Chapter Twenty-five
~
The entire mornin’ was invested in the caucus secretary readin’ back what her crew had wordsmithed to represent our decisions coordinated with the agenda of the bulls up the highway, for the past four days, for the caucuses’ approval and passage. Coulda checked my brain at home.
But I woke up as it appeared we neared the conclusion when the secretary, all-somber-like, droned on about an issue not on the agenda inserted by the bull-caucus. Read somethin’ like, in order to maintain the integrity of the political process, the opinions spoken within the caucus are encouraged to meet proper decorum, and the speaker recognized, but any member takin’ a physical course of action against a fellow caucus member shall be permanently disqualified from participation in future procedin’s.
Maybe my jaw hit my table-top. Every face forward peered my way. I looked left, right. Yep. Every stinkin’ hen in the stinkin’ place held me in their sights. A few expressions landed a bit humorous. A few hostile. Most—a bit insulted while complacent. But no pair of eyes failed to spear me in the forehead. I flicked a help-me look at Cordiz. Thankfully she struggled to hide a smirk. Better than a condescendin’ glare.
“All in favor of approvin’ the slate as recorded—” our leader called.
A wet-noodle chorus rang. While it lacked excitement, sounded to be a strong majority.
“Opposed—”
A hum of modest disgust washed wall to wall, but I didn’t hear any nays.
“The slate passes. Can I have a motion to adjourn?”
The motion heard and seconded, she quickly called the meetin’ as though the last item had left such a bad taste in her mouth she needed to go floss and gargle. Why didn’t she just table the last thin’? I remained in my seat, a little numb. Hale had blundered big-time, yet it appeared he garnered enough important support to keep his rosy-ogre-troll butt out of a sling. How had that proposed motion floated, up the turnpike? Bet there was a bit of debate.
The chair that had been emptied to my right pulled back, and long legs in dark polyester slid under the table.
“Ya look as though a goblin bull poked ya in the posterior with a red-hot poker,” Cordiz said. “That last was on the positive side, wasn’t it?”
I thought about it. I think she was laughin’ on the inside. Ran counter to her emotions about Hale. She likes him, but is ticked as a pickle for the idjit’s poor choices. An urge rose in my chest to tell her he liked her too. Don’t know where that came from. Think she’d be more impressed by a bull of a certain stature—meanin’ at least as tall as her.
Hale and I slurped up too much of our papa’s modest ogre stature. But Mama clearly didn’t mind that he’s almost three heads shorter than her. I recalled one of the cousins sharin’ a rather randy joke, that we’re all the same height in bed. Prolly meant a totally different thin’ to me back then. I was probably eleven. Funny it stuck with me. Vibrated into my headcase now. Maybe I was thinkin’ about Becky, the orc.
“Ya’re a true troll hen,” Cordiz said softly. I think kindly.
Pretty sure she was insultin’ my ogre side. Ogre hens do have a reputation of never shuttin’ up. Prolly why the bulls don’t mind segregated councils where they can find the local clan leader’s corn-still. Talk about nothin’ but sports and maybe the weather. Stock prices.
“Troll bulls adore their mates with every brain cell in their tiny brain-bonnet,” she continued. “S’pose ya know that.”
I waited. “Yar point?” She appeared to have lost her train of thought.
Holy moly. She was ponderin’ what kind of mate Hale would make. About that moment red flushed up her long neck. Yep. She was wonderin’ other thin’s too. Not any of ’em I had to be in med school to understand. Even at thirteen at university, I was introduced to the excitement that twittered between the genders.
My troll roommate of three years had a different favorite bull every semester.
Cordiz stuttered a long couple of moments. I’d never seen her not appear confident and purposeful. “Just. Ya’re so loyal to Hale.”
Yeah. Where’d that come from?
“I’m an only,” she stumbled some more. “Common among trolls, ya know.”
Uh huh. I waited.
“We haven’t known each other long.” She still struggled with her words. “But I can sense why ya’re so—ya know—so close to Hale.”
After a couple heartbeats, she changed direction and suggested we oughta head up the turnpike, before the bulls ate everthin’. Some truth in that.
~
Hale
~
I’d brought along a sketch book to dawdle in while I waited for the buffet to be set up, and Bele to arrive. I checked my watch, only to have a fist grab my arm.
Gai whispered. “Come. Got a few bulls wish to have a private conversation.”I glared at his hand. He quickly released me, and apologized. Good move, or I’d be involved in a brand new scandal.
