Chapter 4: Part 4

I managed to talk Nekra into letting me help her with food shopping the next day. I had helped with cleaning a bit the day before, and felt I was beginning to earn her trust.

I still wasn’t going to mention any negatives about her cooking, though. I’d seen what she was like when she was angry. So I would just focus on making additive suggestions. Talk about things I liked back home. Hope it didn’t cause her to try to murder me with a dwarven oven when she realised I was actually critiquing her cooking.

For now, though, I was keeping relatively quiet while we walked towards the market. Nekra was asking me questions about my life and I was trying not to put my foot in my mouth and reveal my secret. Luckily talking about my mother being a disaster full of half-baked get rich quick schemes without a maternal bone in her body didn’t take too much working around to talk about. 

Nekra seemed to rather overreact to some of the stories, though.

“It was a good way to make some extra spending money,” I pointed out.

“She kicked you out of the house when she had a boyfriend over, and then made you give her the first fifteen silver you made every week while panhandling! That’s horrible!” Nekra replied.

“I usually made a good 20 or 25 each week, at least after the first couple years. That was more than most of my friends got for their spending money,” I said.

She still didn’t seem convinced. So I changed the subject to her long term plans. Curious if she had any plans to get out of this town. 

Surprisingly, though, she apparently liked how quiet and rustic it was. She was just going to hope for a more compatible romantic option to come along at some point. Or ask her mother to introduce her to some local nymph or dryad guys.

“How often does your mother come by, anyhow?” I asked.

“Hmm… usually once every moon or two during the warmer seasons? And she tends to stay most of the winter,” Nekra replied. “Probably won’t be back for a bit, though. She was just here when daddy got inspired to contact your mother about that old promise.”

“Ah.”

I wasn’t sure what to say after that. Luckily we came to the farmer’s market at that point. Which distracted me rather thoroughly as I looked at the prices.

“Two silver for an orange?” I muttered, staring in shock.

“We’re a long way from Juriga,” Nekra pointed out. “Let alone anywhere else where they grow. It takes magic crates to keep them from spoiling on the way up here.”

I grimaced as I looked at the other fruits. Bananas were almost as expensive as oranges. They didn’t even have starfruit or dragonfruit.

At least the leafy greens were mostly just… expensive, rather than outrageous. Looking over where Nekra was shopping, I suddenly understood why meat was at least 50% of the orcish diet. It was even cheaper than back home.

“Mhm, most of what grows around here is only good as animal feed,” she said as I muttered about the prices. “So farms are animal farms.”

“Mhmmm,” I mumbled. “I still don’t know if it’s healthy for me to eat this much meat…”

“Oh! You know, that might be true. I know humans need to make sure they get lots of fruit, even with how expensive it is up here. And we had an old friend of dad’s over for a week one time who got sick from too much meat. Being half human and half elf… we should probably talk to the doctor about that,” Nekra said, before asking the merchant to hold her purchase.

Apparently Nekra and the man were on good terms, and he was happy to save her the food she’d picked.

I found myself pulled along through the small town, along the bumpy cobblestone streets over to a building with a sign for the healer’s guild on it. It was almost part of the Apporting hall, the two buildings were so close. I supposed that was for sending those with serious injuries to full hospitals?

Stepping in, we found a human girl, maybe pushing into being able to be counted as a ‘young woman’? Which probably meant she was… what, half my age? Give or take a bit? 

Full humans grew up so quickly, it was shocking.

“Hello Nekra,” the girl said with a smile. 

“Hey Kessica, is your father free?” Nekra replied.

“No, but his current appointment should be wrapping up soon,” Kessica said. “Oh, and is this the new half elf girl living with you?”

“Mhm.”

“H-hi,” I offered.

The girl gave me a once over, lingering on my face. “Wow. If half elves are as pretty as you, I can only wonder what a full elf looks like.”

I found myself blushing furiously. “I—uh… that—thanks.”

Kessica raised an eyebrow and leaned in. “Are you not used to being called ‘pretty’?”

“Uh… w-well… not really,” I stammered.

“I bet the elven girls were jealous,” Kessica said with a nod. “I used to be friends with some fellow human girls who were similar about when half-orc girls were prettier than them…”

“I… I don’t know about that,” I managed. 

The elven girls had usually been rather complimentary. Just using words other than ‘pretty’. 

“So, what had brought you two here for an appointment?” Kessica asked.

“We’re not sure what she’s supposed to be eating,” Nekra replied. “I just remembered humans can get sick from an orcish diet. We weren’t sure if a half-elf would be even less compatible or not.”

I gave a nod.

“Ah. That does sound important. I’m sure dad would be happy to check you over… what was your name again?”

“Oh. Anrik. Anrik Goldfellow,” I replied.

“Oooh. Is that an elven given name?” Kessica asked. When I nodded she added, “What does it mean?”

“Uh…it’s elven for a type of tree? I’m… not actually sure the common name for it,” I replied. 

“Ah. Well, it’s very pretty either way,” Kessica replied.

I found myself blushing again, stammering a thanks before Nekra and I sat down in the waiting room. It wasn’t a long wait, though. An elderly human man was led out of the back room by a friendly looking human male who was probably… uh… ok, I wasn’t actually great at judging human ages. Especially for men. Somewhere between… 25 and 55, I was guessing? 

He was presumably Kessica’s father, so, probably at least… twenty years older than however old she was?

Kessica gave a quick introduction for me, before I was led into the examination room. Nekra asked to speak to the doctor for a moment first, so I sort of hovered in the room. The table-bed-thing had some magic runes on it. Though not as many as back home. 

