FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

1

Months dragged after Ed started traveling with Masamune Kage.

He wasn't the old man's slave, whatever being bought for a bag of gold might've implied. A need for familiar structure made him clean his weapons, not his “Master" telling him to. Masamune did tell him to clean his weapons, but doing so wasn't obeying him since he wasn't a slave. He acquiesced, like how Papa acquiesced to doing Grandpa's yard work, or how Mama acquiesced to doing the thing Papa liked with the carpet beater when they thought everyone was asleep. His parent's use of the word implied proper acquiescing required informing the demanding party they were being acquiesced to after a short lecture detailing all the things they'd rather do instead. Only Mama did the lecturing part. The one time Papa tried with her was why Ed didn't with Masamune.

The alternative meant allowing those katana's continued ruination and Ed, polisher of one thousand armors, cleaner of a million swords, would no more tolerate the mistreatment of perfectly good weapons than being subjugated by a decrepit fart in a speedo. He wouldn't tolerate the mistreatment of Masamune's weapons either.

Moon Cutter should've been Dull Handsaw. Masamune called his other sword Sun Reaver but Ed heard Blunt Machete. He'd seen people use butter knives to mine coal with greater care. Anyone abusing their weapons so horribly made him sick, even if they stayed inexplicably sharp. Masamune's brand of abuse went beyond general neglect, involving enough harebrained schemes to make Ed wonder if he was actually a rabbit in a buff otter's body. These schemes involved killing things, stealing things, and doing things in one too many senses of the word, all in the name of Getting Rich Quick. They weren't rich after so many of them, bringing the “quick" part into question, but they were paid. Funds lasting months in more frugal hands were literally pissed away between Masamune's the morning after payday and happy hour coincided. Last night's boozing session left them flat broke.

Ed hadn't yet learned to laugh this off, his vocal parallel of crushing a stress ball.

He thought about their last job.

The things the old man made—the things he acquiesced to doing.

Ed wouldn't touch mayonnaise again until he turned fifteen, and all the money he'd suffered for was gone.

Poof.

Zilch.

Kablamo.

This'd happened every time they got money, yes, but at least he didn't smell like vinegar afterward. His briefs reeked of it. His suspenders still felt greasy to the touch.

Ed took another bite out of a dry bologna sandwich, chewing as lugubriously as a donkey eating wilted grass. He sat cross-legged in the push wagon, watching the encounter before him unfold with the same granitic indifference.

"M-M-Masamune Kage, I've f-found you!" the beaver blocking the forested path said. He wore modern adventurer's gear, which is what you'd get if you allowed a cyberpunk cosplayer to spray paint S.W.A.T. armor, gave him lots of belts, and strapped dozens of pouches everywhere on him, ensuring he'd inevitably pull baby lotion out of the one on his hip when he really wanted the antidote behind his left elbow.

The beaver's armor was bright yellow. He shuddered hard enough to make his gun (Loud projectile weapons, better and messier than bows and arrows. Not because messier meant better, but because messier meant deader which was better in the long run.) rattled in its holster like the world's second deadliest maraca. Grenades took the prize for being louder and more fun to play with. Nyctophobic children wielded flashlights with more steadiness than he wielded his sword, granted he held it in one hand because his helmet would've covered his eyes if he didn't hold it up.

Bounty hunters. At least he'd have cash on him.

"Aye," Masamune said after yawning. "Y'found me. How's it workin' out for your bladder?"

"I'm here f-for your head, bastard!" the frog in the beaver's throat croaked on his behalf. "S-surrender and I'll t-take you alive."

Ed chewed.

"I ain't surrenderin'," Masamune said, stepping forward. The beaver stepped back. "But I'll tell ya what, it takes guts t'approach me face t'face. I'll give ya one free shot, anywhere you like. I won't move."

"Y-you won't?"

"Scout's Honor."

Ed rolled his eyes. HE'D use his gun to turn the old man's chest into Swiss cheese in the beaver's shoes: big, steel-tipped boots with spikes on them for anyone curious. The old Ed would've scoffed. It'd take a while longer for him to fully shed his misconceptions on what an "honorable battle" looked like, but watching Masamune fight sped up this process. The only glory to be found in a battle with him was escaping it untouched by the steel in his speedo.

