But it wasn’t just me and the lostblood brothers who were obsessed with the new fish. Everybody loved it. The dogkin, the falconkin, the cavekin—none of us could get enough, and the goblins were just overflowing with pride for the flavors of their home.
So, the banquet went on and the sun went down, and little by little the twins started to doze off by my side. They’d been bustling around all morning, and now that they’d eaten their fill, they were spent.
I knew Alna and her pals still had their hands full for a good while yet, so I took the twins in my arms and headed to our yurt to put them to bed. Aymer and Grandma Maya joined me to help wash them and change them into their pajamas, and it wasn’t long before the six young baars waddled in looking asleep on their feet. I put them all to bed too. With that done, I closed my eyes for a brief second, and then wouldn’t ya know it—I fell asleep too.
When I was washing up the next morning and getting ready for the day ahead, I heard what sounded like Iberis talking, and real excitedly at that.
“With these we’ll be able to prepare you even better fish!” he cried.
I wondered what had gotten them all excited, and so after I’d washed my face, I walked over to where I’d heard him talking. He was standing in front of the storehouse as people went about putting away the stuff we’d used at the banquet yesterday. In his hands he held pairs of scissors in different sizes.
“Scissors?” I muttered.
I didn’t really get it. I couldn’t tell how scissors would impact the flavor of a fish.
“Now these aren’t like the scissors Alna uses to cut fabric,” explained Narvant, who had made the scissors and given them to Iberis. “I guess you’d call them fishing scissors. I heard that for you goblins, being able to dress your fish in the ocean means you get a tastier catch, and I figured that scissors’d be more helpful than a knife for some of that work. That’s why I threw those together for you.”
“So does the seawater...make the fish tastier...because of the salt?” I asked them.
Iberis immediately burst into raucous laughter.
“Nah, nothing like that,” he replied. “Time is of the essence when you kill a fish. That means the longer you leave them, the more the flavors suffer. That’s why some people cook their fish on the boats where they catch them. It’s common knowledge to us goblins, so we try to dress our fish as quickly as possible, but it ain’t easy with a knife or spear.”
With scissors, however, it was a different story...apparently.
“But now we can cut our fish up, dispose of the innards, wash out all the blood, and then cook them up right when they’re still as fresh as it gets!” stated Iberis. “Or if we’ve got pals on rafts nearby, we can have them put a little salt on the fish or wash them one more time if there’s any bad water in them, and put them in barrels of salt right there! These scissors Narvant made us don’t rust easily, and they won’t dull in the water either. With these, we can salt our fish even more quickly than before!”
“Oh, okay,” I said. “So is that why the lostblood brothers were gushing over the fish they ate last night? Did it have something to do with how you prepped them? I’ve heard that beastkin have more sensitive taste buds than humans, so if the boys thought the fish were tasty, then they’ve gotta be.”
“Speaking of which,” said Narvant, “I reckon those dogkin with their enhanced senses of taste and smell will be really helpful when it comes to us bringing in barrels of fish and other produce and selling them. They don’t even need to look in the barrels—just a sniff and they can tell you how fresh the fish are, whether they’ve been preserved well, and naturally if they’re rotten or not.”
It wasn’t that Narvant didn’t trust the goblins, but it was true that unscrupulous merchants sometimes hid bad produce at the bottoms of barrels, under the better-quality stuff. Narvant didn’t want us accidentally doing just that. Fortunately, it looked like the dogkin could sniff out any problems before they happened.
“Remember that we’ll be dealing with beastkin merchants in the future, and many of them will boast senses just like Iluk’s dogkin,” added Narvant. “They’ll know bad produce when they see it...or smell it. Accidentally selling bad produce is a producer’s nightmare, so having the dogkin do a quick check before we buy or sell goods will be a real boon—a very helpful assurance, I’d wager.”
“And don’t forget our magic’s indispensable,” added one of the onikin women who was passing by as we spoke. “We’ll know if anybody’s trying to cheat you. Make sure you take a couple of us along with you next time you head out for trade, okay?”
The woman had only just gotten married last night, and she was helping with the banquet cleanup. It reminded me of just how effective Alna’s soul appraisal had been when we’d first traded with the Peijins.
But now we had the goblins using the cavekin scissors to dress fish early to keep them fresh, we had the dogkin to confirm the quality of the fish, and we had the onikin helping to prevent any merchant looking to cheat us.
“It’s the kind of trade we can do here because we’re all in it together,” I commented. “Then again, we’ll be giving aid and support in the near future—not so much doing business. Still, I reckon it’ll reassure everyone, so it’s worth doing.”
Iberis, Narvant, and the onikin woman all responded with decidedly cheeky smiles.
“Well, yeah,” said Iberis. “We’re spreading our tasty fish around in the name of keeping people fed, but how will they be able to buy anything less than our stuff after they’ve tasted what we’re offering?”
“Hmm,” murmured Narvant. “And no merchant’s going to be able to provide similar produce no matter how hard they try. I think it’s best we keep our fishing scissors to ourselves—that means no selling them.”
“Ugh, are you serious?” asked the onikin woman, her face full of glee. “I literally just got married, and we’re already talking about a booming economy in the future? This is the best!”
The smiles on their faces were the smiles of schemers if I’d ever seen them.