“Is this going to take much longer?”

Cormac grit his teeth as he ascended the ladder, disgust and annoyance apparent in her voice and forcing him to pause on a step before continuing. “I’m following safety rules, ma’am.”

The “and I don’t want to fall and die” was left unspoken, yet implied. This was still displeasing to the woman who in turn did little to hide a small huff. Only the eyeroll of disbelief that “safety” was anything but an excuse was hidden from the redhead.

Ixia bit her tongue as she held back another remark aimed at the woman currently unable to see the naked dryad glaring at her. Her Guardian had gently asked her to stop doing so after the second time he failed to suppress a laugh at things that only he could hear, leading to him having to attempt to play it off as “something funny I remembered” that just so happened to be recalled after a customer was being rude.

Again.

Cormac descended the ladder with a boxed lamp under his arm before handing it over to the woman. “Here you are, brushed nickel as opposed to dusted silver.”

“You really should have the different colors on display down here on the shelf.”

“Oh I completely agree, but sadly I have no say over the displays.” Cormac said with a practiced smile and seemingly calm eyes. Only Ixia could see the frustration hiding in those pools of green. “Looks like it’s a popular lamp too, that was the last one up in the overhead-”

“You should tell someone who can do something about the display.” The middle aged blonde woman said as she turned around, and started walking away. “Have a nice day.”

Ixia waited alongside a silent, unmoving Cormac until the woman had rounded the corner down the long aisle of shelves stretching almost to the several story tall ceiling before she finally spoke. “I don’t…understand what she was going for with the inflection of ‘nice day’? I know it wasn’t genuine but…”

The Guardian closed his eyes and gave the tiniest shake of his head, letting out a sigh that heralded his exhausted words. “I have no idea.”

He stared ahead for a moment more, possibly several as the scant amount of sleep he was running on had him losing track of time if he wasn’t currently engaged in something. Blinking away his daze, he got the idea that maybe that response sounded a bit harsh and flashed The Dryad an apologetic smile before continuing on to his next task of the day.

As her Guardian made his way through the aisles of steel and strange items that Ixia still struggled to recognize, she caught herself lagging behind him as she inspected random items on the shelves. She power walked to catch up to him, promising herself to ask him to take her through this place later when she could appear in her disguised form so that she may spend an entire day asking after what these unusual things were.

A pair of customers waved at Cormac from the end of a long aisle, and the redhead gave a half-hearted wave of acknowledgement as he approached them. Less out of any rudeness and more out of a desperate need to conserve energy. Despite being in the middle of a desert, they were asking questions about the boating section of the store to Ixia’s intense confusion.

“This is the GPS we have on sale right now.” Cormac pointed to yet another strange device that Ixia studied and inspected, knowing from the mental link that it had something to do with maps but not how the device did so.

“And how do you like it?” The young woman asked as she read from the listed features on the display.

“Mmmm.” The redhead made an ambivalent grunt as he looked over his shoulder while the couple faced him with increased interest. “I’m not supposed to say bad things about any of our products. So I won’t say anything about this product.”

He made a motion with his head to follow him just a few feet over to the next boat GPS system on display. “However if you don’t mind paying a bit more for quality, this one sure never gets returned.”

The couple smiled and nodded along, talking it over and asking the redhead a series of questions that he answered candidly with as much of a smile as he could muster at the moment. Which wasn’t much, but enough to put them at ease and finally decide after some deliberation to buy the product in question.

“Thanks! What’s the point in buying a boat if you’re not giving it the best! Hey, you get a commission for this right?” The other young man asked of The Guardian.

Cormac sighed too deeply as his eyes lost focus and angled toward the floor. “We are expressly forbidden from talking about our pay. But no.”

“Oh…” The young pair gave him a look of sympathy as they offered to fill out an ‘online survey’ about him as the best thanks that they could give, which the redhead accepted with a thanks as they parted.

Ixia gently squeezed his hand as she swore she could see the dark circles under his eyes growing darker and deeper by the second. “Are you doing okay?”

“The switch from worrying about what supernatural horrors are going to try and eat me today to worrying about having to cover way too many departments because everyone else with more PTO hours than me called off on a Monday has been rougher than I thought it would be.” Cormac squeezed her hand back, forgetting for a second that he no doubt would look insane to anyone catching sight of him talking to himself about the supernatural.

