“I talked to the librarian,” Aryennos said. “And we did some looking, but there’s nothing here. But the nearest school tends to lean towards history, archaeology, anthropology, and sociology, and they could definitely have something useful to us. I bet Cheer and Peace could get there so fast I could have lots of time to search. But, um, that might mean losing another day.”

  Serru let Terenei urge her to one of the table’s wooden chairs, and sat down there. While he pulled her hair back out of the way, her forehead furrowed in thought.

  “All right, we need to be serious for a moment. Whalesong Landing is the st pce we can find a ship that will go back to Coppersands and has room for a pair of ornithians, a wagon, and a person. Before you argue, please think. The ring road doesn’t go deep into the Highnds and it’s generally good, but the terrain is rougher and much hillier than it is along the coast and it can get colder. We’ve already faced unexpected obstacles of multiple kinds and there may be more, including being forced to secondary roads.”

  “So you’re pnning on redistributing camping supplies between you and Nathan and Aryennos?” Terenei retorted. “Then carrying the portable house because it’s too useful to get rid of? I’m fairly sure I remember something about tents designed for rge animals.”

  “Yes,” Serru admitted. “In Crystal Pass we could get those. They’re not quite as efficient at warmth as the sort for people, but they protect from wind and rain and snow and do stabilize the temperature.”

  “Hills don’t bother ornithians at all, and they work up enough heat while active to be fine even in winter, so if we can feed them extra and keep them warm to sleep, there’s no problem. Those two are enjoying this whole trip and might love the new experience even if they don’t get much chance to all-out run. As for me, I thought I made this clear. I’m not going away.”

  “You’ve never been in the Highnds, and I guarantee, you are not going to like it!”

  “Oh well. I like the company I’m going with enough to make up for that. Is that why you went along so easily with the idea of me coming along in Ottermarsh? You expected to leave me here?”

  “Aquians belong in water, I belong on the road, you belong in, or at least close to, settled nd. That’s just how things are.”

  Terenei hugged her from behind, resting his cheek against the side of her head. “You can handle civilization and sometimes cities and now and then even crowded pces with music and dancing, especially when I’m there to help. I can handle being outside civilization for a while, even on rougher ground, especially when you’re there to tell me what to do. I am not leaving you and I am not packing the boys onto a ship back to Coppersands. Now, aside from that whole ridiculous proposal, what’s the rest of your pn and can it be adapted?”

  She heaved a sigh, leaning back against him. “You’re stubborn.”

  “Imagine that. Pn?”

  “I intended to go past the school and not stop. There’s one proper vilge between here and Crystal Pass on the main road, but it doesn’t have an inn, and aside from a few nes with small groups of farms that aren’t really vilges, there’s nothing, so I expected to camp once and reach Crystal Pass te the next day. The day after at most.”

  “So two cycles to Crystal Pass on foot under best conditions. What’s the road like between the school and Crystal Pass?”

  “Fairly ft and broad until we get close to the Pass. That’s on the boundary between the Shallows and the Highnds.”

  “So near-ideal ornithian running conditions.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “If we visit the school and spend one cycle there, then get to Crystal Pass the next day, we’re not losing any time, right?”

  “True.”

  “And we can probably do a lot of resupply shopping in a school town, or find useful things not on the current list. Then on to Crystal Pass and into the Highnds.”

  “On foot, I’d expect to camp four nights between Crystal Pass and the next site, if all goes well. Possibly five. Travel is slower when it’s up and down.”

  “We probably can’t cut that in half but we can reduce it. And from there?”

  “Out of the Highnds by the most direct possible path and down to the Midnds.”

  “And having the wagon at that point will definitely be an advantage.”

  “You could take the wagon into the Midnds and meet us at the Bridge of Flowers. You’d get there first and could probably spend a month painting it, let alone a few cycles. The ornithians would be happier and you’d be able to find inns all along the road. Nathan and I can move quickly alone...”

