The Cursed Blood

into retirement.
So, they did what every soul with a lifelong love of greasy food and plenty of time and gold coins does, I guess. They opened a diner. It’s still there today and I’m still more than a little addicted to their chocolate chip pancakes.
Good luck finding it though, as it hasn’t seen a mundane Human customer since a very lost family of tourists in the summer of 1965. The picture of them is on the wall hung crookedly from an iron nail by the old cash register among countless other faded snap shots of famous Feyish folk of the races who had visited over the years. Along with more than a few hunting and fishing group photos of Elvish hunters on vacation posing proudly with their harvests.
The bell above the door rung merrily as we walked in and a few old timers at the counter spotted Gramps and offered grunted greetings over their shoulders. Then, after inevitably noticing me, turned curiously in their swivel seats to get a better and slightly chilly gander at me.
More than a few shuddered then exchanged weary, curt nods with Gramps as he trudged by, hand on my shoulder to lead me to his customary table at the very back by the smudged windows.
“What’ll it be, hon?” This was obviously the first time I ever met a Dwarf, and Mama P was not what I had expected as she sauntered up to our table.
She wore a home sewn white apron over a pretty pink dress. She was short—obviously—only coming up to below Gramps’ chest if he had been standing but was broader than anyone I’d ever seen before.
With big, muscular arms and a stern but pretty face with bright pink lipstick, a perm, and sparkling eyes the color of chipped flint behind golden horn-rimmed ruby lensed glasses. (Just so you know, Dwarves have notoriously poor vision above ground during daytime hours and deeply dislike going out on sunny days without specially made goggles or eyewear that filters out the sunlight).
She finished off the look with a polished pink opal stone necklace, matching dangly earrings, and wrists full of more bracelets than I’d ever seen before outside of a jewelry store.
She eyed me and a smile spread on her broad, friendly face that turned to a frown as she sniffed at his pipe and shook her head.
“You know the rules. Keep that smelly thing out of my restaurant,” she scolded with pursed lips as she irritably tapped the tip of a long, colorful quill against her notepad, glaring at Gramps until he put it out with a grumble by dropping it into his glass of ice water. At this she scowled at him with obvious annoyance but said nothing, instead looking down to me with another brilliantly white, friendly smile.
“So, this is the little one, eh?” she asked to which he merely grunted and folded his arms over his flannelled chest and harrumphed much like Manx had as he settled in the night before by the fire. Choosing to ignore her question he muttered “the usual” under his breath as he stared longingly at the pipe pitifully bobbing in his water glass.
She shook her head at him and snorted. Obviously giving up on any conversation and promising to return with something tasty for me that she insisted was just what I needed. She even pinched my cheek and remarked at how cute I was before shuffling off, jotting our order down and grumbling about “gruff old insufferable sticks in the mud.”
She returned with steaming plates, cups, and bowls on a tray carefully balanced over her head a few moments later. My eyes bulged at the chocolaty flapjacks and sausages on my plate as she sat a heaping bowl of honeyed oats and a heaping plate of bacon next to Gramps’ mug of black coffee. She handed me a tall frosted glass of chocolate milk with a wink and left us to tuck into our morning feast after fixing Gramps with another long-suffering look.
We’d only gotten half-finished when the bell above the door rang again and in slumped a family of what could best be described most kindly as hillbillies with pointy ears. At the time I’d had no idea that the Clampetts (as I’d later learned them to be infamously named) were in fact a family of mostly mountain folk Hedge Witches of a most unpleasant disposition. To say the least.
While most Fey families, even mixed blooded ones like these, produced both males and female Witches, the Clampetts however only seemed to ever produce males (they called it the Clampett curse) over last few centuries (there were rumors they killed off any girls that were born but at the time that was completely unsubstantiated). None of which amounted to much more than being meddlesome and unpleasant.
The Clampett family (well, to be fair, most of it) spent their miserable lives thieving, poaching, brewing illicit potions, and feuding with the other local families. Lucky for us they considered Darklings, Gramps in particular, to be their arch enemies. Long ago (for reasons we will get into later) they declared a “vendetta against our house” that normally amounted to little more than mild annoyances.
Though once I was warned that they had brazenly taken a few shots at Gramps in the deep woods while he was tracking a particularly nasty poacher. The culprit was likely one of their clan, (probably Erol himself) as rumor had it this was one of their biggest cash cows, but no one could ever really prove it, as catching them at it in the woods is like trying to herd smoke.
They had missed, but according to Gramps it had been a little too close for comfort. So, they could be dangerous to a point.
Especially if underestimated.
They were even rumored to be at the heart of a few nasty, ugly incidents of murder over the years that had earned them a dirty kind of infamy, to say the least. This foul reputation of theirs