With our bill paid off at the Golden Seashell, Serru and Aryennos and I left via the courtyard.
It had taken a bit of time to get all of our assorted purchases sorted out and tucked away in some sort of order, giving me fshbacks to inventory management in games.
After considerable thought and discussion, we had done some rearranging. We had more than enough bags avaible for that.
Serru typically took the things I’d gathered, so that she had them all together and could sell them. Whenever I wanted to practice making potions, she usually just left her bag in my reach.
I had removed everything from my blue-trimmed yellow backpack. It had a very rge internal capacity, and that made it perfect to hold the bulk of our combined collection of tents, travel bars, perishable food, cold bag, emergency firewood, and miscelneous camping supplies like rope.
That left me with my three medical boxes plus basic kit like staff and water gourd and kettle set, extra clothes for three different selves, a regur bnket, perishables like one tent and a small amount of food, my sensory goodies and jewellery, and a few other odds and ends like my book and pen. It felt like all of that should require a serious hiking backpack.
Expecting to be in centaur form a lot for the next couple of days, without much gathering, I put it in my white saddlebags, and it fit easily with room to spare.
The different needs of different forms were going to get exasperating, though.
Waiting at the edge of the street was an open-topped wagon. The body was surprisingly compact, considering the rge size of the four wheels. Drawing it were two... um... I saw a lot of bright iridescent feathers, but also shimmery scales, and the bodies underneath were quadrupeds but their front legs were probably only about three-quarters the length of the hind legs as well as being much less muscur. They weren’t enormous, their shoulders were probably around the same height as my felid self’s, but there was a lot of muscle under the feathers and scales, I was sure of it.
Presumably those were ornithians, since Terenei was sitting casually on the driver’s seat, which faced forwards, holding the reins. Beside him was a girl pusibly in her mid-to-te teens or so, her hair a deeper and more bluish purple but her skin simirly pale, dressed in multiple shades of pink. Terenei’s long hair was in a single braid now, and his clothes were dark teal and cream without any visible drapy or flowing parts—but he did have dangly earrings that fshed and shimmered, and a fringed scarf tied as a hairband, and those clothes had a subtle matte-and-shiny pattern woven into them when the light struck them the right way. The boots seemed tight up to just below his knees and then folded down, a darker matte teal with a creamy satiny lining. Seriously, how had he gotten everything to coordinate like that?
“What are those?” I asked Serru quietly, before we got any closer.
“Ornithians,” she said, which at least confirmed my guess.
“They don’t look anything like any other animal I’ve seen around here.”
“They aren’t any other animal. They’re themselves. Honestly, though, they haven’t been around more than... maybe a generation? So they’re still unusual and it’s not altogether a surprise you haven’t seen one yet. I’m not sure where they were domesticated.”
“The other continent, I think,” Aryennos said, forehead furrowed. “I’d have to look it up. I might be thinking of something else, though. A lot of interesting things came here from the other continent.”
“Right,” I said. The existence of another continent didn’t feel like a priority right now. “They eat pnts, right? Or fruit, or something?”
“Of course they do,” Serru said. “You seem nervous. Do they resemble something aggressive from your world?”
“Ah... nothing I’ve ever seen in person.” Or that any human ever had. How could I possibly expin that they looked like a pair of dinosaurs and, like most kids, I’d gone through a phase of being fascinated by them, and I knew very well that they didn’t have to be the size of a T. rex to be dangerous?
“Terenei?” Serru said, raising her voice. “Are they friendly?”
“Good morning,” Terenei said, looping the reins around a hook and hopping agilely to the ground via a small step. “And yes, they’re very friendly.” He stepped around to rub one of them on the throat, and it leaned into it with a crooning sound. “This is Peace. He’s happy to accept attention but won’t seek it out the way Cheer will. Making new friends is one of Cheer’s favourite things to do.”
They had beaks. Short wide ones, without the hook of a raptor. That went with eating pnts. Lots of dinosaur species were herbivores and some of them had beaks, and some of those probably had feathers, although I was a bit behind on the most recent research.
