Triss stood apprehensively in front of the dark forest. The morning sun rising behind her stretched her shadow away until it joined the shadows of the trees. She cursed herself inwardly for being kind.

She'd stayed with Jonal for nearly a month now, helping out by working in the shop. Jonal had been made an elder for his part in saving the town, and he'd been busy hobbling around town on crutches, directing the crews that were cleaning up and repairing everything. Most of the town was back to normal, a few deep slash marks in stone and broken awnings the only physical reminders of the horror they all had faced.

Triss took a deep breath, clutched the straps of her pack tighter, checked to ensure her light orb was floating behind her, closed her eyes and stepped into the woods. After a moment, she opened her eyes. She saw nothing. Well, nothing nightmarish or monstrous at least. She did see the path going through the forest. She started walking carefully to avoid bouncing the heavy pack digging into her shoulders.

“Stupid Nolayn.” She muttered as she went. Nolayn was Jolan’s oldest son, and normally it was his job to bring the supplies to the castle. Unfortunately, his young daughter had screamed all night. Colic or teething or something, Triss wasn‘t sure. She really didn’t know anything about babies. She also didn’t know much about keeping her mouth shut. When Nolayn had stumbled in to collect the supplies she had offered instantly to help.

Which is how she found herself walking though a cursed forest towards the castle of a dark wizard. “It’s fine. It’ll be fine.” She told herself as she walked. Part of her missed Reginald. Part of her was worried he’d be mad at her, and didn’t want to risk seeing him. She wasn’t sure what kind of fallout there had been from Percival discovering her alive, but she felt a bad about letting him deal with that alone. “Not like I could have made much of a difference.” She said as she walked. “I probably would have made it worse by being there. Stupid Percy.”

She heard a small rustling sound in the bushes up ahead and froze for half a second. A small bird fluttered onto the pathway. Triss breathed a sigh of relief, then paused. The bird was sitting on the pathway looking at her. “Shoo.” Triss said, making the motion with her arms. The bird just looked at her, head cocked to the side. It chirped once, then took one menacing hop towards her.

Triss nearly backed up. In this forest, a bird might not be a bird. She thought. She longed to ask the spirit, but it hadn’t spoken to her since helping her cast the spell that saved Percival. It wouldn’t even give directions now, and she worried that she had somehow…broken it? Maybe? She wasn’t sure how all this stuff worked. The path is supposed to be safe. She thought. Therefore, the bird must just be a bird.

Having rationalized it in her head, she took two quick steps towards the bird. “Shoo!” She said. Not too loudly of course, since she was still in the dangerous forest. The bird gave her an indignant look, then hopped a few hops away and took flight. Triss threw her arms up in celebration as the bird flew off the path.

A large red…shape suddenly rose from the ground. Triss only caught a brief impression of tentacles and glistening teeth before it vanished, a puff of floating feathers all that was left of the songbird. Triss jumped back involuntarily. Her arms being up had already thrown her centre of gravity off, and she collapsed backwards onto the ground, landing on the heavy pack.

A long string of curses filled the forest air. Triss waited a few moments for her heart to come down from the treetops, then tried to get back on her feet. At first, she tried to roll forward and stand, but the heavy backpack kept her from going forward. She struggled for a few minutes, looking like an turtle stuck on its shell, only with extra gangly limbs. Eventually she found if she rolled to the side and got on her hands and knees she was able to then make it to her feet.

Triss stomped down the forest pathway, all her previous apprehension replaced with strong annoyance. She didn’t change her stride at all as she left the forest but marched through the plains towards the castle like a soldier on his way to war, muttering curses under her breath the entire way. She dismissed her light with an especially vulgar expression.

When she finally reached the side door she and Reginald had first come out of the month before she unslung her pack, her anger causing her to forget its weight. The pack dropped directly on her foot. Triss spent a few moments hopping around and cursing.

“What are you doing?”

Triss froze. She looked over at Reginald, who stood in the doorway with a slightly confused look on his face. “Um…I dropped the pack on my foot. It hurt.”

“I see.” He said, frowning. “And this hopping and swearing is helping with that?”

Triss put her foot back down. “Absolutely.” She said, turning to the small lizard. “It’s quite cathartic. You should absolutely try it sometime.”

“Hmm. Yes. Well, I like my usual method better.” He replied.

