Chapter Three Hundred and Thirty-Two — Meat New People
Chapter Three Hundred and Thirty-Two — Meat New People I liked taking the first watch because it let me sleep uninterrupted until it was time to wake up. Plus, I didn't really feel like cooking.I did my part, and I don’t think either of my friends were big fans of cooking, but we muddled along decently enough.So yeah, I wouldn’t admit it to my friends, but I was being a little bit selfish when I took first watch to avoid having to do morning chores. I felt a teensy bit bad about it too. Maybe we’d set up a rotation, that way I only had to do the breakfast stuff one day in three?Those were the kinds of hazy thoughts I was dreaming up when I felt Awen shaking my shoulder. “Mmm? Already?” I asked.“No, Broccoli, you need to wake up,” Awen hissed. “Amaryllis, you too, come on.”I blinked a few times. There was some urgency there, and I couldn’t smell any breakfast in the air. Had I been dreaming about skipping out on chores then? Why was Awen worried?I sat up, rubbed my face, then looked around. Early morning sunlight was staining the outside of the tent a pale blue. “What’s going on?” I muttered.“There’s someone here!” Awen whispered. “I saw them in the grass. They saw me too, I think.”“Oh,” I said. Then with a bit more urgency. “Oh!” Amaryllis was up too. My poor harpy friend had the middle watch, so she’d probably only had an hour of sleep, but she still moved fast.Awen snuck back out of the tent, grabbing her crossbow on the way out as well as a bundle of bolts.Night clothes flew around the tent as Amaryllis and I got dressed in a hurry. Usually we did that one at a time for privacy’s sake, but there was no time for that. I set down my breastplate with my gambeson still in it, then with a twist of mana near my tummy, made myself smaller.It was a neat trick I’d figured out for my new Proportion Distortion skill. I was now a good few centimetres shorter and thinner, which made it easy to slip into my armour, shove my hands through the armholes, then let go of the magic so that I returned to my normal size. I’d just saved myself a couple of minutes of strapping pieces on, and with a pulse of Cleaning magic, I wasn’t even gross from sweat and stuff!Amaryllis snorted as she shrugged her coat on, then she gestured to the outside of the tent. “How do you want to play this?”“We don’t know what’s out there,” I said. “Maybe it’s friendly?”“Ah yes, friendly people love sneaking up on others,” Amaryllis said as she walked out of the tent, talons still working to buckle on her strange harpy pants.I stumbled out after her, grabbing Weedbane on the way out and laying the still-folded scythe onto my shoulder. A glance around revealed... not much at all. There was still that large boulder right next to the place we’d chosen to camp at. It was serving as a decent windbreak, preventing the constant breeze across the plains from ripping our tent away. Around us were two hills with nothing much on them except for hip-high grass.Anything could be hiding in that grass.Or nearly anything, I supposed. Anything within a certain size range.“Where did you see them?” Amaryllis asked.“Just one person,” Awen said. She gestured with a nod to the west, the same direction the wind was blowing toward. “I saw them over there, maybe fifty paces away. They poked their head out above the grass then ducked back down.”“Any details?” I asked. “Was it a cervid?” That would have been impressive. Cervid were kind of tall, though I supposed they could be crouching. Or it could be a small cervid.Awen shook her head. “No. They were humanoid.”“Harpyoid,” Amaryllis corrected absently. I snorted, which earned me a look from Amaryllis but no comment.“Awa, I didn’t get a good look at them? They had a hat on. Like a brown hat with a wide brim. I didn’t see any weapons but they could have something.”“If all you saw was their upper torso then they could have anything. A bow, a sword, even a spear if it wasn’t raised,” Amaryllis muttered. "To say nothing of combat magic."“Or no weapons at all if they’re just friendly people,” I pointed out.Amaryllis huffed a sort of ‘I’ll believe it when I see it,’ sort of huff. “Alright, well this is cutting into my sleeping time, so let’s get it over with.” Amaryllis took a deep breath. “We know you’re out there! If you want to cause trouble, come out and cause it. If you’re peaceful then you have nothing to worry about from us.”