Tanis had two settings: quiet serenity and pointless yakking. At first, I thought it was her getting into the zone for the performance of being a bodyguard; we left late morning after a hearty breakfast which I expected would be an issue for her as a baltic, but she was as bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and as ready for the road as Red and I. Her stride was sure, and for the first few hours she alternated between staying a few yards ahead of us and looping behind, keeping her eyes on the crowd and looking professional as hell. But that seemed more like a preliminary observation circuit, after which she tightened in and just sort of… lingered. I assumed she’d gotten enough of a read on the people who were keeping in step with us to identify potential threats or gain a grasp of basic behaviors, then moved in for the actual protection. Even I’d noticed that a lot of the folks we started our journey from Lion’s Head to Varmveg with stayed with us the whole time, or at least you’d see them rotating in and out in staggered shifts as different groups stopped to eat and sleep at their own whims, so for her to take action with that trend in mind spoke well of her preparedness. Tanis had made a good impression, and I was growing more confident at accepting her offered services by the mile… and then she started talking.

“You guys ever seen that play about that guy who starts a drug empire in Bizim?” This was apropos of nothing; we hadn’t so much as made small talk all morning. “I wanna say it’s called Silver Sandsea?”

“No.”

“Can’t say that I have.”

“You should check it out.” Here she began munching on an apple, her words coming through around chunks of fruit. “There’s this big scene at the end where his whole desk is covered in dream powder, like… a whole mountain of it! And the guards bust in and he swordfights all of ‘em. Just… hya! Ha! Cha-chya!” Her shouts were punctuated by light sword pantomime, with all the flair of Errol Flynn and none of the charm, especially with the looks she was drawing from some of the other folks around us. “Then the guard captain stabs him in the back, but he just keeps fighting! An’ he kills the guard captain, and like three more guards before he collapses on his desk, bleeding out in his dream powder.”

“Well, now I don’t have to see it since I know how it all ends.” This is the part where I’d usually mention I tried to keep the sarcasm out of my voice, but I did not. I tried not to be an ass about it, but I hated spoilers so much that I stopped watching most trailers. It wasn’t some unfounded instinct, either; I could recite a Ready Player One-like litany of famous books, movies, shows, and games with compelling reveals and twists that had been spoiled for me by dumb luck or people like Tanis who didn’t know how to keep their mouths shut.

“It’s still a good show, dude.” She didn’t even have the good sense to sound guilty, or the bad sense to sound offended. She presented the option like a helpful tip, despite its obviousness. ‘Saving the game will allow you to return to your progress at a later date!’. “If you can, try to catch the one by the Zaglisiena Players. Stefan Zaglisiena is a master of his craft.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.” There was more venom to my words than likely should’ve been. I noticed it and pumped the brakes on my attitude. Maybe I was trying to get it out of my system before it boiled over. I drew a long, deep breath and held it in my chest for a moment before exhaling, chastising myself all the while.

Working in customer service for most of my life had given me an appreciation for lonely folks who just wanted someone to talk to. For some people their trip to the store was their only real social interaction, and too many self-important young people or judgmental seniors would refuse to give folks the time of day based on their awkwardness, or their appearance. I wanted to be the person these folks could come to; a smiling face in their weekly routine who’d hear their woes and celebrate their weird personal successes without being a dick about it. Here I was doing exactly the opposite of that; judging Tanis by her awkwardness and creating excuses for future me to remove her from my service when she’d only been mildly annoying at worst. Which was fine behavior if isolation was my goal, but it was not; I only had one person I could talk to in Barbavia, and I wouldn’t mind another. Pushing aside my ego and my pride, I mustered a pleasant demeanor and continued the conversation.

“Do you know if there are any playhouses in Brum?”

“Oh, yeah!” Genuine laughter bubbled from her throat like a spill of marbles. “The Poppelo, Kampsport Hall, Johnny’s Garden… basically anywhere Johnny Az played is a hit venue these days. I took you for a country bumpkin, but I didn’t realize you were that out of touch.”

