Three days out from Dehali, Noble took Saila hunting.

The first day wouldn’t have worked- she was so excited to be out in nature, running off this way and that to inspect every interesting rock or plant, kicking up dirt and dust more than the wind. Even she’d admit it; she’d be nothing but a detriment. Besides, they were hardly far from Dehali- a day out was a camping trip, hardly what one would calling wild territory. Little purpose to practice on what few creatures stayed that close.

The second day was shot too of course. After the rush had finally faded and the realization of what laid ahead had settled in, Saila spent the whole morning slumped on the horse, face buried in its clay-red mane- or Noble’s back. Venturing out with him, leaving a place she’d never truly fit, was good for her… but it had been her life, no matter how ill it suited. Leaving it behind was heavier than expected.

To the girl’s credit, while there was still a somber air about her on that third day out, she seemed to have accepted what leaving meant. She faced the day with a brave face and a restless need to do something. That, Noble was proud of.

It took him a lot longer to adapt to it.

“So, what am I looking for again?” Saila asked. The noonday sun hung high, heat dancing through the cloudy sky in waves.

“A disturbance. A sign of life. Out in the desert, that’s mostly turned up sand or ground, or rocks that might look large enough to give shade. Something like…” His eyes scanned the horizons and locked on to something- a patch of dirt that ran counter to the surroundings. A little dip where something had dug in.

“Ah… ah, I think I see it,” she said in a harsh whisper. She pointed- a little off, but close.

“Good, good. Now… what’s next?”

“I uh…” She slowly drew a match from the wooden box she carried with her. “Draw, light…”

She struck the match against the back of her hand and it sparked into an amber glow. The light flickered, anticipatory.

“And then… shoot, yeah?”

“Yeah. Doubt it’ll work?

“It’ll work!” then, quieter, “ack, sorry.”

“No problem. Now… go ahead.”

She focused on the little dip, held the match a foot from her mouth, took in a breath. Little sparks pulled in, crackling. Then, she blew.

A stream of fire lashed out from the match and flew right into the little ditch. There was a faint lizardy squeak as the flames burst the creature’s makeshift home into the air- followed seconds after by a spiny-tailed skink plopping to the ground, fried to a decent crisp.

“Nice job little la-”

“Holy SHIT! YEAH!!”

“- lady. You weren’t expecting it to work, were you?”

Saila scoffed, giving off the sort of curt laugh Noble had already learned meant ‘yes, and damn you if I ever admit it’, and sped over to her prize, dropping her match.

“Naw, I knew I could do it- I mean, never had before, and it was a bit more precise than I usually have to do but hey, I’m not an amateur fire-eater. I know how to do a good trick or two.”

She picked it up by the tail, confidently showing it off to Noble with a bright, toothy grin plastered to her face.

“Didn’t doubt you for a second,” Noble said- mostly truthfully.

“Hell yeah. Do feel kinda bad though…” she said, her grin fading. She looked at the dead lizard a moment, in thought. “Feels kinda like… cannibalism?”

“You’re not actually a salamander, are you…?”

Saila just shrugged. “Naw, but like, Mom always said… anyway, it’s a living thing. Was. I feel a little mean.”

“I see,” Noble said simply. “Still, it’s the cycle of things. We need to eat, no shame in it. Besides, heard lizard’s good- especially the tail, it’s got a sweet taste to it.”

Saila made a show of gagging, and tossed the lizard over to him- but then she faltered, as something caught her eye.

“Saila?”

“Shushushu… I see another one.” She pointed it out- a little smaller than the first, but there all the same.

She drew another match, light it, took aim and…

This time, the stream of fire stopped short, at fifteen feet. It exploded on impact with a tiny bang, dirt spraying from the force. Another skink dashed out from his burrow, spooked. Saila cursed and went to run after- stopped only by Noble’s gloved hand, firmly on her shoulder.

“Don’t run,” he said, quietly. “Animal like this, if you start running, it’ll scurry fast. It’s small enough to double-back, get out of your line of sight. You’ll lose it- it knows the place more than you.”

Despite his words, Saila strained against him. She wanted to run after it- but she fought her instincts and waited.

The skink stopped, ten feet from the little ditch it had dug, staring back towards them. Lizard eyes stared and wondered; predator, or simply loud and noisome?

“See? He’s sizing us up. Try not to look like a threat.”

“We’re huge, we’re totally a threat. Hell, we just killed one of them.”

“Try a bit harder then.”

Saila grumbled but looked out to the horizon, trying to look disinterested. She lowered the match, trying to hide it behind her back.

The skink turned away.

And shot off.

“Little bastard get back here!” Saila shouted; patience worn thin. She slipped from Noble’s grip and ran off, shooting quick little blasts of flame out after it, none making it more than a couple feet. The skink zipped about, spiny tail swishing away in an attempt to fend her off- or distract her. Saila was all but roaring when they finally returned to the lizard’s burrow.

