Back in the little cabin Kalon and her had rented with their earnings from monster fuckupping, Samari cranked the numbers about the Rottweiler gang economy. Jagger lay relaxed by her side. He had taken a liking to her in the course of the last months, if only because conversations with Samari could be intellectually fulfilling and she didn’t use him as a sword. Besides, they had gotten some moments alone since Brunhilda had decided to train Kalon in Unjaggered combat every other day, which made the dog develop a further appreciation for the silence she was capable of keeping.

“Hey, Sam, will you stick with us after you get a hang of your mom’s books?”

She didn’t raise her stare from the sheets of paper over the table. “As long as Kalon is okay with my company, we may part ways on our search for immortality, but we can always hang out from time to time. Mom had some cultivators she… tolerated. But I am not her, and Kalon is a good, if extremely stupid, friend.”

Kalon, who was in the room performing the importantest task on cabaret — brushing Brunhilda — gave her an encouraging flex. “With you ‘til the end, Sam.”

Samari did a final subtraction and stood to face Kalon and Brunhilda. “People, I have an important announcement to make!” she joined her hands in glee, and took in Kalon’s and Jagger expectant stares. “We are becoming homeless!”

“Yes!” Kalon pumped his fist.

“You did it, inflation, you son of a bitch!” celebrated Jagger.

Kalon hurled the brush at Jagger’s head, where it bounced a and hit Samari’s cheek, where it bounced and went on to hit Brunhilda’s leg, which in turn made the brush commit ritual suicide to avoid his Lady’s wrath.

No one else reacted to the brush’s tribulation. Gratuitous violence was an everyday occurrence when you lived with Kalon.

“Yes, Jagger, I calculated the current inflation rate and growth of said rate, and compared it to the growth of our wages for jobs of a similar difficulty to the ones we have be able to easily complete. Next month, rent and food will go up enough to make us unable to save any meaningful amount of money for our journey. Further than that, we will be working at a loss.”

“So we are leaving honeytown soon? Where will we go?”

Samara, spinning a pen around her fingers like she was winding up a giant rat , granted them a moment of dramatic silence. “Well, I was thinking to make our way to Ilure City, to the north, as I heard people speaking about a new sect that is accepting apprentices. I think they can aid Kalon in his cultivation efforts. After all, they supposedly accept anyone, and I quote ‘that can match a cow’s wit.’”

“We are intercoursed, then.” Jagger spoke with unusual optimism. “Kalon can possibly match a cow’s wit, but it better be a dumbass cow.”

“Yeah, I argued with a cow before. I lost. Their cunning is uncanid.”

Jagger decided to not correct Kalon, because he was technically correct.

“And, in the same city, there’s a branch of the Arcagnostic Archives. So we can stop by the sect, have you train a bit and you them your worth, and then take a few days off to make our way to the city and get my dirty little hands onto Aunara’s hidden knowledge.”

Jagger licked his paw, seemingly with disinterest. “Will you tell us what your mom did to you to deserve you hate, Samari?”

Samari’s expression went sour immediately, her eyes glazed over. She hated the subject, and didn’t want to lie to Jagger. “Someday, you will hear the explanation come out of her own mouth.” Samari touched each one of her molars with her tongue, as if making sure she still had them all, free of cavities, perfectly aligned like Aunara had wanted them. “or of mine, were we to find out mom cannot speak anymore.”

Then Samari clawed her head as if she was having a migraine. Get out of me. Get out of me. Have mercy for the child you made and get out of me! Please!

“isn’t she, like, dead? do I have to explain what death is to you, Samari?” Kalon asked, genuine concern showing in his expression.

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“My mother sook immortality by all means. I am not sure by which ones she actually attained it, but I know something, Kalon: I am forever tainted with her. I am my mother’s child. I am just my mother’s child. Only my mother’s child. Aunara’s Stradeajo little perfect daughter, before I am Samari.” She stood and wandered around the cabin, looking at the hunting trophies they had brought back from their adventures, hung on the walls. Antlers, claws, burnt pasta, and a tail that ended in a keyring. “No matter what I do, she’s here. Mother is worse than a shadow. Mother is my flesh and blood. She watches me from every mirror, she visits me in dreams. I want to be Samari, Kalon, not… Aunara’s daughter.”

Kalon ran to embrace Samari putting her head against his chest. Samari though it was inappropriate, but she wouldn’t complain about this gesture of humanity from the mound of idiocy. “For me, Aunara is just the name of Samari’s mom. “He said, patting her short hair, hoping she was as easy to calm down as a puppy.

