I'll have to sort out some kind of sheath for the knife back at the house.
The beastgirl isn't wearing boots, so can't slip it down the side, and it's not going to stay in her waistband… I wonder how my phone is doing after being stuffed down there?
GET YOUR MIND OUT OF THE GUTTER!!!
"Ahem…"
We put our equipment back in the bundle, for now, and I set about trying to formulate a plan with my party member.
I grab the dry end of the stick I chopped up earlier and start drawing in the mud at the edge of the stream.
We're not going to get everything sorted in one day, so I put tallies from | to ||||||| on the ground, separated by about a foot each time. That should get across the idea of a week, hopefully, so long as it's the same number of days in this world.
Using normal numbers or letters or whatever wouldn't make much sense. If we can't even talk, it's unlikely that we'll be able to read each other's languages.
Hell, with how weird the beastperson language sounds, all animalistic caterwauls and howling, it might not even have a written form. How am I ever gonna learn how to speak it? There's probably pitches and tones a human won't even be able to differentiate or replicate.
Anyway, we can work on that while we travel together. I'll pick it up eventually, even if it takes months… years…
No.
No more spiralling. Come on.
It won't take that long.
For now, plan.
Worry later.
I shake my head and point to the first tally.
This'll be what we do today. I hesitate, not sure where to actually start.
I draw a little sun at the top and a crescent moon where the mud becomes lush green embankment. At least that might get across passage of time and how to prioritise what needs doing and by when each day.
The beastgirl intently watches my kindergarten scribbling with an expression of amused bemusement.
Glad I'm entertaining with all this…
Actually, I'm glad she's engaged. I thought I'd have a harder time convincing her to join me on quest seeking, but she seems open and willing to entertain leaving. I mean, what is she really leaving behind?
Anyway, we're gonna need supplies.
I doodle some random foods in each day: a chicken drumsticks T-bone steak, carrot, err…
I have no idea how to draw anything else. Broccoli would look like a tree, eggs are just off circles, and fried ones are wonky flowers.
Hmm…
Maybe bread?
I go to draw the usual slice shape, then realize they might not even have that here. The chunk we had the other day was like a proper loaf.
My hand remains wavering in mid air. I want to show that we need to stockpile a little every day, but it feels stupid to reuse symbols already. We need a variety of non-perishable goods.
Ahh…
Settling on drawing a rustic oval shaped farmhouse loaf - with the slits in the crust and steam rising from it - I go to move onto the last day.
The beast girl erupts with raucous laughter. Pointing and screaming in hysterics.
As I turn my head back towards the drawing, my eyes still glued on her teared up face, it dawns on my before I even look at the bread again what she's found so funny.
It looks like a turd.
Goddammit.
I pat the area flat again - so it's easier to draw something else - with a few large leaves, which gets another burst of belly laughs from the beast girl.
Oh god, I bet she thinks I'm wiping up the crap. How can she be so immature?
An infectious grin spreads across my face, while I stifle giggles in my throat. OK, hypocrite, it is pretty funny.
I let out my own amusement as my brain kicks into gear, the babble of the brook inspiring me a little.
A fish!
Annnddddd…
A banana?
No!
She'll laugh at that too.
AN APPLE!!!
Nothing funny about an apple. I can put the little leaf and the stem and it'll be more obvious.
Cherries and a bunch of grapes make up the last couple of days.
How do elementary preschoolers make drawing basic things seem so easy?!.
Trying to remember just seven food items was absolute torture!
Right, that's scavenging provisions every day sorted. What's next?
I spend most of an hour scratching out our plan with sketchy symbols for things like money, clothes, and other equipment. It's hard to judge whether all the hieroglyphs make complete sense to the beastgirl, but she nods along, or points and growls or burbles from time to time, and even rubbed out a couple of things.
It's a lot to try and get down, but once the days are filled with a few pictographs each, I feel contented enough with the plan to sit back and take a breather.
The slight breeze coming down the mountain is further chilled by the river, so I take off my shoes for a minute and let my feet cool before we get started. Lying back in the grass to just take in the weather.
The beastgirl, finally uncurling herself, follows suit.
It's nice.
This.
It's confusing but comforting how easy it is to be around her. Like we've known each other forever. I guess we're just fast friends, though I'd believing in such a thing.
It came to make sense to keep people a little distant. You can't get hurt that way.
When my parents had to move for work, I thought I'd be the interesting new transfer kid, but no one seemed to care much.
