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“So, you can really find furniture down here sometimes?” Merri asked.
The elevator rumbled around them, jostling them both as it rolled down the mineshaft. Merri had never been underground before. She remembered the farmer’s warnings of creatures that lurked beneath the surface and tightened her grip around a pickaxe she had borrowed from the blacksmithing shop. Olric had his own pickaxe, but she had no idea what his fighting ability was like. She sure as hell didn’t know how to fight a monster, but she and Olric were strong, and with Olric’s knowledge of the mines, she was sure he could find a quick path to escape if needed.
“Yeah, there’s tons of furniture! It’s so weird!” Olric’s peppy tone snapped her back to reality as he hefted his silver pickaxe over one shoulder, eyes glimmering with excitement. "One time Errol and I found an entire bookcase full of vintage romance novels! We sold the bookcase to Ryis and Landen, but Elsie called dibs on the novels. Not really sure why. Maybe to donate to the museum?"
“Huh,” Merri mumbled, still skeptical at all of Olric's claims, except the one about Elsie keeping the novels. “There's just like, loose furniture lying around some of these caverns?”
“Nope! They pop out of rocks!” Olric said cheerfully.
“They what?”
Olric shrugged. “I don't really understand. I just go with it. It's kinda my life motto!”
The elevator dinged and opened to reveal a dingy room with a dirt floor, a smattering of lit torches along the walls, and about a billion rocks of varying size. Merri glanced around the room but couldn’t see any furniture, so she supposed she would have to indulge Olric and start breaking some rocks.
“Well,” Merri said as she headed over to the first rock cluster she saw, “hopefully we can find something. I want to have some new items for the market, but I've just had no inspiration lately."
“Aw, Mer,” Olric said, sounding genuinely distressed. “You're the coolest, thriftiest, most talented gal I know. I'll find something to jog your creativity, I promise!”
Olric glowed with eagerness as he lifted his pickaxe and brought it down on the first rock, whooping as it broke into a dozen little pieces. Dust rose from where he had struck it, and Merri wondered if she should have brought a couple of the masks she used when sanding furniture. But Olric had worked in the mines for years before they were decommissioned, and he was clearly fine, so…
She watched him smash another rock, the hard muscles in his back flexing with strength. Her breath caught in her throat, and not from the rock particles floating in the air. There was a good reason why she always asked him to help haul her furniture.
They worked diligently, hammering away at rocks with their pickaxes. He taught her how to swing properly, and despite the underground chill, her face grew hot when he came up behind her to adjust her hands on the pickaxe. She feigned needing a break to wipe the sweat from her brow so that she could watch the way his muscles rippled when he brought down the pickaxe. Once in a while, he brought over a particularly cool rock to show her, and she smiled widely each time, more at his glee than the rocks themselves.
“I'm surprised you don't have a pet rock yet, Olric,” Merri said, moving around some broken rock pieces to see if there was any furniture hiding underneath. Nope.
“I do!” he said. “I have lots! But sometimes I wish I could really hang out with them, you know? Like, have dinner at the inn with them, teach them cool tricks…”
Merri smiled. What a sight that would be, Olric and his sentient rock.
She was just about to bring her pickaxe down on another rock when a little flurry of pebbles shot out of it in an upward arc. She yelped and jumped back as the shower of rocks hit the dirt floor where she had just been standing with little plunks.
“Merri?” Olric called out, sounding alarmed.
“I'm okay, I think,” she told him, heart pounding as he jogged over to her. “It didn't hit me, but something just threw rocks at me. Scared the living shit out of me.”
She bent over to catch her breath after her scare while Olric went over to prod the pile of rocks with his axe.
“Careful!” she warned him, just as another couple of pebbles soared toward Olric in an upward arc.
He lunged out of the way, but his urgency was unnecessary, as the rocks that landed at his feet were even smaller than the ones that almost hit Merri. Whatever was shooting at them clearly wasn't as strong the second time around.
Merri came over to help Olric nudge some of the rocks away, careful to shield her face in case of another attack. When one lone pebble hit her in the arm, she pulled back with a squeal, then realized it had barely hurt. This time, she was paying enough attention to spot exactly where the attack was coming from.
