129 Beetle Table Woe

The next day, as Sarel and Barham's family helped set the house to be more habitable, cleaning out the cobwebs and such, Defi had to sneak some of the smaller pieces, like the end tables with the wide-eyed creepily staring fawns and the set of dining room chairs with the haughtily smiling large-mouthed fishes into the southern house. 

When placing them in strategically unnoticeable places didn't get them…well…noticed, he decided to go for a larger piece: the textured long table that was covered in bumps and knobs, which at closer glance was a mass of small beetles seemingly crawling out of the table to cover most of its surface.

It used to grace the receiving hall of the Garge house.

He shook his head. Possibly it was a way of deterring visitors?

The legs of the table were removable and the table-top was hinged and foldable, making it fit into the wheelbarrow.

"What are you doing?"

He turned, walking backward while still pushing the wheelbarrow toward the house, and sent an innocent smile at Adtra who was coming out of the wood with a load of gathered firewood in her arms.

"Hm?"

"I did tell you that carved furniture is too valuable to be given away…what in Chelua is that?" She'd caught sight of the particulars of the table. 

She leaned closer, as if disbelieving her eyes, and when she confirmed that it was actually what she saw, she shuddered and quickly straightened.

"Oh, how beautiful. Are those red bone-beetles?"

Adtra closed her eyes in resignation when that voice came out of the open window. Defi saw the opportunity and took it.

"Are they? I'm afraid I don't know beetles, which is why I brought them here. Have you tried embroidering insects before?"

Amary, who was on her way to recovery by Sarel's word, looked at him curiously from within the ground floor storage room that had been cleaned out for her use. She was too pale, Defi concluded as the sunlight brought her features into greater clarity.

"You're the one who suggested using moth wing patterns on Haral's vests. The patterns are very complicated."

She smiled however, so Defi didn't think she disliked the suggestion.

"Would you like this beetle-patterned table as a present?" He offered a table-leg for her closer perusal.

"Oh, I'd…" Amary caught sight of her sister's face and quickly changed what she was going to say, retracting the hand that reached for the table piece. "think it was too beautiful to waste on the likes of me. Look at the delicacy of the carving, the mastery of craft! So defined. Bone-beetles are excellent workers, do you know? They can render an entire horse carcass down to just the bone in just one day."

She sighed in despondence, turned back to the book in her hands.

The eldest sibling had a helpless expression on her face at hearing her sister put herself down. A look that said she had heard similar words too many times before.

"What are you saying? Since Defi has brought it over, we can set it up in your room. You can embroider a coat for him in exchange. Beetles, do you think?"

"Really?!" Amary's head came up again, eyes shining.

Masterful! Defi mentally gave Adtra a congratulatory gesture for effectively getting rid of the problem table and punishing Defi for bringing it over at the same time.

Now Defi could only imagine said imminent coat eating into his flesh while he wore it.

It was not something he could decline, now that they had accepted the carcass-eating-beetle table.

Women were vicious. He also had to wear the thing from time to time, as the young girl would likely be sad if he didn't.

He could only hope it took a long time to embroider the coat.

At least he wasn't carting the table back to his house.

*

It was Founders' Day, and most shops were closed. 

The siblings didn't have to work, though Adtra came back with an odd expression on her face when she went to town early in the afternoon after most of the cleaning was done.

She did come back with a horse-cart of battered furniture though, so Defi reluctantly resigned himself to not getting rid of anymore of the things in his storage room after the beetle table.

He'd been looking for an opportunity, but Adtra seemed to have doubled her vigilance against him.

He couldn't really fault her for that. He'd be watchful too if someone gifted him a table decorated with flesh-devouring beetles.

Then again, his lips curled up slightly in half-dark amusement, that table would mean very different things in Ontrea. 

Defi observed people's reaction to seeing the table and hearing what the beetles were: to them, it was just a creepy table.

In Ontrea…well, there might be a few people he'd want to send a table with such 'good' wishes to.

If he'd known in advance what kind of beetles they were, he'd never have brought the table over. He might have tried to find a way to send it through the Gate though.

After helping arrange the furniture, the older adults left.

Defi saw pensive faces on Haral and Sigrene after Adtra returned from town, which turned into forced smiles when the younger ones came into sight.

Defi turned to Erkrea. "Did you still want to see the slimes in the warehouse? Your sister asked yesterday as well. It's feeding time, if you and the younger ones want to help."

Eri had also noticed her older siblings' behavior and hesitated, but then nodded. "I'll go ask."

She returned with Sefiel and Egarval in tow.

"You raise slimes? I thought you had only one or two?" Sefiel grimaced, all the exaggeration of a nine-year old.

"They grow pretty quickly," Defi answered, "so I don't think 'raise' is the word. I just feed them."

A splitting was always smaller than the original, and it could either grow or not. Defi didn't know why one did and another didn't. But if they grew, it would only take a few days before they stopped.

"Are they really slimy, like frogs?" Fee continued questioning him. "I wanted to see if they were."

"No," Defi laughed. "The name is only a description of what they look like. Their surface feels more like stretchy human skin than frogs."

"Really!"

He led them down the path, placing the five-year old Egg in the wheelbarrow. The boy laughed at the jolting of his pseudo-carriage and looked around with enthusiastic curiosity as they trundled past the Garge house.

Between his numerous 'what' questions and Fee's more complicated interrogation, Defi and Eri were kept busy.

At the warehouse, Egg was more interested in the mechanisms than the slimes that his sisters were squealing over.