“Yeah, well…”

I let my sentence trail off and shrugged, both because it seemed like the safest way to deflect and because I had no actual rebuttal. The biggest benefit of only having Red to talk to was that he was in on my origins. He didn’t ask probing questions, and he was a handy enough guide to the world as topics came up organically. Through some oversight we hadn’t established an emergency backstory, perhaps because I never did much wandering around town without his supervision and even when I did, I was unlikely to run into anyone making deep queries. One of us likely should’ve considered this between hiring Tanis and just now, but between his stress from the redgrass and me being out of sorts from my encounter with the woman in the first place, it just didn’t come up. Of course, since we hadn’t…

“So, where are you from?” Tanis asked before taking a massive, crunchy bite of apple.

“Willowbright,” Red answered quickly.

“Wow, that is backwoods. Still weird you don’t know about Johnny Az, though. I mean, he was only the most famous celebrity spellcaster in all of Barbavia. Guy gets promoted to godhood and you don’t even know his big three concerts?”

Johnny Az had, in fact, come up during Red’s briefing before I met with Master Anatol; claiming to be from Astonia meant I should probably have a crash course on what amounted to its founder. John Ravenswood was an accomplished musician and practitioner of magic when he started to pick up steam touring the Northern territories of the az people. He’d find a town with a venue or enough space to hold an outdoor concert and put on a show for a week or so, meeting with local high-profile spellcasters and leaders in-between gigs. Johnny grew in power and prominence, and beyond just enjoying his sound, people really started listening to his music and its message of peace and togetherness. It was like you dropped Beyoncé into the middle of medieval Scandinavia, but her fan count translated directly instead of deflating to a relative percentage of the population. The Northern city-states united under the banner of one man, and he took the name of his people as his surname in humility, and to acknowledge that his deeds would reflect upon all of the newly-crowned Astonia. He wasn’t without his detractors of course; minor political rivals who weren’t one of the most powerful sorcerers in history, as well as some magic-users who attempted to step to his throne and have received a similar legacy, if in infamy. This was (as I understood it) some several hundred years ago, thus Red glossed over the finer points of his biggest concerts and most of his discography in a correct assumption that some random teacher in Lion’s Head would challenge my claimed origins by shouting ‘oh, so you were born in Astonia? Name three of Johnny Az’s songs! Only B-sides!’

“I know who Johnny Az is—” I started, but Red stopped and turned to face Tanis, speaking in a hushed tone.

“He’s got amnesia… sorta.” He shrugged his tiny, black-furred shoulders. “It’s the quickest way to explain it anyhow. I’ve been tryin’ to keep him up to speed, but we hadn’t quite gotten to the minutia of Brum’s playhouses quite yet.”

“Oh!” Tanis stopped as well, putting her fists on her hips and wrinkling up her nose. “Well, why didn’t you say so earlier? That seems like essential information for a bodyguard to have.”

“I’m not sure how some people might exploit it,” I answered, letting some of my irritation with her nosiness leak into my words, masquerading as weariness. “I’m not sure who I was before, if I was anyone at all. Red and I met in Willowbright, so as much as it matters, I’m from Willowbright. The rest I’m just trying to fill in as I go.”

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“Oh…” For the first time in the few short hours since I’d met her, a look crossed Tanis’ pallid face that resembled remorse for her brashness. I wondered how recently she’d held that expression at all. It faded, and she gave a decisive nod. “Well, that explains why you’re not racist.”

“I mean… sure.” I hated baseless assumptions, especially when they were right, but from what interactions I’d had with the locals of Willowbright, I couldn’t blame her and didn’t argue. Everyone was silent long enough that the point had to have been made, so I balled up the last of my irritation and spat it out with my stride. “Let’s keep moving.”