“Please,” he tried now.
Didn’t wanna, but I followed him, toward three scowlin’ bulls standin’ off by themselves. Never been introduced to them, but they’d all been pretty outspoken on every issue vaguely connected to the wart on the witch’s nose, normalization. One for, two again’, oddly. Hadn’t Ike expected the majority here in the West to be for? The mix of this gaggle tweaked my curiosity. I eyed Gai, as though some of Bele’s witchery might help me read his mind.
“There’s a rumor,” the eldest of the three began, “ya’re headin’ North in the mornin’.”
I held my tongue. All three of them, and Gai too, rocked on their calloused ogre feet after a bit. I’ve been taught that can be eagerness, confusion, anger—’bout anythin’. That I’d have to have context. Like I can read context in any given situation. Phft.
The bull maybe a decade between the two, seemed to rush to say, “We aren’t comin’ at this, at ya, with an agenda. We—well, we’re hearin’ thin’s, and want to be prepared if the fit hits the proverbial wind mill.”
I waited.
The youngest cleared his throat. The eldest dipped his chin a bit. Was that for permission to speak? Ha. I can pick up some thin’s. Musta been right, ’cause he said, “Whichever way thin’s go, communities can be helped and hurt. We wanna be able to—”
He seemed to freeze up.
“Make the best of any and all situations,” the elder said. “More information, regardless of what’s gonna transcend, can help all of us. We sense that ya aren’t strongly for or again’. Ya’re earnest, care for yar people. Wish to do the right thin’, whatever happens. Whatever the Greater Council decides.”
That was a lot of words. Needed to parse ’em. Papa has warned that all flattery is a prelude to but. A situation wandered into my head. This bull resented a Greater Council even exists. Maybe. Old enough to have been risin’ in his clan’s hierarchy before the various regions agreed to unite formally. He’d prefer to be runnin’ his own slice of ogrekind, and be darned what the folk in the next holler, or plain, wanted to do. Mama’s said somethin’ similar. Trolls are a bit conservative, don’t like change. At family gatherin’s, Aunt Nuel has railed again’, “that kind of small thinkin’.”
“Ya’re deep in this, though ya prolly wish ya weren’t,” he continued. “But I’m certain, simply watchin’, readin’ yar character, that ya’ll inevitably have a great deal to do with what’s gonna happen.”
Pretty sure, this one’s a fool. I’m seventeen. An artist for goodness sake. I hate politics, maybe even more than Papa. Maybe more of that flattery. He was butterin’ up the wrong idjit.
The elder smiled. “I’m not nuts. ’Bout my only skill is readin’ folk. Just take note to the manner the media has shrilled. Ya’re the shiniest new toy they think’s ever come around since Ike rode a dragon off the Hamlet’s pier.”
Whoa. This fool—maybe a little lost in history books.
“Really,” the youngest said. “They can’t get enough of ya and yar sister. The local council has prolly leveled a hundred illegal threats to keep ’em away from the statehouse.”
The bull in the middle took over, as though he read somethin’ in my face, that maybe the old and young guy had exceeded their ability to make a dent in how I would react to ’em.
I remembered he’d been leery of too open a relationship with the North. Should it surprise me the youngest leans toward normalization? Do the young see a bluer sky in the future by our naive nature? Haven’t been struck in the chin by reality so many times? I’d read that somewhere.
Middle guy continued to hint the sort of thin’s I should aspire to accomplish up North, among other thin’s I couldn’t properly catalog. He used too many words and ran his sentences together too much for my itty bitty brain. Was quickly gonna give me a headache. He went on. And on.
I closed my eyes, sensed an episode wantin’ to rise up and smack me. No. No. And he continued talkin’ about thin’s that made no sense to me now. I needed a dark place. He continued talkin’.
Thankfully, finally, a more welcome voice replaced the bull’s deep one.
Bele whispered in my ear, “Come. Let me get ya away from ’em. Just take slow breaths. I’m here for ya. Lean on me. Hold my hand. Slow breaths. I love ya, Hale. Ya’re loved. Think of Mama and Papa, Uncle Ike, all the cousins. We love ya. Slow breaths. Slow breaths.”
Don’t like to be touched—by anyone but Bele. Her arm across my back felt so—refreshin’. In my blurred periphery, I sensed a concerned troll hen hangin’ near my other shoulder. Ah. Had to be Cordiz. Odd that recognition relaxed me a tinge.
~
No comments:
Post a Comment