Chapter 87: Home

A few hours later, they were well on their way. Every person in the wagon was working on their second or third cup of tea as the wagon sluiced through the snow in the early morning quiet. They were full of breakfast and in high spirits, enjoying the changes in scenery as they reached the forest in record time.

“Oh, trees, I’ve missed you.” Milo held out his hand and let the edges of tree branches whip into it. “You forget how much plants matter until you don’t have any.”

“You think so? Imagine how it is for me. I’ve been living in that wasteland for years.” Leena sighed and leaned into Spiky a bit more. “Now I have to get used to… well, everything. You swear this Onna is nice?”

“She’s nice. Protective.” Arthur finished off his cup of tea, pouring himself a third with no delay. “A bit scary, but I think that’s truer for me than anyone else.”

“Why just for you?”

“I’m dating her best friend.”

“Oh, that makes sense, then. Well, my mom wasn’t wrong. I can take care of myself. I think.” Leena looked concerned for what was likely the tenth time since they had set out. “Not that I’ll turn down any help I can get.”

“Don’t worry,” Milo said, coming up from checking out the shocks once again. “The two big jobs you have at first are finding a place to live, and finding work. The first one is easy. And Spiky can probably help with the second.”

“I can. I’ll find a library for you, and talk with the librarians there. They will probably let you work as an unskilled assistant for a bit. At the least, they can’t ban you from being there. It’s a library. And as soon as your class comes through, you’ll be in a good spot. They always need help. Always.”

The wagon was making incredible time. The shocks had worked before, but the new version took advantage of Talca’s presumably powerful skills to smooth out the ride to the point where Arthur was barely aware of bumps at all. The traveler skill was probably also tricking him into thinking that things were more smooth than he thought, but the speed increase was real.

“Littal can run so much faster now!” Arthur shouted at Talca. “It doesn’t even make sense.”

“He could always run this fast. But the wagon made that hard. Now that it’s not pulling him side to side and ruining his footing, it’s much easier for him to maintain this kind of pace. It’s like extra endurance, for free.”

—

Setting up camp that night, Talca was like a kid himself.

“I’ve never gotten this far in one trip over this kind of terrain. Ever. Arthur, I could kiss your offworlder face.”

“Please don’t.”

“Deal, but I’m buying you a meal at some point. No arguments against it accepted.”

“That’s a deal.”

Making sure Leena had what she needed was a bit of a challenge. She trusted everyone there, but having a group of four men and one woman made things awkward. In their efforts to give her a bit of space, the group decided to build her a second fire just a bit away from the first, one that would warm her tent but give her as much privacy as they could safely provide.

Arthur cooked dinner. With what bread, legumes, and meat he had been able to get from Potil, he made a very acceptable chili, throwing in hot spices to fool his audience into thinking it was extra warming. By the end of the meal, everyone was comfortable in a warm, sleepy way, gazing silently into the fire.

“Think we can make it all the way home tomorrow?” Milo asked.

“No. But the day after that will be a short one, if I’m doing my math right and the shocks hold up.”

“They will. I checked them and they seem to be handling everything just fine. The worst of the terrain is behind us, anyway.”

“True. Well, I’m off to get some sleep. Don’t worry about Littal. He’ll find his way back in his own timing.”

The rest of them went along with that cue, diving into their tents as well. After making sure Leena’s fire was burning hot, Arthur laid down in his bedroll and fell into a deep sleep.

—

The rest of the trip was great, but not interesting. The cart rolled them inexorably towards home. They talked and joked. No problems occurred. After another night’s camping, Talca made good on his promise of getting them home early in the day. It was well into the morning but still definitively pre-afternoon when they rolled into town.

“Talca, it’s been an absolute pleasure.” Milo smiled, and turned to look at the others. “Let’s hear it for Talca, everyone. Best driver in the world.”

The group threw up an enthusiastic cheer, one that turned the heads of the other transporters present at the gate.

“Stop it. You’ll embarrass me in front of my peers.” Talca smiled. “And if any of you ever needs a ride again, you know who to ask. It was a fun one for me, too.”

After Talca and Littal walked off to join the transporters, Arthur turned to the group. “So what’s next? We have… a lot of things to do now that we’re back in town.”

“Actually, this is one of those things where everything lines up,” Milo said. “In a neat little chronological row, even.”

“Meaning?” Arthur asked.

“Meaning we’re all hungry. And that I have a letter in my pocket from Dad to Mom. That and the fact that the two of us exist means that Mom and Lily will kill us both if home’s not our first stop. And that if we go there and Mom finds out we have an out-of-towner with us who hasn’t been fed, she’ll make us go get her anyway.”

“That’s half of everything, I agree. But then…”

“But then you have to go find Mizu, and the best place to look is at her house, which is also the best place to find both housing for Lenna and to introduce her to Onna.”

