Mind Your Step, Draft 1, CH 16

The city wall came into view further down the road, and Heather ran, Ruppert chasing her.

Tibs didn’t.

He knew Alistair wouldn’t be there. His old teacher might have spent some time searching the city for him, but he would have had to return to the guild eventually. He might even have realized Tibs had escaped if Heather had worked it out, so there were no dangers to him going in.

But it didn’t feel that way.

As irrational as he knew it to be, he was afraid that while in there, someone he’d hurt would find him and demand restitution. Or worse. Explanations.

“Shouldn’t we hurry?” Heather asked when he reached where she’d stopped, waiting for him. Ruppert was on her shoulder, pushing a small stone into his mouth. “It’s easier to enter cities before dark.”

“You go on. I’m not going in. I don’t need anything there.”

“You need a bath.”

He rolled his eyes. “I have Water. That’s enough to clean myself.”

“Baths aren’t just about cleaning yourself, Tyrone. It’s about soaking in it, the warm water relaxing you after months of traveling.”

“Can I have a bath?” Ruppert asked, the sounds muffled by the stone in his mouth.

“I’m fine. I’m used to traveling like this. And there’s going to be lakes and streams along the roads to Chasitian. And you can go with her, Ruppert. So long as you only eat what she gives you.”

She looked at the squirrel on her shoulder. “Is that a good idea?”

Tibs snorted.

Ruppert straightened. “I’ll be good.” His throat stretched as the stone went down it.

“I can’t understand him,” she said.

“He’ll behave. But a bag of nuts and give them to him one at a time.”

“Oh, can it be candies?” Ruppert asked.

“Squirrels don’t eat candies,” he replied.

“Just because they’ve never had them. If they had, they’d be eating them all the time.”

“Just nuts,” he told Heather. “And small pieces of meat.”

“How doesn’t he have enough of eating meat after that bandit?”

“That was a long time ago,” the squirrel said. “I absorbed all of it.”

“It’s up to you, Heather. If you’d rather he not go, I’ll keep him.”

“I’ll be good, I promise.”

She chuckled. “He’s making all kinds of promises, isn’t he?”

“Just about being good.”

She picked up the squirrel by the nape and locked eyes with him. “If you misbehave, I am throwing you at the bottom of my pack, is that clear?”

“It is. I’ll be good.”

“He understands.”

She returned him to her shoulder. “Are you sure you don’t want to come?”

“I’m sure. I’ll camp in sight of the Sunset Gate.”

She hesitated, then turned. “Okay, see you in a few days.”

He smiled as she tried to restrain herself, only to break into a run after a dozen steps.

Once she was out of sight, he headed mostly Nadir through the trees until he reached the road heading to the Sunset Gate.

*

Other than the occasional guard, who asked why he was camped there, to which he told them the truth about waiting for his companion to be done in the city, they were restful days of walking deeper into the forest to practice etchings with his elements, and simply enjoying being alone.

Heather wasn’t bad company. Neither was Ruppert, but he hadn’t realized how much he missed being alone until now.

He returned from his walk to find her seated by the fire wearing new clothing, and her leathers repaired.

“I’d gone hunting,” he said, raising the rabbits he’d gathered when he sensed her by the firepit.

“I figured it was something like that. Is there enough to share?”

“I’ll have whatever’s left,” Ruppert said, running up Tibs legs and chest until he was on his shoulder. He grabbed a handful of his beard and pulled. Tibs hardly felt it, but he turned his head. “You have no idea what you’ve missed. Hot water is amazing! You need to make me some every time we stop!”

“I can put a pot over the fire for you to jump in.”

“Yes!”

“Don’t cook Ruppert,” Heather protested.

“He’s the one insisting. Actually, I don’t know if he could cook. His body’s nothing like an actual squirrel now.”

Heather looked at him oddly, then returned to unhooking a pot from her pack. “If you’re going to cook him in that, I’ll make my own meal.”

Tibs filled the pots with water and set to skin the rabbits before cutting the meat off and handing a third to Heather.

“Pay attention to what your body feels,” Tibs warned when Ruppert slipped into the boiling water. “If you destroy it, you’re going to lose the essence that’s in it.”

“It’s going to be worth it,” the squirrel replied, sounding so languid that Tibs took the pot off the fire to be safe.

“He is going to be trouble because of you,” he told Heather.

“I have no complaints. He was a perfect bath companion. Floating on his side of the tub making cute squirrel sounds. I’m just surprised he could float.”

“He changed the essence in his body so he could.”

She nodded, giving him that odd look again.

The next morning they set off.

*

Heather was how Tibs learned the weather turned cold. She woke a morning and hurried to bank the fire, glaring at Tibs for letting it nearly go out. Frost hadn’t formed yet, so he hadn’t considered the season.

He hunted larger animals and used their furred hides to make her warmer clothing, before making himself a set. When she questioned how he wasn’t cold already, he told her he was used to it because of all the traveling he did.

Light snow fell when Chasitian’s city wall came into view. She didn’t wait for him. He considered staying outside, but he figured he’d have to explain that, and there was only so much she’d believe at this point

And it would be nice to stretch his fingers in one of the marketplaces.

She and Ruppert vanished into the bath room of the inn she picked, and Tibs used that time to visit a market, returning with a pocket full of candies, and ordered food as he sensed them drying off.

She didn’t hide her displeasure at the food, or rather, how she knew he’d acquired the coins to pay. She still ate the food.

They stayed in the city longer than he wanted, but she let him move about without her supervision, so he made the best of his time there, although he kept his robberies small since stories of the Laughing Thief were still circulating.

When Heather was ready to leave, Tibs learned the reason. She’d hired them as guards with a caravan going to Torleris.

