Mouse peered over Taiga’s shoulder, glancing at the mission paper he read over as they walked. Mouse could make out about half the words himself, but between the scribbled handwriting and larger words, he gave up. If it was important, Taiga would tell him.

  “So, we’re simply escorting you there while you unload supplies and survey the area, then escorting you back?” Taiga gave Sweet Bun a pat before she wandered behind them.

  “That's all we need. Some fancy knights are coming to take over from there. They’re delayed in the south, but we can’t put off getting started until then.” A woman riding a wagon replied. Her child, maybe three or four, turned in his seat, mouth agape, watching Sweet Bun.

  “Can you tell us about the destination?” Jule skipped up beside them. Mouse side-stepped away from her, prickling annoyance digging into him as her skirts fluttered near him.

  The woman glanced up and down Jule before shrugging. “Not much to tell, really.”

  “That’s not true, though, is it?” Jule pushed her glasses up her nose. “I read that the region was devastated a couple years ago, as in completely demolished and—”

  Taiga set a hand on her shoulder and squeezed before whispering to her, “shut up,” with a wide smile on his face.

  The woman on the wagon and the couple of men riding in the back, however, already heard the offense. The darkness in their eyes told so well enough. Jule shrank a little before turning to Taiga and Mouse. She lowered her voice for them. “Was this one of those things you mentioned?”

  “About you being astoundingly insensitive?” Taiga whispered back. “Yeah.”

  Mouse let out a laugh. Even he did not piss off the humans as easily as one of their own could. The glares of the wagon-riding humans, however, made him duck further behind Taiga.

  “I apologize.” Ellio hung back from his position ahead of them, giving the upset humans a deep bow. “We only wondered… Ehhh,” he floundered a moment, “if the… same thing could happen again? After all, these supplies are the beginning of a rebuilding project from the capital, right?”

  “Smooth.” Mouse nearly cackled again. Ellio flushed a little while Taiga pressed three fingers to his brow and massaged it.

  None of the humans replied for a long moment, before a larger, gruff man walking the reigns of their pullhorse sighed. “It’s fine. It happened, it’s in the past now. But there really isn’t much to tell. One night, a demon appeared. Took all us farmers and builders to get rid of the damn thing. Next night, another popped up. Then another and, well, you get the idea. Six months of attacks and most of us moved out. Those who stayed disappeared. The whole town burned down one night, and no one has tried settling there since.”

  “Fasc—”

  “Don’t say it,” Taiga warned Jule.

  She cleared her throat, thought for a moment, then started over. “So you lived there? Do you know where the demons came from?”

  “Nope. They kinda came from all over,” the woman driving the wagon said, “around when things got real bad, we got news of other places and travelers getting attacked. It was a scary time.”

  “You made the decision to return?” Ellio asked, caution almost holding him back. “You’re not afraid it may be too dangerous?”

  “Ain’t that what y’all are for?” One of the men riding in the back of the wagon replied, cracking his neck to the side. “Besides, we’re gettin’ paid to move back. Winolin’s nice and all but it’s tough to stay there as a farmer and too noisy for my taste.”

  Mouse agreed to the sentiment. Large cities were fun to explore, but to constantly wake to the sounds of people chittering in the street was nearly enough to drive him mad. And the touching— his skin crawled at the thought.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  “We’ll keep you safe while you’re there.” Taiga affirmed, and the tension visibly lifted from the group. He always knew what to say. Mouse eased up now that focus shifted from him.

  “Bold words from someone who didn’t live through such terrors.” A youngster, maybe a teenager, snipped at him from his spot in the wagon.

  One of the men smacked him lightly. “I apologize.”

  “No need.” Taiga smiled gently. Fake, Mouse could tell. But gentle to those who didn’t. “All four of us are from the west. We’ve seen our fair share.”

  None of them challenged their qualifications after that. Jule nudged Taiga, however, “is it okay to tell them that? They won’t discover…. You know?”

  Taiga shrugged. “There’s a lot of ‘west’ in Lanria. Our story is that we were farmers in the west before becoming mercenaries. And even now, these people likely think we’re mercenaries from the border. Nothing I said would make them think any of us are from Monx.”

  She blinked at him. “You lie a lot, huh?”

  “If it protects us, absolutely. By saying ‘we’re from the west’, no one questions anything further. Because it’s uncomfortable. Which is the safest for us. That aside, I didn’t actually lie, did I? We were stationed west of Winolin, and you’re from the country west of Lanria.”

  Jule walked alongside Mouse for longer than he pleased before stepping forward beside Taiga again. “Fair enough, I suppose.”

  “Does it make me less trustworthy?” Taiga asked. It was unlike him, in Mouse’s opinion. When he stepped forward to catch Taiga’s expression, the relaxed smile told Mouse he didn’t actually care about the answer. Did he ask it to make them reconsider their partnership?

  “No. Not really.” Jule skipped ahead a little, turning around and walking backwards while facing them. “Considering the circumstances, I can imagine some lying is required.”

  The circumstances? Them not being humans? Or perhaps them having served as knights? She didn’t specify, and Mouse could ask Taiga later if it bugged him enough. He grew bored of their conversation and drew his eyes towards the edge of the road.

  Mouse’s feet pulled him to the edge, and he studied the rocks scattered about. Ellio and Taiga’s voices mixed with the others’, but he drowned out their words. Instead, he glanced over each rock he passed. Sweet Bun came up behind him, snapping up a grasshopper from the grass and crunching on it.

  He ignored all rocks that wouldn’t easily fit into Taiga’s pouch. Something glared red in the sunlight, and he plucked it from the road. Turning it over in his hand revealed some speckles of pink. Less red than he’d thought. Granite, perhaps, dropped from a merchant or supply caravan. He let it go, dropping it only a meter or so from where he’d picked it up. Sweet Bun licked it up before spitting it back onto the road.

  Nothing more caught his interest. By the time they’d settled for the night, enough hunger had returned to Mouse that he easily devoured whatever given to him. Sweet Bun, who’d found snacks all along the way, had no problem stealing more than her share of food intended for the horses.

  While the others talked around the campfire, he snuck off and dug around for grubs and other delectables for Sweet Bun. When she caught on to what he was doing, she followed him about, eating anything he offered her. He smiled. The patience had paid off.

  Near midday the following day, Taiga stayed at the edge of the road, looking into the grass every so often. Mouse kept by him, trying to follow Taiga’s line of sight, but came up with nothing. When boredom set in, he finally asked, “what are you looking for?”

  “A stick.”Taiga raised his hands about 20 or so centimeters apart. “Not too long, with decent thickness that won’t snap.”

  Mouse joined the search, though he didn’t see many sticks or twigs of such size at all. When they stopped to rest and eat lunch, he ran off to a few clumped trees in the middle of the field, and snapped a small branch from it. He ran it back to a slightly annoyed Taiga.

  “Really?”

  “What?” Mouse rocked his head to the side, a little confused by the response.

  “Nothing.” He accepted the branch with a sigh. “Thank you for the effort.”

  Jule rode on the wagon the rest of the way, entertaining the two children of the group with folklore and myths Mouse had never heard. He listened in, though anytime Jule glanced his way, he turned back towards the road, looking for rocks.

  When he thought she’d turn back to the children, he glanced back her way only to catch her eyes on him. She leaned her elbow onto the edge of the carriage, resting her chin in her palm with too wide a smile for Mouse’s liking.

  He whipped his head away from her, but she’d already caught him. “You can listen in, if you want.”

  “Who would want to,” he grumbled before taking a few large steps back towards Sweet Bun, who lazily followed from behind. She laughed before a child demanded the continuation of the story.