“Yeah, mmmhmm.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m looking forward to it.” Jack nodded to himself and took a sip from his coffee with his free hand, shuffling side to side waiting for his turn to talk. The living room glowed a pleasant shade of gold making him forget how early he’d gotten up. Lys stood nearby, pacing back and forth, wringing her claws together. Her feet scraped and clicked against the floor with every step. “That’s okay, can always call back later.” Jack adjusted the phone and tried to gesture at the nervous kobold to calm down, but she kept her eyes on the floor. “No, I gave it up. I’m on the gum. Yeah, she’s…” He looked down at her again, watching her worrying. “…something else.” He laughed nervously, observing his scaly mate. “She? Her parents…don’t really do anything for the holidays.” Jack winced at his own words; his eyes narrowing all the more when Lys sighed audibly. “I know. Well, if it’s too much trouble I can stay home this year.” He half-smiled, knowing full well the barrage he was about to get. “Okay, okay, I’m sure we’ll be fine.”

He rolled his eyes and nodded his head back and forth. Staying home for the holidays? His mother would drive all the way up to his place and drag him home before she let that happen. She’d make sure that dad was okay with him bringing his girlfriend even if she had to threaten not to make her green bean casserole. “You know, she’s here right now,” he interjected, trying to divert his mother’s diatribe. “Yeah, it’d be great if the two of you could talk, she’s been wanting to meet you.” Lys froze up, her claws began to shake. “Of course not! Here…just a sec’.” Jack motioned her over. Lys stepped towards him like she’d forgotten how to walk, almost stumbling several times in the process. With shaking claws, she reached out for it like it were a forbidden idol and almost dropped it onto the floor before clearing her throat and placing it against her cheek.

“H-h-he…” her voice died away in a squeak and she started again. “H-hello? Miss-Misses W-Walker? Ruth. Okay, R-Ruth.” Jack took in a deep breath, his mom wanted to be on a first name basis with her already. Lys trembled and shook, ready to faint and he was ready to join her. Unbeknownst to the kobold, Jack had been buttering up his mother on the sly for a while now, calling with increasing frequency to gab about the holidays while bringing up his new girlfriend every chance he got. Mom seemed like the most understanding candidate, as mothers often were and he needed to act with the holidays right around the corner.

The scaly bundle of nerves in front of him stared off into space, nodding occasionally, and waiting for her turn to talk. Keeping it secret made him feel guilty, but he knew she might turn into a wreck and he’d been right. A far better thing to spring it on her than have her stew for days or weeks. “Yes, it’s Lys. You said it right.” She let out a nervous giggle. “He…he has?” Those yellow eyes traced their way up to Jack’s. “He said that? Well, he’s just being kind to me, I really…no…’the one’? Well, I uhh.” Mom enjoyed being blunt when it might get a conversation going and she never backed down from testing potential marriage candidates.

Lys cast a dreamy look at her mate and tried to regain her composure. “No no, nothing like that. No way, he’s not like that.” Lys cocked her head. Jack could only continue to smile nervously. She clutched the phone tighter, her eyeridges narrowed. “I don’t really-oh. O-of course, I knew you were joking.” She took a breath. “He didn’t say?” Jack knew for a fact that he did say, he raised a set of fingers to Lys. “S-seven? No eight months. It feels like longer.” A lie, but not by much, he felt it safer to tack on a few extra months instead of telling mom he’d fallen for someone in a matter of weeks. She tilted her head left and right, winding up for something. “How long have you and…”

Jack mouthed something to Lys. “Bill? Bill! How long have you two been together? Wow.” Her golden gaze went wide. “That sounds wonderful,” she said, drooping to a half-lidded state. Jack didn’t know how to feel about this interrogation, but they weren’t shouting at one another yet so it couldn’t be too bad. “Lys has-I mean I have been wanting to meet you two, Jack’s been telling me all kinds of things.” The kobold paused and then started laughing. He could hear his mother’s voice in his head.

Yes, but looks aren’t everything.

But Lys didn’t know the pleasure of hearing such witty remarks a thousand times over and it felt good to watch her laugh in genuine pleasure. He enjoyed the sight of the small, green lizard holding the phone, talking and laughing. Her tail spasmed at particular moments and her tongue had a way of fluttering just on the edge of her maw when she got nervous. All the phone calls and buttering up in the world would never truly prepare them —or likely anyone— for the big reveal. Getting them to talk on a semi-regular basis before the holiday trip put the odds more in his favor. At some point Lys would need to talk with his old man if for no other reason than to get him used to the idea that he was bringing his girlfriend with him. His father could be odd about what he approved of, it could be as easy as saying she was coming or become his hill to die on.