“I don’t?”All three of us jumped and spun around. There was someone standing on the boulder. Or maybe they were laying on it; all I could see was their upper body. It was a young woman, I think. She had a cowboy hat on, which cast a deep shadow over her face and a leather vest over her torso.She was also covered in beige fur and had a pair of ears squished down by the brim of her hat. And a bow. I couldn’t forget the shortbow currently pointed in our direction, even if the bowstring wasn’t drawn back.“Uh, hi!” I said.The young woman stared at me for a moment, then at my companions. She pointed to Awen. “Human person,” she said. Then she pointed to Amaryllis. “Talking chicken meat.” then she pointed to me. “Talking rabbit meat.”“Uh.”“Meat’s not supposed to wear clothes like people,” the cat-person said. She fiddled with the string of her bow, whiskers twitching even as she looked at us with narrowed eyes.Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.“We’re not meat,” I said. “Well... okay, I guess technically we are.”“Broccoli,” Amaryllis warned.“No, that’s a vegetable, those are gross,” the furry-faced cowgirl said.I sighed. “Can we start this over? My name is Broccoli Bunch, these are my friends, Awen and Amaryllis. We’re from the Exploration Guild.”The person on the rock stared at us for a long moment before loosening her hold on the bowstring. “I’m Savan,” she said. “Hello, rabbit meat Broccoli and chicken meat Amaryllis. Also human Awen.”“Hello Savan,” I replied with a little wave. “What are you doing out here in the plains?”“Hunting for meat,” Savan said.I was really hoping she wasn’t adding us to the menu there because otherwise things might get a little awkward. “Well, we’re just camping here on our way north. We’re looking for a group that’s chasing after cockatrices that way.”Savan’s expression lit up. “Oh! The hunter caravan. I know where they are.”“You do?” I asked.She nodded. “They buy my meat.”“That’s great,” I said. “Um. I hope you understand that we’re not... meat, right? Because I’m sure they wouldn’t want to eat us. I’m very bony and Amaryllis here probably tastes sour.”“Pardon me, what does that mean, exactly?” Amaryllis asked.“See.”“She’s spoiled too,” Awen addedThat earned her a weak swat from Amaryllis and a muttered “Look who’s talking.”Savan laughed and lowered her bow fully. “It’s okay. Calamity told me not to shoot people that talk unless they shoot first or are rude. You’re not rude for meat, so I won’t shoot you.”“Great!” I said. “Did you have breakfast yet, Savan? I think Awen was about to start preparing something. We have enough to share with a new friend!”Savan AhDream: To eat so much meat she explodes, then napDesired Quality: Someone who’ll keep her fed and scratch her on that one spot next to her earsSavan seemed like a ... very simple kind of girl. She bounced down from her rock, revealing that she wore jeans-like pants dyed a pale brown that actually matched some of the more faded grass and tall boots. A quiver hung by her waist from a belt, with cloth stuffed between the arrows so that they didn’t rattle when she moved. In fact, I bet Savan had a few stealth skills because she hardly made a sound.“What’re we eating?”Awen was the one who replied, mostly by listing off what we have in our ration packs. Savan looked dubious about some of the options, but she lit up when Awen offered to warm up a can of salted meat paste for her.Amaryllis provided the heat and, since it was unlikely we’d get any more sleep, I got to packing up the tent and the rest of our stuff while Awen tended to the food under Savan’s watchful eye.“So, do you think you could lead us back to the hunter’s caravan?” I asked. “We’re looking for someone called Deiter, and also maybe some information, while we’re at it.”“I can do that,” Savan said. “But Calamity sent me out to hunt.”“Who’s that?” I asked. Once our stuff was packed away again I sat down on the grass next to Savan. “Also, if it isn’t mean... what are you, exactly? I’ve met all sorts of people, but you’re the first one like you I’ve met!”Savan laughed. “I’m a big cat. We come from around here, and I heard that there’s packs of us to the west too, across the mountains.”