  “Excuse me,” Aryennos said. “I can’t write anything down if I’m not there.”

  Aryennos plus rough terrain sounded like an accident waiting to happen. I needed to look into better rescue options. Lots of extra rope. A stretcher. A helicopter.

  “Nathan and Aryennos and I can move reasonably quickly, visit the site, and loop down to join you.”

  “Not going to work,” Terenei said firmly.

  “Actually, I don’t like that option either,” I said. Mostly this was between them, but not when it came to safety. “Not with two people who are far too powerful for anyone’s good out to get me and almost certainly fine with using my friends as leverage. I can’t put Purification in a bottle.”

  “Yet,” Terenei said. “We’re still missing one component for your upgrade. We might find that in the school town. Which is another reason to stop there.”

  I was curious about my upgraded potions, and they might turn out to be useful, but if nothing else, the more completed potions of reasonable level I left Serru with, the more she could sell once I wasn’t costing her money anymore. Upgraded ones might be rarer and sell better. There were reasons other than the basic drive to level up as much as possible even when I wouldn’t get to keep it.

  “Threat is not a factor I typically need to calcute for,” Serru admitted.

  “All right,” I said, “let’s assume that we’re not separating and all four of us plus the ornithians are going into the Highnds together. And they improve our speed enough to make stopping at the school library a viable option, right?”

  “Technically,” Serru said, pulling the ruffled sleeve of her dress down out of Terenei’s way, “we could just make use of that speed to reach Crystal Pass more quickly. But yes, and Terenei and Aryennos each mentioned a good reason for at least a short stop in the school town. Information could potentially be valuable in dealing with those two and their attempts to stop Nathan, and I’m reluctant to pass it by without a fair chance.”

  “So,” Terenei said, choosing a fine brush from one of the boxes now arranged on the table. “Enjoy tonight, school tomorrow night, Crystal Pass the night after, three or four nights camping in the Highnds until we get to the next site, wait a couple of cycles for Nathan there, take the fastest route down to the Midnds so, what, a couple of cycles?”

  “Roughly.”

  “Followed by a fast easy trip across the Midnds to the Axis. I realize you think I’m fragile, but I’m reasonably sure I can tolerate a week in the Highnds with you there, and I know Peace and Cheer can. Then we’ll, I don’t know, loop around and visit your family while cutting back to Coppersands across the Midnds, or something. Maybe we’ll take the ornithians home and then I’ll take you up on that offer to come travel with you for a while. This is kind of fun.”

  Maybe two weeks or thereabouts left, after what I was sure was more than a month here. Actually reaching the fifth site was looking less like a remote goal and more like a finish line that was coming up quickly.

  I almost didn’t want it to. I badly wanted my family and Grace, but also wanted to be right here. While we were still working towards going home, I could just appreciate whatever was around me without guilt, but part of me didn’t want that to end.

  Too bad I didn’t have a way to just bring my parents and sister and Grace here. But then Grace would miss her family, and I did have extended family and my parents and sister had friends. People were tangled in connections.

  “I’d rather take you over to the Grassnds. The sunrise there will take your breath away.”

  “Then we’ll do that. Hold your sleeve like that for a minute until that dries so it doesn’t smear. Hm, what am I going to do with your hair?”

  Terenei’s ability to juggle multiple tasks that allowed all four of us to be dressed and fabulous to go out was almost as impressive as his art and magic themselves, but we finally decided we were ready to go.

  I might have felt underdressed, were it not for the number of aquians in Whalesong Landing who were equally topless and barefoot.

  Also, the innkeeper, the same one as before, wasn’t particurly shy about looking me over and winking before going back to helping someone else check in. That someone was almost certainly taller than my centaur form, although he was otherwise humanoid in shape and completely in proportion to the height. Hair cropped to shoulder-length and tied back was a rather metallic silver, and his skin was light but otherwise unremarkable. Loose trousers were tucked into low boots with fancy metal decorations, loose sleeves were confined by wide wrist-bands of intricate metal-work, and the broad belt he wore seemed to have a chainmail base with other decorative touches over it. Even the pack on his back had shiny metal pendants adorning it and metallic stitching. He greeted us with a nod of acknowledgement.

