"You've given me no reason to do so," he points out, hoisting his pack on his shoulders.

"I could kick you." She lifts her boot.

"No you won't," he says. "It would be terribly wicked."

"Perhaps I am wicked." Ajobeða growls low in her throat, in case that helps.

"If you were so wicked," the pest points out, "you would not have slain a chimera."

"Wicked creatures kill each other all the time."

"And they fish little boys out of their enemies' stomachs and heal them? I don't know as much about wickedness as I thought."

Damn it.

"I wouldn't have, if I'd known you were going to follow me around."

"You're the most interesting person for a league either direction. I'm not about to let you leave me to the life of a fisherman."

"And so instead you want me to bring you along, on the extremely brief life of a prepubescent adventurer?"

"You're four years older than me," he points out. "How long will your life be, on your own?"

"I have a sword. And I'm strong. And I can heal myself."

The pest concentrates for a moment. A nearby pebble rockets into a nearby tree, sending splinters flying and leaving a gouge like an axe-blow.

"What in the Hells-"

She walks over slowly. Feels the ragged edges of the wood, the fading heat in it.

"Are you a sorcerer?"

Shrug. "Dunno. If I am, I don't have many spells. But I can keep doing that one as long as I like."

"It would still probably be wicked of me to take you along. Even if you would be... useful."

"Do you need to stop me from coming with you? Because I'll be honest, you'd have to break my legs."

"That would also be wicked, I will admit."

He bows. "Aḥyl. Is my name."

"Ajobeða."

Neither of them has any reason to know that within a few centuries, due to sound shifts in the Taldane language family and changing location of the prestige dialect, the common pronunciation of this name will change.

It doesn't seem terribly relevant.

There's a small campfire. Aḥyl shot a buck, and Beða got it skinned and gutted, and Aḥyl is roasting it.

"If you can throw stones like that all you like, why didn't you kill the beast?" Beða wonders.

"I tried! I think I even got one to stick, but the others kept just bouncing off its hide. D'you have a magic sword, or something?"

"Ah. Not that I'm aware of... but I did have a sort of holy vision? A great eye looked down on me and saw through me, saw all that I would ever be and said it was good, showed me a vision of the woman I will become - leader of armies, builder of cities, crusader nonpareil - and guided my blade as an instrument of its will."

"A destined hero! Exciting!"

"And so I intend to live in the woods, and kill monsters, and never interact with an army or a city ever again."

"Huh!"

There's a lengthy pause.

"I get that, yeah."

"...you do? I'm not sure I get it."

"If somebody helps you out, and you ask why, and he says you're going to do me a favor, the favor's worse than what he helped you with."

"...right. Because if it wasn't, he'd do it himself."

"Let's go with that."

Beða isn't actually sure what that means! It also seems like he doesn't want to talk about it.

"...is the venison done?"

Aḥyl squints at it. "It'll be a bit juicy."

"I don't mind that as long as it doesn't make me lose my guts."

"Then dinner is served."

Dinner is served. The venison is, as promised, slightly rare. The water is wined appropriately, since neither of them is a priest. They roast a couple of roots in the coals after, for snacking tomorrow.

It's a better meal than she's had since the last she had across her family's dinner table.

Aḥyl must be a good cook.

Let's go with that.

Beða wakes up with... something in her head. There's something she can do. The sun is rising. While the sun rises, she can do something. It's important. She needs to do it.

"Aaaaaaaa?" she asks.

Aḥyl wakes up and promptly levitates a rock. "Monster?" he asks blearily.

"No?" she hypothesizes.

"Okay."

Saying this, he casually tosses aside the rock and goes back to sleep.

There will be no help from the preadolescent corner today, apparently.

Okay. She... can do something. It's important that she do it now.

She does not trust this.

If it were important for her to walk over towards something, and she had never walked, she could... wiggle her foot. Can she wiggle the important thing.

She can wiggle the important thing. Kind of. There's an action that makes it slightly clearer what she's supposed to be doing with it? She's got all these choices, see-

She has wiggled the thing. She is no longer wiggling the thing.

:(

Okay. The thing-appendage still really wants her to do the thing. And she has choices.

Do you know what else is a choice?

Going and taking a nice cold bath in the river. And seeing if she can catch a fish. She's heard you can kind of wiggle your fingers so they look like worms, then punch the fish in the face. That sounds fun.

:((((((((

The Important Thing decreases in salience as the sun rises further above the horizon. By the time the sky's fully blue, it doesn't even register. Also, she has three fish.

Fish!

She brings them back to the fire, then nudges Aḥyl in the side with her foot. "Wake up, I have fish."

"It is very wicked to kick children," Aḥyl complains as he sits up. He falls forward so his face is on his knees. "You are being wicked."

"I told you I would and I told you I was," she says smugly. "Don't go back to sleep or I'll do it again."

"Maaaaah." He sits up. "I'll gut your stupid fish, give me a minute."

