The road north into the village was not long, but Anika walked it with anxiety. Lily, on the other hand, practically skipped with excitement. The extroverted capybara had hummed with excitement since the moment at breakfast Leka said that they would go get acquainted with the village. Anika, however, dreaded the idea of repeated interactions with new people. Would they know that they were supposed to be ‘heroes’? Would they ask her questions about where she came from or how they got here? Or would every person just engage in pleasantries and small talk; Anika’s least favorite thing in the world.

  Philip rode on Epona’s back, but if he had walked, he would have skipped right along with Lily. Sometimes, she wondered how she had been paired with a companion who had the complete opposite personality. Anika was much more similar to Epona, Philip’s steadfast and competent companion. Then again…. She couldn’t imagine the shenanigans that would ensue if Lily and Philip were unleashed together on the world unsupervised. Both of them very much needed an adult. Lily had a lot of knowledge about the world, but most of the time she forgot she was supposed to enlighten Anika about the way this new world worked. At least Anika studied perfectly well on her own through books (now that she found the library), and so far she had needed the emotional support capybara far more than she had needed Lily the Etalan Almanac.

  The village from far away had looked like a sea of white buildings with dull black and brown roofs, but as they got closer, Anika could see a bit more variation. The people here seemed to love pastels, as they painted the buildings not pure white, but pale shades that held hints of color - blues, greens, and yellows - that stood out when close but blended together when far away. The pops of vibrant color she had seen from a distance were the painted shutters, doors, and window sills that decorated the pastel buildings, some so vivid that Anika thought they might have stolen the colors that the buildings lacked.

  The buildings on the outskirts were smaller than those in the main village and spaced evenly apart, separated by small lines of the dark green grass of the world, its purple flowers scattered throughout the yards. As they passed, Anika observed signs that told her these buildings were houses, like the sound of a baby’s cry wafting out of the open window on the second story to her right, or clothing hanging on a clothes line and swaying in the light breeze of the morning. All very normal things for a line of houses, these touches almost made her forget her current place in a fantasy world far from home.

  As they moved past the houses they stopped at an intersection before entering an area that looked more like businesses. Leka paused for the group to catch up, or in Lily’s case, run back to join them. Anika sighed, knowing the silence she had enjoyed with her own thoughts was about to end, and she mentally prepared herself to begin ‘peopling.’

  “This area of Kanewek is where many crafters and artisans make their shops.” Leka began by pointing to the furthest of three wide streets they could see from where they stood on a broad avenue that ran perpendicular to the street they had used to enter the village. The entire configuration looked like an E, with the group at the top corner. From here, Anika could see more rows of houses on her right stretching away from this new road and parallel to the row of houses they traveled through to reach this spot. The road leading to the temple was at the edge of the village. Across from the small rows of houses were the three long, broad streets that ran the same direction as the neighborhood rows.

  Leka pointed to the middle street. “The middle street is filled primarily with restaurants and cafes, and the one closest to us has general stores and other shops. All three streets lead into the town square, which has the main temple, specialty business like theaters and museums, and smaller specialty stores and stalls used for market days and festivals. The temple complex houses the schools and other educational facilities. You can also find the Hunter’s Guild, which is for those not affiliated with the temples and who go to dungeons primarily to harvest materials, both plants and monsters, for sale to crafters, as well as hunting the forests for game.“

  Anika could see a building down at the far end of the street close to them and assumed it was part of the temple complex. The main area of Kanewek wasn’t very large. The total distance from her to the temple looked like a quarter of a mile. She could see houses continue to stretch out in neat rows to either side of the three main avenues, this time running perpendicular to the avenues. A few people walked the street as they traveled into the village, but now that they neared the heart of the village, the streets bustled with people. Anika wondered how many people the village housed and if the world considered this a small village or a large one.

  “Wow, there are so many buildings here! And people!” Lily plopped down on the cobblestone street in awe.

  “Can we go look at the restaurants? I smell something good.” Philip tugged Epona’s mane in the direction of the street that Leka had indicated held restaurants and cafes. Epona ignored him, clearly awaiting further instructions from Leka.

  “How many people live in this village?” Anika asked, curiosity getting the better of her.