The only argument he could use against it was the kind of city it was, since he’d already mentioned the dungeon they were headed to was in that region. She pointed out they didn’t have to set foot inside. And that she was done traveling in the cold alone. A caravan meant large fires, better food, and someone to keep her warm at night.

Her expression made it clear it was how she’d travel, no matter how he went.

He considered parting ways with her then. She’d have no way of knowing he hadn’t died in the wild. It would mean he’d have to rethink how he went about stealing from nobles when he needed to, since she knew too much about how he’d done it to this point, but he could manage.

He ended up staying because he’d promised he’d help her. He also didn’t know how Karliak would react to her finding him, if she even managed that. He couldn’t give her good directions, since he’d always relied on sensing the dungeon.

She’d given him an excuse to keep his distance from the other guards, as someone who hadn’t asked to be working with them. But their company proved to be pleasant, and he found himself in discussion with them. Even had a few contests of lock picking with some of the thieves among them.

After a week, Tibs had remembered why he’d often traveled with caravans. The camaraderie, the simplicity of having help when dealing with bandits. He’d settled into being a normal guard, and on enjoying simply being for the rest of the trek.

*

“Gimme, Gimme, Gimme!” Ruppert exclaimed, reaching for the chunk of meat Tibs was handing him.

“How did you do that?” one of the guards asked in the stretching silence.

“Did what?” other than Heather, they all looked at him with curiosity. She looked horrified.

“Get it to talk?”

“Get what to talk?”

Another guard snickered. “I know that trick.”

Tibs looked at them, trying to work out what they meant.

“Oh, did I finally get it to work?” Ruppert asked, and even with his mouth filled with meat, the muffled sounds had been too word-like.

Keeping himself from reacting to the realization was hard.

Ruppert swallowed, and Tibs covered his face with his hand.

“I’m not—hey, let go, Tyrone. I can finally tell them I’m not a squirrel.”

The sounds through his hand were definitely word like, but fortunately too muffled to be understood.

A guard laughed. “Okay, that’s way better than the traveling entertainer. You look utterly terrified.”

Maybe he hadn’t managed to hide his reaction as well as he’d thought.

“Why didn’t you tell us you did that projecting voice trick? We could have used the laugh well before now.”

“He’s not good at it,” Heather said, while Tibs was still trying to figure out how to explain any of this, and Ruppert kept protesting, trying to pull his head out.

“He certainly looks good,” the guard said. “That entertainer had a puppet he made talk. Never thought someone could train an animal for it. And the way it just happened, and how he looked like he had no idea it had. I haven’t seen that done.”

He forced his breathing to calm. They thought it was a trick. He remembered hearing of that one, but hadn’t bothered looking into it. Being an entertainer had never been a role he’d considered adopting.

But now that he could think, and listen to them. They thought the act was that he made Ruppert talk like he was a real speaking squirrel. He still couldn’t have the discussion he needed to have with him in their presence, but the act gave him an excuse.

He stood. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to have a talk with Ruppert before he makes a fool of me.” He turned and walked away amid their laughter.

“Don’t make sounds like speaking to me, Ruppert,” he warned in a whisper before removing his hand. He remained vigilant for anyone approaching.

“What is the problem? I can finally talk with people.”

“Squirrels don’t talk like people. They squeak like you did before.”

“Do you know how boring that is? And I’m not a squirrel.”

“They don’t know that. You remember what I told you might happen if someone finds out you’re a dungeon?”

“But that was about me breaking my body, and doing things that aren’t squirrel-like.”

“Talking like a person isn’t squirrel-like.”

“But I want to talk with someone other than you.”

“You’ll be able, since I can’t go back and claim I can’t do what they heard. But there needs to be rules, Ruppert. You can only talk when you’re on my shoulder. And you can’t say anything about dungeons. Just talk about squirrel things.”

“If they think you’re the one doing this, why can’t I talk about dungeons? You know plenty about dungeons.”

“They don’t know that, and I don’t want them to know that. As far as they are concerned, I’m just a guard, like them.”

“So I can talk about people-things too?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Squirrel and people things, and only on your shoulder. The rest of the time I chitter.”

“You are agreeing too easily.”

“Tyrone, I’ll take the chance to talk with someone about anything over having to talk only to you. Do you have any idea how annoying it gets having to wait for you to tell Heather what I told her. And how you don’t alway tell her even that?”

“You can’t tell her stuff about me, Ruppert.”

“But she’s our friend.”

“We’re traveling together.”

“Well, she’s my friend.”

“And you can tell her whatever you want, about you.”

“Fine.”

“Ruppert, I mean it. You have to be careful about what you say. You can’t get yourself, me, and Heather in danger if you aren’t.”

The squirrel took long enough to reply Tibs was reassured. “I’ll be careful.” He climbed on top of his head. “Now get back there.”

“Don’t make me regret this.”

“I won’t.”

Already unsure of what he was getting himself into, Tibs returned to the fire.

“There you are. That was a long conversation with your squirrel.”

“He was being stubborn,” Ruppert said in his high-pitched voice, before Tibs could respond. “I told him, over and over, that he didn’t need my help to make a fool of himself, but he just didn’t believe me.”

“Ruppert,” he warned.

The squirrel hung on to his hair as he moved to look him in the eyes. “What? I’m not saying anything you told me not to talk about.”

Tibs’s reply was cut off by the laughter.

Even Heather was laughing.

He sat. “I knew I was going to regret letting you talk.”

“Like you can do anything to make me stop,” Ruppert said.

“I’m thinking offering squirrel stew might keep you from talking.”

“Have fun catching me.” Ruppert jumped off and avoided the few attempts at grabbing him by the laughing guards and took refuge on Heather’s shoulder. He chittered angrily at Tibs.

“There, there,” she said, chuckling, patting Ruppert on the head. “I’ll protect you from him.”