“Wren, for the love of god, take a fucking break.” Matthias Wulf, master swordsman, veteran of three separate wars, and leader of the notorious sometimes-mercenary sometimes-bandit group the Red Wolves, looked about ready to tear his hair out.
Wren flipped him the bird, which elicited a deep breath and a muttered mantra of: “Don’t try it, she’s not gonna die to that, she’s like a cockroach, she’ll just come back and laugh at you for failing...”
He looked like he was about to cry. Wren smirked. Good. The bastard deserves it for implying that I’d go down to something as small as this.
“Wren you nearly lost an eye, I wouldn’t call that small,” Piper, renowned healer and assassin of the Red Wolves piped (heh) up from where she sat on Wren’s bedside.
And that attitude, ladies and gentleman, is why I have 200 successful requests and you chucklefucks only have 198.
“Those extra two requests are the reason you almost lost an eye, Wren!”
“How did you know what I was thinking? What are you, some kind of mind reader!?” Wren would believe it. Piper was without a doubt the most terrifying person she’d ever met, period.
“She’s not, dearie, you’re just talking out loud,” said the old healer from where he was dottering about at a table full of medical supplies. (Piper’s designation as healer was sketchy at best, and really, if you had the option to go to a medical professional, you probably should, instead of going to that one drunk guy down the street who says he got an MD but is probably just bullshiting you. Even if the professional was the kind who stitched up knife wounds in blood-soaked back alleys for a little extra pocket money.)
“Why am I doing that?”
“Cause you’re high, Wren,” Matthias said, “And it’s honestly making me worried. This is the fourteenth time this month you’ve been in here for a grievous injury, and the meds are going to lose effectiveness at some point. You can’t keep doing this!”
“I can and I will,” Wren replied, stubbornly suppressing a wince at the sensation of rough bandages dragging over her wound.
“Only until you can’t anymore,” the old healer said. When the group turned to look at them, they only shrugged. “I’ve seen it happen before.”
“See! Even the Healer is worried about you! They don’t even know your name!” Matthias said. He looked genuinely worried, eyes wide and almost desperate at the thought of her being dead.
Piper reached out and put a comforting hand on the older man’s forearm instantly calming him down. Wren squinted at that, suspicious, and she hurriedly pulled her hand away to give Wren a nervous smile. “Look, Wren, he’s right. As much as I love your antics, and you know I love them, you need to be alive to cause them. You can’t keep doing this. We’re worried about you.”
Wren looked back and forth between her sort-of commander sort-of father figure and terrifyingly competent semi-mother figure, and suppressed the urge to cringe at the actual worry showing through in their eyes. Banter and snark she could handle, Wren was the queen of banter, but actual emotion and vulnerability? No thanks, keep that shit as far away from her as possible, please and thank you.
“Wren. Please. We are begging you, please take a break.” Matt should not have such effective puppy-eyes, he’s a thirty-six year old man for gods sake! He had mismatched grey stubble, some of the largest eyebags she’d ever seen, and apparently the inner soul of a fucking cherub, because no mortal eyes could hold that much pure worry, great mother-
“Fine! Fine! I’ll take your damn break. But you better buy me some fucking ice cream after I get out of here.”
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Wren had been imprisoned on vacation for 2 days, 3 hours, 48 minutes and 36 seconds, and the ice-cream had absolutely not been worth it. However, as she was a pinnacle of self-control and decidedly not a deranged adrenaline junky, she was handling her forced inaction fine. She wasn’t bored at all, not in the slightest.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
On an unrelated note, she no longer had a place to stay, because the inn she was staying at experienced a mysterious and completely inexplicable spike in bar fights over the past 2 days. None of which she was involved in, of course, because she was a good patient, and would never jeopardise her recovery by fighting any and all random miscreants who spoke three decibels above a whisper while she had a hangover.
At least, that’s what she’d tell Piper and Matt, because otherwise they might legitimately rip one of her arms off, and regrowing those was not a fun experience.