Even if Fee took a while before she could be induced to touch one of the creatures, she could not hold for long against the draw of the squishy bouncy texture.

"This is Moldavite? I like her color!"

"Her?" 

"Doesn't Mite sound like a girl's name?"

"Not really."

"I say it does. And I'm a girl. So there."

Defi smiled wryly. He let them play, answering questions that were more about names, before he showed them how the feeding mechanisms worked.

"These are the mixing vats for different kinds of feed." He showed them the labels he'd glued onto the tanks. "Each group of slimes needs different kinds of feed, so be careful not to mistake the feed."

Eri blinked and recounted:

"Oh, so Jasper's group has Jarvon, Jarto, Jartre, and Jarfor. Agate's group has Agavon, Agato, Agatre, and Agafor. Malachite's group has Malvon, Malto, Martre, and Marfor. Larimar's group has Larvon and Larto…"

Both girls looked at him judgmentally.

They hadn't noticed the naming scheme earlier as they were asking about names randomly.

He ignored them and continued determinedly. "Jar's group has the feed with black shells, you must remember. Agate's group has the crab shells, and Mal's group is just half-starcherry and half-zaziphos. These three feeding bins are particularly important right now."

"Do they do something?" Eri asked, as she and Fee pulled the levers at Defi's direction. Egg stood at the side, frustrated that he couldn't reach the levers.

He glanced at her, questioning. He lifted Egg to reach the last lever, making Fee huff. He looked at the youngest sister sternly; she sighed and gave way to her younger brother.

"The feed, I mean?" Eri looked slightly embarrassed. "There must be a reason for the different kinds you're feeding them, right? I…they're just slimes."

He smiled, satisfied at her questioning. "There is a reason, yes. The extract from the slimes is different when they eat different things."

"And that's…good?"

"It is." He put Egg down and raised his brows at her, teasing.

She pouted, half-glaring. "I'll find out on my own then!"

Excellent. Defi grinned at her. "Then do you want a job at this warehouse? How else would you find out, hm?"

She blinked. "I thought you and sister didn't want to do the work contracts?"

"Your elders decided to lease land as well as the house, so the work contracts would not be beneficial in the long-term. I think they're planning to go into business, so we agreed to sign a professional secrecy contract instead."

Eri looked confused, so Defi clarified. "An agreement not to meddle in or spread the secrets of each other's trade."

He didn't know what business they were going into, apart from the fact that they asked about raising buildings on the land.

Apparently, agreements for renting land had many clauses about half-rights. Half-rights for timber, which limited the amount of timber they could cut. Half-rights for river-access, which meant they could use the water but not build a port. Half-rights for hunting, which meant they could hunt on the land but not sell their catch.

It was exhausting.

At least Farbar was there to help – he'd apparently leased the north farm from Leraine's parents first, before buying it outright when she and Kern were selling.

Defi and Sigrene wanted to have the contract ajudged at the town hall tomorrow to see if they got anything wrong or if something was worded in ways that would not benefit both parties before everyone signed officially, but in essence they were satisfied with what was there.

Eri looked at the pens of slimes below them, thoughtful. "So this is a business? Like father raising chickens for eggs?"

"Exactly." 

"And that's a secret?"

He considered her. She was sharp. "Not precisely. What I produce is a secret I don't want to get out, but most think I'm raising slimes to sell as pets in the city."

"Can I have a slime as a pet?" Fee piped up from where she was preventing Egg from crawling into the small spaces of the feeding platform.

"You can, but not today. And not if Adtra disallows it."

"Alright!"

"This isn't me giving you permission."

"Aw…"

Eri peered into Lar's food mixture. "That's a very big fish."

"Fishbones, in fact. Feeding them the fish would be expensive."

She nodded, and looked up at him expectantly. "So. How much are you going to pay me?"

He smirked.

*

All in all, it was a good day, he thought as he later escorted the three children to their new abode.

Amary stuck her head out the window as he passed by. "If you have the cloth and thread ready tomorrow, I can have the coat ready before Icewerth."

"There's no rush," he said quickly. "Maybe in the spring instead?"

"That won't do," came Adtra's gentle voice from inside the room. "A debt must not be left to fester. If you don't have the cloth, there are some interesting samples that cousin gave me."

She spread a length of textile on an arm. It was a very deep butter yellow. She looked at him, evaluating. "It would go very well with your complexion."

Yellow was for a woman's fertility, in Ontrea. Defi tried not to blush. He backed away from the window. "You'll have the cloth tomorrow!"

The two sisters watched him rush away in slight astonishment. Adtra looked at her three youngest siblings. "Was it something I said?"

Defi reached his porch and groaned.

It looked like he was having the coat sooner rather than later. He felt a shiver pass through him.

He straightened, a thought coming to him. Despite feeling slightly ridiculous, he swept the storage room for any residual beetles that might have been knocked off the delicate carvings.

Creator, if he didn't then he'd think too much about it otherwise and wouldn't be able to sleep.

**

**

Note:

"…not truly curious that a number of ideas are similar between differing universes. In any world, there are always annoying people and others must deal with them satisfactorily. In the world of rivers, the water-people sing 'May heaven grant you the favor of hearing the songs of the waters' not as a blessing but as a curse, in reference to the plentiful swarms of large mosquitos there. In other worlds, people may gift items that say more than words could; in warrior societies the sentiments are often bloody. And in other drier climes, I have seen a man smile and say a 'benediction' approximately meaning 'may the fleas of a thousand camels feast upon you forever'… [from the journal of the Magician of Dimensions]