I sank low, sliding into the stream at the edge of the chicken coop. Nothing could have been lower than how my heart clenched; my mind completely attached to my last glimpse of Terra fading away. I scanned the forest around me carefully, then took the time to cast Summon Witch’s Familiar. At first, I didn’t think it was working. Oh, why hadn’t I practiced this spell? Did I have to summon her before she faded away. Sammi had said she couldn’t be taken from me, but could she die? Had that monster killed her?

I almost didn’t have the nerve to stay still while a little form started to come into focus. If he followed… but why would he? According to the quest, he had to epically defeat me. He couldn’t do that without an audience, could he? That was why he’d set our duel for tonight. The tavern would be full of cheering fans, especially if he’d already gotten a head start in charming them after I’d gone to sleep the night before.

Terra’s front paw hit my leg and I nearly sobbed. Who am I kidding? You know I was bawling like a baby, right? Don’t worry. Terra made it. She truly is a magical being now and cannot be destroyed unless I am. I’m touched by your concern though. Thank you. Where was I? Oh, yeah, crying in the stream. They should write a song about that. They did actually. But, I digress. Thank you again for your patience.

I sat cuddling Terra as she reassured me. My perfect little ball of grey fur was okay and in my arms. Not that my arms were safe at this point. Looking back at it, I sure used to be a whiny little thing. I mean, Beau was almost twice my level, but you’re not getting a very good picture of my character. I get better. Really. It was really hard on me. I’d been on track to become a doctor, which I’d really thought would change everything. I’d spent thirty years of my previous existence trying to get my act together and had finally had the brass ring in my sight! Getting to that point had been a lifetime of seeming hopelessness. To be back in that helpless place was… well, too depressing for this book. Just hang on a bit.

“I’m alive as long as you are,” Terra told me, pushing into my petting like I was the best person alive, even though I’d left her in the dirt only moments before.

“I wanted you to run, remember?” Terra was more forgiving of me than I was. “I told you to run. Thank you for running.”

I had to keep my sobs silent, but the sparking of the chickens probably covered the little hiccups and coughs that escaped. I petted Terra and pulled myself together. It was only after my mana hit full that I cast clean on both Terra and myself. She was very appreciative.

“Karma?” I heard Lily call out. “Is that you?”

“Is anyone with you?” I whispered, sounding like a paranoid freak even to my own ears.

“No,” Lily replied, concern laced into her tone. “I came out to see if the chickens laid any eggs. I figured it was too soon, but I was hopeful.”

Lily rounded the coop and gasped at the sight of me. Even cleaned up I must have looked bad. “What’s wrong?”

“B-B-B-“ I babbled stupidly. Would Lily and Chester forever be finding me in a heap of tears?

Lily patiently sat beside me on a rock near the stream. I had almost pulled myself together until she took my hand and I almost started crying again. This was stupid. I needed my spine. My daughter was on the other side of an epic fight with Beau, the Bard. I grasped my daughter’s image to my mind like a steel bar for my spine. Beau wasn’t some larger-than-life superstar. He was a man boy in a boy’s body. I took a deep breath and tried again to talk. What had come over me anyway?

“Beau,” I panted out, wrestling my withered ego back under control.

“I didn’t see him last night,” Lily told me. “Chester did though. Why?”

“I’m supposed to defeat him in a personally epic battle,” I was ashamed of how my voice broke. “He kicked Terra.” Never let it be said that I wasn’t prone to the casual non-sequitur, or the occasional double negative, but only when stressed. Terra was just all I’d had from my world.

“Ah, poor Terra,” Lily reached out to pet Terra, casting her heal as she did it. Terra returned the attention with a purr. “She seems alright now.”

“She’s a familiar,” I explained. “I resummoned her after I saw him kick her into the dirt near the well.”

“What an awful man,” Lily exclaimed.

“I agree,” I affirmed, glad to not be alone. Why had I felt alone? What kind of magic did Beau have?

“Chester said he sang like a dream, but if he hurt our Terra, he’s a nightmare and I’ll help you in any way I can.”

“Thanks,” I said, glum again, “but I have to defeat him personally.”

“Why?”

“It’s a quest?” I answered weakly.

Lily nodded like that made perfect sense, but I’m pretty sure she was just humoring me.

I wanted very much to blame my mental state on some machination of Beau, but I can admit it probably wasn’t. I really had to turn this around in my mind. I wrestled with my pessimism. It was an African crocodile, and not the friendly one my old friend Shirley had when she was growing up. It wanted to drown me. I had to flip it, like Shirley taught me in crocodile wrestling. Yeah, you think that’s a metaphor, but she knows better. Ask her.

Stolen story; please report.

I thought of Shirley. Whenever I thought my life was the most awful thing ever, I thought of her. It wasn’t that I was doomed tonight. I was one tricky fight away from being able to see my daughter again. Beau wasn’t going to kill me. He was a man-boy whose greatest talent was a swinging charisma. I was clever. He could have been ten levels above me, and I’d still have the advantage. My memory of Shirley kicked that crocodile’s ass. No smiling now.

“If I complete the quest and defeat Beau in this challenge he’s issued,” I tried to explain, “then my daughter can join me here.”

“You have a daughter?” she asked, her mind seeming to skip to the most important bit to her. “Chester and I have been trying, but…”

And somehow, we’d entered into a conversation that we could have had over a cup of hot chocolate at a little bookstore in the country. Afterward we’d grab an ice cream cone and sit at the counter to gossip about how our husbands were doing. My mind skittered again. Come back mind! I called. Yeah, not really stable at this point. What? It’s hard to admit how weird things got that day.

Rather than bore you, since I know you really want to get to the epic battle in the next chapter, we’ll shortcut this section too. You’re welcome. Again.

