Chapter 42: Dinner at Viggi’s
Felix Sythias’ POV (continued):
The restaurant was almost as busy as when we were here last week. A long queue stretched from the entrance, filled with people of all species; except lizardkin, who got their own queue. People didn’t seem to mind too much, though. It seemed it was a known fact about the restaurant that lizardkin got preferential treatment when it came to entry. Besides, it wasn’t more than four lizardkin, anyway, and they looked to be part of the same group.
Unlike last time, the air smelled strongly of fish and spices. I noticed a sign near the door about prices for fish being half off, so it seemed everyone was ordering cheap fish. I wondered what was up with that, then I realized I could just ask Viggi in a moment.
I glanced around the area, looking for him. We’d agreed to meet outside the restaurant, so he should be out here somewhere. After a few fruitless moments of looking around, Alex tapped my shoulder and pointed at a tree with Viggi leaning against its trunk. I hadn’t noticed him before since he blended in pretty well with the bushes, but there he was, chatting with two people. To my surprise, it was Tiki, and, to my dismay, her brother.
I turned to Alex. “Sorry, but I’m not going over there. Every time I talk to that asshole, it ruins my mood.”
Before Alex had the chance to respond, Alfred glanced our way, froze, and promptly walked in the other direction. Good. Tiki looked between him and Viggi, then said something to Viggi and ran after Alfred.
Alex and I glanced at each other before walking over.
“I see you’ve met Tiki,” I said once we got there.
“I did, yeah. Apparently she recognized me from your description and wanted to say hello. So either you gave a really good description, or she's a speciesist.”
“Are there that many bright green lizardkin our age around, then?” I asked.
“Well, no, but… nevermind, it doesn’t matter. Are you guys hungry?”
We were, so he guided us to the back of the restaurant. His dad greeted us, then handed us a few boxes filled with food and went back to his work. I doubted it was enough for me to have a full stomach, but I could hardly expect them to give me that much food for free. I ate a lot, after all. A warning would’ve been nice, though. At least then I could’ve brought my own meal. Whatever, I’d eat some jerky back at the dorms later.
Viggi led us through the streets and to the outskirts of the district while we talked about Alfred. To my relief, Viggi seemed as disgusted by Alfred’s behavior as us. And apparently, he had even made some unpleasant remarks about lizardkin in the few minutes they’d talked. While we walked, I looked around. I’d been in this part of the district before, but I didn’t come here often. This part of the district was filled with houses for people to live in, with most of them being shop owners. None of the houses were particularly pretty, but they were well maintained and looked lived in and cozy. Viggi guided us to one with a well-kept garden and led us inside through the backdoor. Luckily, it was wide enough for my body to fit through.
He sat us down at the dinner table while he went to grab some plates. Meanwhile, Alex and I opened the boxes. A savory, fishy smell wafted out and my mouth watered.
“Stars, that smells good.” Alex said.
“Dad’s a great cook, yeah!” Viggi said as he came back into the room. He put the plates and such on the table at our spots, but hesitated at mine. “Do you use a fork and knife?”
I smiled at him. “I don’t, but thanks for asking.”
He put the remaining fork and knife away and sat down opposite of Alex. I sat at the head of the table since that was the only spot with enough space for me—the table stood really close to the wall, so there was barely enough room for chairs on the other sides, let alone me.
Before we started eating, Viggi stopped us for a quick prayer. He closed his eyes and turned his snout towards the ceiling. Alex and I joined him; it was only polite since it was his house and his food, after all.
“We thank the stars for their guidance. May they twinkle forever more. Please let their glorious light shine upon us and purify this meat that we are about to consume.”
We looked back down and dug in. To my surprise, the fish had already been deboned. That was great and made up for not really having a full belly—they’d remembered. The fish itself was also great. Viggi was right; his dad was a terrific cook. It was just the perfect combination of spicy, salty, savory, and left a mild tingling sensation on my tongue.
“What kind of fish is this?” I asked between bites.
Viggi looked up from his meal. “I don’t remember the name, but we call it lightning fish in the kitchen since it has that tingly aftertaste. Do you like it?”
My mouth was full, so I nodded. I swallowed. “I do yeah. My only complaint is that there’s so little.”
