look in her eyes. She leaned over the back of the cart and adjusted her jacket, clearly no longer quite so cold after all.

Gretel swallowed and waved nervously, quickly averting his gaze and brushing his long curls from his face. He clearly had a lot to learn about etiquette outside the Mage Tower. If he hadn't known any better, he'd have sworn she was trying to flash him her tits.

~ ~ ~ ~

When he'd told the Headmaester why he wanted to head to Springroot, the old man had peered at him through those thick bifocals of his like he'd completely lost his mind. Gretel had always been fascinated with the lives of the commoners - or former commoners, back when there had been a Royal Family and sense of kingdom holding the continent together - and to him, an economic analysis seemed perfectly relevant.

"What's to know?" the Ivory Headmaester had mumbled. "They farm. They hunt. They trade bits and pieces, but there's no meaningful industry. Why not head to someplace like Nyaska, or... ah, how about Enterprise? Now there's an economy!"

But as Gretel tapped his whalebone staff against the gravely path, wincing every time a pointy little stone made it into his sandals, he knew he'd made the right choice. All around him, through the thick evening fog and purple haze of the moment before sunset, tall cereals illustrated the fields no doubt belonging to the Wheels family. They were clearly near harvesting. How did they harvest all this acreage on their own, though? Did they have employees? Was it a magical effect?

Of course, he couldn't see much through the fog, and perhaps there was far less grain than it seemed. Indeed, he didn't even notice he was coming up to the fork until he nearly ran right into the sign.

The sign was made of thick bark, and nailed to a great, big citrus tree of some kind. Rotting oranges littered the ground. Idly, Gretel wondered if oranges normally grew in the same climate as the kinds of grains surrounding them, but as he read the sign, he understood a little better.

GREENS ORCHARD

And beneath it, a simpler, more temporary-looking sign: Tashka Family.

So the 'Greens' weren't the family renting the orchard, he realized, peering behind the sign. The apple tree was growing in the middle of the road, right in front of a third center path leading straight down. 'Greens' was the name of the orchard itself. Maye had mentioned that the Wheels were friendly to fey - maybe the Tashkas were, too, explaining the flora.

If it hadn't been so foggy, he might have even been able to make out the Evergreen Forest from here.

Don't take the middle path, he recalled, and gave a curt nod. He looked between the right and left path, briefly considering which looked like it had fewer sharp rocks.

He shivered. It felt like he'd just jumped into a freezing river with this fog hanging over him. He wanted to get to the Wheels before nightfall, definitely. Fey aside, he needed to be in front of a warm fire yesterday.

"Ja, it is a chilly eve, isn't it?"

Gretel whirled around in a full 360-degree circle at the voice - lilting and melodic, almost bouncy, distinctly feminine. He couldn't see anyone, but there wasn't much he could see in this fog. The wind picked up, and he wrapped his arms around himself.

"And very difficult choice for an empty stomach," called a second voice, almost identical except that it distinctly came from a different direction. Gretel gasped and spun around, but there was nobody in sight.

"Someone there?" he asked, clutching his staff close. He had to have his shield spell up and ready, but his fingers were numb from windchill. "Um - uh, friend or foe?"

This triggered a round of giggles from his two anonymous hecklers.

"Friend," they said together, and Gretel bit his lip. Okay, there were definitely two of them.

"If you are friend, that is," added one.

Gretel bit his lip. This could be fey. He had never met a fey before, outside of maybe a catgirl or beastfey stopping by the Tower on occasion. Never alone. And never on a foggy road in the wilderness. "I'm... friedly," he said hesitantly. "Trying to... to get to the Wheels. Who are you?"

"Hm." The first voice sounded thoughtful, as if this question had put them in doubt.

There was a long silence. The sounds of the wind picked up as the fields all around hissed in motion.

Gretel heard a voice right behind him. "Around here, a visitor gives name first, I think."

He turned to behold a woman emerging from the fog. His eyes widened.

