I tilted an ear toward the sound as I pulled my pants up. Squinting my bleary eyes, I moved toward the gently rocking egg. I’d only gotten a few hours of sleep, and my wounds had barely done more than scab up. My palms were still covered by Jake’s med pads. Digging my teeth under a seam, I carefully peeled one back. It stung, but I needed my fingers free of the pad’s stiffening properties.
“Dathai!” Alga called up gruffly from the bottom of the stairs.
I knew what she wanted. Peeled potatoes in the pot.
“A minute!” I shouted, my voice a thunder rumbling back.
The taps of eggshell chips on wood lured me over. I’d already decided that if it was a chick, I would give it to Alga. In case it hatched something that wanted to devour my face, I pulled my hunting knife.
Something pushed out from the crumbling surface. A gob of mucus. The kind you’d cough out if you had pneumonia—yellowy green and sickly. The thin layer of goo slid to reveal a turtle’s nose with a little spike on the top, probably for breaking the shell. Its slimy head jerked, pushing through the softer inner layer of the egg casing.
Gross.
That was no chicken. With held breath I watched, until I couldn’t deal with the impatience anymore. I put my knife away and picked at some of the casing. Before long the egg had a large gap, the trunk I’d rested it on littered with tiny shards. The critter squirmed free.
It was about the length of my hand and still wet from the goop, about as thick as two fingers. Bumps under the slick snot suggested limbs of some kind.
Light spilled in, warming it as it squirmed in the remnants of its egg. Tiny spikes of fur poked out as the mucus rapidly dried and turned brittle. A turtlish little face lifted. The thin lines of its eyelids opened, at first a squint and then a slow, wondering blink as it saw the world for the first time.
Eyes of sapphire hue glimmered in the wetness of their first opening. They looked up at me—and that was it. The intensity of this mundane miracle punched me in the chest. A stark sensation rose like the first smoke from a fire just lit.
I had to protect this weak, helpless little snotwad. Slipping a hand under it, I lifted it up while it stared at me. A tiny popping sound came from its mouth.
“I got you, little loogie.” My voice wasn’t exactly what you’d call soothing, but the center of my palm vibrated with a faint buzz. Was it purring?
A low, threatening growl rumbled from the storeroom below. Alga. She’d beaten up a werewolf, so I knew what she could do to a ‘skinny’ half-orc like me.
“Yep!” I called, already running.
A clatter of boots carried me down the stairs until I staggered to a fast stop in front of her. She had the pot in her hands, tilted my way.
“Where are they?” Her expression suggested violence, no matter the answer.
To stave that off, I showed her what I carried, cupped carefully in my hands.
The dim storeroom didn’t stop her from spotting the curling critter. She backed up so fast her dreadlocks bobbed, fist caught in the other palm.
“Where—where did you get that?” she gasped.
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I almost dropped it. Was it poisonous? Deadly? She was acting like it was dangerous. Something that unsettled Alga would probably kill the hell out of me.
I held it anyway.
The moment it opened its eyes, the way it looked at me—I couldn’t do anything to hurt it, even if Alga demanded it. The purring in my palm stopped. I held my breath.
“That is Vash’Ora,” she whispered, shaking her head, “extinct for generations. Or, so I thought.”
“Greelanch gave me the egg,” I blurted. Whatever horror this was, it was the buffalo lizard keeper’s fault. Not mine.
I considered the name she’d spoken. Vash. Ora. Chase wind… Windchaser. I wondered what it meant, almost asked, except the look on her face kept me silent.
Alga brushed a broad green hand over her apron and grunted, her brows pulling down. Her eyes slid in the direction of the pens, as if she could suddenly see through the wall. She shoved the pot at me, avoiding bumping the Vash’Ora. “Do your job.”
I gently cupped the worm to my chest and took the pot with my freed hand. She turned and stormed through the flap of pebbly buffalo lizard hide that served as a door. I followed, taking my usual spot at the end of the bar.
Anxiety started to gnaw at the fringes of my thoughts. How did I care for it? What did it eat? Was there anything it couldn’t have? Would it turn evil if I fed it after midnight or multiply if it got wet?
So many questions. And I had to peel potatoes instead of getting answers.
I couldn’t do the job one-handed, so I grabbed a bar cloth and laid it under the Vash’Ora while I did my work. It nuzzled into the fabric, occasionally looking up at me with innocent intensity. I shot it a tusky grin as I slid my knife through the brown skin of a potato. “Cutest Loogie I ever saw.”
I sliced a thin strip of the tuber and placed it on the cloth beside the baby critter. Its odd little face poked at it—hesitant and wobbling—but didn’t eat. I couldn’t explain why that stressed me out so much. Babies should eat. “Alright, kid. Today’s session is survival. Eat to live, live to grow, grow big, and chase the wind, right?”
The little guy blinked at me, unaware of my desperation.
“You want water?” I asked, fussing with the little thing instead of peeling. Alga didn’t say anything. She watched me differently than she ever had before. Like she was waiting for me to do something. Hell if I knew what, and she wasn’t explaining. She didn’t seem angry, so I couldn’t have been screwing up too badly. Yet.
Her observation was like a fisher hovering on the edge of a river, watching a shadow undulate below their lure.
I fetched water in a shallow wooden plate. Loogie rolled around, scrunching up the cloth like it was the best toy ever. I put the plate beside the cloth and went back to peeling potatoes.
Loogie crawled over to the plate. I kept working, watching it instead of my blade. The critter dipped the tip of its nose into the shallow pool with an unsteady, bobbing head. The little turtle worm blew bubbles from its pinhole nostrils. Was it drinking?
A sharp, stinging pain forced me to pay attention to my knife. I’d cut myself. I paused to examine it, and the rawness of the blisters from the boss fight in the Den. Blood fell, spattering the table beneath my hand.
I glanced at the cloth. Loogie wasn’t there. My heart thumped like a fist on a door, banging to get out. Lost it already? I scanned the bar frantically, and spotted it under the shadow of my arm, beneath my line of sight. I shifted my hand to see the little turtle face covered in blood, a minuscule tongue flicking eagerly from its tiny mouth.
I caught Alga staring at me.
My hand clenching, I lowered the wound to the Vash’Ora.
As it lifted its head to catch the droplets that fell, I murmured, “You better be worth it.”
“It is,” Alga murmured gruffly. She went on with her work, sweeping old straw into a pile and flinging new straw to the floor.
I completed my task and scooped the Vash’Ora up. It had finished drying, leaving crusts of whatever goober it had been suspended in while gestating. Its mustard yellow fur obscured the long body and little nubs of limbs. It looked like a furry snake with a turtle’s face. Fursnek? I still couldn't settle on how to describe it, beyond what it was. Vash'Ora.
I had to show Voj’Kasak. I’d show everyone, but him first. I knew that Loogie was a System construct, just a fancy NPC designed to follow Orcish lore, but that hardly mattered. Old Fang was more talkative than Alga, and probably knew something about the Vash’Ora.
I dashed out the door, heading for the baobab trees where he liked to sit and watch the ghosts of days past.
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