It was a tiny thing, maybe the size of her head, nestled among a collection of larger rocks. At first glance, it appeared to be just another rock, a shade of deep brown like all the others, but rounder and smoother, more perfectly formed. But this one had a face. A whole entire face. And it looked mad.
The rock clod’s cheeks (if that's what they were) grew larger suddenly, and Merri realized that it must be making smaller rocks inside itself somehow, or else it was storing them for later, and it was literally spitting rocks at them. Before it could get any further than filling its mouth with pebbles, Merri raised her pickaxe above her head to smash the creature to smithereens, when Olric shouted, “No!”
She paused and looked over at him, just in time for a little rock to hit her in the side of the face.
“Fuck!” she shouted, hand to her cheek. Unlike the one that had hit her arm, that one had actually stung.
“We can't hurt him!” Olric said. “Look at him!”
Merri looked at the rock. It looked angry as shit.
“I see it,” she said, refusing to break eye contact with the pissed-off little rock. “It’s clearly one of the monsters the farmer warned us about.”
Before she could even think about lifting her tool-turned-weapon again, Olric had gathered up the rock in his arms like it was a baby. The rock’s eyes grew wide for a moment before it glared up at Olric. Its cheeks puffed out again, but instead of shooting out more stones, it feebly coughed up a shower of dusty gravel.
“He’s sick!” Olric said, suddenly frantic. “We need to get him to Valen!”
“Olric, do you hear yourself?” Merri said, pickaxe going limp at her side. “It's a monster. It literally tried to kill us.”
“We tried to kill him too!” Olric replied.
Fair point.
“Okay, then can we just leave it here and continue on?” Merri said. “I was starting to get a nice workout smashing all these rocks.”
But Olric shook his head.
“We can't leave him,” he said, and Merri saw tears gathering in his eyes. “He has no friends or family down here. He needs us.”
Merri sighed. Olric was pulling the puppy dog eyes like he did when he asked Merri if she would let him jump on the beds he helped her move. She wasn't going to win this one.
“Fine, we can take him to Valen,” she said.
Olric instantly brightened.
“You're the best, Merri!” he said.
She blushed. The rock scowled at her and nuzzled into Olric’s chest.
“You watch yourself,” she warned the rock before they all headed above ground.
***
Valen had examined the rock and concluded that it was indeed generating the smaller rocks on its own, but that it was clearly too weak to make very many, or very large ones. The interesting specimen, as she referred to it, may have been lacking in some kind of nutrient that had run low in the mines. She had determined that the monster wasn't dangerous, per se, since it wasn't doing a lot of damage with its current attacks. However, that didn't mean it wouldn't become dangerous if it grew stronger.
Merri thought they should chuck it back in the mines where it belonged, but Olric wouldn't hear of it. Instead, he wanted to figure out what it was that the rock would eat. Valen had given them a little green blanket to bundle the rock in, and then they had left for the inn to grab some food and brainstorm.
“He makes rocks, so maybe he eats them, too?” Olric said. “Or would that just be cannibalism? Aw, gee. I don't know the first thing about raising a cannibal…”
He was really stressing over this. Instinctively, Merri reached her hand across the table toward him. The rock glared at her and coughed up more dust. But Olric smiled at her and took her hand, and her heart skipped a beat.
“It's gonna be okay, Olric,” she reassured him. “We’ll figure it out. Why don't we just try feeding it a little bit of our food until it eats something?”
Olric brightened. “That's a good idea! I just want to be a good dad, you know?”
Merri had no idea what to say to that. Luckily, Reina chose that moment to bring them their dishes.
“Here we are!” Reina said and set down plates of fresh fish, bread, and cheese. “And what will the baby have? Isn't he just the sweetest thing!”
Olric beamed. The rock shuffled in his arms to look up at Reina, and then the little bastard fucking smiled at her.
“We’ve decided to let him lead the way and figure out what it is that he likes to eat on his own,” Olric said, offering the rock a piece of cheese, which it ignored. “We’ll just be giving him little bits of our food until we find something he likes.”