“Cat folk aren’t too uncommon,” Awen said as she tipped the pan onto some plates. It looked like she was preparing a big portion for Savan and a few smaller ones for the rest of us. Savan got my share of the meat, of course. “There’s a lot of differences in the... subspecies of them. I guess that’s what you’d call the different groups.”“Yup,” Savan said. She grinned as she took her plate and then, after searching inside her vest, she pulled out a small leather kit which she opened to reveal a few tools. Including a fork. She dug in with gusto right after. “Mmhm, there’s a lot of us here, and around the Flats. We hunt because it’s fun and do what we want because we can.”“Oh? Do you have your own nation?” I asked.Savan snorted. “As if.”“From what I recall the cat folk are notoriously... cat-like in their tendency to do whatever they want,” Amaryllis said.“They have a weird reputation,” Awen added. “Some people called them lazy-” Savan laughed at that while nodding. “-but some of them are really hard workers. They don’t really do... bosses and such.”“Oh, we will,” Savan said. “I work for people all the time! But only if I like them. I like you. You gave me meat. Want to hire me? I kill things good.”I held back a giggle of my own. “Maybe we can trade the food you’re eating for your help in getting us to the caravan? We might get lost otherwise.”Savan shrugged. “Okay. I don’t ever get lost, so I’ll show you how to get there.” she nodded while her tail, which was long and whippy, flicked from side to side behind her.I’d spent enough time with Orange to know that she was probably in a good mood. “Oh, I have a spirit kitten!” I said. “Would you like to meet her?” I’d left Orange in Caprica’s care, mostly because it made Caprica and Gabrielle really happy.“A spirit kitty? I’ve never eaten spirit meat before!”Or maybe I could leave Orange in their care for a while longer. She was probably being pampered right now, if I had to guess, and she’d be a bit miffed if I took her away from, only to have someone try to eat her.
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Chapter Three Hundred and Thirty-Three — Catching Up
Chapter Three Hundred and Thirty-Three — Catching Up Savan knew her way across the plains. She didn’t have any maps or a compass, just the occasional glance at the sun, or a squint at some rocks in the distance. The path she led us on wasn’t straight either, being a meandering route that followed the edges of hills and crossed rocky crags with the occasional skip across a rivulet.“This way, meat friends!” Savan said with a gesture ahead.I was trying to convince Savan to stop calling us meat, but she kept slipping. In the end I gave up. At least ‘meat friends’ was a nice alternative to just ‘meat.’“There’s dust ahead,” Amaryllis said with a gesture of a wing towards the sky.I shaded my eyes with a hand then squinted ahead. She was right, there was a plume of smokey dust rising above the nearest hill’s horizon and into the sky. Something big was moving up ahead. Or a lot of medium-sized things, maybe.“That’s the hunters,” Savan said. “This time of sun, they should be out.”It was still pretty early in the morning, though the sun was fully up and shining above. If Savan had run into us after leaving her camp, then she couldn’t have started too far from the camp unless she hunted at night.Then again, she was a cat-person, so maybe she could see in the dark really well.I asked her about it, which quickly snowballed into a conversation about the various advantages of the different intelligent species. Amaryllis, of course, gloated about how great harpy were, until Savan asked her if she tasted more like turkey or chicken, which set Awen and I off in a giggle fit that annoyed Amaryllis a bunch.Just as Awen was mentioning humanity's reputation for being able to eat just about anything, we crested a hill. Out ahead of us, the land flattened out considerably for a long ways, with nothing but a sea of grass in greens and browns and yellows stretching out nearly to the horizon.After staring for a while, I noticed that the land wasn't quite flat, though. There were still bumps and dips in the landscape, but the ever-present grass made it hard to see them.A few trees dotted the area, though they were few and far between, being mostly big wind-swept trees that seemed very picturesque in the distance.