The way that Ras was intently focused on him was alarming, more so than the idea that his odd dream travels had been fully discovered. There was actually a part of him that was relieved with the idea that he might be able to confide all of these strange events in someone else, especially someone he liked and respected.
“Like now,” Ras interrupted. “A z-pence for your thoughts?”
A sharp chill ran down Kre’s spine, as if someone had snaked a piece of ice down his back. When the initial feeling passed, Kre shook his head to clear it and tried to cover up his shock. “Sorry… I was just thinking that you remind me a lot of Cooter. Then you said the same thing he always used to say.
“A z-pence for your thoughts,” Kre repeated softly. “We rarely use that term out where I live.” He coughed and waved his hand in the air, “Lived, rather.”
Kre muttered something and waved his hands even more frantically, clearly flustered. “Where I’m from.” Whether the frustration with himself was over his misspeaking, or whether it was because he was trying diligently to avoid Ras’s initial query, he wasn’t quite sure. He just knew that he wasn’t comfortable right now.
“Your town must be very wealthy if you didn’t bother with zinc pennies,” Ras offered, his own face showing some sadness that he was trying to hide.
“Well, I mean, it’s not that we were wealthy,” Kre explained, hoping that this change of subject would move them away from his dream escapades, “it was just that where we lived, far from the main city, it wasn’t worth the merchants’ effort to deal in pennies. So, we never had them to share around. We didn’t even use copper for the most part. Everyone just kept a running tab with the Hadams family, and they handled bookkeeping for anything less than a silver and they dealt in silvers with the merchants directly.”
Ras looked puzzled, “And you trusted them?”
“I mean, yeah,” Kre responded, his own expression of puzzlement clear on his face. “Why wouldn’t we?”
“Where I grew up,” Ras explained hesitatingly, as if opening himself up like this was as difficult as anything he had ever done, “you didn’t trust anyone with your money. If you had a chance to get your hands on some coin, no matter whose it was, you took it. You can imagine how that turns out overall.”
Kre silently mouthed a “Wow”, as he had no words for that kind of untrusting and unloving environment Ras grew up in. “How did you… uh… come to be here?” He had wanted to use the word escape at first, but even he knew that wouldn’t come across right. However Ras felt about his home, it was still home, and he probably wouldn’t take kindly to a stranger inferring something bad about it, no matter how true.
Ras shrugged and then looked up past Kre, “Looks like the company is finishing up. Hopefully you got enough rest and are fit to travel. You won’t want to be around here much longer when these bodies really start to stink.”