“You’re not supposed to play with them, you’re supposed to eat them.”
Attica thrust his whole head into the water and came up with a large red and green trout-looking fish in his jaws. He sat up on his knees with the fish held up like an offering for his master. A completely inappropriate thought since he wasn’t a dog, he was a person.
The fish screamed and Attica dropped it, bounding away like it had bit him, rather than the other way round. I took my sword and stabbed the fish in the head.
Attica looked at the fish warily.
“It’s dead. Nothing to worry about.”
“I know that,” said Attica a little snootily, probably to hide his embarrassment. “After death there is nothing to fear.”
What was that? Some kind of saying? Bit morbid to teach a kid, but that’s life in the wild, I guess.
After lunch, Attica took over fishing duties and I had a nap. When I woke up, there was a pile of fish lying on the ground, their heads all missing. My sword was stuck in the ground next to them. I hadn’t given him my sword so he must have taken it while I was asleep. He could have quite easily cut my throat.
Now that we were fishing buddies, Attica was more open to answering my questions. He was just a kid so it was hard to know how accurate his understanding of things was, but it would still be better than mine.
The village was built from scratch every evening and taken down next morning. Everyone went off to do their own thing and only came together for safety’s sake. The jabberwocky didn’t like to come too close to the water. Now that there was a Worm King this might change, but Attica didn’t know too much about it.
The trading and bartering system was interesting, and very complicated. You had to remember what you owed and to who, and what they owed you. No one wrote it down. There was also an agreed evaluation of how things measured up. So a duck egg was worth two carrots. Obviously.
There was some haggling based on quality. I mean, if it’s a really nice carrot, then that’s going to be worth more than one duck egg, right?
“So you have farms over here?” I asked him.
He looked at me like I was an idiot. There had been a lot of that. “What’s a farm?”
“Where they grow things. You know, like carrots.”
He got up and walked over to a large tree. He sniffed around the base, then grabbed a tuft of brown grass and pulled. A red root came out of the ground. He handed it to me. I gave it a wash and tried a bite. Tasted like carrot.
We spent the whole afternoon him fishing and me asking questions about Monsterland (they didn’t call it that, they called it Home) and about Cheng (a great leader who looked after everyone).
They were childish answers and some of them were probably not the most reliable, but it gave me an idea of how different things were over here. Very.
I still hadn’t told him about his dad and it was getting to the point I felt I had to say something, but I handled it the way all men my age do when it comes to unpleasant tasks. I procrastinated.
By the time it started to get dark, there was still no sign of anyone else.
“Shouldn’t they be putting the village back up?”
Author's Note: If you have a moment please vote for me on Top Web Fiction. Voting refreshes every seven days so if you voted last week, your vote no longer counts. I know it's a bother but it really helps me reach new readers. No signup required, just hit the button. VOTE.