  “I keep getting distracted from asking,” I said quietly, once we were out the door. “Humans get that tall?”

  “Not typically,” Aryennos said. “Although I suppose it’s not impossible, technically.”

  “That was a jotun,” Serru said.

  “Ah,” I said. “And they’re common in the Highnds like aquians in the Gss Shallows and the, what, two or three species each in the Forest and Grassnds?”

  “Exactly. The Grassnds has humans, centaurs, and saurids, and the Forest has felids, cervids, and florians, but florians don’t often associate with others. The Highnds have jotuns and lmids and dragons, but dragons are extremely rare. I’ve only ever seen two or three and have never spoken to one.”

  This wasn’t the time to ask that question. I asked a different one.

  “So is anyone originally from the Midnds?”

  “No. All four provinces mingle in the Midnds, both in terrain and in species. The bance of the local species will depend in part on the immediate conditions, but any community will almost certainly be more mixed than anything in the provinces. Obviously individuals of every species have wandered all over. We met a retired jotun gatherer near Ottermarsh, for example. For the most part, settlements in the provinces will be more mixed the closer they are to the Midnds, and less so as you go farther out. I’ve heard from other gatherers that if you go far enough, you start finding pockets of other species, ones that either find travelling uncomfortable or just choose not to. But people tend to find somewhere they feel at home, regardless of species.”

  “Metal and gss are almost entirely worked in the Highnds,” Aryennos offered. “Because that’s where the geothermal heat is that they need to do that on anything but a very small scale. So anyone wanting to do that, of any species, is going to move to the Highnds. If you like being on a boat, you’re going to go live in the Shallows.”

  “Hm,” I said, mulling that over. “Well, so far, all three sites have given me a form that’s common in that province. Wonder if the fourth site is going to give me a jotun form and... I still have no idea what set of abilities would work with the rest.”

  “Nor do I,” Serru said. “It seems likely but I’m cautious about trying to predict what it will do.”

  “Probably the best idea. So are jotuns just scaled-up humans?”

  “They’re very tolerant of cold but not of heat, even more so than aquians, although not so much so they can’t live in other provinces once they have time to acclimatize. They are typically quite strong but need more food than others do. Despite their size, they are often excellent at rock-climbing even with little or no equipment. They have excellent vision, especially for long distance. They tend to have different coloration than humans, in particur they frequently have hair that is metallic in colour, and sometimes that spills over to a limited degree into skin colour. Otherwise, they aren’t significantly different.”

  “And they don’t get ludicrously big or anything?”

  “The one you just saw wasn’t tall enough for you?” Terenei ughed.

  “Not much taller than that,” Serru said. “Do they remind you of something?”

  “Nothing real,” I said. “Stories of immensely giant people, sometimes pictured as ugly and deformed. And usually hostile and stupid.”

  “Zanshe is the jotun I know best. She is the opposite of all those things. She is clever, creative, elegant, loves being around people and making people feel good, and enough consider her extremely attractive that I’m comfortably certain I’m not just biased.”

  “So is Donour,” Aryennos said. “One of the musicians in my father’s band. He is absolutely brilliant with... I can think of four different instruments offhand, and he knows more and he sings, his bass harmony under my father’s voice is amazing, and they all work together to write new songs. For any practical purpose, he’s my dad’s brother and best friend, and he’s been right there since before I was born. His boyfriend Thelsan is a warden, his whole job is to make sure everyone is safe and happy, and he’s good at it.”

  “Got it,” I said. “Absolutely not the same as anything from my world’s stories.” Actually, that sort of fit with this world. There was really no pce for oversized brutes like the giants and ogres of folklore and game, who existed rgely to be antagonists and obstacles.