We spent an extra day in that field outside of Perkikish, the first market town we encountered on our way to the Blazroggle district. The leadership of the expedition was hungover. I overheard one of the hobgoblins joking about Captain Girgut’s pounding head that morning. All four real elves managed to redefine the meaning of grumpy, and when I strolled past the round ear encampment, I spotted both the Duke and Prince looking rather green around the gills.

Cat Rider was not hungover, though he was drunk the night before. I commented on it. He winked at me, “Fuzzy, one of the best things about healing magic is that I’m my own hangover cure.” Then he smiled with sweet innocence.

*You aren’t offering your cure to your fellow sufferers?*

“Maybe in an hour or two.” If he smiled much sweeter, the universe would collapse from the sugar rush.

Cat used the time to finish the two copies of the wyvern sections from Achflakalstrebr’s Compendium. Then the two of us walked down to the Captain’s tent and gave him his copy. While we were there, Cat had mercy on Girgut and cured his hangover. We walked up to the round ear encampment and delivered the copy for the Duke and Prince.

We found Willam on his camp cot, with red-rimmed eyes and a white face, shivering under a blanket. His red-haired friend Rendell was trying to convince Willam to drink some water.

“Highness, you are dehydrated. The sooner you get water, the better you will feel. You won’t lose your stomach again if you do it in little sips.”

The only reply that Willam gave was a low moan. I wandered up and sniffed. Sure enough, he smelled like a hangover too. It’s not a pretty smell, being a mix of the runs, barf, and alcohol-tainted sweat.

Without moving his head, Willam’s blue eyes shifted to look at me, “who let that spirit monster in here, Rendell? It’s come to eat me and put me out of my misery.”

Cat laughed, “Fuzzy goes wherever she likes. Don’t worry about being eaten. She doesn’t like the taste of most humans.”

“Come to mock my infirmities, have you, Cat Rider?”

“No, not at all,” Cat’s innocent smile deepened. “I’m done with copying the wyvern notes I made when I read the Compendium. I decided to deliver them myself since we’re staying here for the day. Would you like some help with your hangover, Highness?”

Rendell looked at Cat like he was a holy man, “please!” Willam just groaned again. Cat had mercy on his younger brother and cast the healing spell.

“Oh,” Willam blinked. “OH! That’s amazing!” Willam sat up, grabbed the mug of water from Kendell, and drank it down. “I am so thirsty. Rendell, can you get me some more, please? Cat Rider, can I hire you? I pay excellent wages and would allow you to set up a practice on the side in Tammerhof. You could be a wealthy elf!”

Cat shook his head, “no, I would miss my family.”

“Bring them with you! I’ll pay the moving expense!”

“I don’t think my father, the Elven King, would like that much.”

“Oh, yeah,” Willam considered it, “he probably wouldn’t.” He popped back up, “So, where are the wyvern notes?”

“Right here,” Cat pulled an old-fashioned scroll from his wyvern-skin coat pocket.

“Oh wow, a real scroll,” Willam undid the tie and unrolled the first bit. He read the first few paragraphs. “Unbelievable! I didn’t know they only see motion! This could save hundreds of lives. Cat Rider, thank you for this,” he looked up from his cot with genuine gratitude. Then he switched to a conspiratorial smile, “Are you sure I can’t get you to come and work for me?”

Cat laughed and shook his head, rolling his eyes.

“Tell you what, Cat Rider — I’ll get your sister Roaming Wren to marry me. Then you’ll have family in Tammerhof. That would work, right?”

“Highness, my sister is a whole head taller than you, and she has no tolerance for human courtly pretense, as she calls it. I doubt she’d even look at your proposal other than to laugh.”

I leaned over the side of the cot so my two big front fangs were prominent and growled softly.

“Besides,” Cat continued, “Fuzzy disapproves. It’s never a good idea to go against an emissary of the gods.”

“Well, Lady Fuzzy,” Willam wore a charming smile, with all the sincerity of a peddler selling a miracle cure, “what if I gave you your own farm and filled it with more deer than you could hunt or eat in a lifetime? Would that change your mind?”

*Should I assume that you have just tried to bribe an emissary of the gods? In front of witnesses? Isn’t that sacrilege?*

Willam laughed, “You are a funny cat, but you do take good care of your people.” He reached over and scratched under my chin. Oh yes, my chin. My hard-to-scratch chin. Yes, my itchy chin, my lovely chin chin chin chin. I’m not sure how, but it was only a moment later that I was on my back and Willam was scratching my chest and tummy. The bliss! The Joy! The Ecstacy!

“Who’s my big kitty? Who’s my big kitty cat? Who’s a purring pushover? Yes, you like it. You know you like it, you big overgrown kitten, you.” Yes, I was purring by now. I just couldn’t stop myself.