“Huh,” Arthur said. “I actually have no arguments to make about that. Spiky?”

“No. That’s cogent and well reasoned. A good argument. And it’s not even about alloys,” Spiky said.

“I’m a sparrow of many talents,” Milo said as he smiled. “My feathers shimmer with potential. My leadership is the thing of legends. And… you guys are walking away. Alright, I’m following. Right behind you.”

The walk home was somehow longer than it had been when they had left Ella’s house to board Talca’s cart in the first place. Vitality stats were all well and good, but Arthur was finding the trip had worn him out in some deeper way he couldn’t define. Milo and Spiky seemed the same, judging by their pace. Leena, on the other hand, was going slow for a different reason. She stared at every building in a kind of shock that only increased as they got closer to the city center.

“I had forgotten. I thought I remembered. I didn’t. There’s so many people, Stanta. The buildings are so huge,” Leena said.

“Yeah, I’m honestly getting a little of that vibe myself, and I was only out of the city for a few days.” It took Arthur’s mind a few moments to catch up with the rest of what she had said. “Wait, Stanta? What?”

“Um.” Leena looked a little panicked. “It’s… I don’t think I was supposed to say that.”

“It’s okay, Leena.” Spiky tried his best to look nonchalant and looked like he was trying to close the barn door after the horses were out. “It’s not exactly a secret.”

“It’s Spiky’s name, Arthur,” Milo explained. “He’s a porcupine demon. They don’t use their names at our age, usually. Spiky’s like a universal nickname. But it’s not like it’s a rule or anything.”

“Do you have a preference?” Arthur asked. He was genuinely curious about why Spiky had always opted to use a nickname, but never felt like he had the understanding of demon culture to pull off asking about it.

“Because I like the name. Most of us do. When you’re a kid, you spend a lot of time waiting to be Spiky. The cool big kids are Spiky. It’s a goal, sort of. I enjoy it.”

“And you can use your real name whenever you want? But then why did Leena call you Stanta?”

“I just…” Spiky looked shy. “I wanted to hear her say my actual name. It felt important.”

Arthur suddenly felt like a heel. He had pushed too hard. They walked on in silence, Arthur’s face burning in embarrassment. That lasted all of ten seconds or so, until he turned around to see Leena absolutely plastered against Spiky’s side, her arms wrapped around his like she was afraid he might float off.

He even looks like he might, at that.

They eventually made it home. Lily saw them first, as Arthur had suspected she might.

“You came back,” Lily said, as she was just stating a simple fact.

“I did,” Arthur said. He had expected almost any reaction but that.

Lily nodded, calmly, then turned and walked through the door. For a second, Arthur wondered if something was wrong.

It turned out she just needed some runway. After getting a few more steps of run-up, she charged him, launching off the front steps, slamming into his chest, and wrapping her arms around his neck.

“I thought you might get hurt out there,” Lily said.

“It wasn’t that dangerous, Lily.”

“Well, I didn’t think they would get hurt. Just you. That you’d fall down or something.”

“But I didn’t. And I’m home.”

Lily pressed her feathered forehead into his neck. “I know.”

“This is the cutest thing that I have ever seen,” Leena squeaked.

“Isn’t it?” Ella walked out of the front door, shaking the flour off her hands. “It’s part of why I keep him around. He drags a bunch of these little scenes behind him. I don’t even think he knows he’s doing it.”

Leeta walked up and shook her hand. “Leeta, Ma’am.”

“Ella. And no need for the ma’am. Milo, you have anything for me?”

“Right here.” Milo gave her the letter. “I want to see if I can trade it for an early lunch. For six, I guess, if you two haven’t eaten yet.”

“Eight, probably. If certain promises are kept.” She looked significantly at Lily, then hugged the three young men, shrugged, and hugged Leeta for good measure. “Come in. Tell me the story of how there’s four of you now.”

Ella was about halfway through a big pot of soup, which Arthur suspected was a combination of meal prep for the week and a precaution for the case where the boys got home early. She immediately started bulking it up a bit, throwing in more vegetables and meat to make it go farther.

“I have plenty of bread, too. The soup should warm you up just fine,” Ella explained.

“Ella, where did Lily go?” Arthur motioned his head at her empty chair. “She’s missing.”

“Just to pick up an ingredient for this lunch. Don’t worry about it. Now talk amongst yourselves for a few minutes while I read my letter. You can tell me about the whole trip in just a minute.”

Ella carefully pried open the envelope open, then started reading while they all worked through plans for the rest of the day. A few times, she made little embarrassed-slash-pleased expressions, then looked up to see if anyone had seen her. They all had. A woman who still apparently had a crush on her husband was high entertainment, and they made sure she knew it until she threatened them with the loss of an entire lunch.

It was good to be home.