It's not always from the city to a village, or vice versa, making you somewhat exotic to the locals. Most moves for work are from one middling town to another. We did it once after elementary school, so I started middle school afresh. Then again after my first year of high school.
It sucks having to make new friends when you'll be uprooted and never see them again in a couple of years. You always mean to stay in touch, but life and distance just get in the way.
That's why I spend my time online.
It's easy to keep in contact with players on a friend list or other users across forums and stuff.
Having a real connection, in person, for the first time in years… it's nostalgic.
I remember being pretty outgoing as a little kid. I'd make friends everywhere. All my relatives who had kids, cousins no matter how distant, regardless of age gaps, were always willing to play when I asked.
Heck, every kid at my aunts' and uncles' and grandparents' places, around school, in the neighbourhood I grew up in, even randoms in the park or street, were my friends in minutes.
When did that stop?
Where did that popular child go?
A knot of frustration tightens in my chest and I push it down to not spoil the pleasant mood from lying on a riverbank, midsummer, with a new friend.
My first companion in another world.
That means something.
I sit up, emboldened to do some dumb childish blood brother's pact by cutting our finger tips and pressing them together… but thankfully fob off the idea as too over the top and juvenile.
Uh… what would be a good bonding thing?
The beastgirl's face becomes expectant from my enthusiastic movement.
Oh!
Get her to teach you some words in her language!
That'd make things easier and I'd be indebted to her, so maybe she'd be more confident about me not just abandoning her.
Nodding with determination, I get the beastgirl's attention and point at the first symbol on the first day. A little sack with coins around it.
"Money."
The beastgirl, who was in the middle of sitting up, pauses. Part way propped up on one arm. She gives me a look that questions what I just said, as well as my intelligence and sanity.
…
After sitting the rest of the way up, crossing her legs, and adopting the air of a superior, the beastgirl folds her arms with a serious expression.
"Bark."
Bark?
Huh!
WHAT?!.
I point at the chicken leg.
"Food."
"Bark."
My jaw swings on loose hinges.
I point at the money again.
"Bark."
The drumstick.
"Bark."
There's no difference!
Or if there is a difference I cannot hear it.
I clear my throat, point at the bag of coins, and… bark.
By bark, I mean I literally say the word.
I'm pretty sure I can hear a vein pop in her head.
The beast girl's pulse is clearly visible in her temple. She's gritting her teeth in a grimace that could shatter them like ice at any moment.
"Bark? Bark! BARK!!!"
She actually - well sorta - verbalized the word bark, then barked at me properly.
I try to copy the sound.
"Bärk."
"Bark."
"Bárk."
"Bark!"
"Bârk."
"BARK!!!"
"Ba- oh this is hopeless…"
This is so frustrating. I've not been this wound up since I found out I have that gene that makes cilantro, coriander, whatever you call it, taste like soap.
I always thought everyone else was pulling a prank. That they were lying about it being this tasty herb in whatever they were eating, then somehow added a bit soap to mine as a joke. I spent a month trying every product I could find that had it in, eventually getting both dried and fresh leaves to eat raw, desperately trying to taste anything but soap.
A flavour I would never be able to taste.
Hopefully this isn't the same.
Hopefully I'll be able to pick up the animal tones eventually, and be able to emulate them.
Maybe we'll have a better time getting her to copy me?
…
No.
After another back and forth, just as infuriating as the first, I abandon language lessons for today. We have other things to get done.
That… and she punches me.
Guess neither of us are particularly patient people.
Thankfully, we both laugh about it pretty quickly.
For the rest of the day I occasionally bark - without putting effort into the sound - while pointing at random things and she cracks a snicker.
Surprisingly, the symbols on our plan translated quite well. The beastgirl working effectively as both guide and negotiator in every interaction.
We manage to score some labouring work with the warehouse I found the yesterday, gofering about for minimal pay in soaring heat for a wriggling mass of entities packed into a giant shed. It was tiring as all heck, and by noon, we'd both drank and sweated out our body weights in water twice over.
The temperature for the day must have been a record high, so as soon as they broke for lunch, we bolted out to dunk our heads in a rainwater catchment trough outside.
We hadn't secured food first, and the beings of the warehouse did not provide anything, so we went dripping through town to find something quick.
Whatever creatures of shadow or flesh that we were working for did not seem to stop their own labours for a second, looking up to acknowledge the beastgirl mewing out her need for food, and nothing more. Their limbs still sawing and striking all around the room in unison.
She beamed as we departed, and soon traversed the side streets to slip in through the back door of what proved to be a grocers.
