While we were eating breakfast, someone tapped on one of the doors from outside.
We all expected Heket, returning from an early-morning run to her family’s farm, when Terenei pulled back the curtains.
It wasn’t Heket. It was an aquian with peacock-blue skin and lemon hair in multiple braids.
When Terenei opened the door, en said, “Good morning. Did I find the right pce for Nathan?” Don’t ask me why aquians had their own preferred universal pronoun. I hadn’t gotten to that question on my list yet.
“Yes,” Terenei said warily.
The aquian offered an envelope. Prominent among the lemon and lime swirly lines and shapes on ens skin I could see the warden symbol of two side-by-side equiteral triangles with points touching. “Special delivery, since the sender wasn’t sure when the recipient might get anywhere near a post office and apparently it’s extremely important. It might be worth paying attention to whatever it is, because the person who sent it put some effort into arranging this.” Once Terenei accepted the envelope, the aquian raised a hand in a kind of wave and turned away. “Have a great day.”
“Thank you.” Terenei left the door open and came back to the living room to pass me the envelope.
Somehow, it was dry. I used a nail to open it and took out the single sheet of paper inside.
“Stop trying to speedrun the Quincunx,” I read aloud. “Before you do anything you can’t undo, slow down and get all the facts. There’s a post office near the Shallows Quincunx site. Take this with you and reply to it, and I’ll meet with you in person in Whalesong Landing so we can talk before you do the Highnds and the Axis. No zombies, I promise. There are seriously things you need to be aware of before you make any decisions you can’t change, and the locals have great intentions but they can’t answer everything. For the love of whatever, would you get off your superiority complex and pay attention?”
“That is... odd,” Aryennos said, forehead furrowed. “I haven’t come across anything about behaviour like that.”
“I can’t trust a word he says,” I said. “It doesn’t matter how much sense he makes or how much he talks, I’m not going to be able to actually believe any of it, so it isn’t worth wasting time on that particur conversation. The guy is a rude little sexist gamer-bro who kills people and animates their corpses and sees nothing wrong with that. I really don’t need his toxic nonsense.” I stuffed the letter back in the envelope and the whole thing into my bag. “Anything he says is only going to be whatever’s in his own best interests, not mine. Forget it. Is there any more catsear?”
Heket returned for lunch with fresh milk and eggs and further local updates: bridge repairs were proceeding, although the necessity was making a number of people grumpy, and boat owners were doing their best to help with workarounds while that was ongoing. Aquian wardens in particur were highly active, visiting anyone whose status hadn’t yet been confirmed and arranging for necessities to be delivered.
Some effort was going into choosing the best bridges to focus on, so that alternate routes could be established—possibly a longer trip but at least enough to keep things moving while the rest of the bridges were finished. Only the rger cargo boats would be able to handle the wagon and the ornithians and four passengers, and they were currently extremely busy.
It would be very easy to ask Heket what the odds were of a boat that could take, say, one person across to the vicinity of the Quincunx, and Serru could stay to make sure that Terenei and Aryennos got there safely...
That yowl outside could only be a cat, and a heartbeat ter, it was followed by a bugling cry I’d heard once before, in two-part chorus.
I left my bowl on the arm of the couch and bolted for the doors; behind me, I heard Heket scream Myu’s name, and a lot of motion.
Diminutive Myu wasn’t giving in easily to the otter that faced off against her, rger than her but not by much: she had her back arched, her tail fluffed out and straight up, her ears back ft and her teeth showing as she let out a long low noise that was all threat.
Much of the otter’s fur was overwhelmed by greenish moss.
“Leave that cat alone!” I bellowed.
The otter gnced in my direction, then spun around and ran for the edge of the water.
Cheer was in the way; he lowered his beaked head and bugled again before sshing at it. When the otter tried a different direction, Peace was there, not at all living up to his name.
I ran for Myu instead, peeling off my shirt so I could throw it over her. I knew better, from Grace, than to try to simply pick up a cat that was in that kind of mood, but I had to get her away from...
... away from...
Green moss streaked the side of her face, as she writhed in my arms.
“What the hell is your problem?” I yelled at the otter. “I didn’t give a crap about you or that other asshole until you started messing with my friends! Just fuck off! You can’t have any of them!” So Heket was there and would see. So what? I wasn’t letting that infection take hold.
