She stayed sitting there on the forest floor for a period of time, but she couldn't have told you how long.
By the time she started walking the sun had moved, and the dried salt of tears on her face were making her feel tired and grimy.
Sweep-claw's words kept echoing through her mind. Of course they'd remember her, she would only be gone a year. Two seasons, that was no time at all. She had been gone a whole season when she was learning to be a trader and it had felt like nothing, this would only be double-nothing.
She scrubbed at her face with her bare arm as she stumbled through the thick underbrush. One year, to the day. She would mark it somehow. She would get her system and she would… She would get a job as a timekeeper, so she would know when to return home. She'd always been told that humans were very particular about marking time, she could learn to be so too.
She would count each day and she would never lose track.
She would be useful too. She'd measure paces so when somebody asked her a distance she could always tell them accurately. She would watch the sun and tell everyone when lunch was. She would mark the days and ring the bells for winter, to announce the annual march down into the valley, and when the summer rolled around it would be her that called them back home.
Two seasons until she could go home. Not that long at all.
****
Jump-touch was feeling better by the time she reached the road, although it was early evening now, and she was considering camping for the night instead of pressing onwards. She knew it was the road because of the thick brush ahead of her, a hedge of thorns stretching out in two directions with no visible breaks. Rat-tail had described it to her, a barrier the humans grew against the more dangerous things of the forest.
But not everything in the forest was dangerous. Where do the animals cross? They must do so, right?
It took her some looking to find a place, and it was a gap sized more for rabbits than humans, but she was small, and she managed to crawl through with only a few scratches. Then. she was there. On the Road.
It's like a scar on the landscape, was her first thought.
The second was: It's so straight. How can anything be this straight?
The concept of the Road had been explained to her, and it had made sense in theory, but to see it was something else. Wide enough across that even Sweep-claw would struggle to touch both sides at once, it was paved with flat square slabs, all fit together so well that it was almost seamless. The grey-speckled stone was spotless, too, with not a flaw on it, even up to where it met the hedge. A clean cut, like the stone had been split that morning by a master.
She had never seen anything so flat and so straight before, it was making her eyes ache. The kobolds split slates to build their houses, and even she, somebody who had spent their life surrounded by it, even she had never seen such a perfect job.
The road seemed to hum as she took her first step out of the hedgerow, something like adrenaline rushing through her, and then the feeling faded and it was just stone, warm beneath her feet in the evening sun.
Magic?
"What was that?" she muttered in the Given Tongue, wiggling her toes. It felt like stone now, and nothing more. Warm from a long winter's day and oddly smooth, but stone all the same.
She took another step, but the feeling didn't return, and a few minutes later she was trotting along in the direction she'd been given, towards the setting sun. The solidness of the road was jarring against her knees, and the flatness of the whole thing was still strange, but as long as she stuck to the edges, it wasn't so bad.
****
She stopped to eat a couple of hours later, the light gone by now but the moon clear and bright above her. Sweep-claw had hunted for them both on their walk, and food had been provided in the Lower Village, but she was onto travel rations now. If she wanted something better then she'd have to set snares and hunt, and she hadn't brought materials with her for either.
She felt herself tearing up as she unwrapped the parcel. It wasn't much. Plain dried fruit and spiced jerky, all wrapped in the special leaves from the vines on the edge of the Dip, but it smelled like home.
She had helped Rat-tail and Feather-paw hang this batch of meat; high, up near the mountain peak where the cold and the sun worked best. It was her favourite mix, the one used only by the three of them.
She had traded for some of the spices herself, back last year when they were in their winter camp, and others she had helped grow, collect, dry and grind. She hadn't realised there was any of it left, this close to the end of the season. Rat-tail must have saved it just for her.
She wasn't crying, it was just the spices making her eyes and nose run.
She would go home.
****
The next morning she wiped her eyes and crawled out from under the hedge, washing her face and paws with the last of her water.
She had overslept somewhat, curled up under her blanket, but she wasn't going to dwell on that.
She glanced up and down the road. Nobody would build a path this long without there being water available. Even up on the Mountain, their village was situated where it was because of the snowmelt running in streams down towards the world below.
That would be her goal for the next couple of hours, find herself a drink, have a wash and-
"——!!"
