This was only the second human she'd ever met! They were wearing an overcoat much like My-he-kal's, but in a rougher fabric and without the blue dye, and their hair was-
Oh.
Jump-touch stared.
There wasn't even a greeting as the human walked past them, their pace rapid as they headed towards the Road. They kept their eyes averted and didn't even make a single whistle of acknowledgement.
She… Out of everything she'd expected from her second human, being completely ignored was not it.
Was… No, it couldn't have been her. Was My-he-kal that scary? Maybe Roo-set? She had thought the goat was an ordinary thing, a friend and pack animal, but…
"Was it you, Roo-set?" she asked him, craning her head backwards to watch the other human walk away. "Did you drive them off?"
Roo-set flicked his ears back at her, casting a glance back towards the retreating figure.
"I knew it." She barked a laugh and the goat flicked his ears again, "I guess you're something special after all. We'll just have to try and convince the next one you're not so scary."
The next humans came in a group of three. Two very tall ones and a much smaller one, around her size. They were dressed much the same as the first human she'd seen, and they, much like that first one, kept their eyes averted and their pace rapid.
"Greeting?" she whistled at them as they passed. It wasn't even a proper word, only a sound, but they ignored it, hurrying their pace and keeping the smaller human- a child? between them.
My-he-kal cast her a look, walking beside her now, pulling on the goat's lead rope as if that would make him speed up.
"Jammer yabber," he said, sounding tired. "yammer jabber jammer."
It might have translated as "They don't want to talk to you," but she didn't want to talk either, she just wanted acknowledgement! That was how you told people you were different from an animal or a monster. Animals and monsters would either run, avert their gaze, or attack. Other people would greet you. It was what made people different from monsters or animals.
Even if you were like Feather-paw and you could only speak the most basic of Other, you would still make yourself known, tell the other party that you could think.
She found herself moving closer to Roo-set, one hand resting against his warm side.
"I don't get it," she whispered to My-he-kal a while later, as another two groups passed them by, eyes averted and shoulders hunched.
"Do they all act like animals?"
The human didn't answer, looking out for something ahead of them, and she let the one-sided conversation lapse, listening to the sounds of birds and watching the travellers hurry past.
****
At the end of the road there was a sudden ending of the plains the cultivated woods they'd been walking through, and almost a half-span onwards, in the distance, she could see the grey walls of the human village that was her destination.
In the stories she'd been told, human villages were always surrounded by walls, and this one stood no different. The single span of grey stretched across the horizon, tiny figures standing atop it, almost invisible at this distance.
"Is the gap in the trees to keep monsters away?" she asked Roo-set in a whisper. There were a lot more humans here now. Some of them with other goats, carts, wagons. Adults, children, and all human and pale.
As they approached the city a few were camped at the base of the wall, underneath elaborate-looking tents and shelters, and others appeared to be trading out of the sides of their wagons. Food, mostly, although there were other things too. Small trinkets, the odd flash of gold and silver catching her eye.
It was overwhelming, so she tried to narrow her focus down. Concentrate on one thing, and let the rest in once you're okay with that. Breathe in and out, and focus down.
Coins, she decided.
She saw a lot of coins changing hands as they marched together along the cobbled road. The slates had run out a while back, making way for- focus.
Coins made sense to her, and even if she'd never used them herself, she'd had them explained to her during her time in the Lower Village. She'd been there long enough to know they were what humans preferred to trade in, even if she'd always been shushed out into the woods when they came to town.
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Coins made life simple. You go to a village, you trade your goods into the in-going supply, and you get an appropriate amount of tokens or coins in return, determined based on supply. You can then use your tokens to trade for things from the outgoing supply.
It made bookkeeping much simpler and reduced so much haggling and griping. No more "but my goat is worth three rolls of cloth." if a goat was always three coins.
Trade any leftovers over back into goods for the next stop and you were good to go. If two villages used the same coins, then if the first didn't have what you needed you could always take them to the next one and trade there. The village leaders would make sure somebody carried them back at the end of the season.
Simple. She expanded her focus.
The people here felt much less animal-like than those on the road, despite all the shouting and baying around her. Human was such a vocal language. All mouth-noises and hand gestures, tonal shifts up and down. She paused to listen to two people discuss... Something. The price of dried beans, perhaps?
She had heard the odd whistle, too, whirling around to see who was calling, but it was just somebody shouting to a friend. A moment later somebody else was whistling music, until somebody else shushed them.
