Myth smiled at Eye-Gouger as only she could. Her face brightened. The worries that made her seem so much older than she was fell off her shoulders. She looked as she should have looked, like a young woman betwixt childhood and adulthood. And all the unbridled enthusiasm and cockiness of adolescence showed in her face. Nisse Cul Tairna’s reality had taken leave of her for the moment. Now it was full of promise.
“I was nine,” said Myth. “The Fair had come to Dawn. For us elven children, the Fair was the best thing in Nisse Cul Tairna. It made us feel as if we were just as important as the human children. We would scrimp and save for months just to earn enough coins to go on one ride. If we were really thrifty, and a bit lucky, we’d have enough coins left over for a sweet.
“Well, I had been thrifty that year. I remember that I rode the boat that swings back and forth. What was is called... Ah! The Screaming Clipper—yeah, that was its name. Oh, I loved that ride!
“Anyway, after the ride ended, I rushed over to a food stand. Beaming from ear to ear, I placed my last coin on the counter and proudly said, ‘One tostee, please.’ You were the vendor. You smiled at me and said, ‘Right ya are. ’Ere’s one tostee for the lassie with the pretty smile.’ I grabbed my tostee. In my excitement, I fumbled it. And it fell onto the ground.
“I looked down at my tostee—the tostee I had dreamed about for months. Filth covered it. I started to cry. ‘There, there, Lassie,’ you said. ‘’Tis nothin’ to bawl about. I’ve got another one for ya. Just keep it between us, right?’ And you gave me another tostee for free. I’d never experienced such kindness from a non-elf before.”
Listening to Myth made me feel so ashamed of myself. Throughout my girlhood, I had ridden ride after ride at the Fair. And I had thrown fits if Daddy had stopped me from shoveling cryspe after cryspe into my mouth until I became sick. All that time, there had been an elven girl living in Dawn. She had saved coins for months just to be able to go on a single ride. And she had thought herself the luckiest girl in Nisse Cul Tairna because she had one coin leftover—just enough for her to buy the cheapest sweet the Fair offered.
Oh! I wanted to weep so badly. How I longed to fall on my knees and beg Myth to forgive me for having been so selfish. I wanted her to forgive me for having been born a human, too. Because of that, I had opportunities available to me that she would never know. Opportunities I had taken for granted, and had even squandered on occasion. But mostly, I needed her to forgive me for having viewed her people with such naiveté.
But I did not say anything. Shamefaced, I watched Myth and Eye-Gouger. She continued to beam her radiant smile at him. The goblin looked quite embarrassed. Had goblins been able to blush, he would have turned redder than a radish.
“Aw,” uttered Eye-Gouger. “I’ve always ’ad a soft spot for wee laddies or lassies who are sobbin’.”
Laughing gleefully, Myth wrapped her arms around Eye-Gouger and gave him a big hug, lifting him off the ground in the process. The surprise that showed on the goblin’s face matched my own surprise. Such a display seemed so uncharacteristic of Myth. Then again, it was not every day that a young woman met her girlhood hero.