by Pirateaba
Light and warmth spill out into the cold night. I blink.
“Ryoka?”
A familiar face fills the doorway. It’s strange, but she hasn’t changed a bit.
“Hi, Erin.”
She beams at me. I can barely lift my head. I’m back.
All the strength goes out of my legs. I collapse forwards, onto Erin.
She yelps and catches me just in time.
“Ryoka? What’s wrong?”
“I’m back.”
“Are you hurt? Are you tired? Hold on, let me—who’s this?”
I try to pick myself up as Erin fumbles for the door. It’s almost comedic so I smile, but then I see Mrsha peeking anxiously at Erin from the snow.
“Mrsha.”
“Who?”
Erin’s face is a picture of confusion as I turn and beckon. The Gnoll hesitates, but she steps into the warm inn and sniffs the air.
“Oh! She’s so cute!”
Erin bends down and Mrsha leaps back out the door like a wild animal. I sigh.
“It’s okay. Erin—this is Erin Solstice, Mrsha. She’s a friend.”
A friend. I hold the door open. Mrsha hesitates, but she pads in again. This time Erin maintains a respectful distance.
“Where did she come from, Ryoka?”
How can I explain? I just sigh.
“It’s a long story. Her name is Mrsha. She’s just kid. I brought her here because there’s nowhere else for her to go.”
Mrsha pads a bit into the room, her nails clicking on the floorboards. She’s on all fours—it seems Gnolls alternate between two and four legs and she’s still used to four legs for movement. She sniffs and stares at the dim embers in the fireplace, but she stays next to me.
Erin look at Mrsha, eyes widening as she realizes what I mean.
“Oh no. Did you—was she lost? Or…abandoned?”
“Neither. Her tribe’s gone, Erin.”
It’s all I can say right now. Even that hurts. Erin’s eyes widen, but it takes her only a few seconds to get it. She’s lived in this world as long as I have. Possibly longer. She knows what I mean.
“I’m so sorry. Hey sweetie, are you alright?”
Erin bends down with a big smile for Mrsha. But Mrsha just edges away. She hides behind a table, staring at Erin. I can’t blame her for being afraid.
“Mrsha. It’s alright. Erin’s not dangerous. She’s nice. She’ll help look after you.”
Better than I can. Mrsha peeks up at Erin from around the table and I realize how thin she’s gotten. She barely ate after that first night, and without food—
Erin lets Mrsha sniff at her hand, but Mrsha’s still shy. She looks up at Erin with wide eyes, and I realize that she’s probably only the second Human that Mrsha’s ever met.
Too bad. If she’d met Erin first—
I close my eyes. It all hurts.
I lean on one of Erin’s tables, exhausted. My hand splays out and Erin looks down and gasps.
“Your hand—”
I grimace. It’s still hard for me to look at the stumps. I wrapped them in some bandages, but—
“It doesn’t matter. I’ll tell you later.”
“Tell me later? Ryoka, what hap—”
“Feed her first. She hasn’t had any food today.”
I point to Mrsha. My stomach is empty, and I’m about to pass out from hunger. Mrsha must be worse off. Her ears perk up when I say ‘food.’
Erin’s still hesitating. She’s looking at my hand, and that makes me…irritated. I know it’s bad. Haven’t I stared at it every second of every day? But that’s not important.
“Erin. Food.”
My friend jerks and Mrsha jumps back. Erin looks around wildly.
“Food? We’ve got food. There’s some leftover meat—uh—where did Toren put it?”
She raises her voice to shout for the damn skeleton.
“T—”
“Don’t.”
I have to raise my voice in a half-shout that scares both Erin and Mrsha. Both look at me.
“What?”
“Don’t call Toren. You’ll scare her.”
I can’t believe I have to explain it to her. My temper—it flares and goes out. Not Erin’s fault. Erin blinks at me, and then looks at Mrsha.
“Oh, right!”
My teeth grit together as Erin rushes into the kitchen and goes looking for the food. Why am I angry? I mean, why am I angry at her? It’s not Erin’s fault if she’s thoughtless—
Control yourself. I can’t be trust my emotions at the moment. I take a few deep breaths as the chill leaves me and exhaustion fills my limbs. It’s okay. Everything’s okay now.