She was only about four feet tall, and that was stating it generously.

She was also bright green, as green as the orange tree leaves, with darker plump lips and brilliant blue eyes. Her hair was jet black, worked into a long fishtail braid, and she wore a simple set of furs that managed to cover her completely while still giving away that she was extremely curvy. Her ears were the size and shape of hunting knives.

A goblin. Goblin maid to be precise - not to be confused with a skittergoblin or a fey goblin, Gretel recalled from his books. She was mortal. Not a fey at all. His shoulders slumped in relief.

Then he realized she was staring at him expectantly, her arms crossed, and he started as he remembered her words. "I - um - Gretel." He extended a hand. "Gretel Ivory, at your service, Madam."

She looked at his hand and smiled. He suddenly remembered that Terrin had told him not to be too polite.

She took his hand and shook it briskly, in a way that gave him the sense he'd committed some sort of minor faux pas and she was being gracious. "Lesha," she said, smiling up at him. "Of the Tashka Clan. You are a wizard, ja?"

He couldn't place that curious accent, the way her 'w' almost sounded like a 'v', the bounciness of her intonation. It gave her a certain... exotic flair, he supposed. "Y-Yah. I-I mean, yes. Ivory Tower."

"Long way from home." She glanced over her shoulder. "A month's journey, I think?"

"About, yes. But, um, it's that way." He pointed. She glanced back at him and blinked, and he realized she hadn't been trying to look towards the distant tower at all. He lowered his hand lamely . "I'm, um, trying to find the Wheels' home." He turned back to the sign. "Either path works, right?"

"The Wheels?" Lesha seemed puzzled. She walked up beside him, on his left side. "Ja,, any path but the middle."

"They're quite a way to walk, though," said a second voice, and Gretel tried not to show how startled he was as a virtually identical goblin maid - except this one with a yellow-trimmed white dress instead of a blue-trimmed white dress, and bright red eyes - emerged to his right. She smiled up at him, curtseyed, and offered her hand. "I am Jalli."

"Gretel." Gretel blinked down at her, and realized wih a pang that she expected him to kiss her hand. No wonder Lesha had been put off. He bowed, took her hand, and kissed it as chastely as he could muster. to his relief, Jalli's coquettish giggle implied he'd done the right thing. "And I know they're a way, so I'd, um, best start walking, right?"

"Oh, you should not!" Lesha tugged on his sleeve, wide-eyed. "it's near sunset! There are many bad things after night."

"Yes, well..."

"And it is so cold," Jalli murmured, shaking her head and tutting slightly as she looked him over. Her hands were on her wide hips as she craned her neck to see his face. "No, no, Gretel, you should come with us."

Gretel rubbed his thighs together, uncomfortable at the way they were half-circling him. "But I - "

"It is very close," Lesha assured him, slipping her arm into the crook of his elbow. "Much closer than the Wheels."

"I - well, I mean - "

"You must come with us instead," Jalli said, nodding eagerly as she took his other arm. "We will be so worried all night otherwise!"

Gretel was stammering, trying to think of a polite way to refuse without telling them their own neighbors had warned him to steer clear. The trouble was, he was very cold, and the idea of a fire melting away the figurative icicles he could feel jabbing him with pins and needles with every gust of wind made his knees weak.

And they were already nudging him forward.

"I mean..." He hesitated, but was already uncertainly allowing them to steer him, trying not to trip over his own feet. "How... far are the Wheels?"

"Oh, at least, um... hm..." Jalli put her finger to her lip as she considered the number, blinking up at him. It was such an innocent-yet-suggestive expression, he didn't actually catch her estimate - but the way she said it made it sound very long indeed.

"Ours is much more near," Lesha said, skipping slightly, forcing him to walk quicker. "We will have a hot meal and a warm fire for our guest! He will be nice and cozy in no time. Hospitality demands it, ja?"

