Since she had interrupted his hunting by producing that unbearable noise, the poor goblin could not capture any prey to roast and he had no food left at his burrow. So he was hungry. It was not so bad as to faint for it and despite it was late, he could still search for something else to eat but since she asked about his hungriness, he did not hesitate to confirm it with a single word filled with hope. "Yes." It was not like him to depend on other people for food but if she had enough to spare some, he could pass the night and scavenger something else in the morning when most people were busy going from one place to another.

Or they could try to catch something together unless she disliked rats and pigeons then he would not have anything to share with her. While thinking about things a human could find tasty, he remembered the wizard Akshay and his man-made lair. What would he say if they showed up pass midnight? Would he have food to spare? It was unlikely and aside from that the last time they met Akshay gave him a present, so after a few seconds of internal debate the little goblin decided to wait until he had something to gift him too. So since they were not going to dine with him, they would need to hunt something. "Are you hunter?" He asked her while wondering if the weirdness of her name was a confirmation that she was a magician as his word-forging friend. If she could not hunt, she could prepare the fire and the sticks for when he could return with the meat.

The little creature was hungry. Good to know. However, Tses was not quite sure what a little green goblin creature ate. Certainly the typical gas station foods she would end up grabbing at this hour would suffice, wouldn't they? Or did he eat like, wild animals? It was hard to tell just from his appearance. Some of the more animal looking mutants she met had rather refined taste, but they also didn't act like Guglin did. He seemed more... instinct driven. Especially by his reactions to her powers and the conversation they'd had so face.

"We could maybe try getting something from the store. The food isn't great there but it's edible." She said slowly, then she tilted her head slightly at his question. "Am I a hunter? No, not really... the only things I hunt are chip bags off grocery store shelves. But they don't move. Or fight back." She make a little face, then shrugged. She didn't know if Guglin would understand her. She hardly understood herself, so at this point, she decided it was best to stop babbling. She rubbed the back of her neck, and glanced around. "There is a store we can grab something from if you want food though. Probably easier than 'hunting'." Just in case he really wanted to hunt. She wasn't in the mood for raw sewer rat or something along those lines.

After years of hunting his own food, first with his pack back in the mountains and now alone in the big city, Guglin learned to respect and adore the thrill of the hunting. It was not only a way of obtaining food or an opportunity to test his hard earned tracking skills but a way to stay in contact with nature while honoring that noble ritual. Still, it had some limitations since there was a lot of food that he could not "hunt", mostly because that food was already processed for humans and it was impossible to find it in the wild. Hot-dogs and pizza were two good examples of local cuisine that he loved from the first day.

There was a chance that he would not like the food that she labeled as barely edible but since the idea of eating something new and exotic made him extremely curious, there was no way the little goblin will ignore that opportunity. After all, human food could be anything from a total disaster to a piece of heaven so it was worth a try. Aside from that, their definition of edible could be entirely different, so it was safe to assume that she would prefer processed food instead of the incredible fresh but still raw meat his skills could provide. So he accepted the invitation with another energetic nod before giving her a verbal response. "I like store food." The words were a little different from what he pictured in his mind but since it always happened, he did not care. Same message, different wording.

Once the invitation was accepted, he moved closer and addressed her in a cheerful tone. "You lead." After almost a year of exploring the park and living in it, Guglin was used to all its paths and locations but his sense of direction was almost useless when it comes to the rest of the city.

Tses nodded slightly in response to his few words, then slowly started to lead the way through the park. Her sense of direction here in the city was impressive thankfully, and she found her way through the dark trees with little trouble, bothering little to stay on the marked paths. Perhaps she was just rebellious that way though. Someone marked out a path, Tses avoided it, at times out of spite rather than because it would be easier to move straight in any particular direction.

Overhead, the light of the sky mingled with the city's nighttime glow, and as they walked, she wondered what it would look like to see the moon from outside the city. It seemed so bright here, but perhaps the countrysides she heard so much about would be different. Reaching a street, she paused at the stop walk, glanced to make sure Guglin was keeping up, then started across it a few moments before the light changed with a typical New Yorker attitude. No cars were passing thankfully, so she wasn't endangering her smaller companion at least.