“No, we really didn’t, I mean don’t celebrate like that. Well, we never had the money for that kind of thing. I…well we just didn’t and…” Lys’s words came slow and choppy, bringing Jack out of his pondering. She looked terrified and he was about to step in when her expression changed to a sad smile. “You’d really do that? I couldn’t…well.” Her eyes became glassy as she spoke. “T-thank you, Ruth. Okay. You want to talk to Jack again? Alright, goodbye.” Lys hung up the phone and wiped her eyes.

“Are you alright?”

She nodded and sniffled. “Your mother…she’s a little odd, but very kind.”

Jack laughed out loud. “She’s an old person trying to get into heaven now, but yeah, that’s her.” He tilted his head to the side. “What’s wrong, sweet?”

The kobold passed the phone back to him. “Nothing, really. When I told her my family didn’t really celebrate Thanksgiving and couldn’t afford to, she offered to make extra to take home ‘for my folks’.” She sighed, long and deep, then started to tear up again. Jack set aside the phone and held her close. “Lys wishes she knew where they were.”

“We’ll find them.”

“I want to believe that.”

“Hey, we have to. Who else can give you away to me?”

“That’s going to be one conversation…if Lys ever gets to have it.”

He gave her a peck on the cheek. “You will.”

Lys continued to look worried, clutching Jack’s hand in her own. “Do you think your parents are really going to accept me? I won’t be able to live with myself if…are you really not going to tell them?”

He scratched his head a few times and shrugged. “I haven’t decided. I mean, if I tell them and they flip out, that saves us the gas money.” He laughed nervously, but Lys didn’t look amused. “Right now, I think it’s best if we get you talking together. Mom liked you.”

“With one phone call? She didn’t even ask to speak to you again.”

“Trust me. If she didn’t like you, you’d know about it and then I’d know about it for weeks.” He rubbed the spot between her horns until she got tired of it and swatted his hand away. “Give yourself some credit.”

She sighed and nodded at him. “Yeah.” Her eyes wandered, noticing the computer on the table. “I was practicing before you interrupted me with that terrifying phone call.” She let go of his hand and walked over to sit down. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I knew you’d freak out, like you were doing.”

“Well, that may be, but it’s still crap of you to hide it from me. I feel like I should hit you or something.” She started clicking on the mouse, paying far too much attention to the monitor.

“If it’d make you feel better.”

She wriggled it back and forth, trying to look busy. “No. Now come over here and help me out.”

Jack wandered over and watched. Lys brought her pickax down on the stone again and again, cracking rocks and sending them flying one blow after another. The kobold went at it with zeal, driving the tool into the stone effortlessly. She paused to gather up the loose bits and went on, looking amused at the action on the screen. “Am I doing this right?”

“I haven’t played this thing in ages, but yeah, I think so.”

Her claws fumbled with the mouse, too large for her hand. “Are you sure people are going to watch this?”

He made note to look for a smaller one, ideal for a literal claw grip. “I think you could play Pac-Man and people would watch you for the novelty, at least at first.”

She switched to a stone ax and started felling a tree, block by block. “At first?”

“People will watch because you’re new and because you’re a kobold, but then you need to keep them watching with your charming personality.”

“I can do that, but can’t I play something else a little more exciting like Street Fighter?”

“Only if you want to get clobbered by pros. Besides, Minecraft is about all I have on the PC right now.”

Her claws tapped against the keys, striking numerous wrong ones before opening up her inventory. “What do I do now?”

“Make another crafting table. You sure you won’t be camera shy?” Jack noticed the web cam wasn’t hooked up and leaned over to fetch it. Lys watched him latch it to the top of the monitor. “Here,” he said, motioning for her to let him commandeer the mouse. He minimized the game and clicked around on a few things. A moment later she was staring back at herself, or rather her horns.

“It’s too high.”

“I know.” He tilted it downward and wobbled it back and forth until Lys could see herself staring from the screen. She blinked a few times, waved her hands in front of her, and stuck her forked tongue out for good measure.

“Feels like something is missing.”

After a few minutes he paused them and looked at Lys’s live feed again. “I see what’s wrong, you don’t have a wall full of posters or collectible figurines behind you with obnoxious lighting.”

