“He’snot a cryptid. And I’m not—no. Absolutely not.”
Booger raises both hands. “Hey, no judgment. If I found a hot death-shaman in the woods, I’d bring her home too.”
Burnout nods sagely. “Respect.”
Olivia turns to me, glaring. “Don’t make that face.”
“I am not making a face.”
“Youlook amused.”
“I am always amused when your kind dig holes with their tongues.”
“You’re impossible.”
“I am very possible. I amhere.”
She groans and waves at the door. “Out. Both of you.”
Booger and Burnout shuffle backward, still grinning like feral possums. “Bye, Mr. Gwar!”
“Say hi to your battle drums!”
“Leave,” I growl, spear in hand.
They flee.
Later, after the sun dies behind the trees and the world turns violet, Olivia sits at the tiny kitchen table, cradling a mug of steaming brown liquid.
“You handled that... mostly okay,” she says.
“I did not kill them.”
“That’s the new bar for success, huh?”
“In battle, yes.”
She smirks.
I pace the room again, restless. This place is too still. Too open. No watchfires. No brothers. No wind howling through stone. Just strange boxes humming and Olivia watching me with those deep, unreadable eyes.
“You are brave,” I say again.
“You keep saying that.”
“It remains true.”
She sips her drink, shrugging. “I’m just trying not to die.”
“That is bravery, Olivia of House Wilkins. Not the absence of fear—but the will to move through it.”
For a moment, she doesn’t reply. Just watches me.
“You can stay. For now. But don’t eatallthe rations this time. And if anyone comes by, you’re not Kursk the Battle Bard of Gwar, okay? You’re my… cousin from Norway.”
“Norway?”
“Close enough.”
