Isse still remembered the story of the country and city rat. One day the city rat went to visit the country rat, and found his life to be sad because that rat’s food was poor and not very tasty. The next day the country rat visited the city one, and found that his food was simply amazing, but he also had the pleasure of meeting a cat, which tried to kill him.
All in all, the moral of the story is probably something on the line of ‘Like what you already have’ or ‘Don’t judge other people’s lives, they have their own problems’.
Personally, Isse had always found the story to be stupid. A rat living in the country would always have plenty of food because he lived with farmers. Maybe it wouldn’t be five star meal, but he’d never starve. Also, farmers had the tendency of having many animals, among which were cats and dogs, who hunted rats.
The story made no sense to her. It was just taking into consideration a single situation, without looking at the whole. And while she understood that a fable’s function was to explain something by using paradoxical and impossible situations, she didn’t care. It was her opinion and it wouldn’t change!
Wow, you’re really cross about the story, said Siidi.
You can’t even begin to imagine. As a child I would start shouting I hated the story whenever I heard someone tell it. Then I’d spend a few minutes telling them why, and if they tried to explain it I’d start screaming.
What did that poor story do to you to deserve such hate?
Oh, the story did nothing. It was the rats.
…What?
When I was a cute little girl of two years old I went into our house’s basement and was bitten by a rat I wanted to be friends with. Since then I hate rats with a passion.
Siidi nodded in her mind’s eye: Understandable.
Isse wasn’t sure about how long she and Pochi had been walking. They’d started not long after sunup, and Siidi said it was close to midday now from the position of the sun. And yet she didn’t feel the slightest bit tired, nor was she sweating under her beautiful dress. She felt as fresh as a watered rose.
It’s strange, you know? How this body never seems to get tired, I mean.
One of the many advantages of our species. We were made for war, after all. And you’re not even at your best: you still have to undergo the arachne equivalent of puberty. Then you’ll see just how much better we are compared to other species. Used to be we’d walk for days on end without sleeping, eating on the move. Distances that other armies would take weeks to traverse, we could walk in a few days. Mobility was one of the many great advantages we had.
Isse thought about this for a moment. Every time she heard the other arachne talk about the past of their species, they told her grand stories about how they were the literal scourge of anything that breathed or had a beating heart, of how they destroyed entire civilizations and created beautiful cities for their kind, places where knowledge and art were the most important thing.
She remembered how Siidi had told her, after they’d become one, that, in the past, she had never burned a single library or book, how she had cherished them like children, and how much she loved spending the time away from the war in libraries, losing herself amongst the endless stacks.
And still, with all their power and knowledge, the arachne had lost, their cities burned to the ground, the bodies destroyed so thoroughly there wasn’t even a chance they’d come back as zombies, the knowledge of their arts and magics buried so deep it might as well have never existed.
It’s sad, she thought.
It is. But don’t worry. We’re arachne. We’ll keep rebuilding, always. It’s our nature.
The answer was reassuring, and they went back to just skittering without a care in the world. Well, other than when they’d reach the town.
“How much longer?” she asked Pochi, who’d been whistling tunelessly for a while now.
“Not much. Why, you tired?”
“No. And you said ‘Not much’, like, two hours ago,” she answered with a raised eyebrow.
“Ain’t much little one. Would’ve taken a lot less if the closest village hadn’t been burned to the ground.”
Isse’s eyebrows furrowed: “What happened? Who did that?”
“A misunderstanding, that’s what happened. Don’t worry girl, it’s nothing you have to worry about. The problem was already solved.”
Isse noticed that Pochi hadn’t answered all of her questions, but decided it would be better not to dig too deep. She was still, for the moment, a child, and as such she was to let the adults worry about things while she could. Otherwise, what reason was there for her to live in this second chance?
“Ok.”
They walked on.
----------------------------------------
They arrived at the village more or less thirty minutes later.
It was a small place, a smattering of small houses placed in no particular order, all built differently, because this was no orderly city with buildings designed by a careful [City Architect]. It was surrounded by a wall that reached six meters in height and, outside, various fields were being tilled and harvested by [Farmers].
Not too far from what looked like a lumber mill stood still, no workers inside.
Beside it stood what was probably an airship.
Truth be told, the airship was actually what had attracted Isse’s attention more. Pochi’s too.
“That’s new,” she said, “That wasn’t here when I last visited. Who would come here with an airship?”
“Airships are a thing here?” asked Isse meanwhile, mouth hanging open in marvel and surprise.
