“I’m afraid I can’t offer anything of use to you.”
There was something about the way Agvaldir’s lips pursed behind his beard before he spoke that dug into Pansy’s mind like a stubborn splinter. Surely, he wouldn’t be so petty as to purposely mislead her all because she’d refused to engage with his usual tactics. However unnerving she might’ve found him, Agvaldir was still a hero by all accounts, a force of Good across the Realm. He’d pledged to help, not to hurt; and though Pansy couldn’t say he’d never harmed anyone, she liked to think that those instances hadn’t been intentional.
“That’s too bad,” she said, slipping the notepad back into her pocket. And then, because proper manners told her to (in a voice that sounded suspiciously like her mother’s), she added, almost automatically, “Thank you for taking a look.”
“Anytime,” Agvaldir replied, lips parting around another too-bright flash of teeth.
Clamping down on the shiver that coiled near the base of her spine, Pansy spun away and headed for the other side of the village square as quickly as she could manage. Not quite scurrying, but close enough that the tempo of her steps matched the rapid-firethump-thumpof her own heartbeat.
It wasn’t until she reached the edge of town that the tension knotting between her shoulder blades finally began to unwind. She let out a breath, her body sagging from the effort. “Well, that’s the last time I ask him for anything,” she muttered. “He’s even more intimidating up close.”
With a sleepy blink, the kitten let out another high-pitched mew. Agreement, if Pansy had ever heard it.
She smiled and gave him another scritch; this time, behind the ears. “Guess, I’m going to have to count on you. Don’t let me down, okay?”
The kitten purred in response.
6
Ren
Yesterday evening, the local constabulary announced that they finally cracked the case regarding a missing shipment of grain. The grain, originally bound for Lord Longless’ stores, was loaded into the back of a cart earlier this week, but vanished shortly thereafter along with its driver. According to Officer Frank Pinkernell, the mystery “unraveled” once they managed to locate the missing cart, which was found abandoned in known goblin territory. He said, “We discovered three different sets of goblin-sized footprints around the cart; plus, a set of clothing fitted for an adult human. Given that eyewitnesses at the mill described the driver as having “a slightly misshapen-looking body”, we now believe that this was not a human man, but a trio of goblins posing as one beneath a heavy cloak.”
“GRAIN GRABBED BY GOBLINS!”,THE LAWFIELD LEDGER, A HUMAN PUBLICATION
Ren awoke to an empty bed doused in yellow sunlight; not the thin rays of early morning, but a brilliant stream of unfettered daylight, soon to reach its pinnacle, turning what should’ve been a calm return to the bounds of wakefulness into a jarring crash.
They jolted upright, hands fisting the soft cords of their (still) borrowed blanket. How long had they been asleep? The thought surged to the forefront of their mind, perfectly in sync with the hardthumpof their pulse. Suddenly, there was nothing beyond the number of hours wasted. Hours that should’ve been devoted to their responsibilities as Caretaker, instead frittered away on worthless sleep.
All because Pansy had kept Ren up half the night with her wretched snoring.
The ragged frenzy pulsating beneath Ren’s breastbone abruptly stilled, coiling in on itself with a sour burn. They glanced over at Pansy’s side of the bed, still delineated by a slightly misshapen wall of bedding, and frowned. Agreeing to this deal had been a mistake. Ren never should’ve let the halfling set even onetoeover the cottage’s threshold. That alone would’ve saved them a whole lot of grief; not to mention a good three-quarters of the headache currently swelling beneath their temples.
Unfortunately, it was too late to do anything about it – other than follow the terms of the deal. Honestly, it was just their luck that their particular halfling – “their” in the sense that they’d been saddled with her; nothing more – seemed more stubborn than most. Was it too much to hope that she’d simply absconded in the middle of the night? Probably. And yet, Ren allowed themself a moment to indulge the thought.
Only a moment, though. Once that tiny spark of hope had been extinguished, swift as an already fading ember, Ren turned their mind to more practical considerations – like where exactly Pansy had gone.
She didn’t seem to be the early-riser type. No halfling did. They were the ones who sat warm and comfortable in theirburrows, gorging themselves on the land’s bounties without ever once thinking of the damage they’d left in their wake. Felled forests. Fallow earth. Slaughtering animals for meat. Theirs was an existence that had taken the concept of plenty and twisted it into excess. What else could explain the fact that they’d left an entire cottage to rot?
And if that wasn’t proof enough, Ren need only turn to last night’s dinner. How many ingredients had Pansy tossed into that single salad? Far more than Ren would have evenfantasizedabout. Honestly, it bordered on obscene.
I should’ve stopped her, they thought, their stomach hollowing around the hot poker of shame that plunged into it. Because every bite of food they took for themself was another snatched out of the mouths of the people who needed it most. It was why they’d resolved to keep as little as possible from every harvest, such that the majority of the cottage’s bounty went back to the caves of their clan. But Pansy had come along and promptly uprooted that plan, heedless of how carefully it had been seeded.
How very halfling of her…
Throwing aside their blankets, wool and moss alike, Ren launched themself out of bed, unwilling to waste any more time than they already had. They dressed quickly, pulling on a pair of straight-cut trousers and a loose-fitting shirt that had already been patched a half-dozen times thus far. No doubt, they should’ve retired the shirt by now – maybe even the trousers, too – but every time they held it in their hands they’d think,One more use, and slip it over their head. How they looked didn’t matter. In fact, each disjointed patch of fabric was a badge of honor, tangible proof of what Ren had given up so that someone else in their clan could have more. Because as long their family was happy, Ren would be too.
They repeated these words to themself, more fiercely than ever, as they headed for the front door. There was no time for breakfast. The crops needed to be watered, the weeds pruned. And the clan’s next shipment of ambervine and mudmoss needed to be harvested before the local wildlife beat Ren to it. A maze of old fishing nets and wire, no matter how elaborate, would only hold out for so long.
Thus far, there was no sign of Pansy. Unless the piece of paper stuck to the front door counted. Ren assumed it was her work. They squinted at it, struggling to make sense of the ink scrawled across its surface. A picture they might’ve been able to understand, but the strange script that popped up whenever Ren came too close to a halfling settlement, usually on a signpost or other wooden structures? Absolutely not.
Better leave this alone, they decided, and headed out into the glowing, noontime warmth.
Thankfully, the day’s chores were swiftly accomplished. The sun hadn’t even started on its downward crest towards the horizon by the time Ren finished loading their wagon with the fruits of their labor. Ambervine, elderberries, mudmoss, nettles and a small collection of slakegourd that had ripened ahead of schedule; all packaged into familiar wooden crates, each more banged-up than the last.
Blowing out a breath, Ren stepped back and admired their handiwork. Admittedly, they’d been hoping for a larger harvest, but the transition between Caretakers hadn’t been entirely smooth this time around. A few ten-days of unmanaged responsibilities, while hardly a death sentence, had nonetheless left their mark.
Of course, Ren didn’t blame their aunt. They couldn’t. She was sick, her mind caught like sand in a sieve. How could shebe expected to know that her grasp was slipping when she’d forgotten that there was anything to grip?
