Samari stopped running when she noticed the cultivator and his two dogs weren’t pursuing her. Kalon had seated below the tree that had supported the lethal trap and taken a few snacks out of his trusty pouch. Brunhilda was breathing onto his bare neck, yearning for a bite, her silver tongue licking Kalon’s soft skin now and then. Jagger was inspecting a nearby puddle of stagnated water.

“This is the good stuff!” he claimed to the heavens before losing himself in the pleasure of water ridden with mosquito larvae.

Maybe the boy with the… scarf made of godfucking puppies… was an employee of the talking dog, a sort of bodyguard or butler.

She approached carefully, zigzagging to hide behind every conceivable obstacle, her steps made of cotton. Brunhilda ignored her, because she didn’t carry enough narcotics on her person to qualify as edible. Jagger ignored her, because he was too engrossed in the wordly pleasures to care. Kalon ignored her, because he was eating, patting Brunhilda’s head and breathing at the same time, so his multitasking capacity was capped for the moment.

She inched closer, in imperial system fashion, because centimetering sounds bad, it doesn’t roll off the tongue.

Jagger raised his head from the puddle, water dripping from the sides of his mouth, and dedicated an inscrutable stare to the girl. “You got to tell me the secret ingredient of this blend.”

“I… I pee there.”

Jagger opened his eyes wide and turned his head, lost in his thoughts. Was he above drinking stale piss?

No, he was a dog, so he wasn’t. “My compliments to your kidneys.”

She disembarrassed herself from her mask, revealing a dirty face that was thinner than it should. “Eek.”

Leaving all pretense of stealth, she walked up to Jagger —that had gotten back to lapping the contaminated water—crouched and poked his butt with an exploratory finger. “Heavens, you are… solid. Real. Not a figment of my imagination.”

“You don’t talk like a prepubescent girl.”

“And you don’t talk like a dog,” she retorted, retracting her hand so both her forearms would be resting on her knees.

Jagger assed the ground and turned to glance at the girl. “Fine, you win this round. Anyway, eh… we will be going soon, so, thanks for the pee.”

“You didn’t come to kill me or steal anything, then?” She asked, surprised, but careful to not perk up.

“Why would we? Kalon —that moron with the puppy scarf over there— may be a mass-casualties hazard, but he doesn’t go around killing innocents intentionally. Brunhilda, the other Rottweiler… well , I wouldn’t cross her.”

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“Is she powerful? She looks like a normal, non-talking dog.”

“Because she is.” Jagger admitted, laying in front of the girl, forelegs crossed. “She is the most dangerous common dog you will ever know. And her stomach is probably classified as an ancient artifact of forbidden power at this point.”

“Is she aggressive?” She asked in a tremulous, little voice.

“Quite so, but she doesn’t kill people… er… What she considers people.”

She swallowed, a bitter taste gathering on her mouth. “Am I people to her?”

“You aren’t dead yet and she is ignoring you, so yes.”

Kalon noticed the girl couching by his barksword and rushed to them. “Jagger, this isn’t a truffle.”

“Psst, how stupid is he?” she whispered on Jagger’s ear.

“If his stupidity were an ocean, sturgeons would be forced to lay their eggs in the clouds.”

“But sturgeons spawn in freshwater bodies.”

“Precisely.”

Samari’s face twisted into a work of expressionist art. “He cannot be that stupid. You are trying the wrong approach.”

Samari stood and tousled her matted hair around a little, trying to capture any semblance of presentability still available in the atmosphere. The atmosphere took exception to this and cranked humidity up by two percent. Nobody present noticed this perfect crime.

“Kalon, my name is Samari, and I am the last Arcagnostic of Diamonter town. We suffered a little…demographical crisis due to cultivators, and that’s why I tried to kill you.” She kowtowed. “Sorry.”

“Very conversational and murderous for a truffle imitator…” Kalon said. He then dislodged one of the Rottweiler puppies of his scarf and used the resigned puppy to rub the back of Samari’s head with.

Samari crawled backwards “Eek!”

Jagger offered her his nose in a friendly gesture. “Don’t worry, he won’t hurt you… I suppose.”

Kalon frowned and hammered his closed fist against his cupped palm, as if he had realized something.

“I was led astray by the dirt and smell, but… I think she is a girl,” our Sherlock spoke, to Samari’s cringe.

“Gods, he is that stupid.”

“That’s not all.” Jagger said, helping Samari stand with his neck. “How many grandparents do you have, girl?”

“None, they all died before I was born.”

Jagger paced around her, shaking his head. “I mean, how many different grandparents do you have listed in your family tree?”

“Four, like everyone.”

Jagger and Kalon exchanged a glimpse and started laughing like drunk hyenas.

“Everyone has four, she says!” the dog mocked.

“I have five!” Kalon declared boldly, raising three fingers. The American way, not the European way.

“And I have two, like most dogs from a recognized breed and line.”

“So…he has an adoptive grandparent?” Samari tried to parse what Kalon had said. “Or does he confuse the numbers three and five?”

“Neither. All my five grandparents are biological.” Kalon crossed his arms, a smug grin sitting on his face like a fat bear upon a throne of solidified honey.

The corners of Samari’s mouth curled upwards in a tic. “That’s not possible.”

“It is. He’s so inbred his family tree is no longer Euclidean.”

Samari’s eyes crumpled into a thin line. “He has no levitation power. He simply cartoons gravity away. Am I correct?”

Jagger nodded with closed eyes.

Samari’s mind was about to give up trying to comprenhed the level of idiocy of her visitors. “How is he still breathing?”

“I trained him via his pathological fear of tetanus. If he stops breathing, I bite him.”

Hearing the damned word, Kalon recoiled against the tree, a little scared lump of boy, tremulous as a kitten left to fend for itself in the snow.

“Whatever. If you come in peace, you are now my guests. Want tea? There are some wild tea plants around the town, and the blend tastes delicious. Helps fend off hunger too.”

Jagger wanted to ask something in the less rude way possible, but there weren’t many ways to do that. He decided to risk her hospitality. “Can you pee in the tea?”

Samari’s tic worsened, metastasizing to her eye. She would not dignify Jagger's degenerate question. “Follow me, I’ll point out where not to step to not trigger more traps.”