  “About 7,000 people live in the village proper. We have about another 2,000 in the temple complex. A number of our acolytes live in town, as do some of our instructors and priests. The surrounding fields and valleys also have houses on farms and smaller outposts, with another 2,500 or so within a half a day’s journey of town. Further out and they likely would be closer to another town area. Nobody lives further than a half day’s travel from a town in our region.”

  “I want to see all the people!” Lily jumped to her feet and ran over to Anika, “Aren’t you excited to see everything?”

  Anika managed a genuine looking but utterly falsified smile, “Maybe not everything?”

  Lily responded with a crestfallen trill and dropped her head.

  “Not today at least? We need to make sure we can take it all in.” Anika tried to rationalize her disinterest in exploring the town all day to cheer up her companion, “Besides, wouldn’t you rather take time to fully explore things rather than running around seeing everything and then forgetting it?” Anika hoped she would take the bait.

  “Oh, you’re right Anika! We should make sure we learn a lot about everywhere we go! And then we can come back tomorrow, and then on Telomi and Lukomi…”

  Anika cringed inwardly. She wasn’t sure she wanted to adventure into town every day for the rest of the week. She wanted to take time to rest and relax as well! Though Leka had said that the lesser week focused on service to the community - Anika may be obligated to come to the town every day for the rest of the week. “Maybe we can do a little each day…right Leka?” She turned pleading eyes to Leka.

  Leka’s eyes sparkled, “Oh, we have more than enough to fill each day of the week! We all have different duties. I usually work with the alchemists in town, as they also provide potions to the town and temple. Other priests and trainers assist the town in other ways, so I expect everyone will find their preferred method of contributing to the community.”

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  Anika liked the idea of sitting in a small room and engaging in fantasy chemistry far more than she liked the idea of socializing with the rest of the town. Lily probably wouldn’t like that, but maybe Lily could find something else to do. She’d have fun playing with children or helping a business that had a lot of people and gave her a chance to use her magic. Having some different interests sounded like a good idea. Just because they were bonded companions didn’t mean they had to be together every day. Epona spent most of her time in the stables or fields when Philip didn’t need her, so Lily should be more than capable of spending some time on her own, like when they went to their different training facilities.

  “Alchemy sounds interesting to me, I can just do that… then you don’t have to worry about me when exploring the town!” She probably sounded a little too excited to not go exploring a place with a lot of people.

  “Anika, you have to explore with us! We have to know the town. Now let’s go!” Lily turned and started walking towards the street directly across from where they were, the avenue with shops on it.

  “Looks like your companion has chosen!” Leka laughed and followed Lily, gesturing for the rest of the group to continue.

  “Can we buy snacks?” Philip asked, still astride Epona’s back as she followed Leka.

  —--

  By lunch time, Anika was more than ready for a break. Despite Anika’s reservations about exploring the town, she found the shops interesting. She loved gadgets and the shops had a variety of magical gizmos like the time tablet she had received from Leka. A lot of the gadgets looked like practical household tools and mirrored appliances back on earth. The myriad magical contraptions labeled as mixers, toasters, blenders, fans, self heating cups, self-cooling glasses, and various other plain looking boxes and cylinders of unknown function captured Anika’s interest. Most didn’t look much like their technologically based counterparts. The mixer looked like a fat oval canister with a lid that used a combination of Air magic and Aether magic to rotate and stir the items inside without the need for any physical attachments. Anika didn’t do much baking or cooking, but she had a feeling her mother would have loved the magical variant, as it looked far more effective.

  The reason for Anika’s exhaustion by lunch was her darling capybara and her new bestie, Philip. They had thoroughly enjoyed the adventure with a level of extroversion and honest enthusiasm that Anika could not comprehend, culminating in the toy store incident. Anika and Leka had to drag Lily and Philip out of the store, Whimsical Wonders. Every toy had some minor magical component that made noise or caused a visual effect or something equally entertaining for children and the equivalent capybara. Lily had squealed with joy with each new toy and Philip wanted to try everything. Anika had tried to be respectful to the store owner, who probably didn’t like all his toys being played with rather than purchased. She had enabled LIly to begin with, as the shop owner had some toys in a “try me” area, so Anika had waved around a magical bubble wand for Lily to chase. Anika enjoyed watching her capybara play - her antics would have definitely gone viral back home - but when she tried to politely put the toy back and usher the capybara out of the store, Philip decided it was his turn.