He blinked. “Little? That’s a full course—” He snout-palmed. “Right, you’re bigger than us, so of course it isn’t enough. I’m sorry, I should’ve remembered.”
I shook my head. “It’s fine. I’ll eat some more back at our dorm room.”
We fell back into silence as we continued eating, but Viggi broke it. “What did you do this weekend, Alex? Did you end up looking for a job?”
Alex was about to put another bite in his mouth, but put his fork down. “I did, yeah. I didn’t have much success, though. I don’t think they want lizardkin as employees, though I don’t fully understand why.”
Viggi grimaced. “There’s a reputation that we’re clumsy, that we constantly knock things over with our tails. So there are very few shopkeepers that want us. It’s why I ended up working at dad’s place. It’s not something I wanted; I wanted to have my own job independent from dad, but it wasn’t possible. Not if I wanted to make a decent amount of points, anyway.”
“Oh.” Alex’s expression was unreadable, but it had a definite sadness to it. “Some of the things they said make a lot more sense now. Why they kept saying hiring me wasn’t something they could afford right now, and why they offered so little pay. It’s not even true. At worst, I’m as clumsy with my tail as humans are with their arms! This is such bullshit.”
I shoved the last bite of fish into my mouth and put a talon on Alex’s arm. I didn’t have to say anything; he understood. He flashed me a quick smile before turning back to Viggi. I let go and started licking my plate clean.
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“Can we talk about something else?” Alex asked. “It’s kind of ruining the mood.”
I nodded in agreement. “What did you do this weekend?” I asked Viggi.
He talked about his job and some of the nut job customers they got. Then he went on about how his dad made him help in the garden. After he was done, I expected him to ask what I’d done this weekend, but he turned to Alex instead.
“So, did you do anything else this weekend besides job hunting?”
Alex paused eating for a moment. “Yeah, uh, I helped one of my classmates with her math homework. You actually met her earlier. The shadow elf. Her name is Tiki, and she’s nice—mostly. Oh! And Felix and I ate a bunch of candy.” He turned to me. “Where did you buy it again?”
“Oh, just a shop in the main shopping district. They had a ton of flavors, so I got a few of each. So far, the only one I’ve disliked was the one that tasted like lavender.”
“I think I know the shop you're talking about. It’s the one near the statue of your father, right?” I nodded. “They have some pretty great flavors.”
“They do, yeah.”
Viggi turned back to Alex. “What’s your favorite flavor so far?”
They continued talking about candy for a while, and then about Alex’s tutoring, which led to talking about how he taught the hatchlings math in his old village. It was nice to see Alex getting along so well with Viggi, but it would’ve been nice to be included in the conversation as well. Alex tried a few times to do so, asking me what I thought of teaching, or asking about the class I taught during the holidays, but Viggi kept steering the conversation back to Alex.
I sighed and looked down at my glass of water. It was almost empty. Being a third wing sucked and I kind of wanted to just go home now; there wasn’t room for me here, anyway. I really appreciated Alex trying, but it seemed that Viggi had more interest in being friends with Alex than with me. That was alright, though. Alex deserved more friends, and I was happy for him. I had just hoped Viggi could have become my friend, too…
Alex glanced my way, looking at me with concern. I flashed him a smile and mumbled something about just being tired. He didn’t seem convinced, but went back to his conversation with Viggi.
Eventually the conversation wound down and Viggi went to put the plates away. I wanted to ask Alex if he was okay with me leaving early, but Viggi got back before I got the chance, and it felt rude to ask him that in front of the host.
Viggi offered to bring a board game out and asked if there was any particular one we wanted to play. I didn’t really have a preference, while Alex asked which games he had.
“It’s easier to just show you. They’re in my room.”
We went to his room, but it quickly became clear I couldn’t even get into the hallway. I was stuck with staying in the living room. Alex wanted to just stay here and let Viggi choose, but as much as I wanted that too, I didn’t want to stand in the way of their growing friendship. So I told him to go, and they went to Viggi’s bedroom while I stared at the pictures and paintings on the walls.
