Finding a new group of goblins was easier now than the first time because, between the smell and the little marks on the trees, she knew what to look for. Mia decided to get a bit closer and get a look at their numbers this time, so she could include that in her whistle. This group was slower, making frequent stops, and Mia took one such pause as an opportunity to creep close enough to peer through the brush. There were only two this time, one with a spear, and the other holding a club in one hand and a basket on its back. Mia backed off before whistling to her partner and then continued trailing behind them, watching as they occasionally found things to put in the basket.
Mia remembered what her partner had said, so she started practicing with her magic. She didn’t know any real Spells, because they were really hard, but the darkness was different. It was just part of her and had been ever since Mia became a Wraith. She didn’t remember that time anymore, not since the big one had come and helped everyone, but she knew what had happened. It wasn’t recorded in the hero book, because everyone had died, but there’d been a big fight led by Mia’s hero, Aur. Mia wasn’t sure what the fight had been about, or with whom, only that it was the biggest and most important battle ever.
The big one said that even though Aur had won, the enemy had used powerful magic to destroy the whole top of the mountain in revenge, and that the magic had the side effect of turning some of the people into things like Wraiths. Mia just wished she could have met Aur again, because her hero had said there was something special she had to tell Mia once the battle was over, but the big one said that only the people who had been inside the mountain Dungeon when it happened could be brought back.
As she was thinking about all those things the goblins started poking around at the bush she was hiding behind. She kept completely still until they’d left again, having collected some berries and leaves from it. Having almost been caught woke her up to the fact that Mia was a scout on a mission, and it was really bad to be distracted. It also wasn’t good to think sad things when Mia was out with her partner, hunting goblins, so Mia decided to keep focused on the important things.
She made the shadows deeper and longer and used them to sneak in close. The goblins looked at the sky a few times and made those funny noises as the shadows changed around them, but they didn’t ready their weapons or become more alert. Soon afterwards a bird called from close by, so Mia took out her daggers and stuck the spear goblin in the back while the basket one wasn’t paying attention. Taking the lesson from the first patrol Mia immediately ran away, only peeking out after she’d hidden behind some trees.
The basket goblin continued collecting things without noticing anything until a small rock came flying in and knocked it on the head with a burst of blue frost. It fell to the ground and didn’t move, various things spilling from the basket. Mia’s partner walked out and used her long knife instead of her sword to cut the goblin’s neck before turning to look this way and that at the forest.
“Mia?”
“Mia is here!” Mia said, letting go of the dark and letting the forest brighten up again.
“Scared me there, but that was very nicely done.” Mea said as she cleaned her blade and put it away, reminding Mia to do the same. “That’s exactly how a scout should do it. Find the enemy, judge them, wait for the party, then do hit and run strikes.” Mea picked the basket up and started looking through it as she talked. “You might consider trying a ranged weapon sometime, that’s what I was doing with that pebble attack. You could stay hidden the whole time if you did things that way.” Mia thought about that, but something sounded bad about it.
“Ah, but maybe heroes can’t stay hidden?” She said, looking up at Mia with a thoughtful expression that made her head tilt.
“Yeah!” Mia agreed. Her partner was so smart! Even if she did look a little silly with hair covering her face like that. Mia wouldn’t say so, though, because it wouldn’t be nice. “What’s that?” Mia asked when she noticed Mea was separating out all the things that had been in the basket.
“Hm? Oh, seeing what this stuff is. They wanted it for some reason or another, and maybe we do too. Let’s see, some kind of grass, a fern maybe, Red Caps, is this just a stick? Huh. Bark, another kind of bark. Well...” she trailed off, looking at everything laid out on the ground. “I’ll take the mushrooms anyway.”
“Mia thinks that one was in a salad mom made,” Mia said, pointing at the curled fern.
“Ah, food is it? Makes sense. This could be herb grass, and maybe the bark is a seasoning,” she said, pointing at them as she spoke. “I still think this is just a stick though.” She held the little brown twig, considering it, before shrugging and stuffing the mushrooms in the bag and everything else into her pack. “Well, whatever. Might be something, who knows? Anyway, let’s get to the next one!”
