“Do you always talk this much?” demanded Terry.

Kelima had been an “official” part of his journey for less than an hour, and it was already everything he could do to keep from strangling her. Not because he wanted her dead but because he wanted her to be quiet. She’d been talking and asking questions almost non-stop. It was just so much noise. If this was what he had to look forward to for the next six months, he wasn’t going to make it. Or, he admitted to himself, she isn’t going to make it. His question had at least brought the barrage of sound to a temporary halt. He exulted in the momentary lack of talking.

“Am I talking a lot?” she asked.

His glare was enough to make her take a quick step back.

“Yes,” he said through clenched teeth. “You are talking a lot.”

“Well, I’m nervous and you haven’t said a word.”

“That’s because I’m trying to concentrate.”

“Well, if you told me what you were concentrating on, maybe I could help.”

“No. You wouldn’t help. You’d just ask a bunch of questions.”

“You don’t know that,” said an indignant Kelima.

“Fine,” said Terry. “I’m looking for a trail.”

“A trail for what? Where does it go? Wait. Are you looking for someone?”

Terry stared at the girl for long enough that her cheeks turned bright pink. Shaking his head, he turned his attention back to the sides of the road. That damn trail has to be around here somewhere, he mentally grumbled to himself. There were five minutes of blissful silence before Kelima broke it again with a wholly unnecessary confession.

“Fine. I talk a lot.”

“You should work on that,” said Terry.

“That wasn’t very nice.”

“I’m not very nice.”

“Obviously.”

Terry thought that he was probably supposed to feel bad or something after that last snippy comment, but he didn’t.

“Didn’t you talk to people in your old world?” she asked.

“No.”

That seemed to bring the girl up short because she just walked next to him for several steps with a stunned look on her face.

“Never?” she asked.

“Oh, for the love of all that is holy. I’ll tell you what. I will answer that question if you will promise not to say anything for the next ten minutes. Deal?”

Kelima gave him a sour look but finally said, “Deal.”

“Obviously, I spoke to people occasionally in my old world. But that world isn’t like this one. I didn’t have to talk to people for every little thing I wanted to do. So, I didn’t. Then, I got dragged to this terrible place where I have no choice but to talk to people all the damned time, and I hate it! Now, here we are. Far from all the other people. It should be nice and quiet, but it isn’t. So, please, for the sake of my sanity, I am begging you. Be silent for the next ten minutes.”

Terry had genuinely thought his plea for silence might actually touch some basic human pity in the girl, but he could see all of the questions just waiting to explode from Kelima. He turned away from her and vainly tried to find the trail again. Much to his surprise, though, she lasted the whole ten minutes. Then, the questions started again.

“What was it like on your old world?”

Silence.

“Why didn’t you have to talk to people like you do here?”

Silence.

“Why did you call this a terrible place?”

Don’t kill her, Terry told himself. It will be bad if you kill her. Killing her will definitely be very, very bad.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“You know,” said Kelima, “you’d be way less likely to start trouble if you just talked to people.”

Terry knew he shouldn’t do it, but the words were spilling from lips before sanity could have its say.

“That’s the biggest lie I’ve ever heard,” said Terry. “It would just delay the trouble.”

“That’s not a lie. Talking to people gives you options.”

“Only if you plan on doing at least some of what they want,” answered Terry. “If you don’t, then you’re just delaying the trouble. Once they find out you’re not going to play along, they’ll jump right to trying to force you to do it. Exactly like you did. I’d rather just skip to the fight and be done with it.”

“I didn’t try to force you—”

“If you finish that sentence, you can turn around and go home right this second. Because that is exactly what you did.”

Kelima’s mouth snapped shut, and she had the good grace to look at least a little embarrassed.

“That kind of entitlement is something I want no part of and damn near everyone with a scrap of power in this world has it.”

“You can’t survive if you refuse to bow to your betters,” said Kelima.

“Better how? Aside from the fact that someone gave your family a title, what makes you better than any farmer I walk past on this road?”

“Nobles have more responsibility,” said Kelima.

“So what? Anyone can take up a responsibility. Having one doesn’t make you better, especially if you’re not the one with actual responsibility for anything. The way it looked to me, your parents are the ones with responsibilities.”

“Those will be my responsibilities someday.”

“But not today, right?”

Kelima scowled at him but admitted, “Not today.”

