At the funny look on Gasep’s face as he sobered, staring at me, I sighed, long and loud.
“Butt paper?” Peg-o murmured, blinking. “Such a thing exists?”
“Har-har. Very funny. But really, what’s the deal? And don’t try to sell me on you using a stick or something with those thick fingers of yours. You’d hurt yourself trying to hold Leste’s “wand”.”
“You will tell him this?” Gasep asked cryptically, eyes alight.
“No, guttermind. Butt wiping, how goes it?”
“That.” He pointed to the rather crude but hopefully efficient commode.
“Magic brings the water in or something,” I mused. There was magic there. It was weird, but I just knew. It was like I could sense it, feel a hint of a spark of it as I drew near. Moving in, I stole a peek down into a lazily swirling bowl of dark, brackish water.
“Correct. And...” he said as he walked up behind me and, leaning in and forcing me forward, waved his hand over something to the left that had water spouting up in a forceful arch.
Jerking back in alarm, I bumped into Gasep’s snout, which caused him to let out a weird noise, a kind of pained whinny. This was all followed swiftly by a sharp grunt from the tail-swishy-when-he-walked, sarcastic male and the big lummox accidentally shoving me face first into a medieval, magicked bidet as his horse face shot forward and slammed into the back of my head.
Chapter 4
Once I’d gotten over glaring at him and he stopped whinny laughing himself sick every time our eyes met, I eventually did my business, washed my hands, and he led me down to the mess hall type area all the loud mouthed noises and shouting was coming from. To learn the tower toilet was actually the mage’s and he preferred that to having a bathroom attached to his room was odd but not entirely surprising—mage boy was a weird one. Everyone quieted as we entered. It was awkward and uncomfortable and my hair was still damp from my unwanted commode bath.
As if to break the ice, Gasep grabbed a huge trencher of food, seating us right into the middle of the melee, and proceeded to embarrass the snot out of me with tales of my bathroom folly. After a while I didn’t even mind. The food was good and everyone was being sympathetic enough to my plight as Gasep told anyone who asked to hear it again the story of my one profound glory, adding bits he hadn’t before with every retelling. He’d make a wonderful bard, if they had those here.
A grunt to my left and the harsh scraping of hooves, the heavy plops of others seating themselves next to and across from Gasep, had me glancing up. I paled and almost choked on the bite of moist, fresh sourdough reminiscent bread in my mouth as Creamsicle stared—no, that felt like a glare—down at me.
“You licked me,” he grumbled out, thunking the enormous tankard of frothy something or other in his thick fingers down with a heavy thud.
Gasep, still talking animatedly to the lion-lizard man with wings on the opposite side of him, had yet to pick up on the new arrivals.
Chewing while he watched me, swallowing my bite, my throat much tighter for some strange reason, I squeaked out, “I’m sorry.”
“Are you a cannibal?” he asked suddenly, his lips drawing down until he looked like an evil Candyland Mr. Ed.
“Ah, no.”
Grunting, he gave a chuff. “There is nothing wrong with the way I taste.”
“You’re right,” I said hurriedly, “you taste just fine. What was I thinking?” Grabbing up the last hunk of my bread, I stuffed it into my fat maw to keep from garbling anything else out and thus dooming myself to Creamsicle angry Unicorn man food. I said I wasn’t a cannibal, he never declared he wasn’t.
“What did he taste like?” the chocolate brown Unipeg seated next to me inquired.
Staring down at my plate like it was the most fascinating plate in all the plates in this castle, kingdom, wherever I was, I studiously ignored him and chewed. And chewed, and chewed. Once I’d swallowed, grimacing as it went down hard, I glanced up, scrambling for my cup to find it empty. Damn. I needed a drink.
“Here.” Chocolate furred and blue-eyed slapped a tankard I had to use two hands to hold into my bear cub in comparison paws.
Desperate, I brought it to my lips, expecting to taste and smell ale. When the yummy sweetness hit my lips and the bubbles tickled my nose I took a bigger gulp. “Root beer!” I said happily, glancing up to smile my thanks at the brown Unipeg with white accenting the length of his long nose. He was smaller than Gasep and Creamsicle, in muscle mass and height. He was a different kind of horseyman type, no wings or head ornament. This fella was more show pony than work horse.
“You like root beer?” blue eyes asked with a significant look from me to Creamsicle.
“Yes.” I gave a sharp nod and drank deeply from my jumbo sized mug. “A lot. And ginger ale. We have that on my Earth too. Do you have that here?”
“Not too fast,” Creamsicle warned with a censorious look at show pony, then a lingering one for me.
“Why? It’s just soda.” I didn’t get it.
“You’ll get dragon dung faced,” Gasep cut in, his tone cutting. He was speaking to me but glaring at blue eyes.
“It tastes just like regular root beer.” Damn it. Just when something was looking up. I had no desire to get dragon dung faced, however that went.
Deciding to make himself scarce, show pony bid us good eve and scurried off, leaving me to stare at my barely touched root beer, setting it back on the table in its own horrible kind of timeout. “I don’t like this place,” I whispered, then hiccupped. Blinking, my hand slapped to my mouth. “Damn.” Another hiccup hit me, then another, until it was all so ridiculous I was laughing.
Eyeing me, Creamsicle hooked a finger on the handle of my cup and slowly dragged it across the table towards himself. One sniff and he grimaced. “Be talkin’ with Soramin later. The root is spiced. And poorly at that. Got the measurements wrong. Enough to fell a domar in there. Don’t know how he’s standing.”
“Spiced? Are we in Dune now?” A giggle left my lips, then another. Consumed by a fit of them as the two males across the way eyed me worriedly, I almost didn’t catch it. “The spice must flow!”
There was a sharp crack from outside, followed by a crackling, boomingly loud hissing sound. People shouted, the wizard’s bellow joining the others. What madness be this, I wanted to shout, and actually might have.
Alarmed, Gasep shot up and ran out. “Keep hold of my lady, Battle Master,” Gasep called out as his hooves stomped, clapping loudly on the stones, away.
Standing to go after him, I wobbled on my feet. “Oh my,” I mumbled, stumbling forward.
“Up you get,” a deep voice rumbled as I made it all the way to the end of the table. “Here.” Before I could protest a small, round pellet looking thing was shoved into my mouth and a thick mitt of a hand clamped over my grimaced mug. “Swallow fast. It will be easier,” he instructed, but like hell was I swallowing anything.
The bitter, sour taste left me reeling, desperate to spit it out. It was dissolving rapidly in my mouth, a sour lemon drop full of vinegar. My face puckered and I flailed but a thick arm banding around my chest, pressing me back into a well built, furry abdomen, wouldn’t let me be.