It’s really not, but I tell myself that until Erin returns. She’s got some food wrapped in cloth and she’s dusting off snow. It turns out she’s got meat—part of a roasted fowl and some sliced meet, cold bread, and cheese.
She must have put in the snow to keep it preserved. Doesn’t she know that will attract scavengers and monsters? If she thought for one damn second—
Calm down.
Erin adds more wood to the fire as she unwraps the food.
“Sorry—you can put it near the fire to warm up. And uh, I don’t think Toren’s in the inn. He must have gone outside.”
“Fine.”
The meat is cold and hard from being kept outside. I barely taste it, but gulp it down. Mrsha’s eating just as fast. Erin watches us gobble the food up and goes to get more.
“Enough.”
I say it after a few more minutes of frantic eating. Mrsha looks at me.
“Don’t eat too much or you’ll get sick.”
Heavy food on an empty stomach. Already I feel a tiny bit nauseous, but I’m alive. Alive.
Erin hovers around me and Mrsha, a pitcher of warm milk in her hands. I know she wants to ask questions, and I don’t want to say anything. All I want to do is sleep. Sleep and not have to deal with this. But I’ve got to deal with this.
“Why didn’t you eat? I mean, didn’t you have any more food?”
No, we starved ourselves for the fun of it. I bite my lip. Calm.
“We ran out of food a day ago.”
It was either stop to forage or press on. I wasn’t sure whether I could find anything—or whether I’d be able to get out of danger if I met a monster—so we just kept moving.
Mrsha shudders. She reaches for a glass of milk and gulps it greedily. I stare at her and feel another pang. That’s one more thing I have to answer for.
Erin sees me looking. I don’t know what she sees on my face. I don’t want to know. Looking at her expression is bad enough.
“Ryoka, what happened?”
At last, Erin puts the jug on the table and sits next to me, staring. Mrsha hesitates, but the Gnoll just edges away from Erin a bit as she chews at some scraps on her plate. I sigh.
“It’s a long story.”
“Tell me. Please? All I know is that you were going on a long delivery, but the Frost Faeries chased you away. Did they do this?”
“No.”
They might have. But—they’re malicious, deceitful, antagonistic—and yet, I know they like children. No, they would never have organized this, even if they could.
And Erin’s staring at me. Just staring. I want to tell her, but I don’t. I want to bury the memories forever, and another part of me wants to confess my failure.
I hesitate. Mrsha’s still sitting here. But she’s not going to let me put her away so easily. And it needs to be said. So I look at Erin.
“Fine.”
No one else has to know. I may never tell the entirety of what passed again. But Erin knows me. I know Erin. We haven’t known each other for long, but I trust her. More than almost anyone in this damn world. She helped save Ceria with me. She…
Might understand.
Slowly, I begin to speak. I tell Erin everything that passed since I ran out her inn being chased by the faeries. Some of it is unimportant. The long days of being torment
ed by them – meaningless now. They’re almost pleasant memories to what came next.
And I can’t describe what passed in the Gnoll’s camp. I just tell Erin I entertained the faeries with stories and leave it at that. What I felt then is too precious to break down into a short paragraph.
Then comes the battle between the two armies. And the necromancer. Erin listens, asking questions I don’t answer, wondering, speculating. But this is all a prelude.
When I speak of the night that Mrsha lost everything, the Gnoll child flattens herself to the ground and covers her eyes with her paws, shaking. Tears trickle down her face. Erin looks at her but I keep going.
It must be said. And it’s so easy, too.
“I struck a bargain with the faeries. They helped save Mrsha and me, but the Stone Spears tribe—all of them—we left them behind to the Goblins. The army was in retreat and I ran with the faeries. They froze everything in our way. I don’t know what happened to the others.”
The memories almost wipe the living world from me. I see ghosts, blood, and death. But the world swims back into vision when I hear Erin crying.
She’s crying. My eyes are dry. Erin’s shoulder shake as she stares at me. It hurts. Her sympathy hurts. I look away.
