Elfhome

“And have five more mouths to feed.”

“The clan would more than double your support.”

“Things are not that simple. This is why you fail so badly at politics.” Mace gave a slight wave and strolled away.

Forge frowned after him.

“He cannot take what hasn’t been offered,” Dark Scythe, Forge’s First, said.

#

“If you change your mind,” the note read in messy English, followed by a phone number and then lots of x’s and o’s. Oilcan frowned at the scrap of paper tucked into his glove box. Who was this from? The phone number had an area code, so it wasn’t a Pittsburgh number.

He rooted a little more until he came up with a fresh pad of paper and a pen and headed back into Sacred Heart, trying not to think about the note. Undoubtedly it was from a female post-doc that he’d met at one of Lain’s Startup Cookouts. It really didn’t matter which one — they all ended messy.

Ryan MacDonald was the last woman he dated. She had been delightfully laid back. Toward the end of her thirty-day stay on Elfhome, though, they slipped into the familiar pattern of all his relationships. The conversations that danced around the depth of his feelings. The tentative testing his commitment to Elfhome. Ryan at least didn’t push for him to move to Earth; instead she hinted that she could return to Elfhome for a permanent position.

It ended like all the others. Her in tears and the familiar refrain “If you would only say that you loved me.”

Any other Shutdown, he would have locked himself away at his barn and drunk himself into a stupor. On the off chance that Tinker would return from Aum Renau, though, he got permission to ride out Shutdown at the enclaves and thus was there to welcome her home.

He flipped open the pad and tried to distract himself by scribbling down the start of a new to-do list. (Tinker teased him about using paper, but sometimes writing something down and then burning the paper was the only way to deal with things.) Roach had hauled away the last dumpster filled with rubble from the restroom demolition. He needed to take down the three-story chute, carefully, in case he needed it for a second story remodel of the bathrooms. The cement board was up and the seams sealed. All that was left was the tiling.

His footsteps echoed in the front foyer, reminding him that he was alone for the first time since he found Merry. Not completely alone. Blue Sky was treating the kids to DVDs. Oilcan could hear the faint strains of music from somewhere upstairs and buttered popcorn perfumed the air. Iron Mace was working in his rooms. His Hand was using the gym as a training hall. Forge was consulting with Prince True Flame on defenses out by the faire grounds.

But Thorne Scratch wasn’t quietly shadowing Oilcan for the first time in days. Iron Mace had called her aside while Roach was loading up the dumpster. She had left Sacred Heart to do Iron Mace’s bidding — making Oilcan wonder if they had quietly come to an arrangement already.

The mystery note reminded him that this time he was the one that was leaving “in just a few decades.” He was the one wondering how Thorne Scratch felt. He was the one that desperately wanted to ask the measure of her feelings. And it was probably going to be the same messy end.

He crumbled up the note and shoved it into his pocket to burn later.

Blue Sky and Baby Duck came charging down the stairs; Repeat the elfhound puppy half-tumbling on their heels. “Out of popcorn!” Blue yelled as they ran past. “And Rustle lost his belt buckle!”

Oilcan sigh. “How?”

“I don’t know!” Blue shouted back as all three vanished into the dining room.

Oilcan shook his head. Rustle was a black hole for personal items. He had lost everything from the irreplaceable iPod to three left shoes. Oilcan added, “Rustle: belt buckle” to his to-do list and continued up the stairs.

He had used up the last of his money to buy tile for the bathing room. Wollerton’s didn’t have enough of the gorgeous blue glass tile to cover the entire room. He had to buy other tiles to have enough square footage. Before he could start laying the tile, he needed to decide a design. The project should relax him as art always soothing. It let him take a big hunk of chaos and reduce it down to something neat and orderly.

It was brainless choice for the swimming pool-like tub. The elves liked to add salt and minerals to the heated water. Since the cloudy water would obscure most of the inner walls, the tub itself could be of plain white tiles.

He switched to his datapad to do calculations on how much square footage the glass tile would cover. He sang to himself as he sketched out a 3-D model of the room and overlaid a grid to show coverage. Once he got the room tiled, the acoustics were going to be amazing.