We didn’t have those in my time. What sort of Airmish monstrosity is that?, was Siidi’s reaction.
That’s an airship, a thing you use to fly.
Fly? Like harpies and birdkin? That’s… unnatural.
Said the kettle to the pot.
Hey, fuck you!
While Isse was curious and amused, Pochi had suddenly become more attentive and nervous. She didn’t let it show, but this could be a big problem for them. Because there was only one group in the world that used airships: Alanna, the City of Churches. The beacon of the gods in the world. And the place where the College of Memoirs was stationed.
If they were here, it spelled trouble for everyone. It could also mean they’d been found out.
They walked towards the city’s main gate. Two [Guards] were stationed at the sides, staring at the plains in front of them with extremely bored faces. They looked at Isse and Siidi for a moment, then went back to their jobs. A woman and a girl coming to their town meant nothing to them.
Still, Pochi stopped by the entrance, greeting the [Guards]: “Good morning, sirs. It is a nice day, isn’t it?”
One of the [Guards], the one closest to the woman, turned to look at her, frowning: “Madame, please, we are not to be disturbed from our watch.”
“Oh, I am so sorry sir. I would like to ask a question though, if it’s no problem,” she was just a few inches higher than the man and, as she said this, she bent down a little, giving the man an eyeful of covered cleavage hugged tightly by her dress. The man visibly changed color as his eyes looked down, then rapidly up.
“Um, no problem Miss, ask away.”
Pochi nodded and smiled bedazzlingly: “Whose airship is that?” she asked, pointing towards the big air balloon holding a boat that was anchored near the lumber mill.
“That? You could hardly call it an airship. Some madwoman came here riding that thing. Really, I’m surprised it hasn’t yet fallen to the ground.”
Pochi frowned: “So it’s not the church?”
“Unless the churches have started to build airships out of bones and hiring people who would be better off staying in the care of a [Mind Healer] then no, it’s not one of them.”
He smiled, probably hoping to show off in some kind of way to this very appealing woman. Sure, he didn’t like the pink hair, but that was something he could overlook, especially in bed. If only he could see who he was talking to, he’d run screaming.
“Thank you kindly, sir. Have a nice day!”
And they walked in, leaving behind the lecherous [Guards] and the apparently bony airship.
“Did you have to act that way?” she asked.
Pochi chuckled as she raised an eyebrow: “I didn’t take you for a prude, girl. Trust me, if you’ve got charms, use them as much as you can, short of breeding with one of the men. Death gave me this body, I am not going to hide myself.”
Sacred words, those. Isse still remembered things back on Earth. How many women were forced to hide themselves behind clothes and veils or, even worse, convinced it was the right thing to do. It was revolting to her. And all because a stupid book said it was the right thing to do! Religion was the worst thing in the world.
So no, she wasn’t a prude, she hadn’t been even in her past life. As long as she could, she had enjoyed her life to its fullest. She mentally slapped herself for insinuating otherwise.
Fucking ow!
What?
Why did you slap me?
I didn’t.
…Isse, I am you. If you ‘mentally slap yourself’, as you so succinctly put it, you’re slapping me as well. Don’t do that, alright?
Ok. Sorry!
Her mind and body made no sense.
----------------------------------------
“So, what would you like to do in town?” asked Pochi. She was humming again, looking at the townsfolk who, in turn, stared at her very colorful self. She stood out as a sore thumb among the much duller clothing choices of the people here. Well, for the matter, Isse stood out too. Their clothes looked like they’d been made by a half-mad genius seamstress who wanted to make sure even colorblind people could admire the sheer… colorfulness. There were too many ‘colors’ in that sentence, yes.
Isse thought about it for a moment… and realized she didn’t know. What could they do in this town? Was there a market? A library or a bookstore? Maybe a restaurant.
ALCOHOOOOOOOL!, shouted Siidi in her mind. Isse winced in surprise, which didn’t go unnoticed by her chaperon.
“Everything alright? Is it too much? It can be overwhelming the first time.”
She leaned in closer, whispering in her ear: “You’re not getting… urges, right?”
Isse batted her eyes, not understanding. Then Siidi told her. And she became as red as a tomato: “What, no!” she nearly shrieked.
Pochi furrowed her eyebrows: “You sure? No desire to kill anyone, right?”
And at that she froze in place.
Siidi, you’re a damn horndog.
Hey!
“No, I don’t want to murder anyone here.”
“Good. Because if you did, well, I’m sure no one would miss a person or two. Maybe even a family.”
What in the actual fuck?