She was climbing to her feet and brushing the dirt and dried leaves off herself, when there was a cry from down the road, back in the direction she'd already walked.
A moment later there was a clattering of hooves, and the strangest person she'd ever seen drew up beside her. Jump-touch crouched down instinctively. She hadn't even heard them coming until they were almost upon her, despite the stone of the road. More magic?
It was a kobold, she saw, but one of the bigger ones. Four hooves and a short, red coat, they looked almost like one of the goats the village kept for meat and milk, only their fur was smoother and they were much, much larger, and… Oh. It took her a second look for it to sink it.
It wasn't a kobold at all.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Is this the first human I've ever seen? She wondered, before dismissing that thought with a scoff, of course not. I was born amongst them. It's just… Been a while.
She rose to her feet as the human attempted to get their goat under control. They were riding it, like a child might, and the animal didn't seem too keen on the experience. The goat itself was a huge thing, its back a bit higher than her shoulders, and it also didn't seem to like the person riding it very much, if she was reading his body language right.
The human shouted, and with a toss of his head, the goat finally calmed down, shuffling his feet on the smooth road. Isn't he in danger of slipping?
"Can I help you?" she asked them both after the spectacle was over, and she found the two of them looking at her with expectant gazes.
She asked in the Given Tongue first, and then when they kept staring, tried again in Other.
"Do neither of you understand me?"
The goat snorted, but it was only a goat, and the man- because she was pretty sure that was what he was- she'd been given descriptions- atop its back yammered something at her, rapid fire.
It was a lot more… Vocal than she was used to, but he was using his arms a lot so that might be a part of it. She flinched back as he almost fell off at one point, only holding on by his legs as the animal reared up.
This was getting none of them anywhere.
"I guess since neither of you can understand me, I'll just carry on on my own. It was nice meeting you both."
She picked up her pack from where it had been abandoned under the hedgerow, lighter now she was out of water, and shrugged at him. She'd already tried both of her staple-languages, what else could she try?
She knew dribs and drabs of other languages. A touch of Lower Speak, the trade language used in the Lower Village, and a couple of words of Human, but not enough of either to do more than get her in trouble.
There were the whistles of the gryphons who they met sometimes during the March, but that was only used to communicate with their chicks, and she didn't think "aren't you a good little chicklet, would you like a mouse?" was going to get her very far.
There was always SHRIEK, the language the bird-people spoke, but she only knew the trading-greetings, and speaking them would both make her throat hurt for the rest of the day, and would scare the goat, so that one was a last resort. Were there any others…?
The man had given up questioning her and now seemed to be thinking, moving his lips without speaking and trying to stay on his goat, until finally he nodded to himself.
He said something else in his rapid-fire, and then slid down to the floor. He hadn't even been strapped on, yet the goat hadn't managed to throw him off. She was reluctantly impressed.
The goat, sensing freedom, immediately tried to bolt, but the human had his paws on its bindings, so there was only a momentary struggle before it gave up, rolled its eyes and allowed itself to be led.
"I'll get him next time, I'll stamp on his foot when he least expects it," the goat's body language said as he was led in a tight circle by the human. "Just you wait."
The human beckoned for her to walk beside him, and with a shrug she accepted. What could it hurt?
****
His name was My-he-kal, she learnt over the next few hours, and his goat was named Roo-set. She didn't know what either of those names meant, but she was making sure to pronounce them carefully and correctly.
She had sounded out her own name to him several times, but he kept pushing the sounds together. He would remember for a minute, and then the next time he said it, it would be one word again, or his tone would be completely off, or he would butcher it completely. It was infuriating.
They were headed somewhere; the road didn't exactly have many branching paths- and if she was reading his gestures right- if she allowed him to lift her up onto the back of the goat then they would make it to wherever their destination was before nightfall.
He kept insisting that the goat was very fast.
Still, that wasn't happening. She was not going to ride the goat, thank-you-very-much. She didn't need to be carried like a child or like baggage. Plus, Roo-set didn't seem to like one burden very much, never mind two. He had already attempted to bolt twice more during their walk, but the complicated tangle of ropes and straps around his head had foiled both attempts, and he was pretending he'd given up now, content to take occasional bites from the hedge, and at least one bite from My-he-kal's coat instead.