“Yeah, that’s it.” She turned behind her, frowning at the boring wall just mere inches away from the boring chair she sat in. “There isn’t enough room.” She tapped the wall a few times with her claw and sighed. Turning back to the screen, she watched herself a few moments more while expression grew thoughtful. “Maybe the camera should be off to the side?”

He looked around the table. “There isn’t much side either. How’s this?”

“No, that’s too sideways and it shows another boring wall.”

“What about this?”

“Now people will see our messy, boring apartment.”

“It’s not that messy anymore.”

“It’s still boring though.”

 “I think you’re just going to have to deal with it looking right at you. People won’t mind that much. Are you ready to deal with the trolls?”

Lys took the mouse back and randomly clicked things until she got Minecraft back up. “There’s trolls in this game?”

“No, I mean all those happy people out there who live to cause others grief.”

Her tail started to tap back and forth between the gap in the chair. “I can handle it. It wouldn’t be the first time someone said stuff to me.” She turned her attention back to the game and finished up the extra table, placing it down in a random spot. “Don’t they stop people from doing that in these places?”

He nodded though she didn’t see. “But you can’t stop people from saying whatever they want everywhere. Are you sure you’re going to be able to handle it? Not trying to rain on your parade, but it’s going to happen.”

A loud, wooden thwack accompanied her narrowing eyes. “I can handle myself. I am not a hatchling.”

“I didn’t say you were.”

“That’s what it sounded like to me.”

“No, I’m just saying that…you know what? Forget it.” He sauntered towards the kitchen for another cup of coffee.

“No, what were you going to say? Jack? Jack, come back here.” She climbed onto the table, slipped past the monitor and leapt to the kitchen counter. A nearby spoon bounced a few inches and clattered to the floor. “Say what you need to say.”

Sighing, he took his mug up slowly, eying the inside in case a stray hair or bug happened to fall into it and then he rinsed it out for good measure. The coffee pot slid out easily, the dark liquid inside swished about a few times before he started to pour, watching the trails of steam rise up. Next came the milk, a spot of sugar, and a bit of stirring. Only then did he turn around to face her, mug to his lips in a long, dramatic sip. “I just don’t want you to get hurt.”

She blinked at him a few times before shrugging loudly. “I’m starting to think there’s no way to avoid that, not with how people are.” Her gaze grew distant for a moment and then she shook it off. “If I’m going to get hurt I’d better get hurt now and get over it. It’s better than doing nothing.”

His lips pursed together; discomfort welled inside his stomach. He’d been there, but as much as doing nothing might have been terrible, throwing oneself at conflict didn’t sound like a great alternative. “Is it though? Just, ‘get over it’? Imagine if everyone could just, ‘get over it’.” He turned his attention back to the coffee mug, like the tacky 90s patterns on the side could guide him. “God, if I had a dollar for every time someone said ‘get over it’ I wouldn’t need to because I could pay someone else to do it for me.”

The sound of toeclaws pacing across the tile counter clicked behind him. “What is going on with you? Why are you mad at me all of a sudden?”

He sighed. “I’m not mad at you.” He took another sip. “I’m just having a moment, not worth talking about.”

“Whenever anyone says something like that it means they want to talk about it, but don’t,” she said, looking at him concerned.

“Sure you shouldn’t be a shrink instead of a streamer?” He didn’t wait for her to cock her head. “Sorry, been told to get over it one time too many. I guess I didn’t do a very good job.” Upending the mug, he finished off the last few drops. “I mean, things go to hell and the best advice someone can offer is ‘get over it’, like flicking a light switch.”

“I think you’ve done a pretty good job of getting over it, whatever ‘it’ is. Is this about ‘the ring’?”

“Maybe, but I think I’m over that now.” He looked her up and down and started to smile. “Wish I could have saved it for you though.”

She looked at her hands. “Would it even fit?”

Setting aside the mug, he walked over and took her claws into his hands, curling his finger around one of her hard clawtips, he moved inward like his finger were the ring. “Probably not, not without a serious refit.” Jack spread his fingers out and the two held hands. “Would you want a ring?”

Lys returned each squeeze of his hand in equal measure. “I don’t know, having something like that around my finger the whole time sounds annoying. Besides, aren’t those expensive?”

“The more you spend, the more you love someone.”

With a roll of her eyes she looked back at the computer on the table and eyed the entire ensemble with a depressed look. “I think you love me enough already.” The clicking of her toeclaws against the countertop made her look down at the tile. She tapped her toes again for good measure before smiling at Jack. “We haven’t danced in a while.”