He wobbles off towards the river and comes back a few minutes later. He cleans the fish with the practiced ease of a coastdweller, then performs the arcane processes of cooking them.

"How did you get so good at cooking, anyway?"

"Herbalist's training, orphanhood, and a strong stomach." He pokes a filet. "The herbalism meant I didn't have to survive on grilled rabbits, cook actual food instead. The orphan thing meant nobody was going to cook for me, so I'd better learn. And the strong stomach meant I could keep down what I'd fucked up."

"When did your parents die?" Arrobeða asks.

"Never knew 'em. I was raised by a witch. Hence the herbalism."

"And she died as well?"

"I should damn well hope so, with the hole I put in her head. But, you know. She did the cooking. So I learned to do my own."

Timelines, timelines...

"How old were you?"

"I would love for you to tell me how I should know."

"You said I was four years older than you."

"Why did you think I knew how old you are? It was an estimate! You're a teenager and I'm not yet!"

"...how many winters ago did you kill your foster witch."

"Ech. Math. ..............four? I think four."

"That's not math, that's counting," she says, as she tries to process the concept of a child four years younger than this already tiny child putting a rock through his caretaker's skull, presumably under threat of death.

"Makes my head hurt either way. Have some fish."

Fish.

Fish!

"So how'd your parents die?" he asks. "Since you got my sob story."

"How. Did you know that."

"Basic context clues? Your voice did a thing when you were asking about mine."

"Orcs. Um. Six months ago."

"Shame," Aḥyl says. "Did you kill the orcs?"

"I was away. In the city. By the time I got back..."

"Do you want to kill the orcs?"

"Yes. I... thought I couldn't. Because they'd killed Father, and, and he knew what he was doing with a sword."

"Kind of looked like you knew what you were doing with a sword. Back there, with the chimera. And I don't think orcs have bullet-proof hides."

The sudden need to do this rushes through her, leaving her half-nauseous in its wake. "You'll come with me, then."

"If I didn't want a good fight I wouldn't have come along in the first place."

"Finish your breakfast and come along, then. We need to go up the coast through the mountains - and I'll carry you on my back if I have to."

"Carry me on your back anyway?"

"Oh, fine."

The next morning the IMPORTANT THING is BACK. IT'S IMPORTANT.

fuck offffffffff

NO

Well she's not getting back to sleep. Maybe she'll take another fishing-bath.

WHY

Mostly spite at this point.

:(!!!!!!!!

The bath helps her wake up properly. She likes the water. Father used to call her "little nixie", and when she learned what nixie meant she went and fished up a load of pondweed and made herself a crown of it, so she could be a proper one. Her father laughed and laughed. Then her crown turned out to be full of baby leeches, and they had to bleach her hair and shave it off.

It was worth it, obviously. She'd never seen him laugh so hard. And he'd held her and sung the whole time while they took her hair, and it almost made up for the trouble.

She's going to kill every orc in whatever cave sent them for him.

She will be more effective in combat if she DOES THE IMPORTANT THING.

How so.

The thing will give her magic! She can use it to cast spells! Many of the spells will slightly improve her sword! Or heal people! Or create pure water like how priests do! Or make enemies want to fight her instead of Aḥyl!

And what spells does the Important Thing want her to choose?

The water spell and the protecting-Aḥyl spell.

Sword blessing and the one over there that can fix exhaustion, please.

:/

She's not your dancing monkey. She is here to kill things. Sword blessing and restoration, please.

FINE

She returns to camp. She didn't catch any fish this time. It's fine; she and Aḥyl are both remarkably good at hunting.

Footprod. "Wake up, I have magic."

"You are the wickedest woman I have ever met."

Long-distance travel on foot is really unpleasant.

Aḥyl knows how to make soap, which helps them not smell like shit. It always smells faintly meaty even when he adds a bunch of crushed flower juice to it, which is annoying. After about a week of not actually needing to fight anything more threatening than a grizzly bear, and a mention from the tiny alchemist that he can't really ferment wine on the go, Beða (with bad grace) swaps her sword-enhancement for the water spell. The restoration stays.

There's a lot of trudging. There's enough edible greenery and fresh berries at first to break up the endless venison (and occasional bear), but as they enter the mountains it gets sparser and sparser. Aḥyl dries a supply of berries and a few full-sized fruits, and they can gnaw on them, strictly rationed, until they get where they're going.

"You have the forestry skills of a tuna," Aḥyl marvels. "How'd you make it this far south in the first place?"

"I walked in a random direction with a pack full of garbage. Then I was caught in a blizzard, fell unconscious, and woke up in a caravan. They saw the sword and thought I might make a decent guard if they thawed me."

"First: why aren't we traveling with a caravan now? Second: were you any good?"

"First: I want to be an awful hermit for the rest of my life and it seems like that would interfere. I put up with you because you won't leave. Second: gods no. But it turns out that having a big shiny sword and arms like a blacksmith is a good half of the job, and the rest I could pick up en route."