  Anika didn’t expect better from Lily - she was clearly a child. But Philip did not take the hint. He grabbed up balls that bounced themselves, mobiles that floated with air magic, holographic animal projections that used water and light magic, and other toys that Anika completely lost track of. Lily ‘ooo’d and ‘ahhh’d when appropriate, trilled with joy, and made cute little lazer ‘pew pew’ noises of laughter in response to the various toys as Philip manipulated them. Anika kept taking the toys away and putting them back, but Philip would just grab another.

  Leka let the situation play out for a bit, but finally stepped in. Anika figured it would have been easier to get through to Philip if Epona could just grab him by the shirt collar and halt him out of the store, but she couldn’t fit through the door to the shop and had to stay outside. Anika assumed, based on Philip’s occasional comments, that Epona strongly suggested he move along, but short of the joint bodily and magical intervention from Anika and Leka, Philip had remained stalwart in his dedication to playing with toys with Lily. Anika grabbed Lily as Leka erected an ice shield around the toys, then used her level 22 strength to haul Philip to Epona, apologizing to the disgruntled toyshop owner as they exited.

  Luckily, none of their other shop visits had been quite that exciting. Philip had wanted to buy snacks at every shop that had anything edible and Anika and Leka had to keep telling him they would eat soon enough at one of the cafes. After the toy store incident, Leka had purchased some candy to keep Philip distracted and happy. Anika enjoyed the candy as well, though she didn’t want to eat as much as Philip. The purple, fruity, hard-shelled candy had a sweet jam-like center Anika couldn’t identify, so she assumed the fruit must be native to Etalen and not one of the fruits shared with Earth. Anika wasn’t sure if capybaras should eat candy, but gave in to Lily’s begging to let her try it. To Anika’s relief, Lily had not become a candy-obsessed sugar goblin after trying the candy and said she would prefer to just eat the fruit.

  The shops toward the end of the avenue, closer to the town square, were less interesting to the enthusiastic members of the party, as they included some additional household stores as well as a book store that Anika decided she would return to another time to check out alone. The exception was the pet store, which even Anika enjoyed. Both cats and dogs existed as pets in this world, to Anika’s relief, but some of the other options fascinated her . She had found one of the critters, a labrador sized creature that looked like an axolotl with a short, purple, velvety coat, particularly charming. Leka called it a Kilikap. Lily had pouted with jealousy at Anika’s interest in the kilikap, so Anika had picked her up for some cuddling and carried her through the last few stores on the street.

  The group decided to wander the town square another day, as Philip couldn’t stop talking about food and Anika wanted to look at the crafters, so Leka led them through a small alley between the streets to take them to the avenue full of restaurants and cafes. Anika admired the walkability of the town, with the frequent cut-throughs between streets and compact design. She hadn’t seen anyone riding any animals or using any types of vehicles while in town, which surprised her, but with the convenient paths between locations, it made sense that people wouldn’t require that type of transportation. She wanted to know what types of transportation existed between different towns, but that curiosity could wait for another day. The town in itself held enough new information for the week!

  —

  Air stared at the monitor, aghast by the scenes he had witnessed. “Water… why did you make your gift a child. Your… creature’s… antics are most undignified as a Companion.”

  “Aether said we should give them the companions they needed. That’s why we had that loooong boring discussion on who would bless each gift.” Water rolled her eyes. “I gave her what she needed.”

  “It’s bad enough she has to babysit Earth’s hero, but to have to babysit your gift as well…”

  “My hero doesn’t need babysitting! He just loves life!” Earth interrupted Air.

  Fire laughed, “Whatever lets you sleep at night.”

  “We did not have detailed information to make decisions on when we did the initial selection, and that is why we balanced our Chosen’s gifts to their weaknesses and needs once we had them on our world. This will allow them to achieve success. We must have patience.” Aether spoke loudly to ensure he squashed any additional argument.

  “And my hero always had routines and careful planning and needed to learn to go with the flow or she would never master Water. And she needs help to break out of her shell and meet new people, so an adorable baby capybara is exactly what she needed!” Water leaned back, smiling at the antics of her favorite creation.