Samari raised her head and smiled at him. “Thanks, Kalon.” She embraced him back. “One day, when I am a master Arcagnostic, I can try to make you more intelligent. Just try, though.”

Jagger let out a groan of discomfort. “Don’t you dare make him ask for flowers for a fucking mouse, Samari.”

“Don’t worry, Sam, I like being stupid.” Kalon carefully pushed her apart and crouched so their eyes would be at the same height. His expression went serious. “When I reach age majority, I am adopting you.”

The succession of confusion, horror and then amusement in Samari’s face was a theater play in three acts. She began giggling slowly as Jagger exploded (METAPHORICALLY) in laughter.

“Run, Samari, run while you can, or he will use you as a sword!” the dog joked, earning him Kalon’s glower.

“I am trying to be nice to Samari. Shush.”

Samari took Kalon’s rough hand in hers, which were just as calloused. “There’s no need for that, Kalon. You are like a little brother to me.”

Kalon’s indignation made him pull his hand away. “Little? I am older than you.”

“I know how to read,” Samari reminded him she wasn’t known for her warning shots.

“I am stronger than you.”

Samari folded her arms and put on a shit-eating grin,“You wouldn’t be this strong without my guidance.”

Kalon raised a finger and an eyebrow simultaneously. “which gay dance?”

If Samari would have had a hamster running in a wheel inside her head, this would have been the perfect moment for it to grab a shotgun and redecorate the glass walls of his home. Paint them red and all that.

“How, Kalon, how…”

“How what? Is there a gay dance called how?” he asked with innocence and earnestness.

“How the fucktercourse do you manage, friend of mine, to keep surprising us with your ever-escalating stupidity?” Samari asked, ignoring the fact the Progression tag in this story’s description refers partially to Kalon’s continuous efforts for outdoing his previous crimes against intellectuality.

Kalon lowered his gaze. “I try to be curious so I can learn, but it often backfires.” And it was true, he was trying so hard. He was trying harder than most people ever did. Samari had promised him she would delve into cultivation the day he stopped being a moron.

“There, there, we all have our demons. Except Brunhilda,” Jagger said, and glanced sideways at the bitch.

Brunhilda puked a pentagram of fire onto the rug, killing it. The pentagram or the rug? I don’t know, just it. If Brunhilda was doing it, it better included a victim.

“She is her own demon.” Jagger made a pause, popped a tramadol, and continued. “But, for example, I cause monetary setbacks to our plans due to my addiction to opioids.”

Samari sat in a wooden chair, hands over the ornate beams on the back, and considered what to say.“I am unable to fulfill the expectations the world will always have of me, Kalon. And I am a cunt to you all. Often.”

“Being a cunt to each other is a tradition for our squad, really,” Jagger added, ready to begin his own grooming ritual: his balls needed a thorough lustering, and only his tongue could do the job.

“Burr,” Brunhilda concurred, admitting her biggest flaw: lack of omnipotence.

“Thanks, guys. I am sorry for being a dolt.” Kalon sat on the floor, spun his Rottweiler scarf around his neck while fake-thinking, and then co snapped his fingers. “Maybe I can outwit a cow if we pick a vegan one! The avoidance animal-based food is bound to weaken their brain!”

Jagger and Samari looked at each other like two people in deep grief. Their stares held a question that needn’t to be spoken aloud: Who is going to tell him?

Samari took a split-second decision to defuse the situation before it escalated to complex explanations of herbivory, rumination and partitioned stomachs.

“Subject change! We need to pack up for tomorrow. I will speak with the landlardy to tell her we won’t be paying her intravenous hotdog infusions anymore in the morning, and we can be gone by noon, hitting the road and beginning our Journey towards greatness!” Samari struck a pose , her right foot resting on the wooden beams on the chair’s back, and her finger thrusting forward, towards a bright future full of power and glory. And then a less bright future. And then a well-polished floor.

The fall of Samari was an historical event propelled by Chief Commandant General Führer Title Title Brunhilda “Brun Brun” Von Psych Ward, who betrayed her companion because backstabbing was an age-honored team exercise that was proven to build character. “Burr,” she hurried to excuse herself before returning in front of Kalon and grabbing the dead brush. “Burr”

“I am fine,” Samari grumbled, recovering from the fall, considering seeking a beehive to get revenge on Brunhilda. She quickly discarded the idea, for one pathologic revenge seeker was already enough of a hassle. “Fuck you, Brun.”

Brunhilda panted innocently. In her mind, she hadn’t done anything wrong: Nor that day, nor ever.