Trip spent the rest of that evening more or less tending to the kid: putting his dirty clothes in the hamper to wash later, bandaging up his wounds (he had several), handing him a set of fresh clothes (they were, as anticipated, too big), and finally serving dinner.
He hadn’t really known what to expect when he’d decided to take Mr. Zollun in so suddenly, but he hadn’t expected him to be so… meek? Not that the boy threatening him with a knife earlier had scared him much, but Trip had supposed he’d put up more of a fight. Instead, he was just, quiet… and very shy. Trip didn’t really know sylvari ages all that well, but he figured Mr. Zollun must have been a sapling—a sapling very far from home.
Weren’t young sylvari almost always in The Grove somewhere? Was that not how that worked? Trip wasn’t exactly sure. He’d never really been there himself, but he’d had a few sylvari coworkers and that seemed to be where they all spent their youths. So why was this young plant here? That was the question but…
Trip looked away from the stove a moment to check on Mr. Zollun who was sheepishly sitting (incorrectly) at the kitchen table. He’d had to put a lot of bandages on him. There was at least two on his face.
Trip remembered how his brother had looked when he found him by the docks: covered in cuts and bruises. At the time, it’d been years since they’d seen each other. He’d ran away from home to Lion’s Arch against their parents’ wishes in their teens. Trip only saw him when he’d gotten a job there himself and moved. That’s when they’d started living together. He never did find out where those bruises came from.
Looking at Mr. Zollun, he wasn’t sure if he’d ever find out where these ones came from either. Perhaps that was for the best.
Trip returned to his cooking, a lovely seafood stew he’d learned to make from a coworker’s recipe, and set a bowl of it in front of Mr. Zollun. The sapling looked startled—did he not realize it was dinner time? He didn’t touch it at first either, waiting for Trip to take the first bite as if expecting it to be poisoned. He did eat it though, slowly and carefully as if he was unsure he was allowed to.
They didn’t talk, which felt a bit awkward, frankly. Trip figured he should fix that.