“Pssst, Frederick,” I heard Rendell call someone over. “You gotta see this!”

I had no idea what “this” was. I was too busy being scratched.

“I didn’t know that mountain cats purr,” Willam said. He didn’t stop scratching.

“She can meow just like a house cat, too,” Cat Rider added.

“Amazing,” he was working on my neck in all the spots I couldn’t reach. “So, Lady Fuzzy, how about that deer farm and a full-time scratching team as a sign-on bonus?” Willam cajoled.

*You are now adding carnal temptations to the aforementioned bribe? I think we may have passed sacrilege and moved on to unforgivable sins!*

“I have to stop,” he got up off his knees. He was dressed in just his nightshirt and braies. “My arms are about to fall off. You’re a big kitty, Lady Fuzzy.”

*You stopped. I might eat you now.* I gave the Prince what I hoped was a menacing look.

“Oh, alright, just a little more,” he went for the chin. “You are so lucky, Cat Rider. Spirit beasts are so rare that people thought they were a peasant tale. How did you find her?”

“She found me,” Cat Rider shrugged.

“How long has she been around?”

“She wandered into Elvenhome about three and a half years ago,” Cat said fondly. “She had a lot of arrows shot at her, even after it got around that a divine beast was living at my father’s home.”

“Is there a lot of upkeep?”

*Cat! Willam! I’m right here, you know.*

“Hush, silly feline,” Cat bopped my nose with his boot tip. “It turns out that Fuzzy brings in more meat than she consumes, so there is a net gain. She’s also available to remove dangerous wildlife where we graze our livestock. And since she is a mage, she often rescues travelers and visits out-of-the-way settlements to provide healing services.”

*Will you two nubbins stop? This is getting embarrassing.*

Willam did stop. An expression of sorrow crossed his face, and then it was gone.

“That was a strange face,” Cat remarked, having seen the same thing I saw.

“For a moment,” Willam was whistful, “what Fuzzy said reminded me of my late sister, who I miss a lot.” He smiled again, like the sun coming out from behind a cloud, “What’s it like, living with a spirit beast?”

“It’s like living with this enormous cat,” Cat Rider grinned, “who can talk. Not only can it talk, it can nag,” he rolled his eyes. “Cat Rider, measure out those medicines. Cat Rider, you need to do your homework. Cat Rider, you did that problem wrong.” The round ear soldiers listening in laughed.

“You have school assignments?” Willam looked puzzled.

“I used to. Elves do school our children. We are a literate people,” Cat explained. “I’ll have school assignments again if I decide to study healing in more detail. The world needs more healers. There are never enough. Regardless, I only need to decide about studying healing the year after I finish adventuring.

“Before you go, Cat Rider, can you take care of my poor uncle?” Willam asked.

“That’s where I’m going next.”

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

After Cat healed everyone’s hangover, I took him into Perkikish. He wanted to find a leather worker. He spotted a case shop, and it was the right place.

“Welladay, my… well, goodness,” an older goblin blinked. “You must be the divine beast with the hunting party.”

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

*Yes, I am. Since you make cases, we assume you can block out permanent leather shapes. Is this correct?*

“Yes, it is, my lady. Do you need to have a piece of leather shaped?”

“Yes, we do,” Cat replied before I could. “I don’t mean to be rude, but elves can’t discern goblin gender unless the goblin is breeding. So, which set of pronouns should we use?”

“Bless you, young elf. I am a female goblin, and thank you for asking,” she nodded. “We are used to people making gender mistakes if they are not goblins themselves, so the effort is appreciated. Now, what is it that you need, young elf?”

“All of the elves in the wyvern expedition are related to one another. Our brother joined us yesterday. We use these masks to identify and distinguish ourselves. I’m the only one who needs to use a mask, but my kin who hunt with me decided we would all wear a mask.”

“What a lovely thing to do. So your brother, who has just joined you, needs a mask.”

“Exactly, ma’am. Now our masks, as you can see, are black cat faces. Can you use my mask to make one for my brother that looks the same?”

“May I see your mask, please?”

Cat got off me, leaned his walking stick against the counter, lowered his hood, and untied his mask.

“That is one nasty scar,” the leather crafter studied Cat’s face. “I am surprised that you didn’t lose your eye.”

“I did lose it,” Cat replied, fishing another glass ball from the special case he kept them in. “What you see here is glass. And here’s one version of a glass eye that my cousin made me.” He put his hand up to his face and swapped the glass balls. When he lifted his head, the dark of night occupied his left eye socket speckled with starlight.

The goblin laughed, “I bet you have a good time with that. You have more, don’t you?”

“How’s this?” Cat bowed his head to swap glass balls.