Serru caught up and scooped the shirt-wrapped cat out of my arms, though I saw her flinch. “Quickly,” she said. “You don’t have long.” She shifted her grip, struggling to hold Myu—if the cat escaped, I was sure we’d never have time to recapture her. Effort and stress presumably expined Serru’s breathing being so fast.
I gestured my HUD into view, switched to centaur, and found my Purification spell.
Myu shed out with lethally-sharp cws and raked my hand as I id it on her, hard enough to really hurt and I saw free-flowing blood, but I didn’t care. Golden light wrapped around her, and the green faded into brown and melted away. The fur under it was thin and the skin reddened, with two parallel scratches barely visible down the centre, but that was easier to fix.
Serru handed Myu to Heket, while I turned to look for the otter. It couldn’t get past the two angry ornithians, despite its increasingly-urgent attempts to do so, and it was now limping with blood visible on its hip, which meant one of the ornithians must have injured it and I should use Purification on them too, just to make sure.
Aryennos dropped his long leather coat over the otter and gathered it up, then looked at me.
I was with him on that one: I wasn’t willing to leave anything in her power. It was even more difficult to hold than Myu, and I led with Lulbye, so I could do the rest on it without resistance—plus it was already injured and I didn’t know whether this might hurt if the infection was bad. I had to do it through the coat, but I guess that was acceptable, because I saw golden light and it stopped fighting. I followed it with Purification and then a double-strength Quickheal. This wasn’t the moment to stop and ask how the moss infection worked, but mosslings weren’t dead and this one had still had at least some auburn fur visible, so maybe it would be okay? Maybe?
Aryennos set the now-limp otter gently on the ground and removed his coat.
The otter y there, unresponsive, as the moss dried and died and receded, leaving furless patches. I felt sick at heart for the poor thing; I could almost hear Grace telling me that the otter was an innocent victim too. I dropped to one knee beside it, hoping I could still help, but its breathing simply stopped.
Serru id a hand on my shoulder. “The moss had taken too deep a hold. It’s free and without pain.”
“Do animals come back?”
“Yes. And they are... they find recovering less difficult. Their sense of self works differently. Otters... I promise it wanted to go back to its family. Now it can.” Did her voice shake? Probably I was imagining that.
“That’s good. I hope it has better luck.” I sighed and pulled myself back up to all fours. “Is Myu okay? She isn’t... isn’t infected, is she?”
“You were fast. She’s safe, the damage remaining is superficial and Ointment will take care of it. She’s angry but fine. I sent Heket to take her in the house and close the doors, but I think we need to answer questions.”
“Yeah, we do. Let me just make sure that Cheer and Peace are going to be safe, too, and then we can go prove yet again just how terrible I am at keeping secrets.” At least I was better at patient confidentiality, and for that matter at keeping gender and orientation to myself at home, than I was at hiding my origins here.
“You were doing a good job of it,” Aryennos said. “What were you going to do, just let Myu be turned into a mossling? I’ll go in with Heket, this shouldn’t take you long. I’m sorry we couldn’t help the otter more. It was worth a try. And like Serru said, at least it’s free to go home to its family. I didn’t know otters were that social, but I’d believe her.”
“Yeah. Get Ointment out of my bag if Heket wants it.”
Terenei was with the ornithians, talking soothingly to them and rubbing around their beaks to calm them down.
“I don’t want to take risks with them,” I told him, and he nodded, never interrupting the reassuring flow of words.
I used Purification on each, and lingered to give them some additional love for their quick responses.
“Okay, boys,” I finally sighed. “Wish me luck. A lifetime as an ornithian, just enjoying running and pying in water and being cared for, is sounding more rexing and straightforward all the time.”
“It rather does,” Terenei said. “But I don’t think this will be as bad a conversation as you think.”
Serru waited for us, halfway to the house. Just outside the now-closed doors, I switched back to human, and she handed me my white poet shirt. Well, it was previously white, and it would sort itself out, but it had taken a beating from a furious little cat.
“Is Myu okay?” I asked Heket, as soon as we got inside. She was in the hammock, legs crossed, Myu cradled in her p as she gently spread red-and-yellow ointment on the side of the little cat’s face. Myu was leaning into her fingers, though not purring.
