Carrying Ekori wasn’t difficult, so much as it was tedious. Terry was used to having his arms free, and she was light enough that he kept forgetting about her. Then, he’d go to point at something or grab something that looked interesting and find his arm encumbered by the unconscious person he was carrying. Eventually, he started to zone out. It was only when Haresh called out to him that he snapped out of the daze.

“What?” asked Terry with a little shake of his head.

“We should stop and set up camp. I expect we’ve walked far enough.”

Terry looked around and figured that they could probably find a flat spot to pitch tents or whatever. He felt Ekori shift and looked down. She was staring up at him with a faint blush on her cheeks. His eyes narrowed.

“How long have you been awake?” he demanded.

“At least an hour,” supplied Jaban with the malicious helpfulness that only siblings can achieve.

“An hour,” said Terry in a flat voice. “Is that right?”

“I—” started Ekori before letting out a shriek as Terry unceremoniously dropped her.

She stared up at him from the ground with a mixed look of fury and incredulity. Terry stepped over her and pointed at a little clearing off the road.

“We should set up camp there. It’s already clear,” he announced.

“That wasn’t necessary!” shouted Ekori.

“Neither was letting me carry you after you woke up,” answered Terry without looking back.

He’d already removed Dusk from her perch on his shoulder and was shrugging out of his pack. The kitten looked around from the new vantage point of his hand. She apparently found the new view insufficiently interesting because she yawned. After doing a little circuit of the clearing and not finding anything too objectionable, Terry turned the kitten loose to explore. She did that for about three minutes before climbing onto his discarded pack and settling down into that odd, sphinx-like pose that every cat seems to know. She watched the work happening with an intense curiosity. She’d seen the same thing before, but Terry supposed it must hold more mysteries to unravel in this new place.

He placidly ignored the annoyed looks that Ekori periodically shot his way, as well as the rather ostentatious way she rubbed her backside. Serves her right if her ass is sore. Letting me carry her when she was awake. He could understand letting it go on for a minute or two, but it wouldn’t have been that hard to alert him once she realized he hadn’t noticed her conscious state. Her voice clearly still worked just fine. Once she made the decision to let the situation continue, well, she got whatever she got. Next time, I’ll just tie her to Drumstick’s back. We’ll see how much she likes that. The thought brought such a big smile to his face that Haresh gave him a quizzical look.

“What’s got you so happy?” the man asked.

“Oh, just a nice thought,” said Terry before he turned a big, evil smile on Ekori.

She took one look at that smile and retreated several hasty steps back.

“Don’t smile at me like that,” she said. “It makes you look like you plan on killing me in my sleep.”

“What kind of revenge would that be?” asked Terry.

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“You already dropped me on the ground,” she complained. “Isn’t that enough?”

“An hour,” said Terry.

He went back to clearing out a rudimentary fire pit before she thought up a reply. He’d never seen one in real life before coming to Chinese Period Drama Hell, but he’d worked out the basics through exposure and practice. He was very motivated not to set himself or his tent on fire. Ekori and Jaban took it upon themselves to make the food, as they mostly had since he’d cooked the enormous wing over the fire. He was content to let them do that if they wanted. It was one less thing on his list. He spent his valuable time doing constructive things like playing with Dusk. He was ceaselessly entertained by the way the little creature pounced after a long piece of grass he dragged across the ground.

He did keep half an eye on Drumstick, but the enormous chicken-lizard had curled up just outside their camp. A soft, wheezy, whistling noise had started to emanate from the beast after about twenty minutes. It had taken him an embarrassingly long time to realize the noise was snoring. He had been worried that he was going to need to kill something every single day for Drumstick to eat, but it seemed to be unnecessary. The chicken-lizard would eat anything he let it have but only seemed to actually need food intermittently. The boar had been more than enough for the moment, or so Terry assumed.

He was surprised to find that the meal the siblings prepared was surprisingly close to curry. It wasn’t an exact match. The stew was a decidedly plum color, rather than the red or yellow colors he was used to seeing. It was a little milder than he expected as well. There was something almost floral hiding in the flavors. Even so, it was close enough that he felt a few pangs of homesickness. It wasn’t the overwhelming flood that had taken him at other times, for which he was grateful. He wondered if maybe he’d just hit a point of emotional fatigue.

It would track. Some people could seemingly keep their emotions on a high burn for weeks, months, or even years at a time. He was not among their ranks. Just knowing people like that made him tired. He’d been experiencing a lot of intense emotions lately. He knew that hormones played a role in some of that. He’d read something that he only sort of remembered about the stress cycle and glands releasing adrenaline and… Terry racked his brain. What the hell had that other hormone been? It was definitely something with a C. Wait, thought Terry, am I confusing that with something I saw in a movie? That C thing sounds really familiar. And why do I suddenly want to say, Groovy? He almost got lost trying to figure out what movie he was almost remembering but Jaban spoke up.

“So, you watched us fight today,” said the young man as he looked at Terry. “What did you think?”

Terry worked hard to keep a neutral expression as he debated whether he should say anything. It wasn’t his job to teach, and he was wholly unqualified to remark on what anyone else was doing. It had become apparent to him in recent days that he was skating by on superior strength and speed, rather than skill. That wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. If he had to have advantages, being stronger and faster than most of the things he fought was not a bad place to start from. It did, however, make his advice of questionable value. Plus, Haresh was the person who should really being weighing in on that question. He was their actual teacher.

“You should ask him that,” said Terry as he pointed at Haresh. “He’s the one training you.”

Jaban deflated a little and answered, “I know what he’ll say.”

“What would he say?” asked Terry.

“He’d say that I’m too worried about being the hero and making the kill. That I should let Ekori take the lead to do damage.”

“And I’d be right,” said Haresh.

“Well,” said Terry, “sounds like you don’t need me to tell you anything unless you were hoping I’d say something different.”

“Would you?” asked Jaban with eager hope on his face.

“No. Someone picked him to teach you which means that they trust his judgment. I’m in no position to gainsay him or whoever picked him. Plus, you’re still alive. That means that whatever he’s teaching you is working.”

“I know,” said a glum Jaban.

Terry remembered being that young and desperately craving approval from older, more experienced people. He felt a little glimmer of sympathy for the kid and decided to throw him a bone.

“Look. Someday… And by someday, I mean many, many, many years from now, you might be strong enough to be that hero you want to be, but it isn’t now. You have to live long enough to get that strong. If you keep trying to be a hero now, you’re just going to end up dead and probably take your sister with you.”

Terry thought over what he’d just said, evaluated the defeated look on Jaban’s face, and sighed.

“Incidentally,” said Terry, “I might be kind of shitty at giving encouragement.”