After walking down the sidewalk a short ways, she eventually navigated them to a convenience store, with a teenage girl sitting at the front counter, headphones on and music turned up loud. She paused for a second to conside how many store employees seemed to be showing off this fashion trend lately, but it made their quest for food that much more useful with the inattentive cashier. Who knows. Perhaps if she ever got fired here she could get a job at some coffee join somewhere...

"Ok, so there are some chips, candy... oh, they have some nachos or hot dogs. Hot dogs aren't bad." Tses said once they were inside, and pointed to the meat on the rollers. Up front, the cashier hardly looked up at them, and went back to flipping through a music magazine. Tses picked up the tongs and got a hot dog from the rollers, then fished in a metal drawer under the machine for a hot dog bun. Ripping off the plastic wrapper, she succeeded in putting the food into the bun and showed it to Guglin. "There, hot dog."

Once she accepted his proposal of leading the way, they started to move away from the site of their first encounter and toward one of the many exits of the park. The small creature had to hurry a little to keep up with her long strides, not because she was walking quickly but because her long legs covered more ground that his strong but short legs, so he hurried to catch up with her and walk by her side just in case she needed some directions or help to detect some of the dangers the park offered at that hour, like hidden roots or loose stones but the woman surprised him by moving through bushes and between trees with an uncanny certainty.
Since he did not have to worry about his human companion, he focused on hearing some of the many sounds of the night. There were small mammals hunting or being hunted, tiny lizards leaving small footprints, the flapping of wings and some other unnatural sounds that strangely added some charm to the strange orchestra, like the flickering of a light bulb or the engine of a car.

Distracted as he was by the sounds of nature and his growing hunger, he did not notice that the trees were fewer and fewer until they abruptly emerged from the woods to a deserted sidewalk in turn lead them to an even more deserted street. They stopped at the edge of the sidewalk for a moment. Then the traffic light changed to his color allowing him to cross the street. She followed him, despite she was not green and after some more walking they arrived at a store filled with different colorful packages and several odors that he could not separate. The amount of edible things was overwhelming to the point he stood there for a moment without being able to choose any direction. There were so many types of potato chips and beverages of many colors that he did not care about the noise that was coming from the salesclerk's ears.

His big amber eyes were everywhere, jumping from place to place until he found those sticks of meat he loved so much. In their natural environment, those sticks would be inside a super strong metallic cart that he could not pierce so it was really difficult to get one of those in the park, but there, it was laying between rolling tubes, ready to be taken. The only problem was the height. Would it OK if he were to climb up there or would the cashier freak up? Most of the time he decided climbing shelves was not worth the risk since people often mistaken him for a monster but this time he was with a human, so he was feeling bold. He stared at the counter for a moment, searching for the easier way to climb but then, Tses offered him the very thing he was looking at. "Thanks." It was good to have a tall friend. The hot dog soon disappeared into his monstrous mouth, so he moved around the store for his next prey. The beverages were near, so he moved toward the big crystal door and not without some effort, opened it and grabbed two bottles with a bubbly black liquid that were just at the right height for him to take. He then walked back to her and offered one of the bottles. He opened his one and poured the content in his mouth without really aiming. His mouth was so wide that most of it fell inside; the rest trickled down his chin. It was very nice to enjoy a meal without blood everywhere and without being to worry for people chasing after you with brooms and other dangerous cleaning objects.

Tses had to smile a little at the creature. He took the hot dog and ate it without waiting to pay for it, and then he went and got soda and started drinking it without even glancing at the front of the store. With soda dripping to the floor, he was making even more of a mess than Tses typically did. She liked it. It was like having a little miniature partner in crime. Usually she had to hide her stealing, or at least be on good behavior, but it didn't seem like it would be a problem today. The convenience store had endless options of things to eat, and there was no yelling or signs of distress so they seemed to have picked the right night for this adventure.

