Back to Work

Breakfast was quicker and quieter than usual, despite Kitt’s happy humming and praise for the taste of the sugar-frosted cereal in front of her. Nobody was in a bad mood, but...“It feels so weird to be going back to classes after all that,” Nayeli shook her head, “I think I have a test today that I didn’t study for, and I don’t even care. It feels so...insignificant.”

“I know what you mean,” Kylan agreed with a nod, “But, personally, I could use a little ‘normal’ after the weekend we’ve had. A six-day weekend...or was it just five?” He shook his head at the already fuzzy memory, “Something as safe and routine as lectures is paradise by comparison.”

“Fuck it,” Oro grunted with a shrug, “Go or stay home, whichever you want. Sick days are a thing, even in college. For me, beating the fucking shit out of something would be the best stress-relief there is, so I’m going to work,” he declared firmly. He gave Sarahi a glance on his other side, neither expectant nor discouraging. “You coming today?”

The Sha'khari chuckled. “If I thought there was anything like a good chance we’d actually find one today, I’d want to stay home, and try to talk you out of it. But given our current record, a walk around the mountain just sounds nice. I could go for that.”

Kitt tilted her head and gestured with her spoon. “So...students, hunters, and...?” she wagged the utensil between Diya and Tuli, “What do you do when not adventuring?”

“Photographer,” Diya answered, though she doubted Kitt understood the word yet.

Tuli giggled. “House-wife, it seems, although I want to start looking for work of my own again, now that I can be confident of my body. Not at Owl-Eyes, though. I’ll find something more...respectable,” she promised in reassurance to Oro, noting the frown he’d developed at her remark, but added, “It probably won’t pay as well. The bulk of my earnings came from the ‘overtime’.”

“You brought home the bacon for nineteen fucking years,” the Rabbit grunted, “Four of those for a kid that wasn’t even yours. Far as I’m concerned, kick back and watch soaps all day. I’ll handle it,” he promised, knowing full well that she had never been the lazy sort. Even bursting with pregnancy, she’d taken the time to make breakfast, most of their dinners, and various amounts of cleaning around the house besides. Oro had nothing but respect for the woman at this point, and thought she had earned some easy days.

Tuli smiled gratefully and didn’t argue. Instead she turned to Kitt, giving her a thoughtful look. “I suppose the real question is: what are you going to do at this point? I’m sort of home-schooling Nigel and the Nicks, and I don’t mind doing the same for you at all, but you need some things to live in our society that I can’t just make at home. ID, for example. You can’t get work or even attend school without it.”

The little Dog flashed her a confident smile. “If there’s anything I’m good at, it’s taking care of myself. Don’t worry about it. I’ll get whatever I need,” she promised with a certainty no one else in the family shared for even one second, “For today, I’ll go with Sarahi and Broro. Top-tier way-finder over here, remember,” she grinned, “I can find anything you’re looking to kill.”

Oro sighed. “I gotta admit, that would be helpful. That fucking stick we’ve got is about as useful as foggy glasses.” He frowned at her casual dismissal of Tuli’s concerns, though, pointing his own spoon at her. “Tag along today, so we can work and talk at the same time. But Tuli’s right, and we can’t ignore it for long. I don’t have the first clue how to get citizenship with absolutely no documentation on where you’re from, though. And nobody’s going to buy that you’re from another world entirely.”

Kitt giggled at his apparent concern. “Well what will they do? Deport me? To the moon, I suppose?” she grinned. “If I need to stay out of sight, I can just do that. I’ll help you earn money, and snag whatever I need that money can’t buy in the dead of night. That’s hardly a challenge for me.” She happily stuffed another spoonful of cereal into her mouth with a smug smile. Everyone else at the table paused their eating to give her concerned looks.

Oro tossed his spoon onto his bowl with a sigh, rubbing his face. “Yeah...we’ve got a lot to teach you, starting with ‘keep your hands in your own pockets’.”

“I’ll call Dad,” Sarahi suggested, patting her husband’s arm, “He hires foreigners sometimes, and knows who else does. One of them will surely know how to get the ball rolling on legal papers, if not citizenship.”