Erin wipes tears from her eyes. She goes to pet Mrsha, but the Gnoll jerks away. She scampers under a table and curls up into a ball.
Heartbreak. My eyes are dry, and my soul is bleeding. I look at Erin.
“We came back. The faeries are still around. Mrsha has nowhere to go. Can you take care of her at your inn?”
“Of—of course. Absolutely. No problem.”
Erin looks around for something to blow her nose on. In the end she runs into the kitchen and comes out with a dirty rag. I eye her as she wipes the snot from her face.
“I’m so, so sorry.”
“You’ve said that. It happened.”
Nothing can change that. I sit at the table and stare at my fingers. So much, and yet so little. Not enough of a price, and yet—
They’re gone. Forever. No potion will bring them back. Not even Magnolia’s healer friend can restore missing body parts, just restore damaged ones.
Gone forever. A small price to pay.
“The Goblin Lord is still out there.”
I clench my hand, ignoring the pain. I sense Erin grow still as she sits next to me. I look at her.
“You need to be careful. His army was many days south of here, but he could come north. If he does—”
“If we does we’ll see. But for now you’re safe. I’ll lock the doors and Toren should be back. I’ll tell him to guard the inn.”
“Fine.”
Erin fidgets in her seat. I look at her. Why is she so easy to read? Doesn’t she have any…
“What is it, Erin?”
She hesitates.
“Um. Rags is in the area. With another Goblin.”
Silence. In my heart. I feel my fingers throbbing.
“Keep her away. If I see a Goblin right now I will kill it.”
I meet Erin’s eyes. Mine feel like they’re burning. She looks startled, but not afraid. Have I ever seen Erin afraid? But then her expression clouds and I see…disappointment.
It makes me angry. How can she judge me, when she’s heard what happened? How can she let Goblins into this inn?
How can—
I need her. I try to stuff the insanity welling up in my chest further down, but it keeps bubbling up. Pockets of madness.
“What happened here?”
I ask to distract myself. I don’t know that I really care. Erin hesitates. Now she looks worried.
“Oh, nothing much. Nothing…too important.”
“Erin.”
“Well…okay, some stuff happened.”
“Tell me.”
Hesitate. Fidget. She looks at Mrsha, and then at her hands. I stare at her. At last, Erin gives in and begins to chatter nervously.
“Oh I met some Gold-rank adventurer’s after I took this girl into my inn. She’s sort of annoying but they were going to let her die in the cold if I didn’t help. So that led to a fight and then I found out the faerie flowers were useful and I kicked Relc out after he got mad at Rags’ Goblin friend and ImaybewenttoseeLadyMagnoliatoday and—”
It’s like someone’s sent a jolt of electricity down my spine. My eyes fly open, and my heart begins to beat again. Anger stirs in my chest, a dark, twisting thing.
“What did you just say?”
“I met Lady Magnolia. Look, she sent a carriage to my inn, Ryoka, and I thought—”
“You just got in, didn’t you? Just like that, without a second damn thought?”
“I—”
Erin spreads her hands out helplessly. As if to say ‘what should I have done’? It makes me ever angrier. My voice rises, and Mrsha, half-dozing, looks up.
“What did you tell her?”
“Um.”
Erin scratches her head. She can’t even remember.
“Nothing much…? But she knows I’m from our world. I mean, another world. And uh, she’s got other people.”
“Other people from our world?”
Damn her. My heart is beating faster. Erin nods.
“Yeah, she’s got a bunch of girls and guys. They’re younger than us, but they want to become adventurers. But uh, Magnolia doesn’t want them to leave. She’s afraid they’ll tell the secrets of our world.”
“And she knows those secrets? She knows everything?”
Erin can’t meet my eye.
“…Yeah. She knows about guns and stuff.”
“Fuck.”
I hit the table with my good hand. Erin looks worried. She reaches out to me, but I knock her hand away.
“I didn’t tell her anything important, Ryoka! She just wanted to know if I could be trusted. She tried to use a Skill on me, but it didn’t work—”
“You shouldn’t have been near her in the first place!”