Red lingered behind, keeping in step with Tanis and talking with her quietly. Either he was putting effort into selling her on the idea that I was touchy about my nonexistent lack of a memory, or he actually thought I’d taken some offense from the conversation and was in a mood about it. Both were fine options; it granted me enough silence to mill my own thoughts down into something digestible, trying to detach myself from the lingering bitter mood Tanis had a knack for putting me in. Tanis might’ve genuinely just been looking for work and was just bad at approaching a job when she sat down at my table; it paired easily with her clumsy grasp on conversation, but I couldn’t help hang onto the notion Red and I discussed that she may be trying to get amongst our good graces for a more unsavory reason. I might be willing to doubt my own gut feelings about stuff like that, but I trusted Red’s experience with shysters and hoodwinks. Maybe he was getting a better read on her as they talked, as banal as the conversation seemed. The most I caught was her asking if I had amnesia more like Lady Revenge or Hiro’s Sixth Epic, to which Red responded the latter. I made a mental note to look into whatever those were, mostly to keep up the ruse but also because enjoying a bit of entertainment sounded nice. One of my greatest lamentations from back home was that I’d lost the focus required to just sit and read somewhere between high school and the present, the likely cause beyond my ADHD getting worse being the omnipresence of computers and the concept of pursuing other projects I ‘should’ be doing. With them all gone, this seemed like a fine time to try and enjoy a novel again. I’d also spent much of my formative years acting, writing, and directing for the school theatre groups, and Tanis’ fondness for stage plays was dredging a longing for the art up from some buried portion of my memory.

The rest of day one was fairly uneventful, like much of our travels on Triangle Road. The first snow hit on day two; a gentle, graceful frost that refused to stick. Wysteria was becoming sluggish with the encroaching cold, and I took to holding her in the folds of my robes as we traveled. She couldn’t have been more than twenty-five pounds, but holding her bundled in my arms for hours upon hours left me feeling more weary than I had on the previous leg of our journey. I was sure the lower temperatures were sapping my own strength, as well. We stopped more and ate more on days three and four, buying the occasional cup of coffee or hot chocolate from clever entrepreneurs on the roadside. Both beverages tasted a little off from what I would expect on Earth, but neither enough to make me disinclined to drink; the chocolate was richer and thicker, roughly the consistency of egg nog, and the coffee was keenly bitter and had a nuttier flavor. Fortunately, milk and sugar were not foreign concepts to the baristas of Barbavia, and I was able to concoct a potable composition with little effort. This put a considerable dent in our finances, but if I had half as much return on investment with Wysteria’s fights in Brum as I did Lion’s Head, we’d manage just fine.

On day five, Tanis joined me for breakfast in our rented tent. She had one of her own (paid for by me, as agreed) and I hadn’t invited her, but she brought me coffee and an apple fritter the size of my head, so I didn’t mind. Her cheeks were flushed with the cold, an effect I hadn’t expected with how cleanly white the complexion of every other baltic I’d met was. Then again, I was sure they still had blood that rushed to the surface in colder climes, and she was the first balt I’d seen in the snow. She’d taken to wearing an insulated black hooded coat lined with tawny fur over her armor, which was black and shades of brown with numerous buckled straps and metal studs. It made me wonder if some armor would be worth my time, despite never really having worn any before, but I guessed it to be somewhat outside my price range. My knowledge of studded leather was roughly equivalent to what Lucille Bluth knew about bananas, unless Dungeons and Dragons was an acceptable reference material.

“I thought you might be a little lonesome in here,” Tanis offered along with the meal. Red had taken Wysteria out to forage for bugs, and they assumed they’d have better odds without my giant ass tromping around.

“Thank you,” I managed around a bite of warm, doughy apple-cinnamon perfection. Sleep was still clinging to my brain, trying to will me back to bed. It was always harder for me to wake up when it was chilly, and much like Tanis we were operating outside my comfort zone of consciousness by trying to avoid being out in the elements during the colder parts of the day as much as possible. A hot meal helped tremendously, and this one set my synapses firing.

“You still doin’ all right on supplies? There’s a town we should pass by today if you need to restock and refuel.” Tanis sat cross-legged as far away from me as she could in the tiny tent without pushing against its flimsy walls. She’d quickly gotten much better at recognizing both social and physical boundaries. Perhaps she was treating me with kid gloves due to her lack of understanding about the details of my ‘amnesia’, or maybe she’d accepted it as an excuse for me bristling at what she probably perceived as common conversation.