“Thanks,” the Rabbit nodded, “That’s all way above my education, needless to say. Right now...ready to go?” he asked. Nayeli and Kylan were already heading for the kitchen with their bowls. They needed to leave in the next couple of minutes if they didn’t want to be late for their morning classes.

Not long after that, Oro and Sarahi had picked up their radios and were making their way up the mountain with Kitt on their heels. “So what are we looking for, exactly?” the little Dog asked curiously, already sampling the wind with her broad nose and smiling at all the beautiful scents she was picking up for the first time in over a hundred years.

“Fuck if we know,” Oro admitted with a shrug, “Some kind of monster. The local mountain-god said they’re being summoned here from another world, and they don’t always look the same. The first was like a bear, and the next one we met was like a deer...sort of. So as far as I’m concerned, any shape is fair game.”

“If we really want to tackle the problem,” Sarahi nodded, “We need to find the summoner and make him stop. But we don’t know where to even begin that search, so we’re just trying to keep the mountain safe until we come up with something. He did give us this,” she pulled the little forked stick from her backpack, “To help us track them down. It’s sensitive to magic, supposedly, so it ought to point toward the most powerful source in range.” Giving it a toss in the air, she rolled her eyes as it landed with the point aimed at Oro’s heels. “But it has a tendency to do that, like a compass being carried next to a magnet. So we’ve been wandering mostly blind ever since we started. We were lucky to find that deer one, honestly.”

Surprisingly, Kitt nodded sagely, as if everything she had just said made perfect sense. “Alright, let’s just start with ‘unnatural’, then. I’ll have a better idea what I’m sniffing for after we find one, but that much shouldn’t take too long. You guys don’t have a lot of wizards around here, do you?” she chuckled, picking up the stick as she passed it.

“Just the bitch-witch, so far as I know,” Oro sneered, “Thank the forgotten gods.”

“Good! There won’t be a lot of interference, then,” the little Dog smiled, sniffing the magic-sensing stick with a giggle, “You say a god made this?! How tiny is his following? I could make a better dowsing rod.”

“Um...zero?” Sarahi admitted with a sheepish grin, “Nobody even knew he existed as anything but a reclusive artist until a few years ago. There’s a rumor he has a girlfriend, so maybe one. He admitted he’s weaker than he used to be, but also said he isn’t actually interested in building a following again.”

“Apparently, dealing with this sort of thing used to be his job, but now he can’t be bothered,” Oro rolled his eyes, “Guess I’m glad for the chance at a pay-check, but that’s just fucking lazy. I don’t like him.”

Kitt tapped the stick against her chin, head cocked curiously. “No following...and he doesn’t want one? That’s surprising.” Taking another sniff of the air, she asked, “Are you sure he can be trusted? I mean, gods are kind of suspicious in the first place, at least where I come from. But...,” she paused to take a much deeper whiff, “There’s actually a pretty strong source of power around here. Smells like it might be coming from the peak, but it’s blanketed the whole mountain in low-grade magic, like holy ground. So either he’s got a shrine up there, and a few dozen followers to go with it, or we’re actually dealing with a wizard of at least the upper end of mid-tier. Either way, I’d say he’s lying about how strong he is.”

Oro stopped in his tracks, and turned to give her a surprised look. So did Sarahi. “You can tell all that?” the Rabbit asked.

Kitt blinked at him, like his surprise was the thing that was surprising, then grinned and tapped her nose. “I keep telling you, I can smell an-y-thing! For instance,” she smiled smugly, tossing the stick idly in her hand as she inhaled once more, “Besides the peak, there’s a weaker source from the west. I think this stick is honest, at least: it doesn’t smell as strong as you, but it’s also a ways off. I’ll be able to tell the difference in scale better when we get closer,” she gestured with the stick for them to follow her, and started strolling off the trail and into the woods covering the mountain, “That’s probably the monster you’re looking for. We can take care of it before investigating the peak, if you want. It’s dangerous to innocent people, right?”

Sarahi blinked at her several times, then looked to Oro as they both shrugged, and began to follow the little Hound. “Not gonna lie: that’s a lot of information to get just from the smell. You’re pretty amazing.”

