The wooden door opened on silent hinges, and a moment later a human, probably a man, strode into the room, pushing a small wheeled cart. A metal frame with wooden trays laid upon it, placed on top of which were a variety of plates and bowls.

Jump-touch watched as he placed the dishes one by one onto the table, her stomach grumbling. The last couple of days had been lean ones, and sending the Token to her Heart earlier had made her almost ravenously hungry.

The man finished placing the dishes, bowls and a variety of mystery implements onto the table, nodded to An-jel, and then wheeled his little cart out of the room again, closing the door behind himself with a gentle click.

It smelled good. In front of her, there was a tiny plate covered in little cubes of meat, and on the table, there were many dishes containing other meats and vegetables. I guess everyone gets to help themselves to the more abundant stuff, but this is a lot of food!

Opposite her, on the other side of the massive table, An-jel was already eating her cubes, using a small fork to spear each one, and chewing for far longer than she should have needed to do so. Did she have teeth missing?

Jump-touch looked at her own plate, and then up at the door. Wasn't it rude, to start without the others?

An-jel finished her second meat cube, looked at Jump-touch, and then towards the door, following her gaze. "Are you not hungry?"

"Isn't he coming back?" she asked, glancing down at her food.

An-jel frowned, scrunching up her brow, "no?"

She looked over the table again, "but there's so much food."

The woman looked over the table. "It's not that much? Only one main dish and some vegetables."

She had watched Sweep-claw consume an entire deer only three nights before, right down to and including the hooves. He had picked his teeth with the antlers, before leaving them in a tree to take back to the Lower Village later, on this return trip.

Jump-touch found herself biting her lip. It could be that the man had already eaten, and this was leftovers? It was somewhat late after all. She didn't know what sort of time humans kept, but most kobolds rose and fell with the sun, and she knew her village would all be asleep by now.

She picked up her fork and, held it in a way that she hoped was correct, and speared a meat cube for herself.

"Thank you for hosting me?" she offered after eating a couple more, curious as to why An-jel was still looking at her.

"Is the food good?" The woman asked.

She shrugged. The food was fine, if under-seasoned. Maybe there was a dip or something she'd missed?

Cultural things, she mentally checked herself. She had to remember that she was meant to be a Cultural Scholar now, even if she'd had woefully little instruction in the job. Was it rude to say that the food was simply okay, or was she supposed to offer more criticism? Should she have found spices, to add to the communal pot?

Too late for that, and a guest couldn't be blamed for a lack of gifts during times of hardship. She nodded a deep nod of thanks and speared another cube, looking for a dip.

A big fish, filleted in half and de-boned took up pride of place in the center of the spread. It didn't look like leftovers, but what did she know, maybe they'd cooked two? Next to it, there was a plate of small dumplings, pas-trees, if she was remembering the word right, or did they have another name?

Her skill was silent as she tried to nudge it into giving her a name for the little wrapped parcels, and she gave up, chewing and moving on.

There was a big bowl of chopped green vegetables, something cheese-based with a crispy top, and ah, there, next to the fish. That looked like a set of dips.

"It's fine, very tasty. Mmm," she said, reaching for the assortment. They came together in their own little basket, which she found rather convenient.

She sniffed the contents of each jar and then selected one, placing the rest of the basket back for, well only for An-jel really, even though the human didn't seem interested. The one she'd selected contained a sort of white, vinegar-based paste, but she'd left back in the basket another of lightly spiced oil, and a third which smelt of nothing.

She dipped one of the cubes into the paste, trying it out.

Better.

An-jel watched her, her fork placed on the edge of her plate and her plate now lying untouched.

"It's Venison-" the human said, deer-meat, supplied her skill "- from our own woodland. Michael hunted it himself for the party. It was hung for three weeks to intensify the flavour, and it's been seasoned with fresh spices and delicate herbs, picked from our own garden."

Jump-touch hummed. An-jel was obviously proud of all that, that was good. How would somebody who was training to be a mediator respond? In a friendly and encouraging manner, definitely, and not like you were holding back the nausea every time you tried to speak and the wrong words came out.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

It was fading, it wasn't a touch on earlier, but it was still there, like an itch inside the back of her head.

"I've only had venison once before," she looked down at her remaining cubes, "it tastes different cooked and uh, hung. We dry meat back home, too. I would offer you some, but My-he-kal ate the last of it."

The white dip had small tangy bits mixed into it that she quite liked, but there was also something missing, she felt.

"We mostly eat-" her new language skill stopped her right as she was getting into the swing of it, and she paused, confused as she felt something in her brain hitch, her tongue knotting up.

"We mostly eat..."

Is it because they use goats here as friends and a means of transport? Was this a cultural thing?

No, there was something else there, something language-based. Her skill wasn't going to stop her from making an idiot of herself in social situations.

"I left that part out for you, I thought you'd find it more fun," a familiar voice seemed to whisper in the back of her mind, and she felt something she hadn't known was there leave her.

Wow, thanks Stone. Big help.

She started to work through it from the beginning, what word did she want?