The Dryad had wanted to speak words of encouragement but her furrowed green brow and face full of confusion gave way to a look of sudden understanding. “So this is what you feel like when I go and talk about something that leaves you feeling completely lost.”

Cormac’s sleep deprived brain struggled through processing that thought before he nodded his own realization. “Huh…okay good point.”

He squeezed her hand as he looked around to make sure no one was watching him having a conversation with an invisible plant woman, then continued on to his next task with Ixia in tow, even more customers starting to appear in the store as the day went on.

Far over in the men’s clothing department Cormac had been tasked with re-folding all of the clothes that had been tried on and left behind. The redhead had found a quiet corner of the changing rooms to start working through a large pile of clothes. He stretched his arms, legs, back to force himself slightly more awake and take the opportunity to look around before setting about the task. Only the washed out blue walls and empty changing room stalls greeted him, the buzzing fluorescent lights in the lower ceilings here still neglecting this corner of the space.

After confirming that no one was nearby he instructed Ixia to watch and learn the simple yet important modern art of folding clothes. Despite The Dryad’s insistence that clothes were restricting, she paid careful attention to the folding process and mimed the actions in lieu of making it appear as though half a pile of shirts were folding themselves.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

She felt that she would be ready to try this later on at home when Cormac’s actions started to slow and he leaned harder against the folding table like he was falling in slow motion.

“Cormac?”

No response as his eyes fought to stay open and he leaned over more, eyes not really focused at all but still unwavering in their attention to that one small white button like it was one of the few things holding him up.

Ixia gently patted the side of his face, knowing from earlier experience that nuding his arm or shoulder was not enough, causing her man to blink bleary eyed with distant awareness. She looked over her shoulder before causing a strong smelling flower to bloom from her palm, holding the yellow flower under his nose as he snapped to attention and stood up straight.

“Yeah.” He said with a shake of his head as he rubbed at his eyes. “Yes.”

The Dryad winced, rubbing at his forearm that he was still using to prop himself up on the table. “Time for another coffee and fruit break?”

“Mmhm.”

Despite his response, Ixia watched him stay motionless for about half a minute more before she gave him a quick peck on the cheek, causing him to nod and scrunch up his eyes before forcing himself into walking the vast distance to the breakroom. Normally he would ignore far off customers trying to flag him down on the way to a break or his lunch to avoid being delayed for possible hours at a time. Today, he simply lacked the awareness of the few customers trying to wave him down after not seeing any employees for far too long in the vast and labyrinthine interior.

Leading to a small crowded office space repurposed into kitchen space. Ixia had to remain close to her Guardian in the confined space as they made their way around card tables and folding chairs. Here more than the rest of the store, with many other employees all gathered for food and idle conversation, there were eyes to spot a Dryad hidden from the mundane eye impossibly bumping into things. Cormac had been reminding himself all day to pick paths of least resistance to avoid bumping into anyone after Ixia insisted on staying with him after he almost passed out in his morning cereal.

Ixia had been feeding him those strange fruits all day long, which he supplemented with coffee. Normally such a potent combination was enough to have him running marathons. After last night? Yet another coffee and fruit break was needed to get him through the rest of his work day.

Several of the fruits had been packed away in a worn out gray lunch bag stashed at the back of the ancient off-white refrigerator that may have been accumulating smells and flavors since before Ixia’s forest had been invaded. The precious fruit within had so far managed to avoid accumulating most of those invading scents and flavors. Though the coffee that accompanied it from the coffeemaker had all the residue and dirt from a thousand generations, its scent acrid enough to make Ixia question its safety.

A question that had paralyzed Cormac as well as he took a seat at an empty card table, staring into the oily black liquid that held floating bits of undissolved powdered creamer. Ixia watched him contemplate his next sip for a worryingly long time, completely motionless before she realized he had simply gone unresponsive again. A fact complicated by the coworker currently trying to get his attention with no success.

Ixia noted that the blonde woman wearing a similar green jumpsuit uniform as him had cocked her head to the side as she once again failed to gain his attention. The Dryad bit her lip before growing a small thorn on her fingertip to stick him on his arm and startle the man back into consciousness.

