We ultimately get a later start than we should have. I wasted a lot of time this morning and have been thinking about it since. Ayre mentioned shortly into our trek that we’ll probably be arriving at this town in the later evening, since we left a little past the high point of the day, so I’ve been trying to make an effort of avoiding any additional slowdowns. Which has been fairly difficult, all things considered. Lilly is doggedly refusing to allow me to share the work of carrying the weight, which has also slowed us down.

  “So, Ayre, what’s the deal with this town, anyways?” I ask as we continue on through the metallic fractal forest.

  “Silverbrook? What do you want to know? I can’t say I’m an expert, though, as I’ve been there maybe a grand total of twenty times in my life and only briefly each time — less than thirty minutes in almost all cases.” Her voice comes from behind me, sounding exhausted — she’s been moving more slowly today. I suspect it’s because she missed the watch turnover and had her sleep interrupted so rudely. Lilly still seemed reasonably lively, but she slept for probably close to twelve hours, so that’s not a surprise. Though that is hardly helping her pace since she’s laboring under serious weight.

  I sigh despite myself, “I don’t know what to ask about, really. Are there rules or something I should keep in mind?”

  “Ah, yeah, sorry. I should have thought of that.” She jogs a little to catch up to me after realizing she’d been flagging behind even Lilly. “Well, it’s a pretty normal town as far as my knowledge goes… which is pretty limited. I never ran into any rules there or had to interact with guards or anything, so I’ve just been working under the assumption that most rules are pretty intuitive: don’t steal, don’t hurt people, don’t raise a fuss without reason. That kind of stuff.”

  She pauses for a few moments. “There’s a lot of freelance adventurers there, at least there have been the last few times I visited. Number seemed to be increasing each time, too.”

  “Oh! That means they’ve probably got a lot of quests and stuff, right?” Lilly chimes in inbetween heavy breaths of effort. If I had two hands, I’d just pick her up, I think. Then she’d be able to carry the bag, and we could still move along at a decent pace…

  “I don’t think anyone actually calls odd jobs, ‘quests’, but yeah, probably. My understanding is that freelancers tend to go where work is. They’re mercenary companies, more or less. Usually three to ten people, depending on preference. They can get fairly large, though, forming guilds and more complex organizations. My books listed a few notable ones, but that’s most likely two decades out of date.”

  “Any names worth keeping an eye out for?” I duck beneath a low-hanging branch almost too late, and Ayre isn’t quite so lucky. Having been walking with her eyes momentarily closed trying to remember, she doesn’t see it coming and walks into it with a solid thud, falling off balance and landing on some rocky earth. As I turn to help Ayre up, Lilly, who also seems to have had her head in the clouds, blunders right into her and promptly collapses on top of her.

  ring out as the bag opens and spreads its contents over and around the both of them. At any other time, I might have found it funny, but with my mood being where it is now, it takes everything I have to not snap a remark out. A cascade of complaints instead run through my mind, and I stand there with fists clenched for a moment, trying to push them down.

  If I’d been carrying the bag, we wouldn’t be about to need to repack it.

  If I’d not asked such a frivolous question without even having an idea of an answer, Ayre wouldn’t have been distracted.

  We’d be making better time if Ayre had gotten better sleep.

  If I hadn’t gone on about the memories and dreams I’ve been having, we could have gotten an earlier start.

  If I had handled the fight better, I wouldn’t have needed so much time to recover.

  I stretch my hands, clenching and unclenching as I work through this feeling and when I reach down to grab some things, I have to stop myself. I’d been about to grab a pole with my right hand. But in doing so, I realize that the ring is emitting a cool, blue, hue from its ever moving surface. As I look at it, I feel a sense of calm worm its way into my mind, diffusing the runaway anger I'd been going through.

  But was it the ring doing that? Or was it just a distraction that gave me a moment to think? It's done it one other time I can think of — when I killed the elk the first time I lost control. I came out of the fugue looking at the ring, glowing the same calming hue.

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  Uncertain, I withdraw that hand, balling my fist to hide the ring from myself and work on gathering things with my left. The others continue to disentangle themselves.

  Once they're both on their feet again, I look at Lilly, now covered in mud, and hand her a cloth from one of my belt pouches to wipe off her face. “Mind if I take over carrying the bag for a while? I'm guessing that fall won't have felt great. And it's been a few hours — you deserve a break.” She's been far too quiet for normal, so I'm worried she's over exerting herself for whatever reason.

  She takes the cloth and looks at it for a few moments before starting to delicately wipe at her hands and face to get the dirt off. “Uh, yeah, Olly. That's fine.” Her words come out tense — emotionally charged, I think.

