The guild commissioner dropped several tin coins on the counter, some with gold rings around a circular hole’s center and others with a square hole without the adornment. Taiga picked up the coins, counting them aloud, totaling five hundred thirty daud, before signing the commissioner’s book. He slid half the coins into his wallet and handed Jule the remainder.

  Without counting, she dropped them into her small sack wallet with a smile. What the smile was for, Mouse hadn’t the faintest idea. She’d been smiling all morning, and the wide grin began grating his nerves. The annoyance rose as he watched her, and he took a few steps away to cool his temper.

  “Think it’s warm enough for another mission?” Ellio asked, coming up beside Mouse, turning towards Taiga, who followed.

  Taiga nodded. “The weather’s held well, and should for another day or two. We’ve been staying in the walls to stay safe, but they pay less…” Taiga tapped a few fingers to the pocket he slipped his wallet into. “It would be nice to boost our funds a little more before the first snowfall so when spring comes, we’ll be able to start our journey quickly.”

  A cautious excitement giddied him. Finally, they’ll see Pnendua, for better or worse.

  “Mouse, want to pick out a mission? Make sure it’s closeby.” Taiga’s eyes already followed the scent of ginger from the kitchen.

  “What??” Jule stepped in front of Mouse. At least her stupid grin fell from her face. “Why don’t we get to pick? Last time he picked a mission, I ended up waist-high in mud.”

  “Because your last mission resulted in three days of bug squashing and field burning.” Taiga paused to give her a look of utter contempt.

  “Interesting bugs, might I add. People in the south steam them for—”

  “I do not care. At all.” Taiga dismissed her with a wave of his hand.

  What Taiga didn’t say, was he had nightmares of the burning field for two days afterwards. Similar to after the wall attack on Winolin. Taiga turned to Mouse, “go pick one before she does.”

  He nodded, smiling at Jule’s lip pursing, and turned. He bounded towards the mission board in five large leaps, dodging around two men walking across his path. Neither touched him, and he scanned the board for anything of interest.

  Ah. And close, as Taiga requested.

  A mission to escort. Nope. They’d done that plenty and he was sick of talking to those disgusting humans. A mission to repair a roof held possibility. It would be short and easy. The people posting those missions tended to be old lonely folks that often gave them free food for the help. High possibility.

  Mouse also glanced over a mission with easily a three day walk each way and another that dealt with helping the church. He briefly wondered why they didn't ask their god for help, but forgot about the mission once his eyes moved to the next. A posting for hog hunting caught his eye. He wasn’t a fan of the human’s taste for needless killing, but a mission meant the hunt would not be for such silly pleasures.

  The mission location sat only a morning out of town, and the could be back by nightfall if needed. Perfect. He picked it off the board and brought it to the commissioner, who eyed him from beneath his brow.

  “I keep telling all you… stop taking the missions off the board! Just tell me which one you’re interested in and I’ll take it down myself once it’s assigned.” Mouse shrugged him off, a grin spreading over his face as the man’s cheeks reddened in frustration.

  Nonetheless, the man relented, waving him off with an annoyed look of defeat before turning to his books and scribbling the mission down. “Have Taiga get the missions from now on! At least he follows procedure!”

  Mouse looked about, spotting Taiga grabbing two bowls from the kitchen. The two of them made eye contact, and Taiga gestured to one of the long tables close to the fire pit. Behind Ellio and Jule, the cook put her hand up, caught Mouse’s attention, smiled, and waved him over.

  He trotted to her, leaning over the counter to the middle-aged woman. Her hair tied messily behind her wide smile. “Hey Heleya. You get anything new today?”

  A chuckle rippled from her, her head laughing back at his ‘audacity’, as she called it. “A new merchant brought this in as a thank you gift,” she reached back and grabbed something tied in a cloth before setting it carefully on the counter, “enough for one for each of you.”

  He opened the corner of the cloth, catching sight of some small, brown pebbles. They sure didn’t look appetizing, and his expression must have said so, because the woman laughed again. “Don’t look at me like that. Have I poisoned you yet?”

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  “Did you try it?” He quirked an eyebrow at her half-jokingly.

  She swatted him away playfully. “I did. And I’m too old for these sorts of things. It’s called ‘chocolate’. Enjoy!”

  Well, free food was always a win, so he took the gift and fled before she changed her mind. He rounded back to the table Taiga, Jule, and Ellio sat at, dropping down beside Taiga with a grin. “A gift. She said we could split it. It’s ‘chocolate’, apparently.”

  He opened the cloth, revealing the weird clumps, and split two and two, scooting half towards Taiga. Taiga looked at the brown balls before eyeing him. “Split between the two of us? Or four of us?”