Did Pochi just suggest they murder someone… just like that? For her entertainment? That was… she didn’t have the words.
You should really stop forgetting that we’re arachne, Isse. Killing for us is as natural as breathing. If it doesn’t have eight legs, it’s going to die sooner or later, said Siidi, a sigh in her voice.
It was wrong. Isse knew that everything about the last thirty seconds had been wrong on enough levels to make a twenty story apartment building feel inadequate. But… she couldn’t bring herself to care. Why should she go against her nature? A new nature, sure, but hers nonetheless. It wouldn’t bring her happiness. Maybe, if she gave in one time (not now), when the desire arose, she’d even feel happy about it. She had always wondered, deep down, how it would feel to kill someone with her hands.
It would probably traumatize her. Or, more probably, Grandmother had traumatized her enough that she was desensitized.
“Let’s see a market!” she proposed, putting the thoughts out of her mind.
----------------------------------------
Isse and Pochi skittered away from the market square in the small town with their arms filled with food, spices of all sorts (Isse knew lots of those and wanted to see what the cooks would do with them) and a few books in Irevian.
“So, you promise me, after you finish reading those, you’ll let me read them. Agreed?” Pochi asked for confirmation one last time, to which she nodded.
Books, as it turns out, were extremely expensive to buy. The three she’d gotten had cost them a total of one gold coin and five silver. For those wondering, twenty copper coins made one silver, twenty silvers made a gold coin, and twenty gold coins were worth a Crown, which was basically a sort of upgraded gold coin. Those were exceptionally rare, mainly because, usually, kingdoms didn’t last long enough to start making those.
Not even Pochi had ever seen a Crown when she’d been out of the forest, training to become a [Strategist].
Anyways, about the books, Isse had bought some apparently very popular fantasy stories (yes, fantasy existed in this world) about one Diamond Hearted Avenger, whose name in the story was, apparently, Avenger. She half expected him to be wearing some living iron armor or to be carrying around a hammer that shot lightning.
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
The third one was a collection of stories gathered all around the sea and promised that, somewhere, hidden in plain sight, was the recipe for the legendary Rotgut.
Of course, the book was lying, because the drink’s name wasn’t Rotgut. That would’ve been too obvious. Instead the Dwarves, who had created it first, had given it a name reminiscent of the one being they respected more than their Elders: [The Old Man By the Mountains]. Otherwise known as Old Man Consequences. So it was that the drink was named ‘Consequences in a Bottle’, or, more simply, ‘Consequences’. Because you’d be facing some pretty strong consequences after drinking it.
“Now, no visit to a town can be finished without a visit to an inn to get a nice drink.”
For a moment Isse thought about the drinking age back home and opened her mouth to remind Pochi she was too small. Then she remembered she had already reached and surpassed that age back home. And that she was in another world, so who cared?
“Can I actually drink?”
“Technically, Makira will cut my head off and use the tongue to clean some animal in the woods. Practically, as long as you don’t get drunk, I’ll allow you one glass of something not strong.”
“... And I thought Makira wasn’t the responsible adult.”
“Oh girl, Makira is one of the best of us. I, on the other hand, am the corrupting abomination who once managed to get Grandmother drunk.”
Isse stopped in her tracks for a moment, letting Pochi reach and surpass her. Then she asked: “I know I’m going to regret it, but what was she like?”
“Hmmm… good question. I don’t remember.”
“What? But it must’ve been memorable! Unforgettable!”
“Yes, it most certainly was, but Grandmother removed the memories of that night from the minds of all that were present.”
She scrunched up her face, trying to force her brain to fill in a blank that wasn’t supposed to be there: “I think… I… ngh… milk… wha -”
She stopped in the middle of the street, her face going suddenly blank, staring away into nothingness. Isse reached her and touched her shoulder, beginning to worry.
Then Pochi shivered and was back, smiling: “What were we talking about?”
“...An inn. We were looking for an inn.”
“Oh, right! Follow me!”
----------------------------------------
The Inn was called ‘Winter’s Rest’ and, once upon a time, had probably looked the part. The walls outside were made of wood painted an off-white color, stone visible at the base surrounding the building. There were windows, but most of them were shuttered closed, probably to keep the heat outside.
When they walked in from the front door a few of the patrons turned to look at them with curiosity, probably wondering what such a good looking woman with a child was doing in a place like this, before going back to not giving a shit about anything other than their drinks, food and little company.