They cked anything like horns or visible cws, and their three-toed hind feet had big blunt nails that reminded me of hooves. Their upper bodies were covered in intensely-coloured feathers, and their legs and bellies, throats and faces, with scales just as bright and shiny. The one he was petting, Peace, ran from an amethyst-like purple through magenta into a spectacur crimson with hints of orange at the extremities; the colours of the other, Cheer, shaded from deep blue through teal into vibrant green and olive-green with highlights of an ultra-saturated yellow.
And they were both wearing harnesses, a colr that sat around their shoulders with apparent comfort and straps stabilizing it and connecting the colr to the wagon, and a kind of bridle around their heads that included reins. The harnesses seemed to give them considerable sck between their bodies and the wagon, but maybe those heavy tails had something to do with it.
“I haven’t seen them often,” Serru said. “And I’ve been close to them in person even less so.”
“They’re lovely,” Terenei said, as the blue one shoved its head under his free hand. “I doubt they’ll become popur within settlements for farm work or local transport, that’s not really what they’re good at, but for longer trips, they’re much better than anything else. Aren’t you, ds? You absolutely love to travel and you hardly even notice the weight of the wagon, especially with two of you. I’m expecting them to start repcing horses on longer coach runs any day.”
“They won’t be missed?”
Terenei ughed. “We didn’t steal them. Nurea’s parents have been breeding them for the past few years. The females are mostly broody right now, guarding eggs or about to y them, and they don’t like the males being around. And they have another pair of males if they really need them anyway. It’ll be fine, we have them for as long as we need them.”
Motion near me made me look away from the feathery wagon-drawing dinosaur-lookalikes.
Nurea looked up at me. A long way up. “Hello.”
“Hi,” I said. “I’m Nathan. Serru’s friend.”
“I’m Nurea. Terenei’s cousin. You’re really pretty.”
“Thank you.” Did girls here go through a phase of being fascinated by horses and ponies the way my sister had? “And it’s good to meet you. You’re going to school to learn magic?”
“I fix things. I’m really good at it.”
“What kind of things?”
“Whatever’s around. My mum’s spice rack, the door to the ornithians’ brooding barn, the wagon, our neighbour’s kitchen table. Things that need it.”
“That sounds like a really useful skill that’ll win you a lot of friends.” I gnced behind her, and saw Serru and Terenei and Aryennos settling bags into the back of the wagon. While the front seat faced the ornithians, behind them two seats faced each other, running along the sides from front to back, with a barrier framing the edges of the bed, presumably to keep objects from falling off.
I figured a horizontal human could lie between them, and be entirely on the wagon, but only if the human in question wasn’t unusually tall, otherwise the swinging door in the rear would have to be left open to let feet protrude, nor unusually wide, although if those seats could fold up that would be less of an issue.
As though that actually mattered here. Reflex had kicked in again.
Along one side, behind the seat, was some sort of gathered fabric strapped down securely, maybe a roof that could slide over at need?
“Let’s get out of the city, and then maybe we’ll see about you riding me instead of in the wagon, okay?”
Her eyes widened and her lips parted. “Really?”
“Really.” She wasn’t exactly petite or frail, but she certainly didn’t weigh as much as Aryennos or Serru did. Plus, I had better cushioning now. “But I think that’ll be a lot easier once we’re out on the road and it isn’t so crowded.”
She nodded and spun around to help with stowing our things with hers and Terenei’s, tucked securely under the seats and out of the way. She paused long enough to give Serru a hug and meet Aryennos; while she did, Terenei came over to me.
“I’m sorry if she gets annoying.”
“It’s all right. I have a younger sister.”
He nodded. “Tell her, or tell me, if she starts to get a bit too enthusiastic. When I told her we were travelling with a centaur, she stopped hearing anything else. So. Shall we get out of the courtyard and pause for morning greetings once we’re out of Coppersands?”
“Sounds good to me.”
“Everyone on!” He fshed me a smile before turning back to the wagon. “I don’t care who’s where, we can sort that out in a bit.”
Nurea dragged Serru into the back with her, and Aryennos shrugged and hopped up onto the front seat next to Terenei.
