The witch Ben had been saddled with for his journey stared up at the pine branches that were cast in a warm glow from their fire. The shadows beyond them loomed menacingly, and despite the pleasant earthy smell around them, the small camp they had set up for the night felt smothering.

She tugged at the shawl around her shoulders tightly.

“Are you sure you don’t have a spell or something that could protect us while we sleep?” Ben asked while poking at the fire with a stick.

“I’m already working on one, but it’ll take time,” the witch lamented while closing her eyes and taking in a deep breath, right in time for a plume of the smoke from the fire to be blown right into her face.

Ben grinned as he watched her short nose with the bulbous tip scrunched up in displeasure. “I take it you aren’t a fan of the outdoors?”

When the witch opened her eyes again she scowled. “The outdoors are perfectly fine if I am indoors.”

“I would’ve thought a witch would feel more attuned to nature—especially given that you were living in Gabel and you’re surrounded by, you know, a forest.” Ben gestured around himself, while knowingly giving her an infuriating wry grin.

“I only lived there for four seasons,” she retorted while rubbing her pale, bony fingers together as the fire let out a muffled crack.

Ben waited to see if she would perhaps share where she had spent most of her life if not in the small remote town they had met. Though he was already assuming that it was most likely in a city like the capital, Indivor, or a similarly large city like Wothol, but she didn’t.

Instead, Ben could feel the woman’s studious gaze on him as he continued to stir the loose coals with a long stick.

“You seem perfectly at home outside,” she started conversationally. “I’m guessing you were on the run for a while? Is it just that you’re a thief who stole gold from the wrong people? What’s it for anyway? Gambling debts?”

Ben sensed his outward calm, thoughtful expression harden. “I didn’t steal it from them. It was mine to begin with.”

A rustling from above had the witch’s head snapping back to stare up into the canopy above them.

“What was that?” she asked, her voice coming out a whisper.

“Probably an owl, or a bat,” Ben guessed, though he also looked up.

The woman’s grip on her shawl tightened to the point to the point her knuckles whitened.

Ben gave a subtle chuckle. “Owls and bats won’t bother us.”

“Don’t you remember what I said about magical beings being attracted to us because of the damn fated tie?” the witch reminded sharply.

Ben dropped his bemused gaze to his travel companion before shaking his head at her distress. “I’m Ben, by the way.”

The witch reluctantly tore her sights away from the trees above. “Spidena.”

He nodded in response, then opened his mouth, perhaps to ask about the origins of her name, when a shadow descended upon them from the branches, making Spidena shriek and jump to her feet.

Ben jolted upward as well, the stick wielded in his hand like a sword.

But when the pair had calmed down they found themselves staring at…

A raven.

“GODSDAMNIT HALF PINT!” Spidena’s hand flew to her chest as she started taking deep breaths.

Ben blinked with a frown pressing down his brows, then looked back at his travel companion.

Spidena crouched low to the ground and held out her arm to the bird, and in return the raven ruffled its feathers, then hopped politely onto her forearm.

“Is that raven… yours?”

“Yes,” Spidena answered while reaching up with her knuckle to gently stroke the raven’s silky feathers. “I left you a coin hours ago! What took you so long?”

The raven let out a short croak.

“A likely excuse. You’re making me regret naming you Wolf. You’re a hunting addict now, you runt,” the witch muttered.

Ben’s eyes went wide with awe. “You can understand the bird?”

“I imagine I do… and it seems to work for us.” Spidena sighed and looked unabashedly back at him. “Wolf, this is Ben. He’s going to take us to Kintel.”

Wolf tilted his head curiously at Ben, its black eyes glinting in an alarmingly intelligent way…

“I-is he your familiar?”

“Gods, you believe that malarky? That witches have soul bound animals? No. We have pets like everyone else. We just tend to prefer pets because they are a lot less selfish and awful than people,” Spidena scoffed as she lowered herself back down to her seat.

Ben started to inwardly debate testing how truly stuck together they were and just venturing off on his own to leave the cranky witch all alone in the woods. He wondered if she would still be as condescending with nothing but bugs and critters to hear her snark…

“I thought you called him half pint? You know. When you screamed?” he reminded rather than commenting on Spidena’s snide replies, though the dry note in his voice seemed to register with her.

“Like you haven’t heard people call their pets other names. I’ve heard men dote on their cats and call them ‘princess’, and women gushing over their dogs calling them ‘darling’. Then you ask them what their names are and it’s something like Francine or George.”

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While Ben didn’t share how weird he found that tidbit of information, it most likely still showed on his face. He hadn’t really been around many families, or people with pets… Or really anyone for any meaningful duration of time since he was a child.