The nervous bounty hunter either didn't see the wisdom in using a world-infamous criminal for target practice, or simply forgot he was strapped with all the other miscellaneous crap strapped onto him. He steeled his nerves, gave a yodeling battle cry, and lunged forward with his sword waggling above his head. It came down in a whooshing slash, cleaving Masamune across the chest, who hissed through clenched fangs.

Ed took another bite, brows raised. He really didn't move.

“O-oh my Gods," the beaver said, grinning madly, “I did it! I cut down Masamune Kage! I've slain—"

Masamune drew Sun Reaver, his arm moving with swiftness contradicting his trampy appearance. A sound like fresh salami being sliced preceded him twirling his katana like a baton, afternoon sunlight glinting off its blade. The beaver's snout flopped open, bifurcated down the middle. The gruesome wound hadn't even bled when Masamune struck again.

Another slash.

Another flash of reflected sunlight.

The beaver's helmet, and the half of his head above the eyebrows, flew backwards, hanging on by a sliver of scalp. A flat plane of brains squirmed to process these developments.

“Blech," the beaver said, eyes rolling back.

Blood finally spewed. He dropped dead.

"Aaaah, damn, that hit th'spot," Masamune shuddered. His chest wound connected his left shoulder to his right hip with a seeping red line, severing the leather harness holding his pauldron in place. Ed looked away. The old man's speedo struggled to endure its latest stretch test.

"Lad, pass me a towel," Masamune said, looking over his shoulder. His eyes darkened. His lips trembled into a manic leer.

"For th'blood or your junk?"

"Both."

Ed wrapped his leftovers in wax paper and acquiesced in the actual definition of the word, deciding he'd skip dinner tonight.

2

Night fell like a brick.

Masamune worked by campfire light on a cutting board, little more than flat driftwood, strewn over his lap. The beaver's things: armor, weapons, equipment, were sorted, bundled, and bagged. He'd carried an assortment of vegetables which were now simmering in their stew cauldron, waiting for Masamune to finish squaring their previous owner's meat.

"C'mere a sec, Eddy," Masamune said.

Ed snorted awake, seated against their wagon.

"Eddy?" he groaned, wiping a forearm across his face.

"That's your name, ain't it? Come over here."

"It's Ed. And what for?"

"Just c'mere!"

Masamune held a cleaver in one hand and the beaver's thigh with the other. Ed approached cautiously. Mama never allowed him in her kitchen, and Papa never taught him how to dress prey, but something else bothered him. He'd seen executions. He'd seen animals being slaughtered. He'd seen fights to the death. None desensitized him to Masamune's presence, a killer who got boners off his own handiwork. He knew how to handle meat, and Ed knew he didn't wash his hands after handling his own.

"You ain't ever skinned a thigh, aye?" Masamune asked.

"No," Ed said. "So what?"

Masamune shoved a small knife, tacky with gore, into his timorous hands. Its wet blade glittered with firelight. Ed held it the way he'd hold a lit stick of dynamite glued to his palms.

"Cut here, down th'long way. I'll hold it steady."

"Th'fuck you want me to do it for?" Ed brayed.

"So I can mix my new album. Cut th'damn meat."

Ed bit his lip, hands trembling as he inched the knife forward and made the first cut. There was hardly any blood. Masamune'd hung the corpse upside-down to drain earlier.

"Not so deep, you're cleavin' it. Make a shallow cut, then pull slowly. Let th'knife do it. Good. Now," Masamune nudged a wooden bowl full of pink-tinged salt toward him, "grab a handful 'n push it all up under th'pelt."

"W-what?"

"It'll help release th'skin."

Ed gaped at him as though he'd just started a mime act.

"Your Papa ain't taught ya that much yet? I thought y'said you were almost thirteen."

"I am!" Ed grunted indignantly.

Masamune shook his head. "Somebody coddled ya. Prolly your Mama, aye? Let's see if I can't fix some of th'damage. Grab some salt—no! Less salt. Better. Now push your hand in th'cut you made 'n rub it all around. Yeah, just like that."

3

Masamune woke him up the next morning, which is to say Masamune woke him up forty minutes after thoroughly traumatizing him all night with various field dressing lessons. Who could've known an animal had so much intestine in them? Masamune did. He'd said they were good for sausage casings and jumping rope. Ed hadn't laughed. The implications of why the old man didn't either kept him up for a while.

Now he was awake. His stomach still felt like it'd gone nine rounds with a disgruntled heavyweight.

