Thankfully, there were not a few dozen yotels on the remainder of that day on their journey north. What they found instead was the remnants of a small, broken down camp, suitable in size for the four hunters they were looking for, with Hughestace stating that it was old enough to be from when they were heading out. It was enough to let them know they were likely still on the right trail, and that the job was not over yet.
Beyond that, it was more of the same, a rather unpleasant proposition for the spring season. They were on one of the major roads between cities, but that hardly meant anyone was splurging on the luxury of hauling out stone to pave anything. Instead, it meant that the road proper, a ten foot wide strip of the path, was a swampy mess from yesterday’s rain, the sprouting plant life in the mud yet to be choked out by the red clay and the heavier vehicles that would come by once things started drying out.
Not willing to trudge through that for no benefit, especially when the sucking mud would be closer to waist height for Mila and Rora than not, the adventurers were marching on the scraggly, root-held earth to the side of the road, still slick but with more footholds, and a lot fewer bugs trying to get up to them. Mosquito larva was plentiful in the wide mud pools that were more a seasonal feature than a recent result of the precipitation, and it made them a plentiful bounty for the polywogs, tiny fish, and other bugs that were also using them as nurseries.
Mila had never been to the ocean in Fantasyland, but given the prodigious size of some of the animals she did know, perhaps avoiding the beach was for the better. Scienceland made the comparison easy, though - the routine, heavy rain and gods-awful road conditions had created a long strip of artificial tide pools. There were certainly small ponds and creeks and the like around, their traveling having brought them up out of swamp land a few days prior, but none of the big fish in those ponds were here to disrupt the micro-ecosystem.
Mostly, anyway. One bit of excitement that kept everyone on their toes was when a furious buzzing overtook them from behind, Mila spinning fast and still struggling to follow the massive damselfly that blew past them along the water, the pitch of its wings dopplering amusingly.
The others did not seem quite able to make it out as it moved past and were still getting ready to fight whatever was upon them, but Mila waved them off. “No worries with that, she ain’t coming back around. Busy having fish for dinner?” Probably fish - her knowledge of Fantasyland critters was not complete, and the catfish-frog-thing it had been carrying was one of those gaps. Scienceland had absolutely none of that bullshit for either creatures she had seen, not since a few mass extinctions ago.
That thought tugged at her mind enough to make her realize that a lot of things had managed to squeak by big extinction events here - including dinosaurs. They were mixed up into some darker thoughts along the Fantasyland branch of her mind, weird feelings about religions mixed up in there, but that the tyrant lizards were out in the world got the Scienceland side very excited, tugging at the tangled knot of feelings with fierce demands to not taint dinosaurs with bullshit she did not like. After all, she had seen Jurassic Park, she knew better.
Dinosaurs were awesome.
She was thankfully pulled back before she got too jittery about possibly seeing real dinosaurs as Aluca asked, “…She?” He was in the middle of the group, and Mila turned back to look him over with one eye as she sheathed her knives. The others still looked a little concerned, but were relaxing as the bug continued to not circle back.
“A damselfly,” she said, then noting that nobody seemed to recognize the name. Which… was because as far as she knew, Fantasyland did not really make a distinction between the damselfly and the dragonfly. But because that distinction still existed and fit with the insects of Fantasyland, nothing conflicted from the Scienceland learning that supplied the name.
Immediately, Mila’s blood ran cold, very aware she had done the thing she had not wanted to do. She had not quite figured out why, exactly, she felt so strongly about letting what she knew of Scienceland out into the world here, or even mentioning what had happened, but she knew that it was not something she wanted to deal with right now. It was not even how the others would react - that she was potentially compromised and could not realize it herself was actually a factor towards letting the cat out of the bag. No, she suspected it was more the books she had read back in Scienceland, Mila being an equally voracious reader of trash in both worlds - a lot of isekai stories centered around making the new world like the old one. And colonialist theme bullshit aside, Mila did not have the most positive thoughts about a lot of how Scienceland operated.
But that one tidbit about thrice-damnable bugs had slipped out, and Mila tried to shrug it off. “Damselflies are like dragonflies, but thinner, more delicate. Damsels and dragons, naturally,” she said, a little irritation slipping in. While dinosaurs were very cool, Mila’s thoughts on dragons, well. They could be described as ungenerous.
“Calling the whole type of bug ‘damsels’ though, seems kinda sexist. For the boy flies and the other flies, you know?”
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
Mila rolled her eyes at Aluca’s good-natured, amused observation. “Clearly they all are just she/her flies, boys and girls and others alike. Not that I’m gonna listen too closely to what a hu-man has to say on the topic too deeply.”
“Worry not, small Mila. I know you would not listen to me no matter what.”
“Damn straight.”
The back-and-forth had the tension from her slip-up easing out of her, the tense muscles in her back relaxing a bit as the others chuckled at the silly discussion. They fell back to quiet marching, and soon enough, it was once more time to set up camp as the sun slipped down into the distant trees, this time proper camping without running off the road to tackle some yotels first. And Mila was even able to help a bit more than usual, some of those little tidbits from her stint as an Eagle Scout in Scienceland coming through to help her manage the knots she never could get the hang of before.