“Which is?”

“I don’t drop things on my feet.” He laughed then, and a weight Triss didn’t realize she was carrying seemed to melt away. She ran up and hugged him, nearly lifting him off the ground. He laughed harder, and hugged her back.

She let go so it wouldn’t become awkward, and Reginald released her a second later. “So, what are you doing here?” He asked. “I mean, not that its a problem of course. Just curious.”

She gestured to the pack on the ground. “Nolayn didn’t sleep well. I guess Sheera - that’s his daughter, Sheera - was up all night, like teething or something. Anyways. He looked so tired this morning when he came to the shop - I’ve been working at Jonal’s shop for the last month - and anyways he looked so tired I offered to bring the supplies for him.” The words came out all in a rush.

Reginald blinked for a second, processing the deluge of information before responding. “I’m not surprised to hear Jonal offered you a job. I knew his grandfather better than I know Jonal of course, but he was always a helpful man.” He smiled, then looked at the pack. “Oh.” He said, his face taking on a more serious expression.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

Triss looked, and realized what Reginald meant. The pack hadn’t taken the rough journey well. It was battered, stained with dirt and grass, and there were liquids starting to leak out of the bottom. “Oh. Oh dear.” She rushed over to the pack, opening it up and starting to remove the contents.

“Wait!” Reginald said suddenly. Triss didn’t stop in time. The broken shards of bottle in the pack sliced open one of her fingers, and it started gushing blood into the backpack. She pulled her hand out quickly, her finger dripping heavily.

Reginald was there in a flash, grabbing her hand and steadying it. “Hold still.” He said. He reached into his robe and pulled a small cloth. “Press that against it.”

She complied, and held the cloth against the wound. Reginald shifted her grip so she could press more effectively, then told her to wait while he went to fetch some supplies. He dashed into the castle and retuned a few moments later with a small kit. He opened it up to reveal a needle and thread. “Seriously?” Triss asked. “Can’t you fix it with magic?”

“Magic is excellent at destruction.” He said, carefully threading the needle. “It is of limited use in healing. The body heals at it’s own pace.” He placed the needle in his mouth, then pulled his wand and waved it over her finger. The pain vanished, and she felt the blood stop flowing. “That doesn’t mean magic is useless here, of course.”

He took the cloth from her, wiped up the blood, and began sewing. “Wait, why do you need to do that?” She asked. “It doesn’t hurt and its not bleeding anymore. Didn’t you just fix it with magic?”

“No, I didn’t. Please stop moving. This is hard enough as it is.” Reginald had put his head so close to her hand that he was looking more cross eyed than usual, and his tongue was sticking out the side of his mouth comically. Triss suppressed a giggle.

“So, you didn’t fix it with magic?” She asked, once he had finished sewing up the wound and tying fresh cloth around it.

“No, I temporarily paused the blood flow and numbed the nerves to the area. If I don’t undo it then after a while your finger would rot off, and you wouldn’t even feel it until it spread to the rest of your hand.”

“Gross.”

“Indeed. Take a deep breath.”

“Why?” Triss asked as Reginald pulled out his wand. She very quickly discovered why. The second he waved his wand her finger throbbed so hard she thought it was about to explode. She grabbed the finger with a curse, squeezing hard to prevent a potential catastrophic result. Reginald laughed at her, and she cursed him as well, though half-heartedly.

"Well. I think we're going to have to do something about this." Reginald said once Triss had stopped cursing and hopping. He was holding the pack easily with one hand. "I don't think anything in here is salvageable."

"Oh. I'm so sorry Reginald. I didn't mean to mess up your food." Triss said apologetically. "Maybe I can go get it replaced?"

"Definitely a good idea. Would you like some help? I think I can carry the bag better than you. And I think it might be nice to talk to the elders, see how the reconstruction is going." He hesitated before continuing. "That is, if you'd be ok with me accompanying you?

Triss smiled. "I'd be happy to have you along. As long as you're carrying the pack this time." She looked pointedly at the heavy pack dangling from Reginald's hand.

"I think that would be acceptable." He looked at the stained and dripping sack for a moment before hurling it far out into the grasslands around the castle. The pack flew like an arrow, crashing down a couple hundred feet away. “Shall we go?” He asked nonchalantly before starting down the path to town.

“So, how are you enjoying life in town?” Reginald asked as they walked through the sunny fields.