I stopped by my bag, left my white shirt there, and grabbed the first one that came to hand, the fuchsia gradient one that reminded me of a T-shirt. Not a great mix with my red boots, but I’d worry about fashion ter.
“She is,” Heket said. “And thank you for that. It’s possible that I’m being extremely rude, but I’m sorry, I’m feeling a lot of things right now and ‘baffled’ is one of them. My vision’s not great but it’s hard to mistake a human suddenly being a centaur, and you just did something to protect Myu from a mossling.”
“It’s all right. I’ll expin.”
I did.
With, of course, help from my friends, and while we did so, Terenei used Cleanse, then Ointment, on my bleeding hand and wrapped a Bandage neatly around it. After he finished, I demonstrated my felid form, and stayed in it, because my mana levels were dropping fast after one Lulbye, one double Quickheal, four Purifications, and three changes of form. I couldn’t even give Myu’s healing a boost, and getting her to drink a Quickheal couldn’t possibly be easy, given my experience with getting medicine into cats. Another reason to want an injectable form.
The Bandage on my hand adapted to my new size, still neatly and snugly wrapped. That was useful.
Heket listened in silence, stroking Myu. The little cat was rattled enough that she still wasn’t purring, but she was allowing it. After a while she slithered off Heket’s p to lie pressed against her leg, still in contact.
“The Zombie King wants something from me,” I said. “If he’s sending zombies into an area he normally ignores and destroying bridges between me and the next Quincunx site, that’s because I’m here and he’s a pathetic waste of air with more ego than brains. I have no idea what the Moss Queen thought she could gain by going after Myu, but that’s probably my fault too.”
Heket shook her head. “Not your fault. Those two, they do whatever they do and no one ever understands them. You just want to go home. That, anyone can understand. You saved Myu. You could have kept your secret but you saved Myu instead.”
“Well, yeah, I couldn’t... I mean, I guess technically I could, but...”
“It would not be Nathan-like, to overlook the pain that would cause her and you,” Serru said. “But in this case, I suspect I know the Queen’s reasoning. If she kept the moss infection minimal, she would be unable to control Myu but would be able to use her senses. Possibly we would fail to notice until after she had gathered information that she has been unable to access from outside.”
“A spy,” I said, and felt a growl in my throat. “She does not need to know anything about me except that I have a very low tolerance for obnoxious aggressive bullies trying to pick fights by harassing my friends.” Bully didn’t transte right. Another word they didn’t have. Probably they could extrapote what I meant.
“I’ll find a way,” Heket said, her fingers deftly rubbing Myu’s throat, and the little cat was finally purring. “To get you to the Quincunx.”
“A possibility,” Serru said carefully, “would be Nathan and I going ahead, since visits to sites have so far sted upwards of two cycles anyway, and Terenei and Aryennos and the ornithians and wagon catching up. We’ve been uncomfortable with the idea since I’m the only one who has any skills in pathfinding or survival or the wilderness. Terenei and Aryennos have both had more urban lives so far.”
Terenei looked at Serru, and sighed. “I suppose I can’t argue with that. The ornithians have certainly proved themselves as alert guardians, and it’s unlikely anything could get in the house, so I suppose we’d be fine for a few cycles.”
“I’ll stay,” Heket said. “I know this area. And I have friends. I’m a farmer, not a gatherer, but those aren’t always so different and I’m familiar with the outdoors. But there are reasons neither of those two does much in the Gss Shallows, and probably they don’t have zombies or mosslings left to sacrifice. I can definitely arrange a boat to take two people on foot a lot more quickly. And I won’t leave your friends until I can find a cargo boat or there’s a viable route by bridge.”
“You don’t owe us anything,” I said.
“We’ve talked about this,” Aryennos muttered. Serru id a hand on his arm, silencing him.
“Who said anything about owing you?” Heket said. “I like you. Myu likes you. I did not like the Zombie King even before he decided to throw a tantrum and wreck our bridges, or the Moss Queen before she decided she could use Myu as a tool. It’s good for you. It’s a bonus that it will annoy those two. You did something I value more than I can tell you but I have more reasons than that. I should go and ask friends.”