  Mouse shrugged, picking up one into his hand. Taiga quickly divided the remaining three between he, Ellio, and Jule. Then, before any of them touched their meal of rice and stew, they each plopped the odd ball into their mouths.

  Bitterness hit first, before melting into a rich sweetness that almost bit into a chalky aftertaste. He weighed it on his tongue, the goo of it sticking to the side of his mouth. Did he like it? He rolled the ball to the side of his mouth and cracked it between his teeth. A nutty center. Hazelnut.

  “It’s… uh, interesting?” Taiga scrunched his face to the sweetness. “Tastes like something the aristocracy would enjoy.”

  “Hmm, I thought I’d had chocolate before. This is much sweeter than what we ate that one time back home, right?” Jule turned to Ellio, who busied munching the sweet and nodded his answer.

  Beside Taiga and across from Ellio, a woman wearing an orange head scarf sat uncomfortably close for a stranger. Mouse moved over enough to give Taiga space, which he accepted. The woman turned to them all, smiling bright white teeth and her dark eyes finding each of them.

  “Hello,” she spoke directly to Ellio, though he froze in his seat. After a moment of silence when she didn’t continue, he swallowed.

  “Can I,” Taiga moved another few centimeters towards Mouse, “help you with something?”

  “Hmm,” the woman’s smile widened, turning to Taiga, “maybe. Can you?”

  “Well, that’s why he asked. How would we know what help you need?” Jule spoke up, bringing her bowl of stew closer to her from where it had rested in the table’s center.

  The woman turned towards Jule this time, “is that so?”

  Mouse grew hot. Before he could snap though, Taiga tapped his knee. He didn’t even need to look at Mouse to know, and it cooled him.

  “I wasn’t clear enough. It’s fine, Jule.” Taiga showed her a smile before refocusing on the woman. It seemed unlike him to be so oddly kind to a stranger. Did he recognize her? “What do you need help with?”

  “Hmm,” she hummed a moment, stealing another long glance at Ellio before smiling widely at Taiga. “I want to join your group. Can I?”

  Hah.

  What an unfunny joke. Some random woman approaches them and asks for such nonsense? Even Taiga wouldn’t entertain—

  “Sure.”

  Mouse’s mind went blank. What was that? Surely he heard wrong.

  Thankfully, Jule objected before Mouse had to. “Absolutely not! What do you mean, ‘sure’?? Since when were you the type to befriend anyone you came across?”

  Ellio whispered something to her, but it didn’t calm her. “You know how long it took for us to join! No way is some random woman barging in so easily!”

  “It’s not a competition, Jules.” Ellio sighed, before speaking up. “But I agree… we don’t know her and,” he paused, “she’s been following us for a few days.”

  “What?” Jule blinked at him, “is this true??”

  The woman rocked her head to the side before smiling again and nodding quickly.

  “So, she’s a weirdo?” Mouse could see a small chance of opportunity here. “Taiga, we can’t have a stalker join the group.”

  Taiga nodded to his words, and relief eased him. “I’m sure there’s a reason. It’s fine. She can join.”

  “Taiga, you—” Jule started, but Taiga ignored her.

  “Are you already a member of the mercenary guild?” The woman nodded, so Taiga continued, “what’s your name?”

  “Azhar.” The name sang off her tongue, and Mouse hid behind Taiga when her eyes blinked to his.

  “Welcome, Azhar. We’ll be starting a new mission tomorrow, if you’d like to join.”

  So, Taiga planned to fully ignore their protests. Mouse said nothing. Instead, he stood, took his and Taiga’s bowls into his hands, and started towards the stairs. He’d at least need to know his reasoning in order to even think about going on the mission tomorrow.

  He made sure Taiga saw him before ascending the stairs. Jule put her hands up, glaring at Mouse. Why are you giving up already? Seemed to be the message. What she didn’t know was how infallible Taiga’s stubbornness could be when it came to things like this. The best hope they had was at least hearing the reasoning and coming to terms with it.

  Mouse reached their room and waited for a couple minutes, going back and forth between increasingly annoyed and logical reasoning that there was surely a reason for this. He hated humans, and Taiga, more than anyone, knew this. Taiga wouldn’t do anything to hurt him in such ways.

  Surely.

  When the door opened and Taiga came in, Mouse bounced off the bed and ran up to him. “Why?”

  “Why what?” Taiga asked, eyes finding his bowl and picking it up off the table.

  “Whyyyyyy did you let some strange new human join us?”

  Taiga paused, breathing out in contemplation before sitting at the table and scooping rice into his spoon. “Because she’s not human. She’s a shifter.”