“There’s the hunters,” Saven said. “There’s a camp further out that way.” She pointed to what I thought was west. I couldn’t see anything that way, so it must've been farther out than I could see.but the camp might have been a little ways off in the distance.“Should we go to the camp or the hunters?” I asked.“Hunters!” Savan said. “That’s where my friends are. Calamity will know what to do. He’s smart.”With that pronouncement, she started off once more, and the rest of us scrambled to keep up. Savan moved through the grass with much greater ease than the rest of us. She had a way to zig-zag through that didn’t leave a clear trail showing where she came from and which seemed to require less resistance to push through the tall grass.I was tempted to just bounce along, but the ground under the grass was uneven and filled with little holes. I was worried I might sprain my ankles if I wasn’t careful.As we approached the hunters, I began to make out more details.The group had maybe fifty or so members, all either cervid jogging along, or cat-people like Savan on ponyback. Some were riding the cervid. A few of them had long staffs which they were using to bat away the grass, and others nearer to the back were planting poles down with flags on them with different colours.“What are they doing?” Awen asked.“Hunting!” Savan said. “Cockatrice can be very sneaky. They’ll lay down in the grass and only pop up when they feel like eating your meat or if they feel like running. The poles are to tell the gatherers where the hunters found poop.”“Droppings?” Amaryllis asked.“From cockatrice. For potions,” Savan explained.I blinked, then considered the few potions I drank in the past. Had any of those contained dragon-monster poop? Should I have been worried?“Wait, if the hunters are out in a group, then what were you doing?” Amaryllis asked Savan.“Scouting,” Savan answered easily. “I’m small and sneaky, and the cockatrice aren’t going to be scared by just me. If I find them, then I can tell the hunters, and then we hunt them down as a big group.”Savan paused her explanation to jump up on a rock that I hadn’t seen through the grass. She stood at her full height, then tied a kerchief on the end of her bow with a lazy knot and waved it around over her head.There were a few whistles from the hunters, and I noticed a few pointing our way.“What was that for?” Amaryllis asked.“Tell them we’re here,” Savan said.“Yes, I had gathered that, but why?”Savan jumped off the rock and under the kerchief before stuffing it away. “Because I don’t wanna surprise anyone and get shot,” she said.That seemed like a perfectly valid reason to me.We continued towards the group, and I saw what Savan meant by sneaking up on them. Some of the grass we pushed through was taller than I was, ears and all. Big stalks of dry yellow grass that whipped to and fro as we moved through it. We burst out of the tall grass into... less tall grass right before a group of three from the hunters. Two cat people on ponies and a young cervid.“Hello!” Savan said. “I found meat friends!”“Hello, Savan,” one of the cat people said. He was a handsome young man, maybe a few years older than my friends and I, with a nice chin and bright green eyes. He tipped his hat at us. “Howdy, ny’all, what’re you doin’ round these parts?”Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.I held back a snort. That would have been impolite. “Hi!” I said instead. “We’re looking for someone, and also something.”“Well, we’ve got a bit of both,” he said with a grin. “Savan, where’d you find this lot?”“They were camping to the southeast,” Savan said. “They’re looking for a lost cervid boy and a lost airship.”The leader of the little band perked up. “An airship?” he asked, excited.“Oh boy,” his two companions said in stereo before they shook their heads.“”Ny’all are lookin’ for a ship round these parts?” he asked. “Because I swear on the dirt we’re standing on that I’ve seen one. It crashed... ‘bout that way. Maybe a day’s ride yonder.” He pointed to what I suspected was north.“You saw a ship crash?” Amaryllis asked.“Two of ‘em!” he said. “But where’re my manners; my name’s Calamity. Calamity Danger, at y’er service, ma’ams. Best shot in the Trenten Flats. I can swat a fly off y’er nose with the feather of an arrow from a hundred paces.”I clapped. He was very cool.