“Aaahhh, place hasn’t changed much!” said Pochi with a smile as she walked towards the counter placed at the back of the room. The wall behind was covered in bottles of all sorts of wines and alcohols, beer barrels filling the bottom, none of which were recognized by Isse.
This is paradise. GIVE ME BEER!
Siidi made it known just how much she wanted a drink.
What did arachne make alcohol from in your days? I expect it to be something horrifying like human blood and flies.
Nah, we made normal alcohol too. Beer, wine, you name it. Army fuel, we called it. But we did also craft a great Fly Brandy, although that was too sophisticated for someone like me.
‘Fly Brandy’? You’re pulling my legs.
Nope! That was a thing. Just as Blood Cognac made with human blood.
How in Airm do you make cognac from human blood? It’s distilled from white wine!
Don’t ask me. I wasn’t a [Brewer]. I was a [Warrior] with a fine taste in red wines.
…You were not.
Ok, yeah, I was a beer person. Get a beer! It tastes good.
Pochi walked towards the counter and ‘sat’ on a chair. It was a strange thing to see, how her dress covered the whole chair and made it disappear, making it look like she was actually sitting when, in truth, she had just probably sat on the ground with her spider half. The dress with its strange magic though covered even that possibility. Isse skittered closer.
“Can I try a beer?” she asked, deciding to indulge her soul half.
“Sure!” Pochi answered, before a man arrived with a big smile on his face.
He opened his arms wide and shouted: “POCHI! Long time no see! How have you been doing, you colorful rascal?”
The man was thin, not something she had expected from someone who was probably the innkeeper. She thought he was going to have a big beer belly, but this one had pecks visible through his shirt.
“Hello to you too Damien, you foolish sportsman. Still don’t want to join the army? You’d give any soldier there a run for his money,” she smiled as she went to hug him back, patting him on the back.
“Nah, I’m too good for them. So long as I can Level in my [Bodybuilder] Class here I’ll be staying.”
“What Level are you now? 10?”
“Fifteen actually. Still not better than my [Innkeeper] Class, but I’ll get there.”
“I’d like to see what Class they’ll evolve into. [Strongarm Innkeeper]? [Bullheaded Innkeeper]?”
“Hey, careful now, or I’ll be suddenly out of liquor for you.”
“Fuck you Damien.”
“I missed you too Pochi.”
They laughed.
Well, apparently Pochi knew this man. They were friends. An arachne and a human were friends! Well, the human didn’t know the woman he was talking to was an arachne, and technically Isse was friends with a human girl who had seen her spider half, so why was she so surprised?
Maybe because she had thought she was unique?
“And who’s this little friend of nature with you Pochi? Did you have a daughter?”
“Stars no! She’s my niece. If I have a say in it I will never have a child.”
Which was a lie. Pochi was a mother to four growing spiderlings back in the forest, but this was her facade, and her facade was a much freer spirit than her actual self.
“Can you get her a beer?”
Damien raised an eyebrow, then shrugged, rummaged under the counter and took out a small leatherbound book. He opened it to a page near the beginning, looked at Isse, then back at Pochi: “Species and age?”
“Fuck off Damien, she’d old enough to try beer. Probably won’t even like it.”
“Haaah, alright, but if she gets drunk it’s on you.”
Isse wanted to say that she wasn’t such a lightweight, but she had never experimented with alcohol in this body, so who knew?
A few seconds later Isse found herself looking at a small glass of beer, foam nearly spilling out of the glass, bright yellow, like sunshine.
“For you. It’s local, very light. Perfect for a first time.”
Then he prepared some complex drink for Pochi, offering it to her in another tall glass.
“For you, the usual. That would be five silver for everything.”
Pochi paid, sipped, and sighed in pleasure: “I can’t believe you’re only Level 18 in your [Innkeeper] Class. This is the best.”
“You’re wrong, I passed Level 20 last month!”
“Oh really? Congratulations! Why didn’t you tell me? I would’ve organized you a great capstone party!”
“Because I have no idea where you live.”
“You just have to say my name three times when the wind is right and I’ll come.”
“I don’t even know your full name idiot! Just your nickname.”
“Huh, tough luck then. You’ll never find me. Still, really, congratulations are in order. Next time I come here I’ll bring you a present. Got any interesting Skills?”
Isse stopped listening and instead drunk a sip from her glass.
And nearly spat it out.
Don’t you dare! This is the first time in millenia I get to taste alcohol, and even if this is weak as shit it’s better than nothing! So don’t you dare waste this by spitting. Gulp. It. Down.
Fuck off Siidi.