"I'm gonna teach ya how t'find good rocks for whetstones," he said, "plus y'need a bath. I can still smell th'mayo."

"That was cuz of you!" Ed said, “You're th'one who smells like a dead cod wearin' a compost shirt everyday but y'don't see me complainin'."

Masamune sniffed himself. A Herculean effort born from samurai mastery and lots of poker maintained his neutral expression.

A thick, gray fog misted the forest. Its moisture clung to lungs breathing it in like white mold on cheese. Dewy leaves crinkled under their feet as they plodded toward a nearby river, one all but obscured by the mist except for the tranquil susurration of its current. Masamune undressed to his speedo at the pebbly shore before diving in face first. Ed hesitated, wondering if this was where the old man washed out his new jump rope, before stepping in. The sun shone stubbornly through the sky's ghostly veil. Mountains and trees beyond the river were visible as impressionistic shapes on the mist's white canvas. He wouldn't've known Masamune dove into water if he hadn't heard a splash.

A minute passed.

Masamune didn't resurface.

"Old man?" Ed called warily. The horizon answered with a dull parody of an echo.

Ed waded knee deep into cold, running waters before stopping. Masamune's indiscernible mass surfaced a yard ahead, Three Worlds' bulkiest siren, without so much as a gasp for air.

"I like to get in real deep," Masamune said. He swam closer with an assortment of stones, sneering. “That's what she said," they said in unison, Ed rolling his eyes.

"Y'wanna find nice, flat ones. Flatter than these even," he said, ignoring him. "These two here look fine. Let's get more."

Ed didn't move.

"What's th'matter?"

"I...can't..."

"Spit it out."

"I can't swim."

A wild wolf howled somewhere in the foggy distance. Another echoing voice suggested that he, Frank, should shut the fuck up, and helpfully reminded him it was five in the Gods damned morning.

"You serious?"

"We lived in th'mountains," Ed said, clutching his forearm. "Ain't many places t'learn."

Masamune came ashore to drop his chosen stones with his clothes.

"What do you need whetstones for anyway? Your katana don't need sharpenin', they need a foundry." Ed said.

"Your tongue sure don't need sharpenin'," Masamune groaned and stretched. "Jump in."

"What?"

"Into th'river," he said. “I won't let y'drown. Th'current ain't even strong."

Ed's face turned a color that made Masamune wonder if there was a clan of green bears he didn't know about, not like the ones he'd encountered while looting a confectionery wizard's keep. The related gummy bear fiasco was the closest he'd ever get to understanding how it felt for pregnant women feeling a kick, although his bundle of joy had fangs and claws.

Masamune nudged him forward.

"D-don't rush me!" Ed said, now belly deep. Water flowed around him, pulling at his thighs. An unseen current flowed like the ghost of a whale's gushing backwash. Masamune stood close behind.

Ed turned, looking up at him. "W-what do I do?"

"I dunno," Masamune said. He dug in his ear with his pinkie, regarded what he pulled out with some interest, then flicked it away. "Just swim.

"How?"

"Kick your legs? Paddle? Use your tail like a…oh, right. Um. Just move side to side 'n stuff while you're under. It can't be that hard."

"Who taught you?"

"My three best friends," Masamune said, beaming, "me, myself, and I. Coughed up a lot of water at first, sure, but I figured it out. Eventually."

Ed faced the river again with a look like a mouthful of lemons. "Mettled Warlord," he said, "take me swiftly."

"Oh c'mon. I'm here with you. What could happen?"

4

Ed nearly drowned twice. He didn't because there was no better learning incentive than possibly waking up to the old man giving him mouth-to-mouth.

The fog's blanket swept itself from under the forest's feet. Animals went about their daily business instead of metaphorically tripping and tumbling, which included literal tripping and tumbling for those nursing wicked hangovers.

Masamune taught him to dog paddle, Ed's technique looking more like “sunken oar" on account of him going under after a few seconds. Swim lessons transitioned into making whetstones after his incidental discovery of flatter stones while waiting for the old man to bring him back up.

“Just rub 'em together," Masamune said. “Ya want whetstones t'be as flat as can be."

"Won't this be easier if I had some sand paper or something?" Ed asked.

"Yes."

"You got some?"

"Nope. Don't got a power sander either."

“A what?"

“Nevermind."

"It'll take all day t'get these flat by just rubbin' 'em together!"