With a speed found only in desperate prey, it zipped across and around its burrow, darting past her like lightning.

And with the grace of someone who had lived in a town all her life, Saila put her foot in it. She tripped and fell, face first, with a thud.

“Like I said.” Noble approached her. “It knows the place better than you. If you go rushing off, you’re liable to run into danger.”

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Saila pulled her face off the ground, a bit of blood running down her lip. She threw Noble a scowl.

“Hey now, you did get one- pretty impressive, eh?”

She sighed. “Yeah, but it sucks. I bet actual like, trained fire-dancers can make it go way longer than fifteen feet, right?”

“You know…” Noble said, looking out over the horizon. The smaller skink was long gone now. “Most people can’t do what you just did.”

“Wha?” Saila gave him a quizzical look. “What’re you talkin’ about?”

“… how do you think you did that, exactly?”

At his prompting, and with a vibrant enthusiasm that matched that first day out from Dehali- a shock, given all the running around she’d just done- she went in on describing the various ways one could control their breathing, how fire interacted with air and wind, and how one could direct it to go where it went with enough skill.

Not a word of it actually, fully explained the extreme precision she’d shown- or the heart-shaped flame she’d shown off to the children back in Dehali. But it was convincing. If you didn’t know.

And now Noble knew she didn’t.

“I see,” he said simply, tipping his head in a slight nod. “Well, I suppose we should get going, shouldn’t we.”

“Yeah!” Saila hopped to her feet. “Though, after sharing all those trade secrets, you better tell me a bit about yourself, soldier-man.”

A thought slotted into place.

“I will. If you catch us a few more.”

Noble started walking off.

“Wh- wait, a few more? How many!”

“Four more. After all, you’re no amateur, right little lady?”

Pride beamed from her like the sun, self-assured and fiery.

“You got it Noble! Four more of those lizards, coming up- and don’t you dare eat that one without me!”

She dashed off. Despite how things had gone, she was laughing. She wasn’t discouraged.

Noble smiled under his mask, and wondered just what she’d get up to next.

###

The sun had started slipping below the horizon when Saila finally finished. Three sizeable lizards joined the first, all speared through by a roasting stick, nice and toasty over the campfire. Noble had prepared them for cooking- had even congratulated her on how cleanly she took them out- but all Saila could do was watch them, skin crackling and steaming, and grumble.

“Hey now. Four aint that bad, little lady,” Noble said. He was on the other side of the fire from her, prepping the rest of their supper in a small pan- dried fruits and nuts in scrambled eggs. An enticing smell that helped to soothe her sore ego as much as Noble’s words did.

Their horse- which Saila had decided was going to be named Matchsticks no matter how much Noble would likely protest- stood patiently beside their tents, eating away at some oats.

“Yeah, but now you’re not gonna tell me shit!” Saila sighed half-heartedly.

“Well,” Noble said. Saila could see the gears turning in his face- metaphorically speaking, he always wore that weird gasmask- as he thought about it. “We could arrange a trade.”

“Oh?” Saila raised an eyebrow.

“A question for a question.” Noble poked at the eggs with a spatula. They sizzled in the evening air. “One for each of those catches of yours.”

“Hehe, alright.” Saila smirked, rocking in place as she thought of her first answer. Felt weird to just sit there, waiting. “You think the lizard’s ready?”

“That your first question?”

“Only if that’s yours. I just think better when I’m eating.”

“Hm… should be good.”

Saila hopped to her feet, snatching up one of the roasting sticks, and chomped down on the guy. Tasted a bit like the chicken back in Dehali, but a bit spicier. She paced about the fire.

“So, first question… where you from, Noble?”

“Around.”

“Not an answer, ass!”

A little noise escaped Noble, a sharp but subtle inhale that dragged on the gas mask’s filters- it was the closest thing to a laugh Saila’d heard from him.

“Alright, alright. Exova, from some-such place. Don’t rightly remember the name. Mine next?”

Saila took another bite of her lizard. “Naw, that’s for askin’ about my fire-breathing- and the first lizard. Next one’s still mine; why do you wear that mask?”

There was a pause, as Noble stirred the eggs a bit more, and took the pan off the fire to dish it out. “A couple reasons. Breathing, for one. Don’t want to get any sand in my mouth.”

“Pfth,” Saila scoffed. “That all? That’s so… mundane. Not even trying to look intimidating or anything?”

“Nope. That your third question?”

“Only if that’s yours! Follow ups are okay!”

She jabbed the roasted lizard at him for emphasis.

Noble simply nodded. Nothing seemed to faze him. “Alright. Next is mine; what’s your favorite book? I can gather you’ve got a pretty clear picture of how I should be- wandering from place to place, scaring folk with my mask-”

“Hey come on it is kinda spooky!”