Spidena rolled her eyes and didn’t bother trying to continue explaining the merits of nicknames when animals already had perfectly good names. “Wolf will be helpful for keeping watch.”

Ben arched an eyebrow at her. “Assuming there isn’t something shiny.”

“He’d choose a juicy mouse over a coin any day!” Spidena defended heartfully.

“Great. So assuming there are no small rodents. Or bugs. In a forest. He is going to be highly reliable as a watchbird,” Ben agreed sarcastically.

“Well you weren’t going to stay awake to keep watch!”

“Because we’re going to be walking a lot tomorrow, and according to you, you’re directionally challenged so I need to pay attention.”

“I ought to turn you into a snail. Then I’ll feed you Wolf,” Spidena huffed, her green eyes sparkling.

“Oh, so suddenly you are perfectly confident defending yourself?” Ben smiled. But it wasn’t a nice smile. It was an annoying smile that Ben could tell tempted Spidena to do something like order Wolf to go peck his eyes out.

She grumbled and crossed her arms over her chest. “It might be weeks or years from now, but you’re going to regret that.”

“I’ll add it to my list.”

“You have a list of regrets?” Spidena asked, immediately distracted from her threat.

“Doesn’t everyone?” Ben shrugged, though he felt somber darkness well up inside his heart as unbidden memories offered to douse him in their miseries.

“Most men have their list of regrets by the time they are middle aged. You look like you’re… thirty? You have loads of-”

“I’m twenty-four.”

Spidena paused. “When people look far older than they are, it usually indicates either a very unhealthy, hedonistic lifestyle, terrible trauma, or unfortunate looks inherited from one’s parents.”

Ben said nothing, and put renewed effort into ignoring her

“Because you’re being annoying I’m going to assume it’s the latter.”

Ben heard Spidena’s insulting mutter and gave a particularly aggressive jab of his stick at a glowing orange coal.

However, the witch must have decided she was too talented at being vexing to give up just yet.“I imagine it makes it far easier for you to pretend to have children at home counting on you when the king’s guard decides to bully someone for fun and make them do something unpleasant.”

Ben shook his head disapprovingly and seated himself back down. “I’m going to sleep. I’ll wake you up before dawn, so don’t sic your bird on me.”

Spidena opened her mouth to make another scathing remark, but Ben was already setting his sack on the ground, and laying down.

*

Spidena grumbled inwardly, then acquiesced to not push him any more for the night, so she wordlessly proceeded to reach into her own satchel, and pulled out a rose colored wool blanket, and a fluffy white pillow.

When she darted another look over at Ben, she realized that because of his new angle laying by the fire, she could see the shadows under his eyes… Then she registered that he was watching her pull large items from her bag and turned away.

She rather loved her bag. It was able to condense everything inside, and store it safely in a magical space. All she had to do was have a vague idea of what she was looking for, and usually the bag was able to sort itself out so that she could find what she was looking for. It was easier for bigger items than it would be for something small, like a spool of thread, or a button.

When Spidena slipped another look in her travel companion’s direction she observed that he had once again closed his eyes. He was probably looking forward to a night of sleep where he wasn’t worried about the thugs finding him.

Sighing, Spidena settled down onto the ground, and rested her head atop her pillow.

She’d never slept outside a day in her life… And despite being able to bring perfectly comfortable bedding, it was easy to notice pebbles and pinecones wedged into her back and bottom.

She gave a quiet huff of irritation, and shifted over to try and find a more comfortable position.

Well, the first day of the journey had gone relatively smoothly.

Ideally they would keep traveling at a brisk pace, and perhaps even form a tolerable rapport, though Spidena wasn’t as hopeful for such an eventuality inlight of how grouchy he seemed.

Closing her eyes, Spidena did her best to not think about the number of nocturnal animals lurking around in the shadows, or of the cold already seeping through her blanket…

I wonder if I’ll get a good sleep. I kept hearing men talk about how refreshing it was, so… who knows. Maybe it’ll surprise me.

*

Ben had watched Spidena settle down for the night through partially closed eyes.

He had noticed that her satchel hadn’t seemed to have anything in it despite watching her put the packages inside earlier… But seeing her pull out the blanket and pillow drove it home for him that it had to be magic. Then it also dawned on him that she was using a white pillow and putting it directly on the dirt-packed forest floor. He wondered if she had ever slept on the ground in her life. He doubted her backside had even had to rest on a dirty wooden or stone floor a moment in her life the way she kept wriggling to get comfortable.

Despite the peculiar series of events of the day, Ben rolled over. He needed sleep, and he didn’t feel like spending those few blissful hours of quiet and rest mulling over the aggravating witch he was stuck with for the next four moons.

He doubted it’d become any more pleasant, as she was, quite obviously, a massive pain in the ass.