Since Terenei knew the city much better than I did, I just followed them through the streets of Coppersands, out past the encircling farms, out to where it was just the road wending its way between the gradually-increasing cliff down to the ocean on one side, the forest on the other. From here, the traffic on the water was much more visible, and I saw everything from a few rather rge ships with sails to vessels probably no bigger than a canoe.
Terenei urged the ornithians onto the broad grassy verge, so everyone else could get past us, and halted them there.
Unsurprisingly, his idea of morning greetings involved hugs and kisses and generally affectionate contact. Nurea, it turned out, also liked hugs, although she left it at that.
The two cousins also made a point of introducing us properly to the two ornithians. They wanted to sniff at our extended hands, and red Peace in particur showed more caution with me, maybe because I was rger than a human. Once they’d accepted careful rubbing around the base of their beaks and on their scaled throats with care not to disorder their shining feathers, they rexed completely. In fact, they actively solicited more attention from anyone in reach.
They really were beautiful, even if they’d given me a bad start. The wagon was drab in comparison, though it had been painted a gleaming white with bright red trim and yellow padding on the seats.
“So, you’re the pathfinder,” Terenei said to Serru. “Straight along this road until the next turnoff?”
She nodded. “We’re going straight into the forest as soon as we can. We’ll be back in Greenelk Forest proper by lunchtime, so do not under any circumstances go out of sight of the road, but from what I’ve heard about ornithians, we’ll be able to make very good time.”
“I offered Nurea a chance to ride,” I said, hoping fervently that there was nothing socially awkward about the invitation.
Terenei just ughed, fortunately. “And I’m sure that suggestion was met with deep discomfort and reluctance. The weight won’t be a problem?”
“Not between now and stopping for lunch.”
Terenei gave Nurea a boost onto my equine back, while I gathered the back of my sky-blue shirt and coat up to keep her from sitting on them. She snuggled herself immediately against my human back with her arms around my waist, her weight solidly on the quilted part of my harness.
Terenei caught my eye and winked. “Lucky Nurea.”
Serru took the front seat next to Terenei, which left Aryennos the back to himself.
Terenei chirped to the ornithians and gave the reins a little flip against their backs. They started off without hesitation, on all fours, their shoulders lower than their hips.
“Are you all right?” I asked Nurea, as I fell into step next to the wagon.
“Oh, yeah,” she said, with a sigh, resting her head against my back.
Serru was easily close enough to hear; her gaze flickered to Nurea, then up to mine, and she smiled indulgently.
Well, if she wasn’t worried, I probably didn’t need to be. Even if I had any interest in complicating my time in this world, Nurea was absolutely too young, and I didn’t care in the least what the local age of consent was. A roll in the hay with flirty Terenei, in a form that did not have four feet, I could maybe get my head around, but some things were just not happening.
“Talking’s easier at slower speeds,” Terenei said, “and it’s a chance to warm up or cool down, but ornithians can cover a lot of ground quickly. Maybe if we alternate? You’ll say something if we need to pause or change the pace, right? ”
“I will.” How quick was ‘quickly’? I hadn’t really tried anything faster than an easy jog in this form, and Serru had found that uncomfortable and unstable.
“Now?”
“Sure, go for it.” I looked back into dream-memories for how to run. I was fairly confident that I was sufficiently strong and healthy in this form to be able to maintain it, even if extended walking and rescuing Aryennos had been different kinds of exertion.
Given the invitation, the ornithians picked up speed without hesitation.
In fact, they tucked their front legs against their scaly tummies and trotted just on their hind legs, heads extended, and the reason for the distance between them and the wagon became clear as their tails simirly extended behind them.
I was pretty sure they could happily have gone faster, and Terenei was keeping them at my pace.
I didn’t mind the run at all. Actually, it felt good to stretch and work off some physical energy. Walking, day after day, took stamina but didn’t really burn off frustration and tangled feelings the way more vigorous exercise did.
Nurea just giggled and tightened her arms around me.
If we could move this quickly even half the time, we were definitely going to get pces a lot more rapidly than we had been. That was only one of several reasons that it was too bad Terenei and the ornithians were staying at the school with Nurea.