“That's exactly the technique my parents used with me!” Reina said. “I'd bet you anything that being exposed to such diverse food at a young age is how I developed my interest in cooking. You might just have a future chef on your hands, too!”
Merri tried to imagine anyone back in the Capital taking this much interest in a funny little rock. She couldn't. Well, that was what she liked so much about Mistria, she supposed. It was very... whimsical here. And Olric was the most whimsical of them all, which was probably why she gravitated to him so much. Why she had started to develop these strange feelings, like not being disappointed that they had left the mines empty-handed, because she had gotten to spend time with him.
Well. Not quite empty-handed. There was the baby, after all.
And everyone wanted to see the baby. Townsfolk piled into the inn for dinner, noticed the bundle in Olric’s arms, and literally did a double take. When they saw that he was sitting with Merri, their eyes glazed over, and Merri thought some of them might faint right there.
“Merri? Olric?” Adeline said as she approached, Eiland and Elsie not far behind. “Who is your, er… friend?”
“Isn't it obvious?” Elsie said before they could answer. “The lovebirds have been busy building their nest right under our noses! I told you it was only a matter of time for these two.”
“You did?” Merri said, but it was drowned out by Olric’s exclamation of, “He's our son! His name is Frankie.”
Did he just say our son?
Merri was stunned, and Olric frowned, taking her silence in an entirely unexpected direction.
“Is it okay that I named him already? I guess I should have asked you first, since you're his mom and all.”
Okay. This was a lot. Olric was way more into this rock parenthood thing than she would have anticipated.
“It's a fine name,” Merri said. “I just didn't realize you wanted to be, um… co-parents.”
“Well, yeah! Of course I do,” he said. “We both found him, and I think we'd raise him really well! You could build him a crib, I could teach him how to lift weights…”
Merri didn't bother reminding Olric that rocks didn't have arms.
“This is fascinating,” Eiland said, examining the rock. “I didn't think I would ever get to see one of the farmer’s infamous monsters up close! I wonder how far back his lineage dates…”
Olric chatted animatedly with Eiland and Adeline as Elsie excused herself to order some wine at the bar. The rock’s eyes started to flutter softly as Olric rocked him back and forth. Something about this gesture made Merri feel warm and tender inside. Olric was so sweet with the monster, not even blinking an eye at the fact that it was literally a rock, much less that it had briefly tried to kill them. In fact, Merri thought that might have endeared him toward the creature even more - the rock part, not the attempted murder part. Olric was so kindhearted in his curiosity, so gentle, so hot…
Merri coughed into her fist and told the others she was going to order a drink as well. They continued talking about Eiland’s theories of what other creatures might be living underground as Merri sidled up to Elsie at the bar.
“Oh, hello dear!” Elsie greeted her brightly. “Looking for a few moments of respite from your little bundle of joy?”
She was playing, but not mocking. That was one thing Merri always liked about Elsie. She was funny and sharp, but still as whimsical as the rest of the town. Merri hopped up into the seat next to her and ordered a beer from Hemlock.
“I actually wanted to ask you something,” Merri said. “What did you mean earlier, when you said it was only a matter of time for me and Olric?”
Elsie grinned and took a sip of her wine before answering. Hemlock pushed a cold bottle of beer into Merri’s hands, then asked her if she thought the rock might be interested in providing some entertainment at the inn after it recovered. Merri shrugged.
“I don't even really know what it's capable of, unless you want Olric to do some kind of juggling act with the stones it shoots out.”
Hemlock tapped a finger to his chin thoughtfully. “No, I wouldn't want to steal March’s thunder like that…”
He walked away, mumbling to himself about circus acts. Merri took a swig of her beer. She was feeling a bit sweaty, and she could hear Olric’s bright laugh from where she sat at the bar. Glancing over at him, she saw that the crowd had grown. Hayden and Ryis had also joined them, the former making cooing noises at the rock, who sneezed a sudden burst of gravel into Hayden’s face. He laughed it off and Olric made a comment about introducing the rock to Henrietta so she could teach it some manners. But Merri could see in Olric’s eyes that he was still worrying over the rock's health, as he tried to offer it little crumbs of bread from his open palm, which the rock refused.