“It’s pretty good. I’ve made a few friends in town.” She smiled. “I spent some time with elder Nert. He told me I’m like the granddaughter he never had. Which reeeaallly upset his actual granddaughter. It’s all good though. She’s like, super competitive. So she’s inviting him over for supper a lot and visiting him, which she didn’t really do before. It’s actually kind of nice.”

Reginald chuckled. “It doesn’t surprise me in the least. Nert was extremely competitive in his youth. Did you know he was one of the youngest elders ever in Thalonia?”

“Really? Thats cool. Hard to see him as being competitive, but maybe that’s just because he’s so old.” Triss chuckled. “I swear though, his hearing loss is completely selective. He doesn’t hear anything unless you mention the word ‘food’. I swear he could hear that from across town.”

Reginald laughed as well. “He always could eat as much as he wanted and never seemed to gain weight. Nothing like elder Horst.”

They walked in silence for a few moments, both summoning light orbs before entering the dark forest. Triss took a deep breath, gathered her courage, and prepared to ask the question she really didn’t want to ask.

“He ignored it.” Reginald said before she could speak.

“Who ignored what?” She asked in confusion.

“Percival. Thats what you were going to ask, isn’t it? How it went with Percival?”

“Um. Yeah. Wait, how did you know that?” She asked. “Can you read minds?” She asked worriedly.

Reginald laughed. “I can read faces.”

Triss didn’t join the laughter. “So, everything’s ok? He didn’t like, punish you or anything?”

“Everything’s fine. We got back to the castle, and he went straight to the library to study. I’m not sure what he’s working on, though I expect I’ll find out soon. This is pretty normal behaviour for him.” Reginald explained.

Triss smiled half-heartedly. It made her feel a little better to know that Reginald hadn’t gotten in trouble, but the conversation also brought a lot of complicated emotions about her turbulent first week in this world to the front of her mind. “Well, I’m glad it worked out ok.”

Reginald only smiled in response, and they walked onwards until they were out of the woods. The sun was a little higher in the sky when they left the dark woods, so Triss barely cursed at all. “You’re doing that a lot more now.” Reginald observed. “Cursing and swearing I mean.”

“Yeah. I like hanging out at the docks sometimes in the morning. It’s nice to watch the sunrise reflect on the river. But docks mean fishermen, and fishermen means an awful lot of cursing. I think most of them use it as punctuation. I kinda got into the habit. With words from my world of course. I mean, some of the cursing here is interesting, but I think it’d be a bit weird to call someone an ‘untied boot’ as an insult. Seems a little lame.”

“I’m surprised you managed to get up early enough to see the sunrise. You used to sleep past it every day in the castle.”

Triss shrugged. “Glowy orbs don’t cost anything, but candles are pricy. Once the sun goes down, it's pretty much bedtime. Nothing else to do. So you end up waking up early.” She grinned wickedly. “Plus Jonal lets me get into your coffee supply as long as I don’t drink it in the house, so I take it down to the docks."

Reginald put on an exaggerated shocked expression. “You’re drinking our coffee? You vile Dark wannabe wizard!” They both burst into laughter then, and were still laughing as they walked through the city gates.

“You know, it would be nice if you visited town once in a while.” Triss said as she confidently picked out the correct street. “That way we can maybe see each other occasionally?”

“Or you could come visit the castle?” Reginald offered.

“Oh. Umm.” Triss said.

“Triss!” A man’s voice called. A tall, thin man was striding down the street towards them. He looked to be about in his late thirties with a thick head of wavy brown hair and a neatly cropped brown beard, all uniform in colour. “There you are. I thought we were meeting for brunch today?” He asked with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

“OH!” Triss exclaimed. “I’m so so sorry. I had to help Jonal with the deliveries this morning and they took way longer than I expected.” She explained apologetically.

“I’m sorry to hear that. Maybe next time I can give you a hand? That way you won’t be overwhelmed.” He continued to smile, then turned to Reginald. “And who’s your friend here?”

“Yes! Sorry. Introductions!” Triss said quickly. “This is my friend Reginald.” She said, indicating the lizard. “Reginald, this is my friend Tom. He’s new in town.”

“A pleasure to meet you.” The thin man beamed down at Reginald, sticking out a hand. “Thomas Crest, at your service.”