Jack slipped his arm around and pulled her forward. “Do you want to dance?” He asked in a dramatic voice, his eyes lowered into a corny, half-lidded gaze. The green kobold took advantage of the situation and toyed with his hair, pinching it in her fingers and petting him. “A-ahem!”

“Yes, I would, but it’s kind of hard to dance without music.”

He started swaying with her and she with him, tapping out time to an unheard melody. “I don’t think it’s too hard,” he said, slipping in close as he could. He tried to move only to feel her pull back, reminded that she had a very limited space with which to move before she’d fall onto the floor.

The two of them dipped forward. “Sometimes I wished I was bigger,” the kobold said. She pressed her cheek against his and even then, he had to hunch a bit to pull it off, bumping her horns in the process.

“Why?”

“’Why’. For times like this. Just once I’d like to be able to dance all around with you and think of the help I could be if I didn’t need a stool or a chair for everything.”

“And who’d crawl under the couch for the remote?”

He tried to twirl her around, but all he managed to do was hold her hand above her head while she pivoted hard, scraping the surface. “I’m serious.”

“And who would I carry off in my arms?”

“Well…”

“And who’d climb up on top of me and…”

“Okay, so it isn’t all bad, but sometimes…”

He leaned forward, but she hadn’t been expecting it and the points of her claws dug into him. “You’re fine the way you are,” he said with a wince. Lys read his face and eased up while he set her upright. The two continued; their dance became more free form. She led and then he led and then he stood and watched her for a bit and likewise before coming back together.

 “I sure don’t hear you wishing you were my size,” she said, pushing her snout into his face. Jack made another attempt at twirling her around, but she had none of it. The kobold folded her arms and waited for him to respond.

He took her by the hands, trying to get her to move again. “Who’d do the driving then?”

The two began an awkward two-step, left and right. “Why do I bother with you?”

“Because you love me.”

“That, and I suppose dancing with no music isn’t a bad trick.”

Jack paused! Trick. I’m glad you said something.”

“What? What did I say?”

“I need to pick up some candy for Halloween. We still get some kids around here.”

“Why?”

“Trick-Or-Treaters of course, you knew about that didn’t you?”

She tried to keep in step, but now she was distracted and the dance came to a close though they continued to hold hands. “I knew about that.” She started to smile. “It reminds me of…”

“Hmm?”

She took her claws back and laughed to herself. “There was one time when the gang I went with tried to get some free candy.”

“You’re kidding.”

She shook her head. “Red, our ‘leader’ had an idea that if we could get some costumes we could trick our way into some treats. He thought he was so smart.” Her yellow eyes glazed over in memory while she toyed with her claws. “We ended up stealing some sheets and a few other things. Stupid…”

Jack grinned wide. “You really tried to pass yourselves off as kids?”

“They did, I was too scared, I hid in some bushes while they went up to the house. Red, Rodill, Hess, and Elee.” She sighed to herself as she mentioned the names and looked as if she couldn’t decide to feel sad or relieved.

“How did it go?”

The kobold laughed out loud. “How do you think? Red thought he was clever, but he was an idiot. The human figured it out the minute he opened the door. There was a lot of yelling and cursing, Roddy leapt off the steps and ran off into the dark, we didn’t see him for a week after, Hess and Elee tripped over each other getting off the porch and wound up with some nice bruises, and Red tried to pick a fight. I remember him standing there, shouting something back at the man at the door, trying to explain how we deserved candy because we were small or something like that. Well, we got some candy.”

“What, he actually gave it to you?” Jack looked shocked and waited for her to continue.

“Threw a handful at Red, trying to run him off. He grabbed it up and we shared it after we got away, I got…what do you call them? The ones on the stick with the chewy stuff inside.”

“Tootsie Pop?”

She laughed and nodded, but the smile died on Jack’s face. “What’s wrong?”

“It was a funny story, but I don’t care for the ending,” he said, placing hand on his mate’s shoulder.  “Even if you did get a Tootsie Pop.”

She tapped his hand and smiled appreciatively. “It was pretty good.”

“You want me to get you some when I’m at the store?”

“I don’t need candy, Jack. I don’t really need anything right now, except for people to stop treating me like garbage.”

Jack patted her and grinned. “You sure you don’t want Tootsie Pops instead? Easier to get.”

The kobold leaned back, steadying herself while trying her best to look angry. Jack picked up on what she was about to do and braced himself. Lys pounced into his arms, nicking him on one side, but not enough to draw blood. She nipped and nuzzld into his neck. “You’re a jerk,” she whispered.