"You've got two hours," Masamune said, now dressed and pushing the wagon away. “I'll be back later."

It took Ed until Masamune was almost out of sight down the wooded path adjoining their camp for the reality of the situation to sink in, which showed a type of improvement because he usually sunk a lot faster.

"You're leaving me out here by myself? Why can't I come with you?"

"Because this way I'll have whetstones and finish my errands," Masamune said, "or are you too coddled t'be left alone for a bit too?"

Glares like the one Ed gave him now were hitherto reserved for moments prior to premeditated backstabbings.

"I'm not coddled," Ed said.

“You're a big boy, aye?" Masamune asked.

“Yes!" Ed said, then felt like the smallest, most coddled, most swaddled baby boy in the universe when Masamune snorted.

"You sure as fuck eat like a big boy at least," he said before turning to leave. “Don't have too much fun rubbin' off while I'm gone."

Ed wouldn't have fun rubbing off until one epiphanic evening, years later, when he'd trip and slide nose-first into one of the opened dirty magazines Masamune left on the ground during a break-in, a discovery assisted by his lack of clothes and being covered in petroleum jelly at the time, for reasons we won't delve into.

Masamune returned hours later to find the stones comparatively flatter and the boy comparatively jumpier, although sneaking up behind him and roaring like a lion could've explained the last part. The stones certainly felt flatter when Ed threw them at his face.

"Asshole!" they both shouted.

"You fuckin' threw 'em at my face!" Masamune said.

"You fuckin' scared me!" Ed said, climbing out of the bushes he may or may not've been hiding in while working.

Masamune's pained scowl became a wily grin so fast it made dropped hats look like rappelling spiders.

"Big, bwave widdle Eddy, scawed of bein' all awone in th'woods?" Masamune teased.

"N-no! That's not what I meant," Ed blushed fiercely, shoulders tensed. The W-sounds were one thing, but puckering his lips and batting his lashes while making them was a step too far. Ed felt like he was being bullied by a giant child wearing an old man beard.

"Th'woods didn't scare me," he lied, “YOU did! What'd you ditch me for anyway?"

"I went 'n checked out th'village. Sold some shit. Bought tools 'n extra rations," Masamune said, thumbing at their wagon.

"Village?" Ed asked.

"Aye."

"What village?"

“Th'one I checked out."

“Where is it?"

“Where's what?"

“The village!"

“What village?"

“Th'one you checked out."

“Ah, that one. Why didn't ya say so?"

Ed simmered and Masamune pointed beyond the river, where white smoke rose between a zigzagging treeline and tall mountains looming behind it.

"There's other little signs you'll spot if you're lookin' for 'em," Masamune said. "Th'paths around here are well trampled. No grass, stones, or logs anywhere on 'em. This forest ain't as dense as th'ones we've been trekkin' lately either, which means they've been makin' lumber."

"I didn't see any stumps," Ed said.

"They dig 'em up. Y'can make lotsa shit with stumps."

"Oh," Ed said, staring at the smoke before turning a wary eye to Masamune. "You didn't drink any of th'cash away, did you?"

"Couldn't," Masamune glowered. "Weren't no bar anywhere in th'damn village. Th'taverns only served juice and water. Fuckin' Mormons."

Birdsong tinkled through the trees before being abruptly truncated by whatever made the singer gurgle wetly.

"Anyway, good job on th'whetstones. These'll do fine."

Ed hesitated. "Thanks," he said.

Now y'can get to work sharpenin' our knives. Need me to show ya how?"

"Yes...please."

Masamune's sharpening technique involved rubbing a blade and a whetstone together, a method he commended for helping him master what he called his “fapping technique". Ed didn't know what fapping was, nor how rubbing things together correlated with it, but knew not to ask because the old man was making one of his pervy faces again. A hungry fox ogling a rabbit woman in the shower would've told him to chill. He allowed him to, in his own words, "fuck up" one of their knives by doing it himself first before showing him the proper technique. This worked by applying pressure to the blade with your fingertips while sliding the edge along your wetted stone's surface, making sure to do so at an angle so as not to scrape the whole knife. Masamune said he taught him this way so he'd know how to do it wrong before learning to do it right, which sounded sagely until realizing he craved one of the fresh apples he bought, after he'd let Ed blunt their only paring knife.

"You'll get th'hang of it," he said, chagrined. "You'd better, if we're ever t'use a sharp knife again. Let's go swimin' while we've got some daylight left."