“Oh, masterful! The single candle flame. I would save that one up for siblings.”

“I did,” Cat grinned.

The goblin laughed. “Now let’s see,” she picked up the mask and studied it. “Yes, I can do this. It will take two to three hours, but the dye will not completely cure until tomorrow. You won’t be able to use it today or tonight. You must wait for the dye to set.”

“I understand.”

“Would you like to stay and watch?”

We did stay and watch, mainly because the leather crafter needed to use Cat’s mask to copy it. It took her just under three hours. One of the last steps was the application of shoemaker’s black. The goblin put on two coats of the dye, but it looked streaky and thin. There were even some grey patches.

“I see that look on your face, lady divine beast. You are looking at the dye job, yes?”

I nodded.

“The mask must be put out into the sun. After the sunlight hits it and it warms up, it will become a deep black after a day,” she put the mask into a box and added some black laces. “I used shoemaker’s black, which takes a day to develop fully. Since you are with the expedition, you will be leaving in the morning, which is before the color will completely cure. So this is an unfinished piece. Once the color comes in, pour some of this on a rag to polish it up, and it will look great.” The leather crafter handed Cat a small bottle of an opaque pale yellow solution. “You rub it in, let it dry, and then take a second rag and wipe it off.”

“What is it?” Cat asked.

“It’s a suspension of very fine wax particles,” she held the boxed mask up next to Cat’s masked face. “Yes, yes, that will do. Only a leather crafter would see the differences.”

“I can’t see any,” Cat protested. “It looks perfect to me,”

“Flatterer,” she accused as she pushed us toward the door.

“Wait, I need to pay you.”

“It’s not finished yet,” the goblin said. “Pay me on your trip back.”

“I don’t know if we will return this way,” Cat entered his stubborn zone. “What is the charge?”

“I’m a case maker, not a mask maker,” she protested.

“How much are three hours of your time worth?”

“That’s an interesting way to put it,” she paused for a moment, “two silver.”

We left the town behind us before the sun came up the next day. Cloud Eye put the mask on the driver’s seat beside him as he drove the coach. When he handed it to me at noon, it was deep black.

“Cat, you had to be thinking some deep thoughts to come up with a mask this fast. I know what kind of jerk Fox was to you and Owl in the sleeping rooms. I also know that Wren and Owl haven’t let that stuff go. And yet, here you are, the kid he talked down to the most, taking the time to get him a matching mask. Cat, that’s deep. Owl might not take it well.”

“Yeah, I’m a little worried about it, but I think Owl will be alright. Have you listened to how Blue Fox is talking? That’s why I think it will work out.”

That snippet of conversation prompted me to pay attention to Blue Fox for the rest of the day. Then I saw what Cat had seen first and knew it would work out. How did someone only 16 years old get that wise? My boy was growing up fast.

Cat showed both Wren and Owl the mask for Fox. Wren railed at Cat when Fox left to pick up our dinner ration. She stopped when she ran out of steam and asked: “Why? Why now? Why this? It will only give him a license to bully you more.”

“It won’t happen like that, Wren,” Cat’s voice was calm and reasonable. “That was then, and this is now. Blue Fox is not the same person who left a year ago to adventuring. He needs a hand up right now, not a slap down.”

“Cat, he’s my nastiest brother. He’s family. I know what he’s like.”

“I’m not so sure, Wren. I think you might be too close to see the change in him,”

“He hasn’t changed one bit, Cat,” she stamped her foot for emphasis. “The first day he was here, he questioned what you did as your portion of work for our hunting party.”

“That’s a reasonable question, Wren, if he was trying to scope out our group and how we work together, to see where he might fit.”

“I’m just trying to...”

“Wren,” Cat held up a hand, “if I’m wrong about this, then I’m a fool, and I’ll be the first one to cast a sleep spell on him so we can tie him over the rump of a horse and ship him home to Storm Eagle.”

That line of reasoning registered with Wren. She agreed to give brother Blue Fox a chance.

While the two-footeds were eating around our campfire that evening, Cloud Eye nudged Blue Fox and passed him the box, “That’s for you. You do need to make some effort to fit in better.”

Blue Fox opened the box and looked at the mask. Then he looked up, “so the whole idea of the mask is to draw attention away from Cat Rider’s burn scar.”

“That’s right,” Owl replied.

“That’s not a bad idea,” he lifted the mask. “That’s good work, and it’s new work too. I didn’t see any shops that would sell something like this in Perkikish.”

“While everyone was recovering from our introduction to smeet,” Cat swirled his tea, “I found a leather crafter who specialized in making leather cases. Since case makers need to shape leather as radically as mask makers do, I asked the one in Perkikish if she could make a copy of our masks for you. She said yes and let me watch.”