“You’re a smart woman, Merri,” Elsie said. “You must see the way that boy looks at you.”
“Um… no?” Merri said, turning back to Elsie.
Elsie rolled her eyes.
“He always finds an excuse to visit your booth on Saturday mornings, even though he's just spent hours helping you move your wares,” she said. “He talks about you all week, how he can't wait to see your latest creations, how he knows you're going to make it big someday, because you're so artistic and hardworking. He worships you, dear.”
Merri’s face grew hot and she took another sip of beer. Of course, she knew Olric liked her. They were friends. He had complimented her work plenty of times before. But somehow, knowing that he said those things about her when she wasn't around - specifically about her personality and her passions - it made her feel vulnerable in a tender sort of way. Like he really did care about her for her, not just because he enjoyed hanging out with her a couple times a week.
“And, if I'm not mistaken,” Elsie said, “I think you might feel the same about him.”
How could she deny that? She was sitting here with her face as red as Elsie’s wine. Merri knew she could never pull the wool over Elsie’s eyes, so she might as well admit it. But not before finishing her beer, for courage. Then flagging Hemlock down for a second one. For courage.
“I like him a lot,” she said through a little burp. “He's the kindest person I've ever met. I just don't know how to tell him.”
Elsie shrugged and simply said, “The moment will come. Just don't let it pass.”
Merri thanked her and headed back to their table. By now, the sightseers had mostly passed by, but everyone was still in awe over the rock, talking about it amongst themselves.
“Merri, I'm really worried about him,” Olric said as she sat down. “I don't want anything bad to happen to him.”
Merri took a good look at the rock. It was nestled in Olric’s chest, snuggling up to him and turning its face away from all the food Olric offered it. The rock no longer looked as angry as it had when Merri was about to bash it with the pickaxe. Now it just looked tired and small. Merri felt an immense amount of regret for trying to hurt it in the first place, and not just because Olric clearly cared deeply for it. It might have been a sweet little thing after all, which Olric knew the whole time. Olric, who always saw the good in everyone and everything. If he really wanted the three of them to be a weird little family unit, she supposed it wasn't the worst thing in the world.
“Oh, Olric!” Reina called from the soup pot. “I almost forgot! I made your favorite today!”
Olric perked up as Reina brought them two steaming bowls of miner's mushroom stew, the food that Olric and Errol used to eat down in the mines to keep up their stamina.
“Ever since you taught me the recipe, I've been wanting to make it for the inn sometime!” she said, laying three spoons on their table. “Make sure the little one tries some!”
Olric scooped some of the stew and blew on it to make sure it wasn't too hot for the rock. Merri took her own spoon and pushed around some of the mushrooms in her bowl. These mushrooms grew somewhere deep in the mines. The farmer must have gotten these for Reina.
“Merri!” Olric said suddenly, grinning from ear to ear, and her stomach tumbled throughout her entire body at the sound of him saying her name in such an excited tone. “Frankie's eating!”
Merri could barely believe it, but it was true. The rock was accepting spoonfuls of the stew, and it appeared to come back to life in front of her eyes as it ate.
“Huh,” she said, watching the rock chew and swallow. “I guess the rocks eat those mushrooms, then. Maybe he couldn't find any and he started to go hungry.”
“Well, he won't go hungry anymore,” Olric said, using his spoon to catch some stew that had dribbled down the rock’s chin. “We’ll take care of him. And we’ll go back to help his friends, too, if they need it.”
Merri grinned at him. This was the reason that she loved Olric.
LIKED. She LIKED Olric because they were JUST FRIENDS.
Fuck, she had drunk those beers way too fast. Her brain and body were fuzzy and warm, growing ever more so as she watched how quickly Olric took to rock parenthood. It stirred something in her.
After they finished their dinner, the rock started to doze off in Olric’s arms, but it looked contented this time instead of sickly. Olric asked if she wanted to stay over, since it was already getting pretty late. This was nothing new. She stayed at Olric and March’s house some Saturdays after a particularly raucous night at the inn. But this situation felt a bit different, now that they were parents and all.