So Wren was searching, secretly (by which she meant not secretly at all, because the Red Wolves were out right now robbing protecting some caravan or something,) for a job. A safe job, because she wasn’t completely irredeemable and some of what Matt said about “a healthy work life balance” and “a nice vacation” and “the wonders of a little rest” had managed to penetrate even Wren’s thick skull.
Unfortunately, “marginally safe” as a qualification ruled out most of the, in her opinion, fun ones, so she was left with the boring fetch quests and annoying bodyguard requests. Like, for example, “guard my daughter at the Royal Academy for the next half-year,” which sounded about as exciting as a trip to the general store. A year of stuffy noble gowns and balls and wine and whatnot? Wren wanted to break something just thinking about the shoes she’d have to wear…
Much more interesting was one just under it, a request to slay the pack of wolves currently harassing Lurelin, a town two days' ride from here. The Red Wolves wouldn’t be back from their request for at least a month, so she had the time…
“Why hello, Wren, what are you doing?” A voice that was 90% sleaze and 10% pure smug very quickly derailed her current line of thought and pulled it straight over into annoyance.
Wren sighed. “What do you want, Preston.”
Preston, a member of the Red Wolves “PR Department” and the closest thing to a politician Wren had ever come into contact with, put a hand over his heart in mock offence. “Why my dear Wren, I just wanted to say hello. It’s been so long since we’ve seen each other, why must you be so snappy?”
“Cause I don’t like you, pumpkin face, and because you never talk to me unless you want something. So, what do you want?”
Preston flushed orange at his nickname, but managed to swallow down his anger in favour of a strained smile. “My. Dear. Wren,” he forced out through gritted teeth, “I was merely inquiring after your. Presence, here at the job board, when Piper told me you were explicitly ordered to stay away from jobs for the next little while.”
Oh that sly little bitch, she put Preston in charge of watching me? Preston, of all people!? Wren dragged her hands down her face. “What did I do to deserve this?” she muttered, to the gods and no one else.
Preston didn’t get the memo, and Wren watched in fascination as a vein almost burst on his forehead. “I don’t believe you’ve answered my question, Songbird-”
Preston was up against the wall with a knife pressed to his throat before he could blink. “Don’t call me that,” Wren growled, voice low and dangerous.
Preston only smirked. “Wren,” he corrected, relishing his perceived victory and completely ignoring the knife to his throat, “Piper told me you were to take a vacation. No strenuous jobs for a month, I believe she said.”
“Wasn’t looking at strenuous jobs.”
“Oh?” Preston raised an eyebrow in silent doubt.
“Yeah. I was looking at this one,” Wren said, pulling away and yanking down the bodyguard quest.
Preston snatched the quest from her hand, quite rudely, and read over it. Then he looked up and grinned the most gleeful grin Wren had seen since that one time a raccoon had gotten into the Inn’s kitchen. Immediately her stomach sunk to the floor, because if Preston was making that face around her, Wren was in for a bad time.
“Well, this is about as far from strenuous as I can imagine. I suppose we ought to sign you up, oughtn’t we?” Preston said as he hurriedly speed walked over to the reception desk at the mercenaries guild.
Wren’s stomach dropped even farther, and her mouth opened in silent horror. “Wait, Preston, I can do it myself, I’ve filled out forms before-”
“Nonsense! How can I let a recovering patient fill out such an important form? Don’t you worry, I’ve filled out dozens of forms for the Red Wolves, I won’t mess it up!” That didn’t sound like reassurance. That sounded like a threat.
Wren seriously contemplated stabbing the bastard, she had at least three knives that hadn’t been used recently and would relish the attention, but if she did that Matt would give her a disappointed look, and Wren couldn’t handle another one of those so soon after her last one. So she resigned herself to another, much less practised skill of hers. Diplomacy.
10 minutes later, Wren was standing in front of Illum’s mercenary guildhall, staring in mute horror at the request in her hand. Diplomacy had failed her.
6 months of misery, 6 months of trying to talk to nobles, 6 months of wearing uniforms and embroidery. And it was all the requester's fault.
“Who posted this?” Wren muttered, squinting to get a closer look at the little “recipient” box. “Baron Handel Farnsworth…
“Who the fuck names their kid “Handle?””