The human seemed frustrated at her refusal to ride Roo-set, talking animatedly and looking suspiciously at every gap in the hedge as the sky darkened towards night. He was looking for a camp, she thought?
She found him very hard to read. His body language was all over the place and she couldn't even begin to get a hold on it. He kept baring his teeth at her, and while she knew from her experience with her own face that it shouldn't mean anything, she still found it rather unsettling.
As the light finally faded, Jump-touch finally spotted what they were looking for, a moment after My-he-kal had hurried past it.
They'd both found water a few times, small springs and taps, but there were surprisingly few obvious resting places along the road. It was the sound of running water and a worn animal path finally drew her attention, My-he-kal protesting as she ducked through a gap in the hedgerow, shouting at him to follow her.
A moment later the three of them were standing in a cleared area. It wasn't natural, but it was very convenient. A grassy clearing that would have been just about big enough for Sweep-claw to settle down in. Maintained for travellers, maybe?
On one side was a small stone obelisk, out of which a slow stream of water was pouring down into a basin, and in the centre was a well-used fire-pit, ringed with stones. There were flattened spaces in the grass where others had slept, and she could see wheel-marks off to one side, where somebody at some point had dragged a cart in, but not checked the ground beforehand.
It would be another chilly night without a Guardian for company, but she would make do. She'd managed last night, and this place was much more sheltered. Maybe Roo-set would snuggle?
"Well, this is pretty nice," Jump-touch said out loud, "I'll get some brush, you start the fire?"
She'd mostly given up trying to talk to My-he-kal over the last couple of hours, contenting herself with chatting to Roo-set, but she couldn't keep ignoring him forever.
He taught me some useful words at least. It's not his fault he can't speak a real language.
She pointed him towards the fire-pit with a barked order, before setting out to find enough leaves to make them beds. She preferred a proper mattress, blankets and pillows, like any civilised kobold, (and even more so than some) but those things weren't always possible. A bed of leaves and her blanket would do for tonight.
She thought about it as she gathered. On the March they always travelled as light as possible. Sleeping things, tents, extra baggage, these were only ways to slow yourself down. Only a few of the goats in the village were domesticated to anything like the level of being able to carry goods, and a lot of the kobolds lacked functional paws or their bodies weren't suited to carrying. Plus, who needs a comfortable bed when you have a bear the size of a trade caravan to snuggle with, or when you have thick fur and wings a half-span wide?
Not actually that wide, it was a figure of speech, but Feather-paw…
She pulled her thoughts away. She wouldn't think about Feather-paw. He'd wanted to come with her, but Rat-tail had talked him out of it, had talked them both out of it, so he would be there waiting for her on the day she came home.
She would go home.
****
Jump-touch came back into the camp with wood for the fire and enough material to make herself a bed for the night, only to find My-he-kal surrounded by chaos. Instead of sitting beside a neatly cleared fire-pit, he was instead sitting on the grass looking miserable, surrounded by all his stuff.
He whined something at her, gesturing to Roo-set, who had been freed of his clothes and bindings and who was now drinking from the water basin.
The goat looked much happier for it, she thought as she dropped her leaves. It wasn't fair that he had to carry so much and everyone else so little.
"Good boy," she told him in Other, and he tossed his head at her, spraying water droplets outwards in the evening light.
She eyed up My-he-kal. Did he not know how to make a fire, or was he like some of the younger kobolds, so attached to his stuff that he had to be forcibly parted from it every time the season changed?
It must be the second, she thought as she turned to go find more firewood. Even humans had to know how to make fire, it was a child's trick, but it was also the one thing that might save you from freezing to death in the summer storms.
Pack-rat, it must be. Even now he was pulling more and more things out of his bags, setting them out around him. Inventorying, she'd seen it before. Making sure nothing had gone missing in the time from breakfast 'til dinner.
She had been warned that humans were weird, and it seemed the warnings were correct. Any sensible kobold would have been broken of the habit by the time they reached his age, whatever age that was. Older than her certainly.
Oh well, she could make them both somewhere to sleep while he sorted through his junk, set the fire going, have some dinner, and if she was lucky then tomorrow she would have her job, know a few more words in his rattle-mash of a language, and she would be ready to start her year-long journey back home.