CHAPTER 2 - PART V

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.