They were right too, she hadn't been very good at it. All the notes were very slightly off, and the tempo too rigid. No words woven into it either, only sounds.
One of the traders they were passing called out to her with a waved hand, but My-he-kal grabbed her by the shoulder before she could go near, pulling her back to Roo-set's side. She couldn't understand what he said, but it sounded like a scolding.
"I wasn't gonna do anything," she growled at him, and he tightened his grip on her shoulder and she tried to shrug him away.
It wasn't like she had anything to trade, anyway. She'd eaten the last of her food for breakfast and her pack only contained her empty water-skin, her fire-starter kit and a blanket now.
She did have a small knife, in the kit, but that had been given to her on her sixth birthday and the blade was worn almost to nothing. The villagers had given her a new one as a going-away present, the length of her hand and with a fine wooden handle, but she had told Rat-tail to hold onto it.
It was what had been meant by the gift, anyway. Something to return for, as if the people weren't enough. She scoffed.
They were coming up to the walls, now, heading towards a gate big enough that even Sweep-claw could have squeezed through it. Did they size their village for bears? She hadn't seen anything other than humans and animals so far, but… Maybe they were all inside?
She had a sudden vision of a city of only humans. All weird and greasy and crammed together. No kobolds, no Mud-people. None of the Big People resting as they passed through, their lives on their backs. No harpies in the sky, upsetting the animals. Only humans.
She kept her eyes on the colours around her, letting her vision blur. There were all the different styles of clothing, but most of them were drab shades of cream and brown. Somewhere beside her My-he-kal was speaking, but she ignored him for now.
Focus down and breathe.
The gate was ahead of them now, feeling like the tallest thing she'd ever seen. It appeared to be guarded by two humans, one on either side, both dressed alike and bearing weapons, but neither paid her or My-he-kal any mind as they passed through the arch.
How does it stay up?
Then with no time to mull it over, they were inside the village, on the other side of the walls.
Her first sight of a human village, built on the flat, instead of into the slopes like the kobold towns she was so used to. Would they even live in houses, or did they live in tents and carts like those outside the walls?
Jump-touch stared around with wide eyes. It… Oh. So far it wasn't much different to the outside, if she was being honest with herself. More stalls, more food scents in the air, charred meat, baking bread, and the pervasive smell of animals living together in a small space. The smell of the summer, when the snows came and everyone huddled together under one roof. A mix of people and animals and firewood.
My-he-kal said something and grabbed for her, but she unconsciously dodged his touch, staring around. They were in a cleared space on the other side of the wall now, and in the distance she could see little houses of wood and daub. There were smoking chimneys, despite the winter heat, and everywhere there were humans.
With a start, Jump-touch realised she was being called, and she sheepishly allowed My-he-kal to lead her towards the distant buildings. As they walked the land was changing from grass and farms, and up into a thing she didn't even have a word for. This wasn't a village it was something bigger. You could have fit her whole village into one of these houses, and still have room for refugees.
The tallest house in her village had two floors. A ground and an upstairs. It was built of square stone blocks, unlike the other houses which were small dark things, made of piles of thick split slate.
The Kobolds said it was there before they moved there, and that they'd rebuilt it from a ruin. It was the most sheltered place in their village, so they used it to store anything which might be damaged by the weather. Nobody lived there, that would be madness. How would you keep it warm? Why would you need that much space?
She looked around as they walked, her eyes starting to ache and a vague sense of nausea in the back of her neck.
You'd keep it warm and fill the space by throwing a lot of bodies at it, I suppose.
Some of the houses here were four, five floors tall, and they had big open windows, lined with thin glass panes to let the light in. This was… A valley, right? There would be less wind here, so that made sense. Some of the houses in the Lower Village had glass in their windows, but even they were halfway up the Mountain. She had helped them once carefully take the glass out as weather got colder, so it wouldn't be broken by the summer storms. Up on the Mountain it wasn't worth either the effort of trading for it, or the risk of it getting broken.
I will go home. She resolved, suddenly homesick. and if people want glass windows, I will bring them glass windows.
The thought was somewhat nonsensical, but in the moment she meant it.
There wasn't a single non-human around her, and it was starting to give her a headache. Something in the air pressed down on her, the sheer noise and smell of it. She had never known the like.
She found herself standing still in the middle of the road, head almost against her knees, arms around herself.
A moment later she was up on Roo-set's back, clinging to his mane, with My-he-kal behind her holding her on with one arm.
As the goat started to trot, she was too overwhelmed to complain.