“Told ya,” Kitt giggled, giving her a wink over her shoulder, “But honestly, this isn’t that amazing. Using your nose isn’t much different from using your eyes, if it’s built for it. The fact that we’re talking to each other is way more amazing!”

“How so?” Sarahi smiled, “Spent so long in The Labyrinth that you almost forgot how to speak?”

Kitt giggled, then gave her a sly look. “If I asked where you learned to speak Eladrialle, would you be surprised I wasn’t speaking...what did you call it? Heartherran?” The double-take Sarahi gave her said she would, indeed, be surprised. Kitt’s smile broadened. “You understood the word ‘deport’ earlier. That tells me a few very important things: your world has countries, or kingdoms, with clear borders. And they enforce them, at least fairly strictly, but not always violently. A word like that doesn’t come into a language without those conditions, and even then it’s not always common knowledge. So, correct me if I’m wrong, but I naturally assumed from there that a world with more than one country has more than one language. How many more must there be in multiple worlds? And what are the ludicrously low odds that mine and yours are so near to each other that we mistook them for the same?”

“I’d say fucking impossibly small,” Oro nodded, tossing his two cents into the conversation, “So much that it was either deliberate, or something is translating us for each other.”

The little Hound beamed happily and bounced over to hug his hip. “Sharp as always, Broro!” she grinned, “Now, I couldn’t say which of those is the case, and I don’t really care. I’m happy to chalk it up to a mercy from Erri-All-Seeing and call it a day, but the raw fact is a-MAZ-ing!!”

“Yeah,” Sarahi agreed only a little louder than a whisper, suddenly marveling at the significance of something so simple...and how much of that had already impressed itself on Kitt. “You know...and of course you do, because you’ve been telling us,” she smiled sympathetically, “But you really are amazing, Kitt. You seem really happy, but I can’t imagine being whisked off to another world from my own and taking it nearly so well as you have. I think I’d be crying for home already.”

“Well, spending a century in a place where everything is constantly trying to kill you might make that a little easier,” the Dog winked, “But I’ve got Broro again, so of course I’m happy. Everything else, odd as it might sound, isn’t really new to me. I’ve been to a lot of places, and seen a lot of things, and after enough of that you learn the most amazing thing is that there’s always a little more to see somewhere. I’ve enjoyed that for a long time now,” she beamed, rubbing her cheek against Oro’s belly before he finally pushed her away. “Besides,” she finished, “This place has a lot of stuff I’m seeing for the first time, so it’s really exciting!”

“...I’m glad,” Sarahi answered with as much pity as relief, still dubious of how much trauma Kitt had endured over the years, and how sane that had left her. At least she appeared reasonable, and wasn’t instinctively violent.

“Speaking of countries and borders,” Oro sighed, trying to steer the conversation away from a past that might suddenly turn tragic, “I think we need to talk a little bit about this one, and why it’s important to get you some ID somehow, and why you absolutely should not just ‘snag whatever money can’t buy’.”

They spent most of the morning and part of the afternoon trying to explain the overall gist of Heartherran social structure, geography, and just a smidgen about its closest neighbors: Amunet and Sheilar, to the north and west respectively. Kitt seemed mostly amused by what they told her, judging by her smirk, but nodded her understanding and asked pertinent questions, when she questioned what they told her at all. “So to sum up,” she said as they seemed to have covered the broadest strokes, “I need a card as proof I’ve been given permission to live in this country. And that usually requires proof of my history in another country, or that I was born in this one.”

“Basically,” Sarahi nodded, running her fingers through her hair, “And we have no idea how to handle it if there’s no proof to be had. Hopefully Dad does, or one of his friends. Otherwise...well, my best guess is that someone is going to have to conduct a long and fruitless investigation...and they might make you sit in a detainment facility until they’re satisfied.”

Kitt giggled, finding the very thought amusing. “Good luck to that guard,” she grinned, “I gotta say, though, I’m impressed by the kindness of your country. Back in Acrura, if you’re caught without approval in a country that secures its borders, you’re as likely to be executed as deported. Especially if they don’t know where to deport you. There certainly won’t be an investigation, unless you might merit a ransom.” She paused to sniff the wind, as she had several times during their talk. “Not to change the subject, but I think it might be onto us. It’s started moving higher up the mountain, and fast.” She paused for a deeper whiff. “Very fast. If it’s not flying, I’m starting to think it might be using the unicorn paths. We won’t catch up at a walk.”