Still, she drank it down, even if her eyes began to tear up. Why was it so bitter and strong? Back home this would’ve probably been weak for her as well, but in this body it tasted as good as it had when she’d first tried something alcoholic.
Nope, sorry Siidi, we’ll have to wait a while longer to enjoy this.
Siidi huffed, clearly unhappy, but agreed to wait. She wouldn’t admit it, but Isse’s sense of taste had influenced how she tasted the beer as well, ruining it. She just wanted alcohol for the sake of alcohol.
“Hah, first time, eh?” said a voice to Isse’s left.
She turned around to look, and saw a woman who was probably the embodiment of the words ‘interesting’ and ‘strange’. She was tall and slim, wearing coveralls that looked both functional and fluffy, as if to defend her from an inexistent cold. They were stained green in many places with white powder around the cuffs. Her eyes were a dark brown and her smile was slightly crooked, only one lip raised while the other was kept in place by some scar tissue that gave her the approximation of a glasgow smile.
Siidi whistled: Looks like some kind of adventurer.
“Who are you?” asked Isse, suddenly guarded. Nobody in the town had talked to her in such a direct manner and, deep down, she was still anxious and feared someone was going to find out she was an arachne, ruining everything.
The woman’s smile became a bit bigger as she offered her hand: “The name’s Moon.”
Isse raised an eyebrow as she went to shake Moon’s hand: “If you’re Moon, then you can call me Sun.”
CLICHE’! You could’ve come up with something better!
Shut up Siidi.
Moon laughed out loud, which attracted Pochi’s attention: “Guilty as charged. Moon isn’t actually my name, but it’s how I like people to call me. How a good friend of mine called me.”
Isse nodded: “Let me guess, that friend of yours is now dead and you keep calling yourself that in her or his honor?”
“Stars no! She’s alive and well as far as I know. Nah, I really just like the name. It was born out of her saying that half the time I work on my Love I look as high as the moon.”
“...When you… work… on your Love? Do I want to know?”
“Oh, it’s nothing strange. Well, ok, it is strange under many standards, but it’s nothing sexual. I’m talking about my airship, the one I ‘parked’,” she did little air quotes (hah, pun intended) at that, “outside the city. You couldn’t have missed it.”
Isse’s eyes became as big as saucers: “You mean you’re the owner of that? But the [Guards] outside said it’s made out of bones! How would that work?”
Moon raised a finger as if to both silence and start counting: “Bones are just the base, the quite literal skeleton of the airship. The ropes are made out of lianas and vines, the body is wood covered in chitin from Reveler Ants and the sails… they’re actually just linen. The only really normal part of the airship. Sewed together by the village I’m from.”
Isse listened to all of this with a half open mouth, while Pochi stared at Moon as if she was a madman talking and she approved wholeheartedly.
“How would that even work? You can’t nail wood to bone, it would crack. Same goes for chitin,” asked Pochi.
“Oh, it’s quite simple. I got a very good Skill while creating my beauty. It’s called [Material Imbrication] and it allows me to partially fuse together two objects at points of contact. Look!”
She placed her glass on the table, pointed at it, and said: “[Material Imbrication]!”
Nothing happened.
Isse looked at the glass and saw it was no different from before.
“Is something supposed to happen?”
“Gods no. Usually if something happens it’s because I didn’t place the components well and they break apart because of tension. No, nothing is supposed to happen visibly. But try taking the glass,” answered Moon with a sly smile.
Isse did. She reached out, touched the glass, gripped it, and pulled it towards herself. But it didn’t move. It was as if someone had taken some super glue and attached the glass to the wood.
“See? I would still be in Eva’s jungles if I hadn’t gotten this Skill, trying to make wood stick to bones with nails. The System probably saw my stubbornness and the difficulty I had in getting nails and decided to reward me!”
The woman looked proud of herself as she waved the [Innkeeper] over, ordering a cocktail called ‘Aviator’s Hearth’.
“Ok, but you’re paying to get the counter fixed. And for a new glass. These things are expensive, you know? And I can’t just have one jutting out of my bar.”
Moon chuckled: “No worries big boy, let me fix that now: [Separate Material],” she pointed at the glass and, after uttering the Skill, took it back in her hand. The counter only had a small divot where the glass had been, but for the rest it looked perfectly normal.
Damien grunted in approval and went to mix her the drink she wanted, which was apparently made with rum and activated charcoal.
“Why would you ever build an airship out of those materials?” asked Pochi, her curiosity piqued like the rest of the patrons, who had stopped talking, turning towards the strange woman.
