Forever Green

~5~ The Talking Teapot

"Stay away!"

There it was again: that watery, high-pitched voice, this time sounding a bit angry. And...Theiden blinked. It sounded like it had come from the spout of the teapot.

"Hello?" he tried. His hand was frozen, hovering just over the lid.

"Hello!"

Theiden jumped back at the loud outburst. This time there was no denying it—the teapot was speaking.

"Who...what are you?" Theiden asked, scarcely believing he was having this conversation.

"Same to you!" The teapot sounded cheery, completely different from its earlier belligerence when Theiden had gone to remove it from the shelf.

"I..." Theiden paused, confused. "What?"

"The question—the question! Same question!" the pot burbled. If it had legs, Theiden imagined, it would be dancing around in a circle.

"I'm Theiden," he answered, still a bit flustered. "And wh—"

"That's the who!" the pot trilled, interrupting him. "Now the what!" The last syllable echoed slightly.

"What a—I'm a person! A human! Can't you tell?"

"Hmm. Never met one of those before." The voice sounded suspicious.

"You've never..." Theiden echoed, still a bit bewildered. "What about the witch, then?"

The teapot harrumphed disapprovingly. "What about her?"

"The witch is human, sort of...isn't she?"

"I don't know, I never asked. You don't seem to be so sure." It sounded offended, and Theiden wondered what on earth he had done to warrant such an icy reply.

The lid of the teapot lifted just an inch, allowing a glimpse of bushy gray hair before it closed again. Theiden, who had drawn nearer again to the teapot during the conversation, suddenly remembered his concerns about strange object in the witch's cottage, and took a step back.

"You look different from the witch," the teapot observed. Then it decided to switch topics. "Ah well, I suppose it's time to get to work."

The teapot lid wobbled again, and then slid off to land on the shelf with a soft plink. Theiden leaned in closer again, curiosity getting the better of him, and was met with a lump of soft red fabric. As he watched, the red fabric tilted back to reveal copious amounts of wiry gray hair underneath. Theiden realized that, somewhere under all that hair, there must be two eyes and a mouth to go along with the pale round nose sticking up at him.

"What are you?" Theiden asked again.

"Tsk tsk. I am a 'who' first. I am Kettle."

With this introduction, Kettle clambered out of its teapot. Aside from the knitted scarlet cap on its head, Theiden realized, the creature was actually quite monochrome. Iron-gray hair covered its face, leaving only a large nose sticking out to distinguish the front of its head from the back. The rest of its clothes were also gray, made of a loose, thick fabric that made it difficult to distinguish top from bottom, and it wore gray-painted wooden clogs on its feet. Aside from the copious amounts of hair, however, Theiden realized Kettle just looked like a very, very small person.

"Now the what," Kettle announced. "I am a tomte."

"A what?" Theiden frowned. "I don't know those."

The tomte made another sound of disapproval. "Well, now you do."

"But what do you do?" If it turned out that the witch was harboring a dangerous creature in her house, Theiden would be sure to kill it immediately. It was small enough to squash. But the reply he got was benign.