“Yeah!” Mia was having so much fun that she never wanted to stop. She kept practicing her scouting, finding more goblins and even some of the Red Cap mushrooms, too. With every encounter Mia got better at her job, the practice paying off. Sister also gave her more advice for things she didn’t notice or hadn’t thought about, and she practiced those too until she had learned how to take out several goblins on her own without any of them noticing.
By midday they’d taken out two dozen more patrols, and when they came across a tiny stream Mea called for a break. Sister said that even though Mia was still having fun, and even if Mia wasn’t tired at all, it was still time for lunch. Her new parents always said it was best to eat at the same times every day, even if she didn’t feel very hungry. They said that it was fine if Mia only ate a little bit, but eating nothing was bad because later she would want to eat too much. Mia was good, so she didn’t want to do that. As she started pulling out her own travel food, she was surprised by a clang of metal.
“What’s that? What’s that?” Mia had never seen a metal box like that before.
“Ah? Oh, it’s just a thing so I can make stuff.”
“Mia knows that!” Sometimes Mia’s partner wasn’t very good at explaining things, so Mia had to ask more questions until she understood. “What kind of stuff? Food stuff?”
“Yeah, camp bread mostly. I’m gonna make a little flat bread and some vegetable stew to dip it in. I don’t really have time to do it right, so don’t get your hopes up too much. I think we’ll make it back to town before the evening meal or I’d mix up dough and let it sit so I could make the better stuff tonight. Oh, though I guess that’s making some assumptions I probably shouldn’t make about...” She waved her hand around at nothing. “Hm. I’ll ask that doofus later.” She trailed off into mumbles like she often did after that. It was hard getting her to talk sometimes. Then sometimes she talked a lot. Mia didn’t mind, she just liked listening to her partner’s voice, but she also wanted to keep talking so she decided to interrupt.
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“Bread and stew sound amazing!” Mia said, excited about how great everything was. Mia’s book never said anything about making bread and stew while camping. It was all about dried meat and old hard bread and sometimes finding fruits and then sometimes getting sick from eating them, but mostly about finding nice inns to eat at. But since it was Mia’s partner, of course it was possible!
“Yeah, well, we’ll see how it turns out. It might be kinda plain, I don’t really know any seasonings or anything here.” She pulled out some of the bark from the basket goblins and sniffed at it. “Yeah, not gonna take the risk on this,” she said and tossed it back into her pack with a shrug before digging around and pulling out a round metal box and setting it off to the side. “Ah, hey, would you find some wood for me? I’ll need a fire. Try to find old dry ones if you can, but not rotten, okay?”
“Okay!” Mia was always happy to help. Especially since finding things was a scout’s job. Mia really wanted to know about making camp bread and stew so as she circled the camp gathering the wood, she kept looking over at her partner. Mea went and filled her round box with water from the stream and pulled out ingredients. When Mia returned with an armload of branches she turned and created a pit in the ground with nothing more than a mild look of concentration.
“Let me see what you got,” she said checking them over, “yeah these look perfect. Good job!” Mia couldn’t help but feel happy every time her partner told Mia that. Before her, and her new family, no one had wanted Mia or praised her. “You can just drop them in,” she said, bending over quickly to touch the bottom of the sunken pit, after which it glittered faintly red, “I’ll see if I can’t turn it into charcoal real quick.” Mia did, and the moment the sticks landed they burst into flame before being covered over with dirt that appeared from nowhere.
“Now we’ll have to wait a bit for that, so why don’t you help me get this stuff ready.” Mia gasped a breathless cheer; she’d never made any food before. Even having regular food at all was something new for Mia. Sometimes, before Mia’s partner had come into her life, she would be given a little, and other times she would have to find her own. Nobody had known who Mia’s parents were, and so there was nobody to help or take care of her, she could only rely on the occasional kindness of strangers. Those were hungry times and she didn’t like thinking about them. But after that, Mia had a new mom and dad who would make her all the food she wanted. That was good, and Mia loved their food, but being able to make her own was special.
“Take this knife and cutting board and chop these veggies into small pieces, about the size of hmm,” she looked around before fishing a little stone out of the stream, “this rock here.” That sounded like something Mia could do, so she started immediately. She only managed to cut one of them in two before Mea grabbed her arm.