Again, her smile and self assurance carried us through the place in no time at all. The owner, a wizened monkey - grey and wispy - sitting behind a low bench, at first barely seemed alive. However, as soon as he recognised the beastgirl, his energy returned, matching her own. They made short work of gathering more items than we'd need for several days.
I didn't even notice her pay, so I assume because it's such a small community, you can buy on tick and pay later.
I cannot imagine any of my local convenience stores doing that. Even my favourite one, where I'm basically on first name terms with all the staff, wouldn't let me take out store credit. I've tried; I'm there daily.
We wolf down a quarter of our supplies, bundle up the rest in a cloth bag we magicked up along the way, hide it behind some crates in the shade of the warehouse, and get back to work.
By early evening, as the first dimming of the day becomes noticeable, our clothes are sticking to us like candy wrappers.
We're glistening through the fabrics.
I can almost get a sweet eye full…
No.
Bad.
Stop.
I feel too disgusting for thoughts like that right now…
After doing a full day's work with a friend at my side, elbowing each other and bantering away in our limited fashion - mostly slap stick physical comedy, practical jokes, funny faces, and pointing to laugh at someone or thing that's happened - I'm pretty fulfilled.
Exhausted.
In need of a bath.
Ready for dinner.
But, proud of the work we were able to get done.
Even if the pay doesn't seem like much - I still have no idea of the value of things here - and our boss is an unimaginable creature from beyond the veil - who's isn't - we earned it ourselves.
My parents would be proud.
Hell, I'm proud!
Of me… of us!
We did a great job!
If we do this every day, we'll end the week with enough to cover all our meals, plus spare for our travel rations. Maybe even another week's worth of food on top of that, with change left over for emergencies. Here's hoping anyway.
I don't think we'll be able to afford any equipment off a week's labouring, but a whistle stop tour of the highsteet - the beastgirl as my expert guide making things a lot quicker than my panicked wandering from the previous day - turns up nowhere offering adventuring gear.
Guess we really are out in the boonies.
This is just a small mountain village after all, but still.
I had hoped to get some light armour or a proper weapon at least.
Oh well… The next place down the valley will probably be bigger and have more stuff. We should be able to pick up work there, make more money, and buy what we're currently lacking.
As angry as I have been about the beastman and orc - using that fire to fuel my work, and the work itself to distract me from going off to kill them for hurting my party member - I think I could leave here without seeking revenge against them.
Maybe the quests here are more open ended like a sandbox game?
This could be a moral dilemma with a pick your own path element.
Hunting down the local bad guys to enact vigilante justice on their asses might seem cool and all, but it could impact things further down the line.
Taking the high road, escaping without resorting to violence, might give me a buff of some kind in place of experience points and loot.
Hmm…
Sure would be satisfying to go medieval on them, literally!
Lost in thought while the beast girl animatedly chatters with the old lizard men at the hardware store, I really am contented.
After everything that's gone on, all the stress and terror and anxiety, things are finally going to plan.
We're working hard - I know it's only day one, but still - and we're making progress.
Let's keep it up team!
I wave to my companion and she bounds over, waving in turn to the lizard folk, and we head up the hill to our perch shrouded in tall grass.
There's an easy calm and quiet between us.
As much as the summer seems to have gotten my blood up, the platonic feelings I have for the beastgirl are already deeply rooted.
It's like we've had each other's backs for the longest time.
She shoots me a grin, her still swollen cheek, but less so than it was this morning.
I smile back.
Yeah, this is nice.
…
A rock hits me above the ear.
It stings and knocks me dizzy, my vision wobbling while I try to focus on the stone at my feet.
About the size a golf ball and jagged in the nastiest ways.
I close my eyes and hold my head still.
The spinning stops with enough time for me to turn and see the beastman coming down the hill towards us, the goblin at the crest picking up another rock.
I pass off the bag of supplies to the beastgirl.
Guess I'm not taking the high road after all.
[VIOLENT CONTENT WARNING]
At the violet hour...
The axe and knife are in my hands before the beastman can take another step, stopping him in his tracks.
The goblin, seeing my weapons, freezes mid aim, rock still in hand. Even a few dozen feet away I can see his eyes bulging with fear and uncertainty. Greasy globules of sweat forming on and falling from its brow.
I stand my ground.
Planting my feet in a wide stance so I can react in any direction. Blood boiling in my veins. Like battery acid.
My stomach leaps wildly, a little reflux reaching my throat. The adrenaline has kicked in hard, but I'm keeping it channelled on fight today.