Again?"

"Aye. Y'still got more fuckin' up t'do. Don't wanna have to worry about you goin' overboard if fishmen ever jump our boat."

Ed watched him the way a concerned loved one watches a demented oldster. "We don't have a boat," he said.

"I'm a samurai-pirate, remember?"

Ed looked around. This proclaimed fact apparently didn't materialize boats into being. "I thought you said y'were a pirate-samurai."

"And I thought two thousand gold bought me somethin' worth a small house, don't interrupt. I may not have a boat now, or a crew, or...well...anythin' nautical, but that don't mean we ain't ever gonna go out t'sea. You float on your own legs when you sail with me. All that blubber'll only get you so far when the boat tips over. Hungry Atlanteans'll pull ya th'rest of the way down."

"There's no way Atlanteans attack boats that often!" Ed said, a boy who'd only ever seen fishmen fried or baked. He'd seen a lot of them cooked too.

Frank got flack again when Masamune's laughter boomed throughout the woods.

5

To Ed, open roads were spirals leading nowhere. It didn't matter if they went straight, or made lots of unnecessary turns as though the designer spun on his swivel chair before drawing the plans, which would've explained engineering nightmares like the Huangjuewan interchange. Masamune pushed their wagon along a dirt road shouldered by grassy plains, one curving around invisible monuments on its endless stretch toward a treeless horizon. Ed walked to keep from dying of boredom, and now his feet were killing him. He'd lost track of how many bugle-shaped clouds he saw since that morning.

Masamune whistled, breaking the monotonous noise of wheels crunching through dirt, which sounded like an old marathon runner's creaking knees.

"I wish," Ed said," someone would jump out and try killin' us already."

Masamune stopped whistling. "Try killin' me y'mean."

"I'm as good as dead if you bite it."

“Depends where I bite," Masamune said, chomping at him. When Ed didn't react, he added, “Bein' as good as dead ain't as bad as bein' dead. Besides, where are they gonna jump out at us from? You wanna get attacked by moles?"

Ed looked at the green expanse turning his feet into boney stubs, one step at a time. “Moles might slit my throat for a quick meal after snuffin' you out."

"Nothin' quick about havin' you for dinner," Masamune said, ponderously stroking his beard. "You'd feed a team of twenty. No, thirty. My crew would've sailed across th'Wyrm Ocean 'n back without mutinyin' if we had you in our pantry."

"Fuck off, old man."

They continued ahead in a silence trying to be tense and stoney despite their wagon wheels' arthritic noises.

"Well," Masamune said, "since I'm fuckin' off, I figure I'll keep that thing I got for ya back at th'village to myself. Never know when I might get some use out of it."

"You got me something?" Ed asked, ears perking. "Why?"

Masamune shrugged. "More like I found it in our old friend's bags. Held onto it for ya instead of sellin' it, but..."

"Lemme see."

Masamune resumed whistling. His slow pace became a jiving trot Ed jogged to keep up with.

"Hey! Fine, I'm sorry! Lemme see it...please!"

"Get it yourself. It's in th'brown pack."

Ed caught up and grabbed the brown bag out of the wagon. Masamune glanced at him with an air of indifference as he searched it, ready to look away if Ed looked up. He pulled the largest item out first, studying it pensively.

It was a transparent purple brick with a black window on it. Lots of what he called “clockwork stuff" were inside. He held it in one hand, but it had buttons on both sides for two.

"This is a funny lookin'...thing," he said. "It don't do nothin' when I press th'buttons. And it's smooth. Kinda like...really hard leather?"

"Plastic," Masamune said.

"It's funny lookin' plastic with buttons that don't work," Ed amended, turning it around. "What's plastic?"

"Manufactured material," Masamune said, "kinda like solidified tree sap. Civilized folk use it for everythin'. Plastic wrap, plastic forks, plastic knives..."

"But what does it do?" Ed asked, exasperated.

"Y'see th'tiny switch there? Push it up."

He did.

The black window lit up to the tune of what sounded like a busted music box. Rainbow letters swirled into place on it. Ed would've thrown it away, like an alien artifact suddenly coming to life and saying he had ten seconds until vaporization, if there wasn't anything for him to read.

"GAME...LAD?" He said, squinting, sounding it out in a voice to match its capital letters.

"You can read Common?" Masamune asked.