I spread my hands in surrender. “Would Myu prefer a bit more quiet time first? If you think she would, you could take her upstairs to the bedroom and we’ll leave you alone.”
She hesitated, then nodded. “That... that might be best for her. It might mean that I can’t visit many friends to talk to them today and make it home before dark. I can send out a message, at least.”
“There’s no hurry,” I said. “We’re likely to get into motion faster with your help even if you spend the rest of today concentrating on Myu. She needs you. If you want to stay here until tomorrow morning, that’s fine too. Really. It’s absolutely all right and we have plenty of food to share. We did a lot of shopping in Coppersands because, well, I eat whatever’s appropriate for whichever form I’m in, and sometimes I’m too tired to change again. Like right now. I probably could if I absolutely had to, but with my resources limited, I’d rather not. I’d rather try to build up my reserves so I can do a proper Quickheal on Myu.”
Heket nodded again. “Thank you for the option. I’m not sure what I’ll do. But right now, I do think Myu might like some time to rest.”
Serru moved the most quickly, gathering up Myu so Heket could extricate herself from the hammock, then handing her back. Heket cradled her close on the way to and up the stairs.
“I think,” Serru said, “I will see what kind of fish are avaible off the dock or perhaps the bridge. If anyone would like a lesson in doing so, you can feel free to join me.”
“I’ll hold off on my swim until you’re done fishing,” Terenei said, “but there’s lots to draw outside.”
“I’ll skip the swim,” I said. There was no way I was getting near the water as a felid. “But sitting in the sun sounds good. I might get your thoughts on the sketches I did of Myu yesterday.”
“Happy to.”
Aryennos nodded, and turned to the hooks by the gss doors that held bags as easily as they held coats.
“What... that wasn’t there.” He lifted a white waist-bag off the hook, and brought it over to the rest of us. I thought at first that it was my pink-patterned one, but this was different. It had a built-in strap, for one thing, not rings to go on a belt. It was clean bright white, like my saddlebags, but with a subtle creamy pattern of five-petalled flowers woven into it; all the hardware was gold-toned. The edge of the fp over the top opening had a short rainbow fringe, and a double row of it followed the centre of the belt all the way around as well. Scattered across the body were small gold D-rings, each with a small csp dangling from it; two, at opposite ends, were linked by a loose fttened gold chain that had a glittery faceted pink and indigo alchemist flower suspended in the centre.
Tied to the buckle with a bit of string was a scrap of paper; Terenei untied it and gnced at, then his violet eyebrows rose and he passed it to me.
Well done, Nathan. A reward for a victory seems in order. This bag will morph with you, which should reduce some inconvenience.
“Why do I feel like I’m being watched?” I asked uneasily.
“If someone’s paying attention,” Aryennos said, “they seem to be well-disposed towards you, at least.”
“Or not well-disposed towards zombies and mosslings,” Terenei said. “Which is a common sentiment. That’s quite pretty and you can add personal touches to it. I wonder if it looks simir in colour and all in your other forms? I suppose we’ll have to check ter.”
“Does it have much space inside?” Serru asked.
I slid a hand inside, and blinked. “Yeah, I’d say that’s probably about as much space as the camping gear bag has.”
“No further concerns about space or trying to decide whether to switch bags will certainly be more convenient. As rewards go, it’s a very practical one, rather like the house. Perhaps you could switch your things into it outside so we can let Heket and Myu have some peace?”
She was right. It wasn’t a +5 Legendary Sword of Epic Zombie Smiting or the local equivalent of millions of dolrs. Everyone had a bag of some sort. No one else had my complication of drastically different physiology across multiple different forms, but this compensated for that, and did it with enough capacity that I wouldn’t have to contempte using something else for that reason instead. It was a modest reward but one with some real thought behind it. If someone was watching what I was doing, or at least noticing when I had zombie or mossling encounters, they probably had good intentions. It wasn’t worth freaking out over. There was nothing I could do about it anyway even if I did, and I wasn’t going to refuse something so useful.
I retrieved my pink-patterned white waist-bag and followed the others outside.
If the house was empty for a little while, it would be that much quieter for Heket and Myu to recover from this most recent demented attack.
And maybe I could wind down from my current anger. I’d have been perfectly fine ignoring their existence, but those two seemed determined to make an enemy. Well, they’d both succeeded.