“If we come back this way, Cat Rider, will you please take me to that shop so I can thank her,” he blotted the side of his eye with his sleeve. “I don’t know what else to say. I was a real jerk to some of you back home. I want to think that sort of thing is behind me. I don’t know why father ordered me to try to join your adventuring party. I thought he was nuts to suggest it. If he’s got some deeper purpose, I haven’t figured it out yet.

“I am touched by this gesture. I hope I can be of help to you. I’m not a great hunter like Wren. I might not know the best way to do things, so please tell me if I need to do something differently. I am good at following orders. I’m not sure what a sword fighter can do for hunting, but I’m sure we can find some way I can be useful to you. I will shut up now before I say something stupid and get everybody mad at me.”

So that’s how Blue Fox joined our hunting party at the request of King Storm Eagle.

It took 12 days to arrive at Wiffleblatt. Our hunting party could have made the trip in eight traveling on horses. I’m not complaining because the coach that the goblins provided for Cat made the journey much easier for him. As we gained altitude entering the western mountains — I forgot the goblin name for them — the nights grew colder, and Cat took to sleeping on the floor of the coach with me curled up next to him for warmth.

I know he stoically endured our travel on foot before reaching Cedar Stands, cooking over a fire, and sleeping in a bedroll on the ground, but I knew it was not easy for him. I suspect he endured because he needed to prove that he could. I wish he would accept that it is alright to rely on others. It doesn’t help that elves tend toward self-reliance, and he wants that for himself despite his disabilities. Under his pleasant and friendly exterior is a relentless ambition to live his life without being dependent on others, which for him is impossible. His growing mastery of magic may make it possible eventually, but still, I find his stubbornness frustrating.

My other worry was Motley Owl, struggling with his longstanding dislike of Blue Fox. Before he exploded in size and strength, he was one of Blue Fox’s victims in the older boy’s room. He won’t trust the grieving Blue Fox, who feels guilty that he survived when the rest of his adventuring party died. Owl won’t acknowledge that Blue Fox is no longer the bully he used to be.

My third worry was Blue Fox, who can’t fathom Cat Rider at all. Cat confuses him. He doesn’t understand why Cat pushes himself to do tasks made difficult by his disabilities. A few days ago, Cat was doing his self-appointed chore of feeding and grooming our horses. The feed bags are hard for him to lift and disturb his balance. He struggles with the weight of the saddles. He spends at least an hour cleaning tack after dinner every night. Blue Fox asked if he could help with the saddles, and Cat turned him down.

“I thank you for the offer, Blue Fox, but I must decline,” Cat explained with his usual cheerful smile. “This is what I can do, so I will do it. I can’t help setting up our tents, getting water, or carrying enough dinner for the five of us back from the cook tent. So I will take care of this so the others can do the things I can’t do.”

“Can I at least carry the saddles for you?” Blue Fox asked, trying to be friendly and helpful. “I can tell you have trouble with them.”

“No, I can manage the saddles by myself,” my boy said as he took small, controlled steps while carrying a saddle.

“If this is about how badly I treated you when we were kids,” Blue Fox grimaced, “I’m not that person anymore, Cat Rider. I’m not trying to set you up to fall or fail or anything like that. I want to help our group the best I can, and right now, it looks like you’re the one who can use a hand the most.”

“I know all that, Blue Fox. It’s just that I need to do this, all of this,” Cat tried not to let his frustration show as he persisted in his painfully slow maintenance of the saddles.

I silently padded up to Blue Fox as he walked away and brushed up against his leg. *You will find he’s more stubborn than the rest of the group put together. If you really want to help him, then let him continue to help himself.*

“Oh, hello, Lady Fuzzy,” Blue Fox was still startled every time I talked to him. “I confess, I don’t get him at all. Out of everyone here, he looks to be the one who could use some help.”

*After he survived the fire that killed his sister, the humans did all they could to make him helpless and dependent on others. At the same time, they isolated him from friends and family and forced him to live with caretakers who had nothing but contempt for him. As a consequence, he needs to push himself to his limits to be helpful and to work harder even though others could do the work for him. Owl and Wren will stop him if he pushes himself too hard.*

“It’s painful to watch him struggle,” Fox commented.

*Yes, it is. It’s also painful to watch you, too, under a storm cloud all the time because you can’t forgive yourself for being alive.*

“What?”

*You heard me, Mister I-didn’t-deserve-to-survive.* I circled around to his backside and headbutted him in the butt.*Cloud Eye could use your help holding that center post in that tent he’s trying to put up.*

Having moved Blue Fox to more productive pursuits besides moping, I sauntered off toward the round ear encampment to continue my investigation of Prince Willam’s character. Maneuvering to get a back and chin scratch was the furthest thing from my mind.