I jab at Erin with one finger. She looks indignant.
“Why not? You met her!”
“Before I knew how dangerous she was. But you—you should have thought before you spoke to her! Did you even hesitate? Or did you see a shiny coach and just decide to get in?”
“Ryoka, that’s not what happened. Listen.”
Erin frowns, but I’m done listening. The beast is in my chest, and the fury is consuming my mind. Too late.
“No. You listen. You going to meet Magnolia is exactly what she wanted. She knows you’re from another world now, you idiot! She had no way of telling, but you gave it away—probably the instant she suggested she knew! And now she knows I know you, she’ll use you to get to me!”
“She wouldn’t do—”
Erin hesitates. Even she can’t finish that sentence. I glare at her. Something’s in my chest. It has control of my tongue.
“You don’t think. You just dance to her strings like a damn puppet, you moron.”
The other girl’s brows snap together.
“Don’t say it like that. I didn’t do anything wrong! I think Magnolia’s on our side.”
“On our side?”
Something in my snaps. All of the hatred, the anger, the frustration and fear and loss—it spews out of me, like poison.
“You fucking idiot. Don’t you ever think? No. you don’t. You just go ahead and do whatever’s in your empty head without a second’s regard for the consequences. Because of you, one of the most dangerous people in the world knows your secret and she’ll never give up. This is all your fault, you airheaded brat.”
I can’t stop the torrent. I don’t even want to. Erin stares at me first in shock and hurt, and then outrage.
“I’m not an idiot! Ryoka, just listen—”
“Shut up.”
“No! You shut up and listen!”
“So I can hear more of the lies Magnolia’s put in your head? But you believe what she’s told you without any doubt. Just how stupid are you!?”
I’m going too far
. I know it, but I can’t stop. Erin’s face freezes.
“Don’t call me stupid.”
“Why not? You’re the dumbest person I’ve ever met.”
“Ryoka. I’m warning you—”
“Oh? And what will you do?”
“Just don’t call me names! Listen to me for a second!”
“No. Fuck you. You’re an incompetent buffoon.”
I poke Erin in the chest, hard. Too far. Stop. Erin grabs my hand.
“Don’t touch m—”
I throw her. Erin slams into the table and I realize I’ve gone too far. She gets up fast. I raise my hands.
I want to fight. I want to hit something. But the rest of me wants to stop. A voice is screaming inside my head, the same voice that shouted when I fought Calruz.
But it’s too loud. Everything hurts. My heart is in pieces. I just want to hit something, and get hit back. Maybe then—
Erin swings at me. Slow. Clumsy. I step back and punch her. With my bad hand. My stumps collide with her chest and I grab at my hand in agony.
While I’m bent over, Erin clenches her fist. She punches at my chest. I see the blow coming a mile away. I raise my arms to block—
—-
Thump.
The impact was so heavy it made Ryoka’s entire world disappear for a second. The impact sent her flying backwards. Ryoka flipped over the table and hit the floor. She lay there, silent and breathless for a few seconds, before she gasped and rolled to one side.
Erin stood, shaking as she stared at Ryoka. [Minotaur Punch]. She hadn’t meant to use it. She hesitated. Should she go and help—
Something sharp stabbed into Erin’s ankle. She screamed in pain at it began to gnaw at her flesh, like needles jabbing into her skin.
“Aaaah!”
Erin shout and waved her arms in a panic as she tried to shake off the thing that was biting her. She flung the attacker off and too late, saw Mrsha fly through the air. The Gnoll child crashed into a table and fell to the ground, whimpering in pain.
“Oh no, I’m so sorry—”
Ignoring her bleeding ankle, Erin rushed over. Mrsha blink as she got to all fours, and then her eyes focused on Erin. She snapped and Erin nearly lost a finger. Mrsha leapt at Erin, and the girl yelled in pain as Mrsha tried to claw at her face.
“Mrsha! Stop!”
The Gnoll paused. She looked over as Ryoka got to her feet. The other girl was clutching at her chest, wincing, but she was unharmed. She pointed at Erin.