“- leaving kids like you behind, their lives changed. All that mess. So, tell me about it.”

“Well, if you… insist,” Saila said, doing her best to keep herself together. “I’ve read a bunch, there’s a store in Dehali that sells dime-novels imported from Felisia- people always call them that and it feels a bit insulting, they’re not bad, they’re just a little flimsy. I love’em- soldiers in tense fights to survive to get back to loved ones, travelers exploring the world and getting into trouble, all that stuff. But my favorite are rider stories- the kind I was first talking about. My favorite is ‘The Running Death’. Lee morty cour in their language, I think?”

“I believe that’s ‘La Mort Qui Court’.”

“Anyway, it’s great- this cool masked gunslinger rides into town, shoots her way through the bandits ransacking the place, and saves the life of this tailor girl, right?”

Noble nodded.

“Right, and then she rides off into the sunset- but that’s just the start! This is what makes this one so special, it goes into what happens next. The tailor girl is inspired, and goes after her. Everyone’s like, ‘No girl, he’s too dangerous, he’s the Specter of Death’ and blah blah blah, you know? So she runs off anyway- runs afoul of the leader of the gang the first bandits were from and- and then, gets in this big revenge quest, cause she figures the gi- the guy she’s chasing was killed by them. So she’s riding for revenge.”

Saila took another messy chomp of her lizard, then threw her hands into the air.

“Then- oho, then, she kills the leader, and learns that no the gunslinger’s alive! They finally meet up, and she takes off the mask and, and it’s revealed the person she’s been after all this time was… well, it’d be a spoiler. I’m not gonna tell you! But they get together in the end, and ride off into the sunset. Thus the tagline- ‘Death Rides With Her’.”

At the end of her speech, Saila flopped down into the dirt, a massive grin on her face.

Noble just passed her a metal tin with her share of the eggs, and a calmly spoken “I see. Sounds like a good book.”

“Oh it’s fantastic,” Saila said. As she took the tin, she realized she might have accidentally spoiled it a bit already in her excitement- the so-called Death was a girl, and she’d called her such a couple times near the start- but she tried to play it cool. “Really like it. Reading through it a second time and catching all the little hints I missed the first go was fun.”

“Sounds like it. Yours next, I think?”

“Yeah, give me a sec,” she said, mixing the lizard into her scramble of egg, fruit and nuts a bit before chowing down. “So, hm… what kinda books they got in Exova?”

“All kinds. Exovan’s love a good story- some even carry it around with them. Their favorite scene hemmed into a purse, earrings from a novel they like, even little drawings of folklore, to remind them of the meaning. Little things like that.”

“Cool…” Saila said between mouthfuls. “I’d get a tattoo of Death on my back. Make it look wicked cool.”

“And that would have been my third question, so there you go,” he said, a faint lilt to his voice. He finished serving himself, lifting his mask just enough to get the food to his mouth.

Pale skin, polished teeth, thin lips. Reminded her of the rider in her book- though she wore all black, and her cloak was patterned with white lines, tracing various creatures that lived within death. Foxes, vultures, beetles and the like.

At that moment Saila decided when they got into their next town, she’d force him to buy a good Trestarian poncho. Nice and colourful, instead of the ratty off-white cloak he had now.

“So, what’s your last question?”

Saila jumped a bit. She’d almost forgotten- one question left. She had to make it a doozy… she took a breath, and spoke it out.

“Who’s the man with a smile in his eyes?”

Noble was silent.

Not a thinking silent, but purely silent.

“That’s a pretty personal question, little lady,” he said. Same calm voice, but somehow… different. More. It itched at the back of her head. “Why do you want to know a thing like that?”

“That your last question?”

“Call it a follow up.”

“Well, I… I mean I’m traveling with you, right? I’m your guide! I should have some idea of what we’re after, yeah?”

“A fair point,” he said. “But… how about this? You answer my question, and I’ll tell you.”

“Okay, shoot.”

“How’d your mother die?”

The question hung in the air, clear and crisp.

Saila shivered, but not from the coming chill of night.

“That’s… pretty personal.”

“Yup.” Noble stoked the fire. It crackled gently, and he removed the other lizards- setting them aside to make into strips of jerky overnight.

“I…”

Saila watched him as he worked. Methodical, mechanical. Unfazed, as ever.

“Don’t feel you’re obligated to answer, little lady. Not unless you’re comfortable with it. Just… trying to make my point clear. I’ll tell you, when I’m ready.”

But he wasn’t, not really. She knew that, as clear as the sky.

He’d made his point well.

The two finished their suppers in silence, save for the faint night-sounds of wild animals, distant but ever present. Not a thing moved at their makeshift campsite, the tension letting out with the final rays of sunlight.

And when it finally died down, Saila opened her eyes, and snuck out.

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