"Goat?" she tried silently mouthing the word. Okay, no. Goats were the animals that lived on the mountain. Correct. Kobolds ate goat, correct. Roo-set was a goat. Incorrect.

Interesting. He's not?

As much as she hated the new language, hated being here, and hated having had it injected into her mind, the nausea was abating, and there was a certain thrill at learning new words. Knowing she could communicate with more people now; that if a human ever came through from this local area then she would be able to trade with them, without having to resort to hand gestures and pictures in the dirt.

"Horse?" She tried out loud. That was what Roo-set was, correct. Cool, that actually explained a lot! None of the goats back home would have allowed themselves to be used like the animals she'd seen in town today.

She moved her mouth through the sounds, losing herself for a moment in a language which didn't require anything of her other than basic mouth movements and throat noises.

Feather-paw would have hated it.

The thought came unbidden, and she missed him, all of a sudden. He wouldn't have sat here, perched all the way up off the floor, picking up little bits of bland, chopped meat with tiny metal implements. He would have had it raw or lightly cooked, and spiced until his eyes and nose ran clear and neither of them could breathe for laughing.

"You eat horse?" An-jel sounded confused, and Jump-touch looked up, surprised out of her melancholy. She had been working out something, and had forgotten the human was still there.

"What? No!" had she said that? "We eat goats. I'd never seen a horse before Roo-set. But he uh, he is a very handsome horse, lovely fur. Good musculature."

Be polite, and compliment other members of the village when appropriate. She had this cultural thing down.

An-jel looked down at her plate, then back up, her expression strange. "He comes from fine breeding," she said finally. "We only purchased him a week ago."

She pushed her plate back a little across the table, and Jump-touch wished for a moment that the stupid Stone had modified her just a tiny bit more, wished it had given her the ability to read anything other than the most obvious of facial expressions and body language.

Was An-jel leaving right now, or did she want to move on to the next course? Was this the part where you brought out the little fires so you could toast your cubes and dip them in spices, or was this the part where she'd made some horrible mistake, and was about to be politely removed from the gathering?

Culturally, how did you exit a meal without offending the hosts?

She shoved three of the meat cubes into her mouth, took a spoonful of the white paste, and wished she'd tried the little parcels while she had time.

Kobolds could draw meals out when they wanted to do so, eating until there was nothing left, and everyone was asleep in a big pile, but you could also simply state you were done and that you wanted to be on your own now, and nobody would judge you for it.

Were humans the same? Was the pushing back of the plate An-jel's indication that she was done with the meal, and that she wished to retire to sleep, but that Jump-touch could carry on?

Because An-jel had decided to stop, did that mean she also had to stop? Is this some kind of weird human test?

She ate the last two meat cubes, finished off the last of the pickle-paste, and pushed her own plate back. Ok, now they were on the same step. Good.

Wait, should she have left a cube for the night spirits? What if they were just an appetiser, and you were only meant to eat a certain amount of them? Mountain help her, this was too complicated. She knew where she was at home, here, even eating with only one person, she felt completely lost.

Humans didn't seem to have before meal ritual at all, either. At home, for a formal meal with friends, or your first meal with a stranger, you always had to do the proper rituals. The person who'd cooked the first bite had to ring the bells, draw the blinds and thank the spirits of the beast. Then at the end of the meal, they had to be the first to offer the leftovers to the rest of the village, so that nothing would be wasted.

Most evenings ended around the fire in the centre of the village, everything left shared out and everyone full and happy.

She stared at the untouched fish, the vegetables and the spread of things she had no words for, wondering who would eat them.

I want to go home.

I want to sleep.

"Thank you for the meal," the words came almost without her bidding, and she felt like her mouth was twisting into knots as what she thought and what she said collided mid-run.

She slipped down off the chair, relieved to be down on the floor again.

"I appreciate your- your inviting me into your home, and the sharing of food." She gave her best human smile. She would go out in the morning, find a way out of the city, and hunt.

"I will leave no-"

"Oh for pities sake, child," An-jel stood up violently, the chair sliding backwards across the wooden floor with a squeak. "If you want to sit on the floor and eat the fish with your hands, I won't tell you otherwise. And it's dark out, where would you even go?"

She looked back at the table, she didn't want to eat it with her hands, she hadn't even been given an opportunity to wash them.

"I was going to sleep under the maple tree."

It occurred to her as she said it, that she could sleep in her Heart, although the floor would be awfully hard. The Stone had promised it would be a safe place for her to retreat to, but it never promised it would be a comfortable one.

Still, it would be handy, to always have a place she could camp, safe from the rain. Human magic really was something. Did every human get such luxuries?

She bit the inside of her cheek. Maple tree, or elsewhere? They had passed a lot of dark houses when walking here, surely one of them would have a nice place to sleep.

The human sighed, pushing her chair further away and reaching across the table.

"Come," she said, lifting the fish platter and balancing it in one hand in an impressive show of dexterity. "The living room is more comfortable. As long as you don't get fish bits all over my good chairs..."

She waved about with her free hand, and then marched out of the room without a further word, leaving the door open behind her.

Flummoxed, Jump-touch followed along behind.