“We should be fine to press on. The only thing we might run out of is food, and there’s plenty of that on the road. Besides, I’d like to get in and out of Astonia before winter hits in force.”

“Is that something you remember, or did Red warn you about how bad it gets?”

“The latter, although I am capable of deductive reasoning. I probably could’ve figured it out on my own.” That came out more petulantly defensive than I meant for it to, which was another common problem for my communication skills before midday.

“Sure, you seem like a pretty smart guy.”

“Thank you,” I said somewhat sheepishly, burying my blush in fritter.

“I mean, you can still do magic, right? You have Wysteria, obviously.” Red’s status as ‘traveling companion, not chained esper’ was impressed upon her rather early into our travels, for obvious reasons.

“Yeah, but it’s… I don’t know how to explain it.” That was an honest enough answer that bought my time while I figured out a convincing lie that was easy to upkeep. “I guess it’s kind of like I probably knew quite a few spells from before, but I need a… … push to remember how to use them again.”

“Is that what your big book is for?” The second I realized she’d caused me to freeze up, I forced myself to relax, chew and swallow the bite of pastry I’d taken, and exhale casually. I can say with confidence I screwed up at least one of those. I’d been perusing the pages last night, taking note of the fresh experience I’d picked up at some point and considering my options for its employment, and had perhaps carelessly left it lying in the open.

“Yeah, kind of.” Caution drew out my words as I played for time, my eyes panning over to the Grimoire di Magi e Mythe sitting arm’s reach away from me on the opposite side of the tent from my guest. The question was ‘is that what your big book is for’, not ‘what is that big book for’, implying she’d spotted it before. I kept it in my satchel, which is also where I kept the food, money, and my water bottle, so it didn’t surprise me that she’d spotted it before, but I was surprised at myself for not being more discreet about it. “It’s sort of like a journal as well, I guess. I’ve had it with me as long as I can remember, as short as that actually is.”

“Interesting title,” she said, scrutinizing the cover from across the way. “That’s Old High Tongue, isn’t it?”

“Is it?” I raised an eyebrow at her, and she nodded in acceptance of my gentle reminder that I would have no idea.

“Fair enough. Sorry. It’s hard to tell what you might know, and what you might not.”

“I didn’t take offense.” Another sip of coffee would surely get my brain working at something resembling full power enough to navigate this conversation. It would also keep my hands busy, and I was trying very hard to ignore the urge I had to pick the book up. Surely that would be interpreted as an invitation to look at it with me, and I don’t think either of us were ready to hit that level of trust. “I know some words. They seem familiar to me, anyhow, and I’m right when I guess their meanings most of the time, but I didn’t know the name of the language until you said it just now.”

“It’s mostly dead, as I understand,” she shrugged. “You always know someone is a real pretentious douche when they sprinkle in a few High Tongue words, especially Old High Tongue.”

“Wouldn’t ‘douche’ be a High Tongue word?” I asked with a quirked eyebrow.

“Huh,” Tanis put a fingertip to her lower lip and stared upward, thinking about it. “I guess so. I think it has something to do with induction? You see it a lot in the instruction manuals for those fancy hotel showers. Most folks use it as an insult for someone who’s a real cocky asshole, ‘cuz that’s the name of this little pump thing high society women clean out their vaginas with.” There was nothing ribald to her tone; she legitimately was just sharing a fact with me, someone with little knowledge of the world around me. Still, I couldn’t stop my mouth from becoming a flat, pursed line while trying to find polite words to express my familiarity with the term.

“I know what a douche is.”

“How could I know?” She shrugged her shoulders with comical over-exaggeration and smiled, standing up. “I’ll leave you to your donut for now. If Red and Wysteria come back before you’re up and around, I’ll let you know.”

“Thank you.” With her eyes off the grimoire, I felt a lot less anxious and came up with a smile of my own, raising the coffee in a soft toast. “For breakfast, as well.”

“Don’t mention it,” she said, flashing a two-fingered gesture that either meant ‘peace’, ‘victory’, or that she was a cute anime character before exiting through the tent flap.