Grabbing her own hot dog and accepting the soda, she quickly ate the food and then glanced around for something else she could pilfer. She was a bit more careful with her soda than Guglin, however, so she managed to keep most of her soda in her mouth, washing down the dry hot dog bun. Licking her fingers clean of the oily juices from the meat, she mimicked Guglin's hunt for 'prey'. There were shelves of candy, and that was always a good fall back, so she picked up a package of sour skittles and opened them with her teeth. After pouring a couple in her mouth, she held out the package to Guglin to see if he wanted some. The sour tingling sensation filled her mouth, and she enjoyed the almost painful but pleasant sensation. Meanwhile, the most oblivious cashier in New York just kept reading her magazine.

"Candy?" She questioned, curious to see what he thought of the sour round little almost m&m sized objects. Some people loved them, others found the sour nature too strong for their taste buds.

Despite the syntethic feeling produced by the white electric light, the plastic wrappers and bottles, and the multiple shelves of man-made products, the little goblin was enjoying the experience of dinning out a lot. The store was very different from his usual stop for a meal but it was quiet enough for him to enjoy being there. In fact, it was so quiet that the goblin soon forgot all about the third person sitting beside the counter and the constant humming of the refrigerated boxes.
After finishing the last drop of his bottle, he procedeed to lick his fingers that still tasted like hotdog while questioning himself about which of these metallic wrappers contained his next serving. Each bag of chips looked a lot like the previous one and his limited reading skills did not provide him with enough information to eliminate some of the uncertainty he had. He stared at her, silently asking for help, just in time to catch the girl opening a new plastic bag that contained something small and round. How did she do it? Not the part about opening the package with her teeth, he could do the same but how did she choose between all those things with so much ease? For him it was almost impossible to set his mind on one thing, after all, he had always grabbed the closest thing to the exit before turning back for a quick getaway.

He nodded in response to her question. In part to accept the round candies she was offering but also to shake those silly questions from his head so he could focus more on the small object in her hand. It was so small and it was only one. How could he enjoy something so minuscule and limited? He could not, so he took a bunch of them and dropped each of them inside his open mouth.
The small candies rewarded him with a extremely weird burning sensation, it was as if each candy was made of exploding bubbles and each little explosion triggered more and more of them. Without thinking so much about it, he spat the round objects with all his might. Some fell right at his feet but one wicked candy ascended in an arc to descend on the forehead of the cashier. The girl jumped from the magazine into the real world to see a small green monster spitting candies at her. She stared at him for a long moment, the candy was still stuck at her forehead. Then, she screamed and ran through a door in the back, to return a moment later brandishing a huge broom. He glanced back at her companion. "What now?" If he were on his own he would run away without thinking it twice but what should he do with Tses?

Ok, sour candies were a bad idea.

Apparently, Oblivious Cashier was not immune to the sensation of sour candy catapulted by spit power and sent into her forehead. Somehow, the candy stuck to her, like some weird cartoon that defied physics and enabled the tiny colored orb to resist gravity and cling to her skin. Her sudden screaming and broom wielding caught Tses by surprise, and she took a swing of her soda before quickly stepping in front of Guglin, letting the glowing green energy crawl across her arms. Oblivious Cashier paused, blinking at the energy, the green goblin, and protectively held her broom in front of her. Tses just chuckled.

"Well....now I think we leave before the cops arrive. Grab what you want and lets get out of here." She acted as calm as possible, but had a watchful eye on the cashier. If the girl took one swat at Guglin, she'd send something her way that wasn't as harmless as a piece of candy. Sure, the little creature had tried stealing her cd player and all that, but it wasn't fair to attack him with cleaning supplies. That was just rude.

"Get out of my store!" Yelled Oblivious Cashier, brandishing the broom in front of herself protectively in one hand, clinging to her iPod in the other. Tses rolled her eyes and made a 'rawr!' motion with her hands, and she scuttled backwards, falling into the chip rack and knocking it over to the ground. Shrugging, Tses grabbed and armful of candy and moved towards the door.