“No,” Dairine said, “I think maybe you’re right.”
“And he’s enough of a conifer for me to know his tastes, at least a little,” her dad said, opening the cutlery drawer where the screwdrivers lived and dropping in the one he’d been using. “Besides that, we chatted enough for me to find out that he likes his soil acidic. I plugged him into that new bed I was getting ready for the rhododendrons and told him to kick back for a while. He should do fine.”
“You’re certainly taking this well,” Dairine said, before she could stop herself.
“I don’t know that we have much choice at this point,” her dad said, sounding somewhat resigned. “I agreed to this, after all, so I may as well try to enjoy it. Now then—what about dinner?”
“Sounds good.” But Dairine immediately started worrying again, as that produced a whole new level of problems. Filif…
Her dad was ahead of her. “What have we got in the house that’s not recognizably a vegetable?” He thought for a moment. “Pasta?”
“Spaghetti and meatballs,” Dairine said.
“How’s Filif likely to handle the sight of tomato sauce?” Dairine’s dad said.
Dairine thought about that. Tomatoes were vegetables … but a jar of spaghetti sauce might pass if no one actually discussed what went into it. Of course, even pasta had been a vegetable once
Her father was way ahead of her. “Since Filif isn’t going to be eating what we are,” Dairine’s dad said, “and since I’m not operating under the restrictions you are, I’m prepared to prevaricate if I have to. But let’s see if we can’t just steer the conversation in other directions if the history of food comes up. Meanwhile, utensils…” Her dad started rummaging through the flatware drawer for a matched set. “I suspect Roshaun can use a fork and a spoon on his spaghetti. If he hasn’t had the experience before, we’ll teach him. And as for Sker’ret—”
“I think if we can get him to stick to the spaghetti and leave the plates and the table alone,” Dairine said, “we’ll be doing okay.”
Dairine’s dad reached up into another cupboard and came down with a couple of odd plates from an old set, which Dairine knew for a fact her dad hated, and had been looking for an excuse to get rid of. “And in case of accidents—” he said.
Dairine grinned, and went looking for a pot for the spaghetti.
As it turned out, the plates survived dinner, though Dairine’s temper almost didn’t. And the problem, as she’d suspected it would be, had been Roshaun. Filif came in to “sit” at the table in a large bucket of potting soil that Dairine’s dad brought in for him, and Sker’ret more or less draped himself over the seat and through the open back of one of the dining room chairs, leaving his front end free to deal with the spaghetti. Dairine’s dad only had to warn Sker’ret once that they were only eating things on top of the tablecloth and inside containers. This led to a lively discussion of what humans ate, and Dairine sat there in mostly mute appreciation of how her father somehow confined himself entirely to discussing how things tasted, without ever going near the subject of what they were. Dairine spent most of her time ingesting spaghetti—she found that she was ravenous—and forcing herself not to glare at Roshaun.
It took him exactly five seconds to master the fork and spoon, though he let it be known that at his home, his people used several different kinds of tongs to handle slippery foods like this. He let a number of things be known over the course of dinner, dispensing the occasional fact or opinion as if he expected everybody to be eagerly awaiting his every word…and paying precious little attention to anyone else’s opinions, if they came up. His clothes, his possessions, the size of his house, which apparently would have dwarfed Dairine’s, all these came up for brief and tasteful mention. What did not come out was anything personal, anything revealing of the inner nature of the entity who sat there at the table, managing the fork and spoon with the grace of someone who’d been using them for years, and had never gotten spaghetti sauce or any other sauce on him, not once.
Dairine sat there listening to it all, and stewed. Sker’ret didn’t seem to notice Roshaun’s attitude, or if he did, he didn’t reveal it during his workmanlike and concentrated assault on the food. Filif mostly sat quietly listening to the others, and rustled occasionally whenever anyone said anything with sufficient emphasis to suggest that they wanted a response from the listeners. Dairine and her dad concentrated on keeping the conversation going along in a relatively friendly fashion, but Dairine increasingly felt like she was doing weights, and ones that were getting heavier every minute.
But they made it through the main course without a murder, and through dessert (her dad’s chocolate pudding) without trying to keep a medicine ball in the air. And at the end of it all, “Well,” Dairine’s dad said, looking around the table, “it’s been a long day, and I’m sure that it would be a good thing if we all got some rest now.”
“But it’s not even dark yet,” Filif said.
“I know,” Dairine’s dad said, in a very kindly voice. “But there’s the time difference to think of; there has to be at least some time difference between your planet and this one. And whatever it is, I’m sure it means that you need some rest now. I know I do.” And he stood up.
The others stood up with him. “I think I might withdraw,” Roshaun said graciously. “Your local night is how long?”
“Eight hours,” Dairine said, while thinking grimly, It was in your orientation
pack, if you had bothered to read it.
“I’ll walk you downstairs,” Dairine said. “You all saw where my room is. If you need anything, I’ll be awake about an hour and a half after the sun comes up. You all have everything you need in your pup tents?”
“More than enough,” Filif said.
“Me, too,” Sker’ret said.
“A sufficiency,” said Roshaun, and turned away from Dairine with no further acknowledgment. “Your best of rest, then.”
Dairine went with their three guests to the stairs, saw them safely down. “Good night, everybody,” she said, closing the door to the cellar stairs.
Her dad was standing there by the sink, having just put a stack of dishes down beside it, and presently washing a couple of glasses by hand. As Dairine turned away from the basement door, he glanced over at her.
“A harder day than you were expecting?” he said.
“Uh, yeah,” said Dairine. “Did it show?”
“You mean, to the guests? In Filif’s and Sker’ret’s case, I don’t think so. They seem like nice kids.” Her father put one glass down on the drainer, picked up the other to rinse it out. “I’d like to know what’s going on with Roshaun, though.”
“So would I,” Dairine muttered. She was sufficiently shell-shocked at the moment, and sufficiently in need of something grindingly ordinary, that she actually found herself picking up a dish towel to help her dad finish up at the sink. “Daddy, it’s driving me crazy.”
He looked at her with slight concern. Dairine understood why. It wasn’t in her nature to make a lot of admissions of that kind, even in the family. Dairine let out a long breath and said, “I’ve never met a wizard who wasn’t…”
“Good?” her father said. “Nice?”
Dairine shook her head. “It’s not just that,” she said. “All the wizards I know—know at all closely—their wizardry is really important to them. Maybe it’s not the main thing their life is about: No one says it has to be. But it’s important. This guy, though…it feels like he wants you to think that wizardry’s a hobby for him. How can anyone be that way? Wizardry’s about talking the universe right when it goes wrong…finding out what’s going on in people’s heads and helping them make the world happen. Finding out how things want to be, and helping them be that way. How can anything be more important than that?”