the scabbard at his back, murder spelled on his weather-beaten features.
The mage sighed as if the little male were nothing more than a first grader brandishing a crayon. For my part, I took several steps back until I hit the wall. Whatever this was, I wanted no part of it. Only the witchlights knew what had happened between these two. Though something told me the Fae wasn’t the one to blame.
Glimlock twirled his sword, then pointed it at Damien’s middle and lunged. I held my breath as the mage stood impassively and, in the last possible instant, put a hand up. Abruptly, his attacker came to a stop as if someone were holding him back by his tunic.
Leaning forward and stretching his arm as much as he could, Glimlock sliced his sword left and right trying to reach Damien, but he was a few inches too far.
“Fight, you coward,” Glimlock rumbled, his booted feet sliding on the grass as he seemed to run in place, desperate to reach his target. The sight was comical and sad at the same time.
The mage crossed his arms and regarded him down an upturned nose. A few of the patrons looked on with angry frowns, but others snickered. Neither did anything to intervene.
“Are you quite done?” Damien asked in a bored tone.
To my surprise, I found myself growing irritated at the mage. The little guy was exhausting himself, running in place and brandishing his sword like a lunatic, hopelessly wasting his energy, while Damien acted like a complete asshole.
“Hey, cut it out,” I found myself saying.
The mage glanced in my direction and seemed surprised to find that I was staring straight at him and not at his would-be attacker.
“Excuse me?” he spat, looking annoyed. “I need to cut it out?”
I walked over and put my hands on my hips. “Yeah, you! Leave him alone.”
“Seriously?”
Glimlock stopped his treadmill workout and blinked up at me. “I can fight my own battles,” he rumbled at me.
“I don’t doubt that, dear sir,” I said. “But this mage isn’t fighting fair. In fact, he isn’t fighting at all.”
“Stay out of this,” Damien scoffed. “This belligerent garden gnome has been harassing me ever since our paths crossed. He is a nuisance and a pest.”
“I’ll have to agree with that,” the female behind the counter said as she buffed the already-clean counter with a piece of cloth.
“I am not a garden gnome,” Glimlock spat, resuming his useless attempts to stab Damien. “I put a curse on you and all your descendants, White Damien.”
“Whatever you did to him,” I said, “just apologize. We’re wasting our time.”
Damien frowned. “Whatever I did to him?”
“Yeah, something tells me you’re to blame.”
“I didn’t do anything to him. It was all a big misunderstanding.”
Glimlock stopped and put down his sword again, looking exhausted. “That was no misunderstanding. My wife left me because of you.”
Huh?! I didn’t see that coming.
A small gasp went through the crowd. They had abandoned their food and turned their attention to us. It seemed that, without television, this was as close to a soap opera as they would ever get.
“I had nothing to do with that,” Damien protested.
“You gave her a black chrysanthemum,” Glimlock said as if that explained everything.
Damien rubbed his forehead. “I have tried to explain that I didn’t know the significance of what I was doing. I was just trying to be nice to her.”
“I was just trying to be nice to her,” Glimlock mimicked in a nasally voice. “Any idiot knows that black chrysanthemums give females the wandering eye.”
Did they? Was that a thing everywhere? Or only here in Elf-hame? Hmm, I was starting to see that it might have really been a misunderstanding, a clash of cultures most likely.
“The first strapping chap she saw,” Glimlock went on, “she was off, chasing him. Now she lives across the way with my neighbor, raising his chickens and his crops, while mine go unattended.”
Well, if that was the only reason why he wanted a wife, maybe she was better off without him.
“I miss her so much.” Glimlock started crying, large tears spilling onto his rosy cheeks and getting lost in his thick beard. A snot bubble popped out of one nostril as he blubbered.
Oh, dear!
Damien shot daggers at me, clearly blaming me for the mushy display.
“But, you’re sorry about it, aren’t you, White Damien?” I said in a helpful tone.
The mage shook his head ever so slightly. “Yes, I’m quite sorry.”
“Sorry will not bring my Ennora back,” Glimlock blubbered.
What a hopeless