“‘Cause I wanted to do it, simple as that. I always thought it wasn’t right that some other beastkin could fly around and we couldn’t, so I decided I wanted to learn to fly. Long story short, one day I saw an airship from the City of Churches, Alanna, land near my village, and tried to get on board. They found out, told me I’d have to go to their city to get the job. So I grew up, gained enough money to make the journey to Alanna, went there, was rejected because of some bullshit rule that said no one who hadn’t ever been baptized in a temple of the gods could become part of the ‘Holy Wings’.
“So I tell myself, ‘Well Moon, fuck them and their rules. Let’s build our own airship’. But then I realize I know jackshit about building airships, so while I was in Alanna I became an apprentice under a good [Engineer]. I learn all there is to learn, and then the world slaps me in the face with the prices for everything,” she stabbed at the counter on that last word, “that I need to build an airship. Who in Airm knew that wood could cost so much? So I went back home, and there I began building my own airship with what nature gave me.
“Now, our village is poor by outsider standards. We always had everything we needed ‘cause we had some damn good [Hunters] and we could sell the surplus.
“So, you see, the jungles are filled with monsters. Big ones at that. Like them Reveler Ants. They’re these little things when they’re born, but they’re always hungry, and the more they eat the more they grow. No limit. My grandps used to say that, in his time, they once found an Ant that had grown so big you could see its head over the tops of the trees.
“Anyways, big monsters! Which means big bones! Let’s say that I became a Level 10 [Butcher] to get my hands on those bones.
“Then the local [Lumberjacks], bless their hearts, they’re some of the best people in the world, decided to help me by cutting down trees near the village, which was already their job because the damn things grow fast and if it weren’t for them they’d eat our village whole in two months at most, and turning them into boards I could use. Took them a while to get the wood dry enough to work with, but they never stopped helping me with my dream.
“Long story short, I managed to build my airship out there with what little I had and learned a lot of things on the way. Now, years later, I’m a Level 32 [Occult Engineer] and a Level 15 [Airship Pilot]. Not [Captain], ‘cause apparently you need a crew to be the captain of something.”
Her smile was as bright as the sun and as lunatic as the moon, but it was one of the most genuine smiles Isse had ever seen.
“If anyone wants to come onboard and see my beauty, tell me and I’ll accompany you. But don’t expect me to do any demonstrations on my flight capabilities, ‘cause I’m halfway drunk and have every intention of being fully so by the end of the evening.”
She raised the glass Damien had given her in the air in a silent cheer, then gulped half the drink down in one go.
The inn was filled with cheering and conversation anew.
Isse and Siidi smiled. Moon, truly, was someone to look up to.
----------------------------------------
They spent the rest of the evening with Moon, asking her questions about her attempts at building her airship and marveling at how stupid the woman had been sometimes.
They wanted to laugh when she told them about her learning experiences in removing nails from boards while making sure not to damage them because they were too expensive to buy for her and her village, to the point where she had even gotten a few Skills for that: [Bound Spell: Repair Nail (Minor)] and [Remove Nail].
It sounded hilarious, but it had saved Moon hundreds of silvers.
She told them about the times she had joined her village’s [Hunters] because she didn’t want to be a weight for them, so that she could get her own bones for her airship, about how she had learned to weave chitin into dresses to make some rudimentary but highly functional armor (that made a lot of noise when you moved though. Dried chitin was noisy).
She had learned traditions of her people and had earned herself enough Classes that she could get work wherever she went.
“Can’t buy the experiences I had, girl.”
In the end, Isse had asked to visit her airship, but Pochi had stopped her, saying they had to go back home.
“Aww, do we Pochi? Can’t we stay?” she asked, trying to put as much sugar as she could in her request.
“The puppy eyes won’t work on a hardened general like me Isse. It’s already late. By the time we get home it’ll probably be night. I don’t want my sisters to worry, especially Maki. Or Grandmother. Do you want them to worry?”
No, she did not. But she wanted to see the airship so much!
“I’m sorry Isse. Maybe another time, alright? We really have to get back.”
And they did. They said their goodbyes, paid their tab (Isse had gotten herself some apple juice, which was the only thing Damien had that was for kids, and then only because he used it in drinks apparently) and began walking back to the Forest.
“I believe I already know the answer to this, but did you like it here? Would you like to come back another time?”
“Absolutely!”
“Very well. I’ll tell Ary to start working on the Shifting Silk. We can’t have you going around with the same outfit every time now, can we?”
And that was how Isse’s first visit to the city ended.