70 Everyone is Out

Nelda was not really equipped to be the 'big spoon'. She held SmithGuild in her arms and wondered how someone could be so robust and so fragile at the same time. His human form was tall and muscular with a square-jawed face. Small fluffy feathers were proliferating in his hair around a slight widow's peak. They trembled slightly in the small turbulence of Nelda's breath as she considered them.

Asbolus and Jen had left under the cover of night.

[Centaur speed-date cum magical hiking trip.]

SmithGuild stirred.

"Am I, like, your girlfriend," Nelda asked, feeling altogether foolish. "I don't mean to be awkward but it feels like i am, but it also feels like I am very bad at it. Your life isn't exactly better for meeting me."

SmithGuild sighed. "Jennifer explained this girlfriend thing to me," he said. "Most of the time speaking with you and others from your world is effortless. But other time I feel like there is a gulf between the way we mean the same words."

"So that's not a Mirth thing?"

SmithGuild sort-of shrugged. "Generally two either become betrothed or intend no lasting bond. This is sort of in between. It seems… tenuous."

"Right". Nelda tucked her chin over SmithGuild's warm shoulder. "Sometimes it is but it, that…" [Huh, that's just how it is, I've never really thought about it as a system.] "If I had married the fir guy that it seemed like an option… that would probably have been a mistake."

It had been a long time since Nelda had thought about Aaron Abbey, so she thought about him for a while. Last seen on Facebook holding a large salmon. Maybe if she had shotgun married him just out of high school she'd be a fish-filleting Missouri-living warrior princess by now and just high on life.

"...And," SmithGuild drew out the word search for the next one. "It is not so much that you came into my life, as an explosion of matters of significance blew us together. And I would rather be flotsam with you than alone in the storm."

Nelda felt a bit like crying, but if she started she might be at it awhile--and there wasn't time for a nervous breakdown. "The thing is…" Nelda hugged SmithGuild tentatively. "I think there's a real problem with you being in this human body. But I don't know what to do about that. But I feel like that's maybe what I should be focusing on."

SmithGuid eased onto his back. "I don't mean to be glib, but it won't matter what body I am in if their is a cataclysmic war and the world ends in fire."

"We don't know that will happen soon."

"We don't know that it won't and it doesn't seem like something to leave to chance."

"Okay." [Why does it seem like this is all his way of avoiding answering the question about me being his girlfriend.] "I am just saying, maybe we should get HerbGuild on the case of this." She indicated his rather fine human form.

"Oh, I sent a Jasper for her soon after you arrived, She is probably tracking us down."

"Good." [Shit. She's going to kill me.] "I just wanted to say I would be okay with being your girlfriend, and betrothal is not completely off the table. But that's just me."

"Okay." There was an uncomfortable pause before SmithGuild added. "Me too. But let's wait to see if the world ends first."

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