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Alex Sandclaw’s POV:
Viggi’s room was about the same size as my original dorm room, which meant it was quite large for one person. One thing I immediately noticed was the lack of bookcases—or books, for that matter. Felix had quite a few in his room, though most were still empty. Viggi didn’t have a single one. Other than that, it was a pretty standard room. Bed in the corner, a desk next to it, a drawing of some naked woman hanging on the wall—well, mostly standard, I guess.
“You don’t have any books?” I asked Viggi, who’d sat down on the bed. He had his feet placed at a weird angle, hiding a pair of underwear that I pretended not to notice. He was looking through a box filled with games, but glanced up at my question.
“I have most of my books in my dorm room,” he said, “and I’ve never been too huge a fan of reading. I enjoy it, sure, but I much prefer going outside to exercise.”
I shook my head. “I’m not too big a fan of exercise myself. It can be fun, but not alone.”
He smiled. “You’re more than welcome to join me sometime.”
“I’ll think about it,” I said, not sure if I meant it. “What games do you have there?”
He showed me the various games he had, explaining them as he did. Capitalism, Chance of Danger, Settlers of the new world, and more. They all sounded fun, but they were also all games that took a long time to play. And I did want to actually play them sometime—it sounded like a really fun evening—but not today. Felix clearly just wanted to go home, and I didn’t want to extend our stay longer than necessary. By the end of the meal, he mostly just quietly looked down at his plate, or glanced towards the back door. I couldn’t blame him for wanting to leave. While hanging out with Viggi had been fun for me, it hadn’t been for Felix. I had even tried including him in the conversations, but Viggi didn’t seem to take the hint. I understood he wanted to know more about me, but it wasn’t fair or nice of him to leave Felix on the sidelines to do so.
“Do you have anything shorter?” I asked. “As much fun as they probably are, I do have to get up early tomorrow.”
“Huh? Oh, sure.” He sounded a little disappointed, but I found it hard to care; I was a little disappointed in him, too. “Here, this one is quite fun. It’s called Wordplay. You have these little letter tiles and everyone gets an amount. You have to make words with the tiles you have, or pick another tile from the pile if you can’t. The first one to use all their tiles, or the person with the least amount of tiles by the end of the game wins.”
“Sounds good to me.”
He picked the little box from the pile and packed the rest away back inside the larger box, which he slid back under the bed—also conveniently hiding his underwear. Before he walked back outside the room, I grabbed his shoulder to stop him. If subtlety didn’t work, hopefully this would.
“Viggi, before we go back, do you have a moment? There’s something I wanted to talk to you about.”
He nodded. “Sure, what’s up?”
I took a deep breath. “I’m not sure if you noticed, but earlier during dinner, you kind of excluded Felix. Pretty hard, too. I don’t think you did it on purpose, but can you please pay attention so it doesn’t happen again while we play the game? Felix is my friend, and I hate seeing him sad like that.”
He blinked. “I did? I’m sorry, it wasn’t my intention. I guess I got a little too caught up in getting to know you better. I’ll make sure it doesn't happen again.”
We went back outside to the living room. Felix looked miserable. His shoulders were slumped, his wings limp, and his expression sad. In hindsight, I really should’ve asked for a short game immediately instead of letting Viggi give lengthy explanations about the other games. Stars, that was dumb of me. It was too late to do anything about it now, though. At least Felix perked up once we came back inside, and even more when I explained I’d asked for a shorter game. Viggi, who was now paying attention, winced at that.
Viggi explained the game to us again and laid the tiles out. We all got twelve tiles each, and the remainder went on the pile in the middle. Watching Felix try to move the little tiles was fun, and even he giggled a bit when they jumped out between his claws for the third time. He eventually got it down, though.
The game itself was fun, though we had quite a few discussions about if a word really was a word. Like ‘skateboard’. Viggi assured us it was a real thing and something the cool kids played with. Felix and I doubted him, but allowed it. It was all in good fun, anyway.
Viggi did a much better job of including Felix in the conversations now, which I appreciated. Felix seemed much more at ease, too, though I still thought he wanted to leave.
After the game, I helped Viggi clean it up. We talked for a few more minutes, but I excused us by saying that I still had some homework to finish—I didn’t. He offered to walk us back to our dorms, but both I and Felix declined. So we went outside, waved back at Viggi one last time, and walked down the street.
Once we were outside of earshot, I turned my head to Felix.
“Are you feeling okay?”