Oro sighed, rubbing his face. “Figures. Guess that’s one more reason we haven’t really found any others. If they can spot us coming, they can probably get away before we notice. Fucking strange they’d be that cowardly, though.”

“Mmm, unless they’re ‘retreating’ in hopes of luring us into a trap,” Kitt suggested, “Or more favorable terrain, at least.”

“That would be smart,” Sarahi nodded, “That deer definitely had the advantage on those bluffs.”

Oro sighed, checking the sun. “Well, if it’s a trap, I sure as Hell don’t want to wander into it after dark, and we don’t have much time before that. I’d say it’s time to wrap up today, and try again tomorrow.”

Nodding agreement, and flexing all the toes of her sore paws, Sarahi patted Kitt’s head reassuringly. “You were still a big help today. Thanks for that. So what are unicorn paths, and can we follow them?”

“Depends,” Kitt shrugged, “Do you have unicorns here?”

Sarahi tapped her chin thoughtfully. “Well, yes, though they’re one of the rarer Kinships. There aren’t very many of any species of Ancient, if I remember right. I hear you can find a lot of them in Perodice...but...,” her cheeks turned red suddenly and she chuckled in embarrassment, but Kitt was looking at her in very serious surprise.

“Wait...I was being glib. When you say ‘unicorn’, do you mean Ferruda? Like you?” she gestured to Sarahi and Oro, “There are Unicorn Ferruda?”

“Well, yeah,” Sarahi tilted her head, “Though I don’t exactly know what you mean by ‘Ferruda’. I kind of assumed that was a word for people in your world. What are you talking about?”

Kitt blinked at her like she had finally said something the little Hound genuinely did not understand. “You must have a word for it,” she muttered, sniffing around for a moment before pulling them in a different direction, down the mountain. After a moment, she paused, and pointed to a pair of rabbits as they went scurrying away from the approaching trio. “Those,” she pointed at Oro next, “Are not like him. Or you. How do you distinguish these?”

“Ohhh, you mean the ancestors,” Sarahi blinked, “Yeah, I get the confusion now. So, according to legend, we—what you call ‘Ferruda’, I mean—were born from the ancestors when the gods went to war. Larger, smarter (sometimes), and with these wonderful things called ‘thumbs’ that let us hold weapons.” She wiggled both her thumbs at the little Dog as they shared a giggle. “I don’t know whether to think that’s an improvement or a tragedy sometimes. Anyway, formally we call them ‘ancestors’ or ‘animals’—‘feral’ is a pretty common slang—and we call ourselves ‘people’. And we capitalize the Kinship when writing about people.”

“Okay,” Kitt nodded, “Then I was talking about ancestor unicorns. Supposedly, they laid all the trails and rivers along which magic moves in Acrura...though that’s mostly speculation and a useful euphemism. ‘Unicorn trails’ really just means any of the secret paths magical creatures can take that defy the natural understanding of time and distance. And yes, I can sniff them out, but that’s a different question from entering them. It’ll be hard on this mountain anyway,” she looked around, “With the smell of magic everywhere, I’ll have to pass pretty close to one to pick it out.”

“Don’t sweat it,” Oro sighed, rubbing his head briskly. All this talk of culture and language and magic was giving him a headache, and a desire to smack something’s skull with his bat. “Four-wheelers are easy enough to find, and if they’re too slow then we don’t really have a chance at chasing these things down anyway. We’ll have to consider another approach. Right now: home, dinner, and bed. Why am I so tired?” he asked himself, popping his neck and swinging his arms as if to work a kink out of his shoulders.

Sarahi padded over to pat his back sympathetically as they started more purposefully down the mountain, toward home. “My paws ache, too. Share a bath when we get back?” she offered, hoping the promise of both comfort and companionship might alleviate some of his weariness.

But the Rabbit shook his head quietly. After a moment he blew a long exhale. “Hunger,” he declared after carefully considering what his body was telling him, “It’s the hunger. Like I haven’t had more than a breakfast pastry in days. Been a while since I was this hungry,” he growled.