"Y-Yeah." Gretel squirmed, almost struggling to keep up as the goblin maids urged him around the sign. He spared a nervous glance over his shoulder, eyeing the path he'd been supposed to take with a pang of guilt. "I-I just, um, don't know if..."

He felt a little pinprick of cold hit the tip of his nose. Then another struck the back of his neck.

As it started to rain, he trailed off, staring down the distant, foggy right-hand path.

"Do not worry," Lesha sang, bopping her head against his arm affectionately - almost like a dog rubbing its head against the hand for a pat. With his hands in their clutches, at least he didn't have to worry about instinctively obliging, he supposed. Now that would be a faux pas. "Our home is very near. While we are going, you can tell us all about you!"

"U-Um, sure..." Gretel swallowed as the sign disappeared into the fog behind him. He shivered, and the goblin maids seemed to press closer to him, warming him with their fur-clad bodies.

Village culture seems to be very intimate, he noted, trying to quell his nerves as the goblin maids began humming some sort of traveling tune in unison. It was droning, but soothed his nerves, and his eyelids felt rather heavy as he allowed them to guide him onward through the rain. Without much sense of... personal space.

~ ~ ~ ~

The goblin maids' home - the Tashka house, for as long as they were renting - a nice little cottage, and every bit as cozy as promised, warmly lit by colored glass lanterns that cast it all in a rosy pink light. It reminded Gretel uncomfortably of the first time he'd left the Ivory Tower, just last spring.

Everyone at the Rose Tower had been very kind, and very clever, and very forward, too, just like these two goblin maids - though none had been quite so blatantly eager to undress him.

"Th-That's okay!" he blurted, as one of the goblin maids - Jalli, he was pretty sure - moved to take his cloak. "I-I mean, I don't, um... should I take off my cloak?"

"Ja, ja." Jalli sounded slightly impatient, but she was all smiles as she hopped up onto a stool to help in her task. A bit odd that she had a stepping stool right by her front door, but Gretel couldn't imagine there was anything sinister behind it. Maybe it was to reach the coatrack or something, though how often did they have guests his size? "Of course, Gretel!"

"Of course it is," Lesha agreed, as in time with her bouncy accent, she bounced up to share the stool with her twin sister and help take the cloak from the other arm. She leaned in close for balance, and Gretel felt her warm cinnamon breath over his shoulder. "Necessary to take off cloak, yah, yah. Very wet. You are cold!"

"Um, a little bit," Gretel admitted. The goblin maids giggled, nodding in agreement as they took his cloak and draped it over the coatrack - empty aside from his article, it seemed.

"Of course you are!" Jalli exclaimed, and she hopped off the stool and skipped away into the living area. The living area reminded Gretel of Wizard Arlo's den back at the Tower. The infamous hedonistic teacher of magical patterns, runes, and designs had been known for his greedy, gluttonous lifestyle, and had been implicated in more than one improper relationship with a peer or pupil. Just like the Taskhas, he had kept a roaring fireplace, suggestive portraits on the wall, and a great, big armchair next to a bowl full of treats.

Only around here, that had to mean something different, didn't it? After all, there was only one armchair and two goblins, so it wasn't as if they spent their days lounging about and drowning in sensuous pleasures. There were only two portraits on the wall, one of a goblin maid standing beside a tall elven woman with a strong jaw - perhaps the goblin maids' parents. Yes, the elven woman was lying in bed as the goblin maid sat on her lap, the portrait's perspective from a bird's eye view, but surely Gretel was the only one who would perceive that as anything sexual.

The other portrait was of a pair of... were those peaches? Some sort of large, round fruits. He felt absurd for seeing it as anything else. Back at the Ivory Tower, people had always told him outsiders were a decadent, mindless lot interested only in day-to-day activities, sex, profit, violence. But just because nobody around here wore baggy, smelly robes and reacted to the slightest touch with an abjuration didn't mean everybody was trying to seduce him. He was just... inexperienced, was all.