"I'm speakin' it right now," Ed said.

"Don't mean y'can read it. And y'speak it like there's a meat grinder in your mouth," Masamune said. "That didn't come out right."

"I can read a little bit," Ed answered, graciously ignoring him. "This is one of those 'electronic devices' Papa told me about?"

Masamune nodded. "This one's a 'video game'. City kids play with 'em."

Disgust wrung Ed's snout like a wet rag. "You thought I'd wanna play with some sissy city animal's toy?"

"A dead sissy beaver's toy," Masamune corrected, waggling his brows. "If you don't want it, put it back."

Ed looked into the bag again. Smaller, square-shaped bricks, each with a picture and a title on it, were inside. One brick, Mega Gargo Blaster V, depicted a gun-wielding rabbit in camo shorts jumping away from an explosion. Another, Block Mania Pocket, showed an array of colorful blocks falling into a barrier. Some were squares. Some were rectangles. Others were tumorous shapes, who normally dove in tournaments made for competitors with similar deformities, but were here now because someone'd said barring them from events with “normal" quadrilaterals was ableist. They connected to build a wall that was exploding at the bottom. There were seven (Masamune called them cartridges) in total. They went into a slot behind the GAME LAD, starting the “video game" from there.

He tried Epic Sudoku Madness first, ejecting it five minutes later after discovering he'd rather be garroted with barbed wire than continue playing it.

He inserted Mega Gargo Blaster V.

So what if it was a city animal's toy? A few video games couldn't hurt, unless the aforementioned barbed wire was involved. Maybe it'd even pass the time.

6

The sun vaulted over the treeline's crossbar, spectated by clouds in the bronzing sky. Ed, his nose still glued to the GAME LAD's screen after several hours, lumbered behind Masamune like a zombie shambling after meat on a stick. His thumbs, sore, overworked, calloused from abuse, jabbed buttons and directional pads with the feverish energy of wage slaves grinding for a ten cent raise. Red eyes darted back and forth. His bottom jaw hung limply on the gallows of its own hinges, jerking to life to gasp or hiss or curse whenever a distorted explosion claimed another precious life.

Nightfall's encroachment eventually demanded his attention. GAME LAD BRITE, with its revolutionary light up LCD screen, wouldn't grace the hands of children hiding beneath bed sheets for another two years. Ed looked up. The grassy plains he remembered were now clusters of dark trees surrounding them, whose minatory shadows went entirely unnoticed.

"Where's th'lantern?" he asked.

"I got it up front—" Masamune said as Ed climbed into the wagon, positioning his GAME LAD beneath the lantern's glow with clerical reverence.

Chiptune missiles, rockets, and machine gun fire joined the nightly concert of crickets and snapping twigs. The game was great bait. Masamune'd stopped a few hours ago to slay another bounty hunter who'd found them by following their eight bit trail. Ed never noticed. He certainly didn't care to ask why the thing beneath the tarp he sat on felt so squishy.

Masamune blew out the lantern some time later. Ed didn't ask why. He simply migrated to and sat before a larger, warmer lightsource nearby, hunched over his console.

He continued gaming this way for untold hours.

Then the GAME LAD's screen shut off.

Ed blinked. His eyes were peeled grapes in sand bags. He ogled his surroundings as though the real miracle was how he'd somehow teleported from the afternoon's grasslands to post-midnight's forest, and not the GAME LAD's batteries lasting so long. A lukewarm bowl of stew sat beside him, untouched, grateful for the campfire keeping it warm.

Pain like someone'd rigged his spine with bombs exploded whenever he straightened his back. Papa'd once made him till their neighbor's garden as punishment, saying he'd work him to the bone. His fingers felt worse now than they did hoeing soil for the hour it took for Mama to bring him home. They throbbed, feeling swollen and compressed in their tourniquet of flesh.

"Holy shit, you're alive," Masamune said, seated by equipment Ed didn't recognize, sorting them into new bags.

His sense of smell returned next, an overlooked worker eager to stand out in front of The Boss and doing so in the worst possible way.

Blood. Burning wood. Stale meat. Sweat. Urine. Flat beer.

These stenches combined to create an...exceptional nasal concoction, which was a word for it. It was the kind of smell olfactory nerves told their kids to watch out for if they were bad, and now Ed's were screaming. Not to be outdone, his feet asserted they felt like he'd used his ankles like peg legs all day. This gargantuan flex was nevertheless bested by the sensory feat of his throat emulating how it'd feel after swallowing superheated nails.