“Heh...maybe take a larger portion tonight, then?” Sarahi suggested, “I know you said you cut back because it doesn’t help, but is it possible you backed off too much? It’s not like we’re short on leftovers.”

He shook his head again, ears twitching now. “It’s not mine,” he grunted, thumping the familiar bat on his shoulder, “I need to find a soul. One I don’t mind swallowing.”

That sent a chill down the Sha'khari’s spine. “Just to be clear...that means killing, doesn’t it?” she asked. Nothing would delight her more than to hear she was wrong, but her own instinctive answer was exactly the one Oro gave her.

“I don’t know how the fuck else you get a soul out of someone,” he sneered, thumping the bat again, “And before you start: yeah, I know that’s bad. I’m not going to resort to random murder. But I need to think of something, or this is going to get fucking annoying.”

Sarahi gave him a worried look. He was tough, and stubborn. He would fight it until it drove him half mad, probably...but she agreed that they needed an answer, sooner rather than later. Because it would happen, eventually. Just like starvation.

She felt the wave of aggression roll through her arm, but kept her spear leaning against her own shoulder and silently told it to shut up. They weren’t there yet. He still had time, and she wasn’t going to fulfill that vow until the last possible second.

Even Kitt seemed pensive as they made their way back home, though she was as bouncy and energetic as ever the moment they got through the door and spotted Kylan massaging his head as he tried to decipher another page in his book of runes. While Kitt went skipping over to add excitement to his studies, Sarahi quietly pulled Oro toward the stairs and the hall bath...and was quite pleased that he shared that bath with her, after all.

They continued this routine for most of the week, while Sarahi waited to hear back from her father regarding what to do, legally, about Kitt. She took her usual day off for training, but spent most of that morning showing Kitt around town and helping her shop for some modern apparel of her own, so she could stop borrowing Diya and Kylan’s things. They also got the little Dog her own phone, which Kitt ogled and played with and chattered over delightedly for the rest of the afternoon.

Attempting the Peak

“You going to be able to pull your nose out of that thing long enough to be useful today?” Oro grunted as the trio set off from the lodge, eyeing Kitt’s new phone. The energetic Hound was tapping away feverishly with both thumbs, eyes shining and tongue lolling with excitement at whatever game she had discovered.

“These things are a-MAZ-ing!!” she cheered, actually doing a handless cartwheel in her excitement without ever taking her eyes off the screen, “A crystal ball! A local guide! A sage, bard, merchant, casino! All in a little box!” No sooner had the words left her mouth than she tucked the phone behind her back, dropping it into that otherworldly pocket she possessed with a deep breath. “Whew! That’s as amazing as my mansion! No way it doesn’t come with a devil-contract. I’ll have to be careful of it.”

Sarahi chuckled quietly. “If a ‘devil-contract’ includes not being able to put the thing down...then yeah, there’s definitely a risk. Most of us manage to avoid signing it, fortunately.”

“And yet, enough people don’t that we’re all aware of the consequences,” Oro scowled, thumping his bat on his shoulder, “Anyway, just don’t get distracted while we’re working. I want to see if we can reach the peak today. If there’s really a shrine or something up there, like you think, I want to know what it is. Maybe it’ll help us get to the bottom of where these monsters come from.”

Sarahi nodded thoughtfully. “I’m down for that. Should we talk to Jareth first, though? It’s kind of his holy-ground, even if he’s not actively seeking worship, isn’t it?”

“Well that’s part of what we’re trying to figure out by going there,” Oro frowned, “Whether or not he’s actually got a following. If he was lying to us, then warning him that we’re coming kind of defeats the purpose. If he wasn’t, then he shouldn’t have a problem with us seeing what’s going on. No point fostering suspicions either way. We’re not out to make a mess today, so ideally he’ll never know we were there.”

“Weeell,” Kitt cautioned, “You’re about as likely to trespass on holy-ground without a god noticing as you are of punching someone in the face without them noticing. So it’s more a question of whether or not we’ll bump into him. If we don’t, then it’s either not his ground or he approves of us being there. If we do, then he either condones whatever’s going on there or doesn’t appreciate the trespass....and maybe both.”