“Woah there, that was a little dangerous. My fault, I should’ve demonstrated first.” Sister said, then showed Mia the proper way to hold and use a cooking knife. Mia didn’t even know there were special knives only for cooking, or that there were different ways to hold them. The only experience she’d had was when Brin had showed Mia the right way for her daggers, but it didn’t take long for Mia to learn how to use it properly, because holding it the right way made using it a lot easier.
Cutting up the vegetables was so much fun, and the ability to make food for herself was so amazing, that Mia decided she wanted to learn all about cooking. She asked sister about it, who then showed Mia how to mix the dough and how to make a roo from a little bit of the dough powder so the stew would be thick and tasty, and she talked about different things that could go in it, and it all sounded so good Mia started drooling. But heroes probably weren’t supposed to do that, so she tried to stop.
While they worked on lunch they started talking about the goblins. Out of all the patrols they’d encountered, only two of them had those goblins carrying baskets. Mia’s partner called them rare spawns but Mia didn’t really understand what that meant. She explained it a few different ways, but Mia still didn’t understand why there needed to be a special name for it. Sometimes there were just monsters with nice things. People sometimes had nice things, too. Mia wanted to ask more questions, but was distracted by the smell when her partner pulled out the box with bread in it using a long handle.
“Oooh, is it done? Is it done? Mia wants bread!” Mia reached for it, but sister used her body to block the way and wouldn’t let Mia touch the box.
“Okay, okay, settle down it’s pretty hot still. We’ll wait for it to cool a little and have it with the stew.” Mia watched hungrily as box hinged open and a thick flat loaf slid out onto a rock that sister had made.
“Look, look, it’s got spots!” Mia said and her partner laughed.
“I suppose it does look like that. The dark bits were just closer to the heat and started to burn a little.” Mia wasn’t sure she liked the sound of that. “Oh, don’t give me that look, they add flavor!” Mia still wasn’t sure, but she trusted her partner. Mia also wanted the bread. She tried to touch it when Mea wasn’t watching, but she got her hand bopped. It didn’t hurt but when sister also laughed at Mia, she started to feel bad on the inside, and she didn’t like that, so she ran and hid.
“Alright, quit pouting and come out here, ya goof. The stew’s ready and the bread is cool enough to eat.” Mia came back out of the shadows and pounced, managing to burn her mouth on the stew, much to her partner’s amusement. But the pain and tasteless rubbery feeling vanished moments later, allowing Mia to enjoy lunch with her favorite person. Mia was surprised that the spotty parts really did make the bread tastier, but it was even better with the stew. Mea didn’t eat very much and gave her portion away, which made Mia even happier. Even her book hadn’t prepared Mia for just how wonderful it was to be out and living the adventurous life, and it was all thanks to Mia’s partner.
“How did you get so good at everything?” Mia asked, laying her head on her partner’s lap after they’d finished eating. Mea laughed and patted Mia.
“I’m not,” she said, but Mia frowned at that. “No no, I’m really not. Don’t make that face, it’s true! I think it’s something you’ll realize as you get older, but I’m only a little good at lots of different things. Well, there are maybe a handful of things I’m reasonably good at, but even then, I...” She trailed off into silence. Or as silent as the woods got, with little rustles and chirps that made everything peaceful. Mia wanted to hear more, but she felt too comfortable to say anything.
“Well,” Mea’s sudden voice woke Mia from a light doze. “I think you’ll understand someday. I lived a long time before I came here and found you. A very long time. I learned a lot because it was easy. I guess that’s why.” Mia wasn’t really following what her partner was saying anymore, but it didn’t matter. The gentle hand petting Mia’s hair and the calm quiet voice speaking to her made everything okay. “I never mastered anything, you know? There was always something new waiting the moment I got bored or hit a wall, but you shouldn’t be like that. Don’t be like me. Don’t give up when things get hard.”
“But Mia wants,” she said, trying to think about how to say it. “We’re partners, and you’re amazing and Mia wants to be like you.” The hand stopped moving and there was a long silence.
“Partner?” Sister asked, sounding upset. Mia snuggled closer.
“Yeah!” She said, reaching up to touch sister’s face who leaned away with a sigh.
“I think it’s time I tell you a story.”