“I’m Broccoli Bunch, and these are my best friends, Amaryllis Albatross and Awen Bristlecone.”“Albatross,” Calamity said. “Like the airship manufacturers?”Amaryllis blinked twice. “Yes, in fact, just like them.” Her chest puffed out a little.“Calamity, we should get back to it,” the cervid said. “Daylight’s burning.”Calamity nodded. “Fair. Now, I don’t want to leave you misses standing out here all on your lonesome.” He swung his leg up and dismounted his pony. “Savan, can you lead Blinky here back to the others. We’ll follow along shortly.”Savan grinned. “Horse meat!” she cheered as she scrambled up onto the pony and grabbed its reins. She ‘hyah’d’ quite loudly and took off at a gallop back towards the main formation of hunters.The other two ran after her, obviously somewhat annoyed.“Is she... normal?” Amaryllis asked.“Savan? She’s as normal as she wants to be, I suspect. Which isn’t very much at all, no,” Calamity said. He grinned and raised his hat to comb his fingers through the fur atop his head. Unlike Savan, Calamity was more of a tabby, with black bands of fur on his face over more greyish brown fur with a few odd white speckles. “But she’s good folk.”“Are you in charge of the hunters, then?” Amaryllis asked.Calamity laughed. “Goodness no. I just stick my whiskers where they don’t belong often enough that folk turn to me to fix things. I’m just along for the pay and the adventure. Now, Savan said you were looking for some ships?”“And a cervid called Deiter,” I said. “He’s from Riverstart, a little village to the south.”“I know the one,” Calamity said with a nod. “I think I even remember the lad you’re talking about. Tall, gawky fellow, bit on the skinny side? Mom had lungs like a banshee that got its tail stepped on?”“Banshees don’t have tails,” Amaryllis said. “But yes, that sounds like the right person.”Calamity grinned. “Poor lad saw one of the hunter does and fell in love with her on sight. I think she insulted his mom too. Might be back at the main camp. Haven’t seen him around since Riverstart though.”“Thank you!” I said. “That helps a lot. And the airships?”“Hmm, those came down way off to the north. Gonna be hard to point you in the right direction, honestly. Might be able to guide you over, if nya tell me why nye’r looking.”I glanced at my friends and earned two shrugs. “Well, a whole bunch of important people — a diplomatic envoy — were taking a big airship to Sylphfree, but it never arrived. It should have had an escort. We’re out here looking for it now.”“Huh, that’s mighty interesting,” Calamity said. He glanced back at the hunters, then back at us. ‘Alright, look misses. I’m keen on showing nya to the spot where I saw those ships go down. I have been ever since I saw them from afar. Everyone here knows I’ve got a real love for airships.”“Which is normal,” I said. “They’re awesome.”Calamity nodded seriously. “That’s right. Can’t just shirk my duties though. If you misses don’t mind, you can trail along with the rest of the group. We stop at around high noon to find shade and fill up. I’m sure I could lead you off northwards around then.”“So, what, you just want us to follow you until noon?” Amaryllis asked.“I bet we can make it to the crash site and back before sunfall. If nya want we can borrow a couple of ponies. It’ll make the ride a fair bit faster. I’ve got Blinky, of course. If we can’t all ride then at least we won’t need to lug y’er gear around.”“That sounds really great,” I said.“Bit convenient,” Amaryllis muttered. She eyed Calamity suspiciously, but didn’t say much.So I stepped up and extended a hand to the cat...man. “I’d love to work with you, if you don’t mind.”“Ah, but before that, we need to talk remuneration,” Calamity said.“Of course,” Amaryllis said. I think it actually made her less suspicious though, that Calamity wanted to be paid. “Let’s haggle now before Broccoli starts insisting on... reverse-friend-discounts or something.”“Wha?” I asked. “But I haven’t even asked Calamity if he wants to be friends yet... do you?”Calamity laughed. “Sure! But a good friend’s a payin’ one!”Calamity DangerDream: To become the coolest sky pirateDesired Quality: Someone who’ll be by his side through thick and thinWhoa! He was so cool!
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