The Non-Human Society

Chapter Eighty Eight - Vim - To Retreat Without Running

      I wasn't running away, nor was I fleeing in shame.

This was just... me trying to help Renn make a few more friends in the Society.

Stepping out of the house and onto the porch, I sighed and felt the faint throb of a headache. The kind that didn't really exist, but my mind thought it should.

Renn's voice, alongside the happy shouting of Fizz, could be heard behind me. They were talking about some kind of food they had just eaten recently. Something new they hadn't tasted before.

They sounded happy. Excited.

The sounds were good. Genuine. It warmed the soul, and healed wounds.

Yet right now I didn't want to hear any of it.

I took my time stepping off the porch, and took even longer to reach the metal gate.

It was hard to be upset or bothered by Henrietta... since she was actually a very good person. She and her husband were the steady types. The ones I could rely on if I needed to.

Yet Henrietta's misplaced fascination with me had long grown old. I was tired of having to pretend to ignore her advances, and odd statements. And I was especially tired of having her daughter stare at me with odd eyes, as she watched her mother act the fool.

Fizz at least knew I was no threat. She had once thought me so, and had even attacked me once with the intent to kill me.

Honestly that should have been Henrietta's wake up call, to stop being so weird... yet after that incident, she only seemed to double down on the efforts...

Opening the gate, I slowly shut it behind me. It clanked loudly, thanks to its weight.

It was heavy. Renn was able to open it. I had seen her do so, but...

Henrietta wasn't able to. There had been many times I had found her outside the gate waiting for me. And she wasn't the kind to be doing so just because she thought it improper not to. I had once found her in my bed, asleep. She had no shame when it came to stuff like that.

Which meant it was probably her daughter, Fizz, who had opened it for them earlier.

Interesting.

Tapping the gate, I pondered that fact as I turned away and headed for the nearby hallway. The one that had a few benches littering its halls.

They'd probably sit and talk for hours, so I might as well find somewhere to sit and wait.

I wasn't going to risk leaving them alone completely. Henrietta shouldn't do anything too weird... And Renn shouldn't either... but...

Actually Renn seemed rather gentle with children. That wasn't the first time I had seen her act like that to the young. She had let Fizz touch her ears and tail. Most of our kind would never let such a thing happen, even to those they deemed family.

It was why Fizz had so happily accepted, and immediately saw her as a friend afterward. In Fizz's eyes she had just earned her respect and then some, with a single action.

Our people were simple sometimes. But I couldn't blame them. Odds were Henrietta and John had never let Fizz touch their non-human traits, at least not willingly. It was just...

"Maybe it's because she's so calm-natured," I thought to myself.

Renn had been willing to let me touch them too, without hesitation. At first I had thought that was just because she was simply trying to earn my trust, in any way or shape she could.

Rounding a corner, I was glad to find that the hallway was empty. The half dozen benches were all available, so I went and sat in one.

While I sat down, I groaned at myself.