16. To the thieves

Blancob stepped forward with confident steps. It didn’t show any signs of being injured. Either Blancob was good at acting or recovered fast. Whatever the reason was, Waldina was just pleased with the fact their current relationship wasn’t affected much by their earlier conflict. Now there was just a person who needed help and their helper.

The direction Blancob was walking seemed to match that of Waldina’s second stage-exam’s location more and more the closer they came to it. It gave her some hope: helping Blancob would most likely not require any extra effort from her. She’d just get two things done by this one and that suited her more than well.

The sun was already setting as the trio got close to the camp of thieves. They’d only reached this far due to Blancob carrying both Waldina and Kiandra. Even if Blancob was big, it sure was quite fast at its own territory. Moving forward in just one direction made it stronger.

Waldina asked to climb on top of Blancob's head to check the camp from higher up. They were still quite some distance away from it but she could clearly see a camp close to the road, at the edge of the forest. The camp was surprisingly large. She quickly counted seven enemies and nine horses. The amount didn’t quite match the size of their camp and as there were nine horses, she concluded that there must be at least nine enemies. The number itself wasn’t that bad in her opinion.

Looking from further away all of the enemies seemed to be low-levels. Thus it mainly consisted of small thieves who could harm many, yet weren’t an actual threat if attacked with a concrete plan. If the closeby town saw them as a threat, they could quickly defeat them. Waldina was sure of it.

“Hmm, let’s go back a little bit and camp at a place out of their point of view,” Waldina declared whilst jumping down from Blancob’s head.

“You think you can take them on?” Blancob asked with worry in its voice.

“I think I’ll manage. Ninjas specialize in that sort of thing,” Waldina laughed shortly, “If I had my night vision skill, I’d have attacked already.”

Kiandra listened at Waldina, head slightly tilted to the side. Her friend was clearly conversing with this furball called Blancob, but as it used telepathy to communicate with Waldina, she couldn’t hear their full conversation. Some of Waldina’s lines sounded silly without any context to back them up, that Kiandra couldn’t help but laugh hiding behind her long hair.

Yet her amusement was short-lived. Waldina refused to make a campfire that fine night.

“I don’t want them to notice us,” the ninja explained, and Kiandra just had to accept it, but not without complaints. Her wings pointing downwards and a sad smile adorning her face she took the bread and salad she was offered. She herself realized that fire would be seen and smelled faraway. Yet still she felt immense disappointment and annoyance. She swore she wouldn’t hold back against those thieves tomorrow. She might even throw Blancob a couple of punches as well; after all it was that stupidly huge bunny’s fault they’d reached this far so fast.

With thoughts filled with bloodlust Kiandra fell asleep quickly after eating. Blancob offered its body as a bed for Waldina and Kiandra. Appreciatively Waldina moved Kiandra on top of Blancob’s soft fur. Then she curled up in that fur as well. That night she slept more soundly than for a long time now.