  She holds a long pause, seemingly considering, but before she can elaborate, Ayre chimes in, “We've only got a couple more hours till sundown and a couple more after that to get to the town.” She states informatively. “Do we want to find a spot to settle in for the night, or push through to the town? The area should be safer as we get closer to Silverbrook, and we may even run into freelance types out in the forest getting things done.”

  Lilly looks momentarily cross, but she nods and turns, handing me the backpack without looking at me. “I say we push through. I'd rather sleep in a bed and behind some walls than deal with another of that thing Olly fought.”

  I take the backpack and start the awkward process of loading it before Ayre comes over to help. “Any preference, Olly?”

  “Oh, right, yeah. Sorry.” I nod after a delay. “Yeah, let's try to make up some lost time.”

  Ayre gives me a reassuring smile while I watch her do most of the work, apart from me handing her things as she asks.

  I think I hate this. I can't even manage something as simple as loading up a traveling bag without assistance or risking damaging something. They both say they don't mind, sure, but will they still not mind in a week? A month? How long are we going to be traveling together?

  Darkness starts to spool around in my head for a little while while I more or less mindlessly do what's asked of me. In a vain attempt to distract myself, I attempt to probe Ayre for an answer to something I gleaned during the fight. “What is a bane?”

  The rustling of the bag ceases abruptly as she looks up at me. “That’s kind of out of nowhere. But it’s a simple enough ask. It’s a weakness. All monsters have them. Typically, when you use a monsters' bane against them, it’ll do significant harm, outright kill, or disable them.”

  “It’s something that only monsters have? Why?”

  “I couldn’t tell you. I just know that having a bane is one of the fundamental differences between mortals and monsters. It’s something intrinsically linked to their being.” Ayre returns to packing after I nod an assent. It’s useful information and puts some things I’ve learned along the way into context: particularly things mentioned in Ayre’s books.

  After a few minutes, the bag is prepared. Ayre hands it to me and I thread my arm through both straps to keep it as stable as possible.

  “Alright, let's go. Shall we try to pick up the pace a bit? You down to jog, Olly? I can keep going for a couple hours with regular Imbuements. I was curious if you’d be able to keep pace?” Ayre asks, making a show of looking me up and down with a bit of a smirk.

  I pause, looking back at her, but Lilly pipes in with some gusto, “Ooooh is it a challenge? A contest?” Lilly bounces up to us with weak wing flutters, “Or a race! With so much distance to cover, it could even be considered a marathon!” Her excitement starts to wiggle its way into my head and I find myself smiling a bit.

  “Yeah, I think I can run for a while. I never really seem to get fatigued like that, so it’s worth a shot. Maybe find out some of my limits.” Ayre’s grin turns toothy. Normally, her smiles come in a more tight-lipped way, so a full face smile is nice to see and buoys me even more. I start to feel my heartbeat building up to a drumbeat.

  “Alright, Lil, you participating? I’m sure you could run for a long while, even in your bigger form like this.”

  Lilly looks at Ayre with a scandalized glance, “Uh. No. Not happening, I'd get cramps or die. Not worth the bragging rights when I beat you both roundly and effortlessly.” She “hmph's” once and steps back, saying her faerie form incantation and returning to her preferred size. “I'll… I'll ride with Ayre if that's alright with you, Olly?”

  “Not something I'd ever have an issue with, Lil. You don't have to ask me for permission.” I begin stretching after casually dismissing the concern. Lilly continues to act oddly today. I suspect it might be that she's unsettled after what happened this morning. I can't really fault her there: but it does make me wonder about the longevity of this arrangement…

  “You'll probably want to ride in my pocket, Lil. This is gonna be a sustained run and if you fall off my head or shoulder from the bouncing I'd have to go back and get you and throw the race.” She gestures to a pocket on a strap of pouches she's wearing across her chest. Lilly, floating a short distance away, grimaces and looks over at me with a tense expression before sighing and fluttering over and dropping herself into Ayre's pocket with an ostentatious dive.

  Moments later, she pokes just her head back out again and looks up at Ayre. “Make sure you win. It wouldn't do for the dragon carrying royalty to lose a race.” She chides as Ayre and I both finish bouncing around and stretching to loosen up muscles.

  “Ready when you are.” I announce confidently.

  “Good. On three?” I nod. “One, Tw-” Ayre bursts into a run without finishing counting and leaves me behind. I roll my eyes with a smile and set off as the rapidly departing dragon weathers a storm of complaints about cheating from her passenger.