When they got to Olric’s place, March was dumbfounded and more than a bit frightened when Olric explained to him that he was an uncle now. He showed March the rock - Frankie - and asked if he wanted to hold him.
“I think I need to go hold a beer,” March muttered and made a quick exit.
Olric rolled out the futon that had become Merri’s after her occasional overnight stays. She supposed Olric and March hosted other guests from time to time, and maybe it was the drink talking, but she was suddenly feeling very possessive over her futon. She plopped down on it and patted the other side for Olric to join her. They usually chatted like this for a bit before he exited to his room and she would fall asleep on the futon in a happy, drunken haze.
Olric set Frankie down in front of them on the futon. By this time, he was fast asleep and snoring. It was pretty weird to see a rock snore, but she supposed it may as well happen.
“He’s kind of cute, actually,” Merri said. “I know he's a mine monster and he tried to kill us, but still.”
Olric smiled down at Frankie. “I'm just glad he's feeling better. I'll have to go back to the mines to get more of those mushrooms.” Then he turned to her and frowned. “I'm really sorry we didn't end up finding anything for you down there. I know you were hoping to have something for the next market in a few days…”
Merri looked away and held back a sigh, thinking of her dwindling stock, the same old stuff she had had last week, and the week before that, and the week before that.
“It's okay,” she lied. “I'll just have to get creative, I guess.”
“Well, that shouldn't be too hard,” Olric said. “You're really good at being creative! Like those little decorative breads and cakes you were selling that one time. They were so realistic that I thought I had stumbled into Darcy’s booth without realizing it! Almost chipped my tooth on that baguette, too!” He added this last part as if it were a particularly fond memory.
Merri chuckled. “Yeah, I remember that.” She paused, doubt creeping in. “You really think I'm creative and thrifty and all those things you've been saying?”
“Heck, yeah!” he said, without a hint of irony. “You're so cool! I'm always telling March that we need to buy more of your furniture, but he keeps telling me we have no more room in the house, and that it's a tripping hazard or something.”
“He’s not entirely wrong about that,” Merri said. “Business in Mistria picked up a bit when the farmer moved in, but at a certain point, everyone really has all the furniture they need. Maybe I need to branch out into more decorative stuff. You know, wall art and the like.”
“Like the cakes!” Olric said enthusiastically. “A whole line of wall-mounted baked goods! Think of the pranks you could pull…”
Merri smiled. Olric’s unwavering support for her work meant so much. She knew everyone else in Mistria enjoyed her creations, but it was just different coming from him. She glanced over at Frankie, who was still lightly snoring at their feet.
“Hey, Olric…”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you. For saying all of that, and always believing in me, and helping me out so much. It… it really means something to me. My parents, well… they never thought I should go into this as a career. Never thought I would be able to sustain myself on it. So I've been trying to prove to myself that I can, and just knowing you have my back…”
She swallowed, feeling Olric’s eyes on her. It always ran a bit warm in the blacksmiths’ home, but it was feeling extra hot at this particular moment. Merri looked away.
“You… you mean a lot to me. I'm really lucky to have you in my life. You're so kind and caring and wonderful, and you always smell good, and…”
She trailed off, her brain starting to malfunction as the tipsy part of her wanted to scream AND YOU'RE REALLY FUCKING HOT but the slightly more sane part of her went Shit shit shit why did you just say that Merri, stop! Stop right now!!!
Then Olric put a hand on her arm. Electricity soared through her veins where his fingertips met her skin. She turned to look at him.
“Merri…” he said, and scooted toward her.
He was so close, with his kind warm eyes and his freckles and everything, and she scooted closer, and his hand trailed down her arm and sent fireworks through her body when it landed on her hand, and she moved her face closer to his until she could feel his breath, and then they were showered with about a gallon of rock dust.
Frankie had woken up from his nap to spray them with one gigantic sneeze, as if trying to empty his little body of every rock that had ever been in it. Merri and Olric jumped away from each other, and then Olric began to wipe the grime from the futon and collect all the little stones. He seemed momentarily distressed as to where to put them all.
