The wagon creaked under the weight of Reed's produce, each bump forcing Thristle's knuckles to whiten against the wooden seat. She turned onto the side of the bench seat, watching crates of carrots and potatoes shift with each jolt. The elderly driver seemed unbothered by the rough journey, handling the reins of his dappled mare with practiced ease.

"Don't get many travelers out this way," Reed said, breaking the comfortable silence. "Especially not this time of year." He cast a curious glance at his passenger, noticing an alchemist pin in the lap of her tunic, clearly hoping for some explanation.

"Aye, was born there, actually," Thristle offered, then added quietly, "But… it’s been a good while."

"Were you now?" Reed's eyebrows shot up as he studied her more intently.

Thristle's hand unconsciously went to her chin-length white hair. Even after all these years, she hadn't gotten used to the attention it drew outside the city.

The mare snorted and planted her hooves, bringing the wagon to an abrupt stop. The crates shifted behind them with a worrying clatter. "Oh darn," Reed muttered, squinting ahead at the road.

A small, translucent blob barely bigger than a cat quivered at the edge of the road. It shifted with an oddly mesmerizing ripple, leaving a faint gleaming trail on the dirt.

Thristle was on her feet instantly, one hand reaching for her pack. "Is this ye see often?!" she demanded, voice sharp. "If we’ve got ourselves a slime infestation, someone best deal with-"

Reed's weathered face crinkled with amusement. "Now, now, no need for alarm. The little ones have been around for a few years, a ship must have brought them. Harmless creatures, really. Sometimes they even help keep the garden pests down."

"Harmless til they’re up to yer waist," Thristle muttered, keeping her eyes fixed on the creature as it slowly oozed its way across the path. "Then they start dissolving anything they get near. Seen it happen." She only relaxed once the wagon had moved well past the slime.

Reed clucked his tongue thoughtfully. "Never seen one get bigger than that around here. Maybe it's the soil." He glanced at her again, noting how her shoulders remained tense. "Though I suppose you've seen more of the world than most of us have."

Thristle reached to her belt and pulled out a small cloth pouch. She extracted a pair of honey drops, their surface catching light with an amber gleam.

His eyes lit up with recognition as he popped the candy into his mouth. "Well now, that takes me back," he said after a moment, voice warm with memory. "My grandmom used to make these. Same golden color, too." He savored it slowly, like someone tasting a forgotten childhood treat.

The road wound steadily downward, following the gentle curve that all paths in their region seemed to share. Far above, the ever-present rim of cliffs caught the morning light. The village soon emerged around a gentle bend in the road. Slated roofs and wooden walls on dark, porous foundations were a familiar sight despite the years. Children darted between the buildings, their laughter mixing with the bleating of sheep grazing nearby. As Reed drew the wagon to a stop near the market square, Thristle reached for her coin purse.

"Now, none of that," Reed waved her off. "You can't weigh more than five stones, even with your belongings - hardly worth counting. And you've already paid me in gold. He grinned, gesturing to his cheek where the candy was pressing against his cheek. "Though if you're feeling generous..."

Thristle couldn't help but laugh, pulling out a leaf-wrapped honey drop. "Well, when ye put it that way." She pressed it into his weathered palm, watching his face light up again. Some things, she reflected, worked better than coin.

Thristle adjusted the satchel on her lap, glass vials clinking softly against each other. Each one contained carefully measured mixtures and compounds unknown to this remote village. She kept her prized possession close: a leather-bound book filled with alchemical formulas and observations. The familiar weight had been her constant companion through years of study.

"Behold, I have return—" Thristle began, slipping into the affected accent she used when nervous, but her foot caught on the hem of her traveling cloak. For a heart-stopping moment, she teetered on the edge of the wagon step, arms windmilling frantically. The gathered villagers gasped collectively, and she heard Reed make a strangled sound of concern behind her. At the last second, she managed to grab the seat's edge, steadying herself. A relieved smile crossed her face as she found her balance. Her cheeks flushed, but her chin was still held high as she slowly got off the wagon.

This time, she stepped carefully onto the marketplace, mindful of her earlier near-mishap. But in her caution, she overlooked one of the deep wheel ruts Marcus had parked over. Her foot landed awkwardly, and she felt herself slipping. She hopped on one foot, arms flailing as she tried to regain her footing.

For a moment, it seemed she might recover, but then she lost the battle with gravity. With a yelp, Thristle tumbled backward into a muddy puddle. Water exploded around her white hair now adorned with bits of dead leaves and mud.

The villagers stood in silence, before breaking into poorly concealed snickers and outright laughter. Undeterred, Thristle stood up, her sodden robes dripping. "Did ye miss me?" she called out, peppering her speech with mangled words from various lands. "I have traversed the grosse world and return más wise, más cultured!" The fake worldliness in her voice made her cringe even as she said it, but she couldn't seem to stop herself.

"All that learning, and still can't mind your feet!” called out Elder Aciano, who had hobbled up to see what the commotion was about. His face creased with barely contained mirth.

Around her, snippets of conversation drifted through the marketplace:

"Just as always tumbling about."

"Her mother would've had a fit, seeing her like this."

"Why can't she be normal, like her parents?"

"What brought her back here?"

Some laughed, while others shook their heads and continued their business. Behind her, she heard Reed trying very hard to turn his chuckle into a cough. Red-faced but determined to salvage some dignity, she brushed the mud from her robes. "Well," she said, forcing a smile, "I always did know how to make an entrance."

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

The villagers' laughter grew louder, but there was a warmth to it now – the kind reserved for an entertaining but embarrassing relative. As Thristle looked around at the familiar faces, weathered by sun and time but essentially unchanged, she couldn't help but join in. It might not have been the grand return she'd envisioned during all those study nights, but it was certainly memorable.