"What..happened?" Ed asked.

“Fucker jumped us," Masamune said, thumbing at the wagon behind him. “Got 'em tho."

“No…this," Ed said, holding the non-functioning device toward him.

Masamune glanced at it.

"Th'batteries are dead," he said.

"Batteries?"

"Electronics use 'em for power."

"The beaver—"

"Didn't have any. Won't get none till we're closer to th'coast at least. Markets there got lotsa shit from civilization."

Ed looked down at his legs. "I didn't save."

"Pardon?"

"My progress. Th'game. I gotta start all over."

"Ah," Masamune said, grabbing himself another beer. "Better t'be grateful you'll get to do it again when we find some batteries. Won't that be…hey, what are y'cryin for?"

Ed touched his cheek. His sore fingers came back hot with the tears.

"Shit," Ed said, now sobbing uncontrollably.

"Whoa!" Masamune, an otter who met mudslides and murder attempts with the same chilling zeal, jumped onto his feet. "Th'Hell's th'matter with you, boy?"

"I don't know!" Ed screamed, snot and tears and bubbles all over his face. "I don't fuckin' know!"

"We'll get new batteries tomorrow, cut th'waterworks!"

"I'm not cryin' about a stupid game!"

"Then what are you cryin' for?"

"I SAID," Ed shrieked, "I DON'T. FUCKIN'. KNOW!"

He almost threw the GAME LAD at a ducking Masamune, hesitated, then placed it down with a scowl that belied its gentle treatment. He got up and kicked dirt around their campfire instead. He roared until his voice broke, turning his anguished bellows into the dying croaks of a crushed toad. Things were thrown. Air was punched. His rampage continued throughout their camp, which Masamune witnessed from behind the wagon. The boy would've looked rabid if he had a bit of foam coming out of his mouth, which gave him an idea for a scheme he pondered while nursing his beer. Ed kicked air as hard as he could, tripped, and curled into a tight ball. His sobs were all but muffled by flames crackling nearby.

Masamune tiptoed out of cover, reaching to caress the boy's quivering shoulder. His hand was covered in blood. He reached his other hand. It held his beer. He settled for sitting close by. Ed threw himself at his side, still sobbing.

The wellspring eventually dried. Ed sat upright, hugging his knees, glaring into the flames with eyes already red and heated. Masamune rubbed his shoulder with his now beerless hand. He wasn't about to become the potential victim of an ursine rage bomb without finishing his drink first.

"Teach me how to kill," Ed rasped.

"Not yet," Masamune said.

"When?"

"Soon. Y'can't live in th'Wilds without gettin' your hands dirty, but you ain't ready. It's still too raw. You're too emotional."

Ed stared at him after a long moment. "Did you just call me emo?"

"I didn't. You did," Masamune said. "I just agreed with it."

"I'd rather be emo than whatever you are! You get excited when you kill people!" Ed spat, uttering “excited" with the same expression he'd make biting into a rotten apple.

"I do not."

"You do! Your eyes go hazy 'n you grope your junk a lot."

"Oh, that," Masamune said. He stroked his beard, searching for the words that'd make him sound less like a depraved psychopath. The ones he chose were these: "I don't get excited by killin' necessarily. I mean, I kinda do, but that ain't th'real bit. It's mostly when I get hurt. I'm, uh, into that."

Ed, instead of running for his life while doing his best banshee impression, counted Masamune's many scars. Old, gruesome injuries boasted seniority over the newcomer on his bandaged chest.

"Why?" he asked.

"How should I know?" Masamune grunted. "Pickin' scabs made me giddy. Checkups were early birthdays. I was born that way."

"Liar," Ed said. "I'll bet it's gotta do with those brothers you told me about."

Masamune's face became a scruffy shadow. A pinprick of firelight glinting off his scarred eye, watching Ed sidelong. He didn't say anything else.

"We'll see about gettin' some gigs in th'next town. And your batteries. After that, I'll teach ya some swordplay," the old man said, turning away from him.

Ed smiled nervously.

"But not before some more swimmin' lessons. There's a stream nearby," Masamune said with jovial cheer. "We'll get up bright 'n early 'n swim all mornin'!"

Ed's first smile in ages died a quiet, plummeting death.