“They're perfectly good rocks,” he said as he scooped them up. “I'll find some jars to put them in tomorrow morning…”
He trailed off and looked at her, as if waiting for her to agree, or to say something about how they probably almost just kissed, but Merri simply nodded.
“Sounds good!” she said, sounding a little too chipper to her own ears. “Guess we should get Frankie taken care of and then get some sleep ourselves, right?”
“Oh,” Olric said, as if that wasn't what he was thinking at all. “Right, good idea.”
He rocked Frankie back to sleep and then took him into his bedroom while Merri lay on the futon and wondered why she was such a fucking idiot.
The next morning, Reina brought by the leftover miner’s stew from the night before. Frankie had stopped coughing, but he did continue to spit rocks. Not at anyone, but almost compulsively, like he couldn't help himself. Olric took him outside as the rocks Frankie spit grew larger and larger. Olric and Frankie played catch with the rocks, or at least Olric was catching the rocks that Frankie spit out. Eventually, he had several jars of cobblestones, from round and smooth to rough and jagged. The oldest ones were dull-colored, small, and easy to break, while Frankie's newest rocks were almost the size of her palm, dense, and shiny. Olric saved each and every one in jars he found around the house, then went to the inn to borrow even more jars from Reina's stock.
Merri held the jars full of rocks and turned them around in her hands, marveling at all the different shapes, sizes, and shades. She poured them out onto Olric's table and began fitting them together like puzzle pieces. They would actually be really cool as the backdrop of a cutting board, with a clear layer of resin on top. Or as wall art, with the different shades of brown making ombre waves. Or as the border of a mirror. Or a lamp. Or, or…
Inspiration hit her like a bolt of lightning. She dove into the bedroom where Olric was showing Frankie his gem collection, and said “Olric, can you help me with something?!”
***
Two days later, it was the first Saturday market where Merri had anything new for sale in a couple months. She had been hard at work on her new items and vibrated with excitement as she put the finishing touches on her stall. Her visions from the other day - the cutting board, the mirror, and the lamp - were all laid out among her usual offerings, plus wall art made from Frankie's smaller pebbles.
Olric had helped her move bring everything to the town square, and was now taking Frankie back from Juniper, who had been his very curious babysitter for the morning. Frankie was strong enough to move on his own now, but Olric admitted that he just liked holding him and remembering the days when he was a baby.
“These are amazing, Merri!” Olric said. “And to think all of these rocks came from our little guy here!”
Merri smiled at Olric and Frankie, who was finally starting to smile back at her.
“Well, I couldn't have done it without either of you,” she said. “I know I gave you shit for it, but I'm really glad that you saved Frankie. You have a big heart, Olric.”
Olric blushed and looked away.
“I don't know about that, I think it's pretty regular-size…” he said.
Merri couldn't take it anymore. He was too damn cute. Full of adrenaline at her new creations, she grabbed him by the collar and pulled his face to hers.
She felt his surprise all over, but it only took a moment for him to settle into the kiss. He ran his free hand through her hair and settled it on her upper back, while Frankie made a noise that sounded suspiciously like blech.
When they pulled away, she said “I like you” at the same time he said “Your lips are really soft.” They both laughed.
“I like you too, Merri,” Olric said. “Like, a lot. Like, sometimes I think I'm having a heart attack, but then I realize I'm just thinking about you. The last time I went to Valen about it, she told me I should probably tell you, I just…”
“Couldn't find the right moment?” she said, catching Elsie’s eye at the market as the older woman winked at her. “Me, either. But I figure being parents is as good an excuse as any to admit our feelings to each other.”
The rest of the market passed in a blur. She sold the lamp to Errol, the cutting board to Reina, and the wall art to the new farmer.
“This is so great!” the farmer said to Merri as Hayden grabbed the art to carry back to the farm for them. “Between you and me, the stone furniture Adeline gave me for completing some of the town quests was... not very pretty. But I love these! You really are talented!”
Merri beamed and caught Olric's eye. He beamed back at her. She wasn't sure if she imagined it, but she thought Frankie looked proud at his contributions.
Things really were going well again. All because of a sentient rock, some cobblestones, and one very, very good kiss. And Merri couldn't wait to see what surprises Olric had for her next.