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Their large tent set up, blankets set out, and fire built, the group then spent some thirty minutes chattering about nothing as Naw-Naw cooked up a hearty dinner. Everyone tore into it, each chomping through one steak and starting on a second before Mila made the false observation that it tasted like yotel. The observation was enough to make Hughestace a bit green, his overall complexion turning an aquamarine that did not look particularly healthy. It waved him off the rest of the food, which meant more for Mila, which she happily snapped up.
By the time supper had wrapped, the smoky fire was the only light left, not that the dark bothered most of them. Due to their dependence on the fire, Aluca and the aquatic elf were taking first and second watch respectively, the former pulling out a book as he posted up, back to the campfire. Everyone else ducked through the bug net and took their beds, Mila flopping out next to Naw-Naw’s lanky frame and the curled up Rora, who Mila looked at long enough to smirk - Rora half looked like a slumbering dragon, and half like the flittering pile of gold a dragon would choose as a bed. It suited her, in a nice way.
Mila did not fall asleep swiftly, and not for a moment did she pass that off to herself as being due to her taking a forced nap early in the day. Her mind was filled with a cacophony of thoughts and worries, most prominently that she would go to sleep eventually and when she woke up, she’d be ‘back to normal’, be that in Scienceland or Fantasyland. She could not figure which one was less appealing, but what she could figure was that if either were to come to pass, she would feel less for it. Even if the Mila from Fantasyland did like the theoretical idea of being particularly tall, which the other one never quite leveraged like she would and maybe even should have, it was all the faintest imagined silver linings.
Ruminations continued as minute dragged by, slowly dug out from under Mila and torn away from her grasp. The pink kobold let out a deep breath she did not know she was half-holding when the big gnoll turned over, Mila catching the gaze of their dark brown eyes and half-jumping. She let it go though as Naw-Naw gave her a small smile, curling forward a little bit to draw closer.
Naw-Naw had never made claim for leadership of their little pack of misfits, as most groups of adventurers could best be described. It had never been put up to a vote with everyone present. But all the same, they all knew that their tallest member was the one to call the shots whenever shots needed to be called and everyone else was unsure or in conflict. It was not by virtue of their height that Naw-Naw claimed that ‘luxury’, but instead the careful, near-parental attention that the gnoll gave the others.
Unlike Mila’s actual parents, either set of them, that meant managing to both bring the kobold in close enough for a quiet, reassuring comfort and refraining from the choking tightness of direct contact. Mila did poorly with thecasual physical closeness that so many others easily handled without a thought, especially given that most kobolds were raised in cramped, close quarters. But Naw-Naw did not crowd her with that while still giving that closeness, not forcing her to fight against the mix of outward and inward anger.
“Mila, darlin’,” they spoke quietly, barely a whisper. “Couldn’ sleep either? I was worried about you earlier. We all were.” Mila was unsure whether Rora and Hughestace were actually asleep or just polite enough to keep pretending. Either way, the soft whisper of the much larger person had a way of being felt in your chest, so the quietness of the whisper sure was not it.
“I’m fine, I’m fine. Not enough blood loss in the world that a good meal can’t fix.”
“A good meal can fix a lot, but not even my cookin’ can fix everything. We’re all here to help wit’ the rest, though.”
“I’m not broken or anything, my leg is all good. I’m-“
A soft shush slithered out of the furred muzzle. “Nobody sayin’ you’re broke, ya daft woman. I’m saying we’re here for you. Not pryin’, not accusin’. If today, or any day, takes a lot outta ya, that’s ok. We’re here for you, same as you’re here for us. If’n that means I gotta tackle a yotel or two, so be it.”
That got a snort out of Mila. Naw-Naw was a lot bigger than either kobold, but both reptiles leveraged what they had much better in a fight. Any yotel getting sacked by Naw-Naw would have to be infirm already, well on its way to whatever afterlife cared for disturbing monstrosities that could turn a doorknob. The imagery helped though, and Mila nodded her head slightly in the darkness. “Maybe leave the direct heroics to Rora, though,” Mila offered as a tidbit of unasked for advice.
“Ha, she’d appreciate that indeed. I’ll keep it in mind.” Naw-Naw began to shift back away, their words delivered and job done for the time being, but Mila started, almost saying something before clamping her mouth on the words. It was enough for the gnoll to pause, though, a furry eyebrow raised in silent question.
Instead of answering aloud, Mila just moved forward slightly, rolling on her side a bit closer and offered her right arm up into the air in an empty, half-embrace, unsure what to do or even what she really wanted. Thankfully, Naw-Naw was able to read through the awkwardness just fine and slipped toward her, one heavy arm slipping up to pull Mila in and half off the ground. The hug was not tight, but it was firm in the meaning that it channeled, and Mila pressed her face into the fur along the mammal’s collarbone for a deep few seconds. It was not until she started to pull that she talked, Naw-Naw smoothly lowering her away.
“Thank you. You give very good hugs.”
“Mmm, I know. I practice.”
That got another snort of laughter from Mila as she flattened herself on her back once more, the gnoll moving away. Everyone here had her back, and she had known that, but the reassurance felt great to have nonetheless. And that was all she needed, it turned out, as without the roil of doubts inside of her mind, sleep swiftly ambushed Mila much in the way she was used to ambushing, and the hours rolled over her easily.