“Yeah! Sorry.” The redhead said as he looked to his Dryad, who was shaking her head and pointing to the one actually trying to talk to him at the moment. Cormac blinked and finally realized that his coworker had been standing next to him for too long now without receiving a response to how he had been managing having to cover 5 different departments today. “Sorry Kathy uh…long night. Also morning. The two got mixed together.”

“I see.” His coworker said as she pulled up a chair and sat across from him, brow still raised at the barely conscious man. “One last party at the end of your vacation?”

Cormac shook his head before gulping down half the cup of coffee flavored swill, the heat of the liquid arguably doing more to wake him than any caffeine. “I actually got roped into helping a friend move, and of course it took way longer than planned.”

The redhead took a bite of the indigo fruit and continued after feeling the probably magic forcing more life into his exhausted form. His curious coworker pointed to it. “Where did you get that?”

“My girlfriend grew it.” The Guardian said as his eye darted over to Ixia as a smile slipped onto his face before taking another large bite. “Don’t ask me anything more than that, she’s the one who knows all the things about plants!”

He gave a worn out laugh that betrayed both his exhaustion and desire to not make random idle chatter while exhausted. His coworker ignored it as she gave her own polite laugh. “And since when did you get a girlfriend? Find someone on vacation?”

“Oh yeah, out in the woods. Found her accosted by mythical woodland critters. Daring rescue. It should make the news any day now.” The Dryad giggled at his brashness while he pulled out his phone, unlocking it to show a picture of the smiling couple of definitely humans to his coworker while telling her another version of the truth. “We met on a trail, amazingly. And she actually lived around here too.”

Kathy smiled and rolled her eyes at the story, looking at the picture as her eyes flashed wide. “Ohhhh! She seems nice. I never would have expected that to be your type! I always pictured you dating some other thin redhead and having a bunch of ginger kids!”

His coworker laughed at her own statement as Cormac put even less effort into his own smile while slowly sliding his phone back towards him and pocketing it. “Well, what can I say? No.”

Cormac gulped down the rest of his coffee and bid his bewildered coworker farewell before throwing his lunch bag back in the refrigerator as Ixia felt she was missing some critical aspect of that exchange that had the redhead disgruntled. He decided to take an early lunch and worry about being yelled at for doing so later. ‘Lunch’ consisted of skipping food entirely and walking out to his truck. Once they were in the parking lot, he could finally speak a bit more freely.

“Sorry.” He said with a sigh as his shoulders sagged, his truck seeming so far away when employees were forced to park at the furthest reaches of the concrete expanse. “You never know who’s going to just open their mouth and say things like that.”

“Did that woman say something…uncouth?” Ixia had her suspicions but was still very much in need of Cormac to guide her through the ‘modern world’.

Her Guardian grimaced and grit his teeth before answering. “I will explain it later when-”

“Is this going on the same list as ‘The whole situation in The Amazon’?” Ixia knew that there wasn’t actually going to be a good time for that list, and had agreed to get the most upsetting revelations out of the way together.

Cormac didn’t even try to hide the pain as he nodded and opened the door to his truck, letting a saddened Dryad climb in before him. She sat on the seat as he closed the door behind him and laid his head in her lap, his eyes already growing heavy.

“You still have your own list.” He said as he looked up to her as her face grew flush and she averted her gaze. “One that includes ‘Which of the gods are blood gods’. Which sure sounds like a number greater than zero.”

“They’re not…well they’re not all…they have their reasons-!”

“If the reasons are even slightly good, that puts them ahead of my list.” Cormac was struggling to stay awake as Ixia ran her fingers through his hair and offered a faltering smile that gave out a moment later. “World of wondrous magic, some of it incredibly hostile…still kinda preferring it to this…is that weird? Because at least I feel like my life and the lives of others are very obviously on the line with that as opposed to financial oblivion being on the line-”

The Dryad put a finger to his lips, and he offered no resistance as ragged breathing started to even out. “You have less than an hour to rest. We can talk about how you are delightfully strange later on and before our next meeting with our new allies tonight.”

That was enough reassurance for him, and he was asleep in the next breath as Ixia kept an eye on the clock.