Lily sneaked back to grab Chester and we spent the day killing woodland animals that looked nothing like woodland animals in a fruitless effort to bolster my stats before the epic duel. Chester and Lily levelled up nicely and so did I. My offensive spells were still pretty pathetic compared to what I imagined Beau’s to be. I made sure to be full health and mana before I hit the back door of the tavern.

----------------------------------------

I gave my kitchen a longing look, but I could hear him playing his mandolin in the main room. It wouldn’t do any good to hide away. I spooned up a bowl of rabbit pie and stuck a half a baguette in it to soak. Neither Terra nor I were very hungry. His music was soothing and soft and better than he could play when I’d known him. I took my bowl to the main room after a brief pause in the doorway to take a breath.

He looked just like he had in high school, only less dorky and more hunky. His eyes were a little smokier; his lips just a bit fuller. His shoulders were wider, but his legs still as lanky as ever. His hair, bald when I’d last seen him, was full of blond waves that he couldn’t have bought at a salon when we were younger.

“You’re a cook?” he said to me, his voice more melodious than it had been at its peak, even with that derisive sneer as he said my profession.

“No surprise that you’re a bard,” I replied, knowing that not answering his question would annoy him. Let him think I was just a cook.

“Same old…” he nodded, his fingers never pausing from the mandolin.

“Karma,” I supplied my name before he said my old one.

He gave a little laugh that had him miss a note and I was gratified. I raised my eyebrows at him.

“I’m your worst nemesis?” I scoffed a bit, leaning against the door jam as if the whole thing was a class reunion with no stakes at all.

“Fourth,” he smirked, his eyes insulting. “I’ve already defeated two and one defeated themselves.”

“This is rather civil for a duel,” I let the insulting look and words drift by. I pushed off the doorway to enter the room, trying to act unintimidated by his.. anything. I placed my bowl on the bar and went to take a bite.

“Nothing to do until enough folks get here to make it epic,” he stopped playing his instrument and stood to walk toward me.

“Ah,” I put my spoon back in the bowl and resisted the urge to back away from him. It should be enough that the bar was between us. I was calmer than this morning, but not as calm as I wanted him to think I was. “Turned out I really was autistic,” I blurted out, stupidly.

In high school he’d fallen for an autistic girl, even written a song for her. When he’d described her, I’d felt immediate kinship with her. The song he’d written for her resonated with me. He’d chided me for being jealous and a hypochondriac. I hadn’t known better at the time. I hadn’t gotten tested until much later on in life, when we’d tested my daughter and the tester had tagged me as on the spectrum as well. It had been missed for so many years. I didn’t think I still blamed him for it. After all, I’d turned it into a win by using my obsessive traits to study pre-med classes.

“On the spectrum,” I clarified, taking it to the politically correct terminology of our world. He leaned on the bar between us in a way that made me uncomfortable, and I berated myself for giving him any power over me.

“How’s the husband?” Beau asked, leaning on his side of the bar.

My husband used to be his best friend before I’d come to town on a dare. Beau had been having a campout that was a thinly veiled excuse for an orgy. His best friend had taken one look at me and fallen fast. A year later, he was my husband instead of Beau’s friend at all. I guess we both had little things that we didn’t like about each other.

“You might as well take it,” I offered the bowl, “I’ve lost my appetite.” I backed away to lean against the door jam again, letting him have the meal. “I cooked it before you interrupted me this morning. There’s pie too. Cherry.”

“Nice,” he said, smelling the bowl. Yeah, because I’d had his cherry once, and now he could have some of mine.

“A copper for the meal, Bard,” Mabel cut into our conversation. “It wouldn’t hurt you to tip the girl, either. You made enough off the locals last night to afford it.” I was gratified to hear that Mabel was on my side. It figured that she wouldn’t take kindly to him bilking coin off the locals like Beryle who hadn’t even had enough coin for dessert that first night I was here.

“Easy, tiger,” he drawled to her with dripping charm, tossing two coppers at Mabel and one to me. “Pour me an ale too, if you don’t mind serving me.”

Mabel grumbled a little, but she served him an ale. Her two coins slipped into the bar, but mine lay there between us. I stared at it for a hard moment.

“You take it, Mabel,” I told her, pushing off the door frame again. “Tell Beryle his dessert’s on me tonight.”

I left the room to get another bowl of rabbit pot pie, careful to get a good helping of crust for myself, my favorite part. If it was to be my last meal, I’d at least enjoy it. I took a big bite of it before going back into the main room, forcing myself to chew and swallow it carefully.

“He’s eating it,” Terra told me, and I smiled to myself. We’d killed a few more of those rabbits in the woods and I’d had one poison sac in the loot. I wasn’t sure he’d take the bait. I waited another few minutes to let the smile fade so I wouldn’t give it away. I shoved another bite of the delicious rabbit pie into my mouth to keep the smile down as I walked through the doorway.

“I’m glad she’s okay,” Beau nodded toward Terra between mouthfuls of my lovingly made baguette. She was cleaning herself while stoically ignoring him from her perch on the bar. “I didn’t mean to kick her. You know how cats can get underfoot.”

I chewed thoughtfully, choosing not to respond. I watched him as he finished the pot pie, using the end of the baguette to scrape up the last bits of the gravy. I ate carefully, watching the mana surge around him and then turn slightly gray near his stomach. It wasn’t epic, but I hoped it would help.

We both watched the door as some adventurers laughed their way in. In another hour, we’d have enough patrons to qualify under any definition of epic. Beau sent a chagrinned look to the bowl and then a tip of the hat gesture to me as he picked up his instrument and began to play again. I was guessing he’d just gotten the notification that he’d been poisoned.