---

Thistle had always been told that people from her village should be graceful. Whoever started that rumor had never seen her try to navigate a simple footpath. She had already stumbled a few times, gotten her cloak caught in two different bramble bushes, and somehow managed to fall in the only mud puddle in a mile radius.

But none of that mattered. She was going home, and nothing would stand in her way. Her parents might already be back too. And anyway, she wanted to check her mother’s old herbal. Simple enough, she thought, straightening her traveling cloak. What she hadn't counted on was the guard.

It stood in the middle of the path leading to her childhood home, orange feet planted firmly on the beaten track, neck extended like a particularly judgmental serpent. Its eyes held the kind of intelligence usually reserved for particularly cunning government officials or university gatekeepers late in the night.

"Honk," it said.

"Listen here!" Thristle exclaimed, "That's my house over there, and I need to get in!" Her voice rose higher with each word, the dialect she'd worked so hard to shed rushing back as she confronted the absurdity of being blocked by poultry. She took one step forward, trying to sound authoritative despite her slipping grammar.

The goose's eyes narrowed. If geese had eyebrows, this one would have raised one.

"See the scarecrow? I made that one with my da" She pointed at the dilapidated creation, its lopsided form and haggard appearance belying any sense of menace. A crooked grin plastered across its weather-beaten face as if witnessing a comedy playing out before it. "That hat? That’s my old—"

The goose lunged.

Thristle, who had faced down city guards and even bargained with dwarven traders, did the only sensible thing: she ran. The big goose pursued with the single-minded determination of a tax collector who'd spotted an undeclared income.

"I lived here, ye great feathered menace!" she shouted over her shoulder, her careful speech dissolving into dialect as panic set in. The goose banked around the boulder like a feathered war chariot, its wings spread wide, and Thristle's voice pitched higher: "This is me own garden, ye pompous bird!"

Thristle vaulted over a wooden fence. The goose slid under it.

She ducked behind a tree. The goose circled it, neck extended like a weapon.

"Honk!" it declared.

"Right then," The girl panted, now perched atop a low-hanging tree branch. "Let's be reasonable about this." She reached into her pack and pulled out a piece of bread from her lunch.

The goose paused its assault, considering this new development.

"I'll trade ye this for safe passage." She waved the bread. "It's proper baker's bread, not that dry traveling stuff."

The goose's head tilted, suggesting it was willing to negotiate.

She tossed half the bread to the left of the path. The goose watched it land but didn't move.

"Oooh, yer a clever one, aren’t ye? " she muttered, and tossed the other half to the right.

The goose's neck swiveled between the two pieces, like a merchant calculating profits.

Thristle saw her chance. She leaped down from the branch and sprinted for the door. Behind her, she heard the rapid slap of orange feet on a hard path.

She reached the door just as the goose caught up, slamming it shut as a triumphant "HONK!" echoed through the garden.

"Wretched, pompous, overstuffed pillow," Thristle grumbled, rubbing her shin where she'd bumped it during the chase. "I bet ye'd make a fine roast with apple sauce." The goose, as if hearing her thoughts, swallowed a piece of bread with exaggerated satisfaction and gave her what could only be described as a smug grin. "Eh, probably ye’d taste horrible, all stringy and bitter, just like yer personality.". The goose settled down while maintaining unbroken eye contact with her.

Thristle turned from the window to face her childhood home, and her breath caught in her throat. Dust motes danced in the afternoon light streaming through the windows, giving the empty rooms an ethereal quality. The familiar scent of pine wood and her mother's lavender sachets still lingered, though very faint now, mixed with the mustier smell of an unused house.

Her footsteps echoed on the wooden floors as she moved through the rooms. Mother's favorite armchair was still there, though its rich green fabric had faded to a softer shade. The cabinet where Father kept his collection of reagents and pigments was missing – probably claimed in custom by the village when they moved to the city. But there, on the window sill, stood the blue clay bird she'd made years ago. It was quite possibly the ugliest bird ever made by a child, looking more like a deformed lumpy potato with a beak, but Mother had insisted on keeping it anyway.

Thristle picked it up, careful not to disturb the dust around it. "Ye're even worse than I’ve remembered," she told it fondly.

In what used to be the kitchen, she found worn floorboards under her old height marks carved into the doorframe, measuring her progress from a tiny person to a respectable five feet and... "Age 15 - 5 feet". There were no more marks after that. She ran her fingers over that last notch, remembering how she hoped that if she measured herself just one more time, she might have grown another inch. She never did.

A noise from outside drew her attention back to the window. The goose had finished its bread and was now patrolling the garden path with military precision, occasionally stopping to inspect the door and windows. At least the blasted bird made her feel tall by comparison.

"Ye know," she said to the empty house, "I think Mother would have liked ye. She always did appreciate someone who took their job seriously, even if it was completely daft."

She ran her fingers along the dusty shelf where the herbal should be, leaving a track in the grey coating. The book wasn't there, but a folded piece of parchment caught her eye. She recognized her mother's elegant handwriting immediately: "Dearest Thristle if you're reading this, you've finally managed to return home. We might still be looking for a cure to your condition, or the capital held us for reasons. I left my things inside the turnip, third shelf behind the cat."

Thristle winced at the mention of her "condition." Mother had always tried to be delicate about it, but there was no delicate way to discuss it. The "cure" they sought wasn't for her height, though. The "cat" wasn't the ceramic statue on the shelf—it was old Mrs. Whiskers' favorite sunning spot, where she used to hide treasures in the hollow tree behind it.

A knock on the door nearly made her jump out of her skin.