The pot was empty before Mikaela even finished with hers, ladling out a small portion into a second bowl and blowing on it while Eto tipped the whole rest of the pot straight into his mouth, meat and broth and all.
"That's not a portion," she said. "That's the entire pot."
"Snack."
"That was ten servings, easily ten servings, that's not a snack, that's a small famine."
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and set the pot down, already reaching for more dried meat from the sack like the stew had been an appetizer to something else entirely, and she just stared at him, spoon halfway to her mouth, before shaking her head and going back to her own small bowl.
After, she made him sit on a fallen log near the fire, dragging one of the daggers from the sack and testing its edge against her thumb.
"Hold still," she said. "This is not gonna be pretty, I want to set expectations early."
"Fine."
She worked through his hair first, hacking off the worst of the tangled length, dunking handfuls of it in the water skin to soften the matted parts before cutting again, muttering the whole time about split ends and about how she used to have actual scissors for this, actual proper scissors, not a dagger meant for gutting men. The beard took longer, her fingers gripping his jaw to angle it, and by the time she stepped back to look at her work his face had gone from something out of a nightmare to something recognizably human, rough, uneven, but human.
"There," she said. "You look like a person now instead of a myth."
He ran a hand over his jaw. "Better."
"You're welcome." She sat back down slow, wincing, one hand pressed low against her stomach. "And for the record, whatever you did to me back at the camp, I want it on file that I am never going to feel the same again. Physically. As a woman. You have ruined me for normal men. Genuinely ruined me. I don't know what you're made of down there but it should not be legal."
"Mm."
"Don't 'mm' me, I'm serious, I sat down wrong this morning and nearly cried."
He didn't answer that, just started packing the sack back up, and she kept talking about it anyway, on and off, all through breaking camp, kicking dirt over the fire, folding what little they had left into the bag. When it was done he swung the massive sack over one shoulder and lifted her onto the other, and she settled against him with a small huff of complaint that had nothing to do with her leg this time.
The land opened up as they walked, forest giving way to farmland, long green rows and low stone fences, farmers bent over fields with their sleeves rolled up, a few glancing up at the two of them passing before going back to work. Then the walls came into view proper, black stone stacked high, maybe ten meters, running as far as he could see in either direction, and ahead of them a line of carriages and people stretched out from a gate wide enough to drive three wagons through side by side.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
They waited. Hours, it felt like, the line crawling forward in fits, guards at the front checking papers, checking faces, waving some through and pulling others aside.
When it was finally their turn, the guard said something fast in a language Eto didn't know, sharp and clipped, and he just stood there, lowering Mikaela gently to her feet beside him.
"He doesn't speak Rostalian," Mikaela said, switching smooth into it. "Keth only. I'll speak for him."
The guard eyed Eto for a long second, then Mikaela, then nodded toward a red orb sitting on a stand between them, waist high, glowing faint from somewhere inside the stone.
"Temporary permits," Mikaela said. "Two weeks, both of us."
She placed her hand flat on the orb first. It pulsed once, soft, and she stepped back. Eto did the same, palm against the cool stone, and something in it seemed to look at him, or through him, for just a second longer than it had with her.
"Ten copper each," the guard said, and Mikaela dug the coins out and handed them over, and Eto did the same from the pouch he'd looted, and the guard slid two thin cards across the stand.
Eto picked his up. His name was on it. His age. A little image of his face that hadn't existed a moment ago. He hadn't given any of it.
"How."
"The orb reads you," Mikaela said, already tucking hers away. "Don't ask me how, it just knows. If you cause trouble in the city, they use it to find you again. So don't cause trouble."
He didn't answer, just pocketed the card, and the guard waved them through.
The city hit him like a wall of noise. Cobblestone streets packed with people, vendors shouting prices, children weaving between legs, horse drawn carriages rattling past, the smell of piss and roasting meat and unwashed bodies all tangled together in the air. Wooden buildings leaned over the street on both sides, three and four stories, laundry strung between windows. And the people. Not just people. Ears that weren't human, tails flicking behind some of them, a woman with skin the color of pale green bark, faces too sharp and too fine to be anything but elf. Knights in polished armor rode past on horseback. A carriage rolled by with a noble inside and, chained to its back wheel by the neck, a line of people walking with their heads down.
Eto's jaw tightened at that. He didn't say anything.
"I know an inn," Mikaela said, tugging his sleeve to steer him left. "Won't charge you a fortune. Come on."
She limped ahead of him, slow but steady, leading him through narrower streets until they reached a wide building with a swinging sign and noise pouring out of it, a tavern packed loud even in the daylight. Inside, the man behind the bar straightened up at the sight of her, and he was tall, absurdly tall, close to eight feet, ducking slightly under a doorframe as he came around to greet them.
"Mikaela." His voice was a low rumble. "It's been a long time."
"Erik." She smiled, tired but real. "I need a room. Two beds."
Erik's eyes moved to Eto, lingering, and Mikaela caught it.
"Keth," she said. "Only speaks Keth, and not much of that either. Doesn't like to talk."
"Keth." Erik raised an eyebrow. "Don't see many of those this far east."
"You don't."
His eyes dropped to the massive sag on Eto's shoulder. "That looks like it weighs more than you do."
"It does," Mikaela said. "He's stronger than he looks. Freakishly strong."
Erik handed over a key, and she pressed five silver coins into his palm, and after a round of something dark and bitter that Eto drank without complaint, the two of them made their way up a narrow staircase to a room at the end of the hall.
He dropped the sag against the wall the second the door shut, and Mikaela sank onto one of the beds with a groan of relief.
"So," she said. "Now what."
He was quiet a moment, looking at the sag, at the room, at the window and the noise of the city beyond it.
"Adventurer," he said.
"You want to join the guild?"
He nodded once.
She studied him, then glanced at the sag again. "That's a good start. We'll need coin, though, more than we've got."
He pointed at the sag.
"We sell," he said.