Chittering from the ridge indicates the goblin is losing its nerve.
The beastman growls back and the chatter reduces to a quiet grumble.
He paces the width of the street in front of me a couple of times - tigers and cages - casing the terrain. Trying to work out whether there is a way past me, maybe, or just the best angle of attack.
He stops as far to one side as he can, without stepping off the road and budging up against the wall of the building there. I assume to try and circle toward me, keeping enough space around himself to be responsive and mobile.
His attention shifts and I realise the beastman went to the left to bypass my presence. He's talking directly to the beastgirl.
Howls and whimpers fly back and forth.
Why is she simpering to him?
They beat you.
They did that to your face. For what? Leaving the house? Giving me some food? Why would you give him the time of day?
An image flashes through my mind.
A dark cloud on a clear sky.
She has internal bleeding. They've already beaten her so badly that she could be dying on her feet. The yellowing at the edge implying that it was probably from before we bumped into each other. They hurt her anyway, regardless of my involvement, so why does she bow and scrape?
My grip on the weapons tightens.
I feel like I could throw up.
Their conversation getting more heated and frantic.
The beastman, whether he meant to or not, takes a slight step forward while gesturing with increasing agitation.
I need to do something with this adrenaline before my fight turns to flight.
The goblin, its morale restored from the parlé below, seems ready to throw that second rock.
It takes flight - simultaneously to me.
It lands where I had been standing, skidding through the dust.
Frenzied cries take up all around.
The beastman is slow to turn.
I have him.
The knife in my left comes up - a lick slow.
His arm slips just out of the way.
A smirk creeps across my face.
He fell for it.
I pivot.
The axe comes down in my right, the full rotation of my body behind it.
I have him!
…
The hatchet bites deep.
…
I HAVE HIM!
…
Lower than I expected.
WHAT?!.
I raise my head to see it buried in the road.
THE HELL?!.
My eyes swivel in my skull.
I feel like a chameleon trying to take in the full 360 around me to grasp what happened.
He fell for my faint. I actually manage to do one for starters, and he moved right into the path of my other weapon. Just as I'd hoped. I should have cracked his skull. I should have snapped his shoulder, or spine, or ribs…
How did he dodg-
The beastgirl is lying on top of the beastman. Pinning both of them to the floor. A hair's breadth lower than the arc of the axe head.
Why?
WHY WOULD SHE SAVE HIM?!.
He's one of her abusers!
He hurt her, terribly, and she saves him?
I don't get it…
Dumbfounded. Aghast. Enraged.
I leave the hand axe impaled in the ground and scrabble over to the pair.
I lift the beastgirl bodily from her kin and stamp the beastman back to the earth as he tries to rise.
She yowls and scratches at me.
I swap the knife to my right hand, keeping it pointed at my supine foe, and try to grab my party member's wrist before she blinds me.
"Stop that, please! Come on, calm down!"
I repeat combinations to that effect over and over.
Her panic only increasing as seconds slip by.
The beastman stays quiet at my feet. Hot breath almost visible in plumes.
Cries and squeals from the hill let me know the goblin is basically paralysed with fear, otherwise it would have bolted already.
How do I get a hold of the situation here?
I need her on my side right now.
Why doesn't she see I was trying to protect her?
This is for both of us. After everything they've done. Why would she protect them?
Is this a kind of beaten wife scenario? Stockholm Syndrome do they call it?
My thoughts and split attention collide, she wrenches from my grip, lashing out at my face again. The tip of one claw embedding below my eye before I catch her again, pushing her out of striking distance, keeping a firmer hold.
"FUCKING QUIT IT!!!"
I lose my composure. Out of frustration I yell. Pure venom in my voice.
If tones could kill. I have become a killing word.
Another rock cracks into the same side of my head as before.
Thankfully not in the exact same sport, at least. A little higher, causing it to glance upward, slicing open my scalp.
I don't notice at first, my vision cutting out for a second on impact. Only when a warm pools and cools on my collarbone does it dawn on me.
The goblin got its shit together.
I'm almost impressed for a millisecond before the anger breaks to viciousness.
The beastgirl's a good shot, so is the goblin, maybe they're a family of hunters, that would be a problem.
Fire raging in my chest, the locomotion of my limbs a little out of time, making my actions awkward, I manage to keep the beastgirl at arms length, defending myself from being clawed as her caterwauling continues.
I switch my stance to press the beastman back down under my heel, and raise the knife at the god damn grot.
I want to fly on ferocious wings and stick that filthy pig.