I was starting to get bored of trying to guess what the runes were for when the doctor in question walked in.

“So, you’re worried about your diet?” he asked.

“Well, I wasn’t before Nekra mentioned humans getting sick, but now I am.”

“Mhm. Well, it would be best if you lie down on the examination bed… I’m sure previous healers you’ve seen have told you that half elves have a fair bit of… variation?” he said.

I nodded and lay down. “Mhm. 50/50 doesn’t mean the same 50/50 every time… oh, and my mum is the human. That’s probably important, right?”

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“It can be,” he replied, whispering some magic terms into the runes on the bed, causing letters to float around me.

I didn’t know the language healers tended to use, and I certainly couldn’t read it backwards. I could guess it said things about my health, though.

“Mhm. It looks like you’ve trained your digestive system to be on the hardier end,” he said.

I grimaced. “L—lots of eating scraps and such…”

“Mhm. Still, you would definitely get sick eating an orcish diet. Neither humans nor elves can handle so much meat…” he said, pulling out a few tomes from a nearby bookshelf. “Mmm… there’s some colder climate leafy greens that you should be able to eat, though. I recommend starting a garden. Grolog has lots of land. I’ll do a bit of reading and write you a proper meal plan by next week.”

“I’ve never really had much of a green thumb,” I replied weakly.

“You don’t need one. You’re in a house with five half-nymphs. That’s practically a full dryad’s worth of nature blessings. Especially as their mother visits fairly often,” the doctor explained. 

“Ah… I guess that’s true,” I said.

“Plus, you’ve probably been comparing yourself to elves. Next to humans I’ll bet you’re a decent gardiner,” he added.

I had to blink as I took that in. It made sense. 

“I’m sure my daughter would be thrilled to lend you some seeds from our garden. She’s a bit of a gardening fanatic, if I do say so. I’ve directed her towards focusing on medicinal herbs, but she grows plenty of food too,” he said.

“I’ll ask her, then,” I replied.

“Now…” the doctor started, before pausing. 

He seemed to be unsure what to do next. I tilted my head, curious what he was thinking about. 

“If there’s… if there’s anything else you’d like to ask me about, feel free. It would be protected by guild anonymity rules,” the doctor said.

“Uh… ok. If I think of anything?” I replied, not sure what he was hinting at.

He coughed and nodded. “If there isn’t anything, then I suppose you can head off then.”

“Sounds good,” I replied, smiling as I headed towards the door.

He looked a little confused about something as I waved. 

Kessica, on the other hand, was thrilled to get to help me with gardening. She promised to come out to Grolog’s after she finished with work to run me through the seeds and cuttings she had available for me to start with. 

In fact, she seemed so enthused that Nekra was barely able to pull us away to get back to our shopping. It was sort of adorable.

Still, we did have to finish getting food, so had to say goodbye and head off. 

Back at the farmer’s market, I found Nekra seemed a bit too worried about my need for greens, as she insisted on buying multiple heads of cabbage for me for the week. Along with plenty of kale and broccoli and some sort of… green meat I couldn’t identify. Whatever it was, she insisted it would be good for me because it was green.

I was far from convinced as we headed home. Also, worried about the fact that the only green ‘animals’ I could think of that seemed like a source of such meat were goblins or orcs… maybe trolls?

Was troll meat edible?

Or ethical?

“How smart are trolls?” I asked as we walked home.

“Hm?” Nekra asked.

“Like… are they people or just vaguely people-shaped animals?” I asked.

“Oh… uhh… I think they’re smarter than raccoons, but not… people smart?” Nekra replied.

I gave a nod, before having to ask: “What’s a raccoon?”

“They don’t have those down south?”

“No,” I replied. “… unless we call them something else?”

“They’re little thieves. Creatures, but the gods gave them hands and just enough brains to cause problems for everyone… for some reason,” Nekra replied. “Also, grumpy.”

“…huh,” was all I could manage.

I supposed I would have to wait until I saw one.

---

After returning home and placing the food in the cold room, I helped Nekra with some chores until Kessica came around. She’d brought an entire wheelbarrow with her, and led me around the property, hunting for the best growing places for various plants. I was barely able to remember everything she said as she rambled along about soil colours, shade levels, moisture retention and… other things? I was pretty sure there were other things she mentioned. 

“I think that about covers everything,” she said, as my head was still spinning a little.

“I—uh… I may need you to come by to run me through some things again,” I replied.

“Ah. I’d love to!” she said with a rather large smile.

It was nice to think I was making a friend outside the household already. I was about to offer to hang out some time outside of gardening when I found myself in a shadow.

“Hello Kessica,” Eka’s voice said from behind me.

I swore there was something almost territorial about the way she was hovering over me. 

Whatever it was, it was making my heart race, as Eka usually did. In a way that was feeling less and less like something I could really call fear.

“Hi Eka!” Kessica said, apparently not frightened by the orcish woman’s muscles and tone. “I was just showing Anrik some gardening tips. Dad says she needs to eat more veggies than you’re likely to feed her.”

“Mhm. I suppose that makes sense,” Eka said, her tone softening a little.

“I’ll probably be back with more gardening tips later this week, when I bring her diet guide. I’d be thrilled if you were there too,” Kessica replied.

“I’ll think about it,” Eka said.

With that, the human girl hurried off, waving goodbye. She did want to head home before dark.

I was left wondering why Eka felt like she was being so possessive of me. Was I not allowed to have friends? That didn’t make sense with how the rest of her family was treating me…

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