“So, aside from the fact that you will, someday, be responsible for something, what makes you better than that farmer I mentioned?” asked Terry.

“I—”

“The answer is nothing. Nothing makes you better. Your family got luckier than that farmer’s family. That’s it.”

Kelima’s scowl deepened.

“You’re oversimplifying things.”

“Am I? We have this principle where I come from called Occam’s Razor. The basic idea is that the answer with the fewest complications is usually the correct one. The least complicated answer to my question is that nothing makes you better. You just think that you’re better, which is pure arrogance.”

“Like you don’t think you’re better than everyone else? You look down on anyone you think is arrogant or entitled. How are you any different?”

“I don’t expect anyone to bow, or pretend that they respect me, or do what I want simply because I exist. All I want is for people to leave me alone. That’s the difference.”

Much to Terry’s joy, Kelima didn’t seem to have a ready response. Instead, she fell into broody silence. Terry returned to looking for the trail. It took about half an hour before he finally saw something that looked like it might be a trail. He might have ignored it in other circumstances, but it was the first thing he’d seen that even might be what he was looking for. Deciding to roll the dice, he stepped off the road and onto the trail. It took most of an hour during which he constantly expected to run across some kind of vicious beast or another, but nothing appeared. He didn’t even get any warnings in that new sense of his that something was nearby. It seemed odd, but he’d had enough crappy fortune since arriving that he was happy to accept this bit of good luck. He knew that they were in the right place when he heard the rather distinctive ring of a hammer on metal.

“Did you come all the way out here just to meet a blacksmith?” Kelima demanded. “I can think of at least six blacksmiths I could have taken you to that live in actual civilized places.”

Terry ignored Kelima’s complaining and pushed forward until he stepped out into a surprisingly large open area in the forest. There was a modest house, a few small outbuildings, and one larger building that he assumed was the actual smithy. Now that he’d arrived, though, he wasn’t sure exactly how to proceed. Analina had warned him not to annoy this blacksmith, and interrupting their work seemed like a great way to do just that. Whoever this smith was, Terry had the feeling that they were like him. They mostly just wanted to be left alone. Nobody set up their business this far away from a town and this deep into the woods if they liked visitors. Before Terry could make a decision, there was a deep woof that he felt in his bones.

A massive beast that looked like a slightly scaled-down version of the dire wolves that he’d fought came bounding out of the smithy. Terry was taken aback and started to reach for a sword before he relaxed. Kelima, on the other hand, let out a shriek and started to stumble away.

“What are you doing?” she cried out. “We have to go!”

“That stress level is going to kill you someday,” said Terry before he looked at the enormous canine.

The dog or wolf or whatever it was ran a couple of circles around them while Terry reached into his pack and managed to fish out a piece of dried meat from around Dusk, who halfheartedly batted at his hand. The huge thing zeroed in on the meat immediately and rushed over to Terry. It sat down, tongue lolling out, and its eyes never left the dried meat.

“Well, you don’t scare easy, do you?”

Terry looked over to the smithy and saw a woman standing in the door. She was tall and looked broad in the shoulders, with short, dark hair and piercing blue eyes. Terry offered her a shrug.

“I suppose not. Is this okay?” he asked, lifting the piece of jerky.

The big beast’s tail started thumping against the ground. The woman rolled her eyes but nodded. Terry tossed the jerky and it was snapped out of the air.

“I was told to give you this right away,” said Terry.

He pulled out a sealed letter that Analina had given to him and held it out toward the woman. The giant canine sniffed the air and immediately lost interest. It apparently decided that Terry wasn’t going to feed it anything else and turned to look at the woman. She heaved a sigh and walked over to them. She didn’t quite rip the letter out of Terry’s hand, but it was a close thing. She cracked the wax seal and opened the paper. She frowned as she read it and glanced at him a couple of times before she finally turned a gimlet eye on Kelima.

“Who is she?”

“She’s just a stray,” said Terry, eliciting a choked noise from the noble girl. “I made the mistake of feeding her once. Now, I can’t get rid of her.”

“Rookie mistake,” said the blacksmith with a spark of amusement in her eyes. “We all do it once.”

“Hey!” said Kelima. “I’m not a stray!”

“Of course, you’re not,” said Terry before dropping into a stage whisper. “She’s definitely a stray.”