Just a few short bounds up the hill and I could gut it…
The trickle of blood from the gouge below my eye finally drips from my cheek. My senses so heightened I hear it land on my shoe.
Drip.
It reverberates through my foot.
Drip.
It is enough to ground me.
Drip.
It is enough to reign me in from attacking, what? A child sticking up for it's older sibling… or however these monster family ties work. Pack-mate, maybe?
Was I about to shank a kid?
If my party member is this worked up over having one of her abusers knocked down, then she'd probably turn on me completely if I hurt that damn thing.
Standing there, bleeding from the face and head, two beastpersons brought to heel, blade still in hand… I must be a terrifying visage.
At least enough of one to give the goblin pause for thought, but I get the feeling it will find courage again soon, if I don't deal with it or finish things her-
Why am I on an angle?
Thud.
Thump.
I had to toss the knife to brace myself while falling.
My left hand still tangled up with my companion, inadvertently tugged her into the dog pile with me.
The beastman on the bottom having twisted under foot, rolling my leg to the side, and causing our landslide.
Our scrabbling, writhing mess becomes a tug of war on every purchase. A fur covered forearm crashes into my jaw and rakes across my face, forcing my mouth into the dirt. I kick and squirm. Feeling toe and knee, shin and heel, flail between the air and flesh and ground. As the adrenaline ascends, it becomes impossible to work out who is hitting who, eyes clumped with thick sweat, squinting to keep out the muck. Every time I get free of one clamped hand, anchoring me to the ground, my momentary bid for freedom is impinged by another limpet clinging to me. Dragging us back to the depths. I become frantic.
Frustration upon frustration.
Nothing I do is working.
Panic descends.
I'm not screaming, but my breaths are high pitched, hysterical whaling.
Moments of laughter cut through cries.
The barking and yowling of the beastpersons entwining into a cacophony of animal horror.
It's just a wall of noise.
My brain, frantic for a solution to being pinned and restrained and fighting to be released, cannot process the sounds into anything distinct. I can barely discern my own voice in the din. Like a fox and and ally cat scrapping over territory. Screeching to the death.
…
Suddenly I'm standing.
The beastman a bloody pulp at my feet.
The beastgirl cowering from me - over him.
The goblin nowhere to be seen or heard.
Did I win?
What happened?!.
I don't remember anything!
I must have blanked out.
Like when you see a fighter go all ultra instinct and they glide past their opponent's blows with minimal motion. In interviews they say it's like a fugue state. You're detached. A lone audience member in a theatre watching the POV of your body's actions. No control, just pure id.
I don't claim to be a fighter.
The few fights from my past always resulted in more of a beat down, so I just learned to lie there and take it. Do not react until they're bored and leave you alone, like you're meant to during a bear attack.
Guess I must have… hulked out?
Uninhibited survival mode.
No thought, only reaction.
My body too stressed at the risk of danger, short circuiting consciousness to find a neuron that might spark a solution.
The solution was to beat my opponent so bad I can hear the wet of his breathing.
His lips torn and bloody.
I don't know what his teeth or fangs looked like before hand, but in the mulched flesh of his face there are clear white protrusions of bone…
Did I break some of his teeth?
Don't say I snapped his jaw?!.
The numbness of rage subsides, the panic underneath pushes to the fore.
I drop to my knees to check the beastman is ok.
The fuck did I do?!.
This isn't me!
I don't want to hurt people…
I don't want to do this to anyone… I didn't mean it.
"Shit. Please? I'm sorry!"
Horrified at my own capacity for, and the real consequences of violence, my throat starts closing up and I sob apologies while shaking with unspent rage and newfound remorse.
My body wanting to run, to puke, to make everything ok as soon as possible…
How is there so much blood?
While lifting the beastman's arm to try and check his pulse, my eyes refocus on my own gaping knuckles, then the pooling black on the road around his head.
What have I done?!.
"Hey! Are you ok? You're ok, right? Right?!."
I can't do this.
"Ok, ok. Just breath. In, out. You got this…"
How could I do that to someone?
"Look at me! Don't close your eyes!"
I'm a monster.
"Come on! Focus!"
I'm the monster here.
"Wake up! WAKE UP!"
Did I just kill someone?!.
— Un nuevo capítulo llegará pronto — Escribe una reseña
También te puede interesar
Comentario de párrafo
¡La función de comentarios de párrafo ya está en la Web! Mueva el mouse sobre cualquier párrafo y haga clic en el icono para agregar su comentario.
Además, siempre puedes desactivarlo en Ajustes.
ENTIENDO