“Whatever,” Oro grunted, thumping his bat on his shoulder as he started up the trail, “If he pops up, we’ll talk to him then. Now let’s get going, or it’ll be dark before we reach the peak.”

They started up the same trail they’d taken to visit Jareth in the previous season. This path had been intended as the groundwork for a road leading to a ski-resort that never materialized, so the slope was relatively gentle even if the route was unnecessarily long and winding, and they ran no risk of getting lost. Even so, the air was growing thinner and noticeably cooler than it had been in the valley as they climbed closer to the peak, and the path became more and more broken by recovering growth of grass and trees. “Does this go all the way to the top, do you think?” Sarahi asked, trying to look further up the trail, where it seemed to lead directly into the afternoon sun.

“However far they were planning to put that resort,” Oro grunted, looking practically at his own feet to avoid the glare, waiting for the trail to wind away from the sun again so he could clearly see. “We getting anywhere near the source of that scent you’re tracking?” he asked to Kitt.

The little Dog was walking along happily with her eyes closed, led by her nose high in the wind. “Definitely,” she nodded, “Not much higher, though we might need to look for a way further around...wait,” she stopped, taking a deep sniff and opening her eyes in spite of the blaze of the sun, “It moved. Or...we moved, rather.”

Sarahi blinked, pausing with a tree between her eyes and the sun so she could take a good look around...and was immediately alarmed by two things: the sight of a high, crook-tipped and snow-capped mountain visible several miles off to one side, and the lack of sight of the scarlet Rabbit. “Kitt...where’s Oro? And is that Witch-Mountain over there?” she asked incredulously, looking around some more and then down at the ground under her paws, “Then where are we? How did we end up over here?”

“Shifting ward, probably,” Kitt suggested calmly, pulling her new phone out from behind herself, “That’s a surprisingly subtle barrier. I didn’t notice it through the thick blanket of magic as we got closer to the source.” Tilting her head and grinning at the display on her phone, she announced, “The map says we’re over on Watcher’s Nest now. Wow, these things are handy!”

“Yeah,” Sarahi winced, “But that’s the problem: Oro doesn’t have one. He can’t check a map, or call for help. Where did he go?” She was trying hard not to panic, but Sarahi couldn’t help imagining him wandering blindly in a cave, or stuck in some foreign city where he didn’t even speak the local language. At the least, if he was dropped anywhere out of sight of the mountains, he would be well and truly lost until he found a town.

Kitt seemed to see these thoughts in her eyes, and flashed a reassuring smile. “Deep breath,” she urged, making a calming gesture with one hand, “Elements and animals will be more threat to us than to Broro. He’ll be hungry, but probably can’t actually starve, thanks to the demon. So when it comes to him, ‘lost’ really only means ‘delayed’.” Turning her nose toward the mountain, Kitt took a long, deep breath through her broad nose. “I don’t smell him yet, but scent doesn’t spread as quickly as light. It might take a minute for the wind to carry his to me even if he’s nearby. We just arrived, after all.” Her nose twitched some more...and her smile faltered. “We have a more immediate problem: the monster we’ve been hunting is nearby. It won’t be long until it notices us, if it hasn’t already. It’s big, too, by the smell of it.”

Sarahi’s heart almost stopped, and her grip on her spear tightened. “...Shit,” she hissed, not liking the idea of (possibly) leaving Oro alone with that thing or of fighting it without him at her side. She trusted Kitt to contribute to a fight, but the Dog’s style was hit-and-run at range, meaning Sarahi couldn’t count on her to drive anything back if the Sha’khari’s defense began to buckle.

“Okay, let’s try getting down to the valley before it finds us. We’re bound to find a road on the way. We can follow that back toward town. We’ll call Tuli to come pick us up as soon as we find a landmark she could recognize,” she suggested, gnashing her teeth, “Then we can start a search for Oro. Hopefully he can find somewhere with a phone by then and let us know where he is.”

“Okay,” Kitt agreed with a nod, “Good plan. Let’s go.”

It was easier said than done. Watcher’s Nest was a smaller mountain, but its slopes were steeper, rockier, and lacked any of the trails that had been worn around Witch-Mountain. It was a poor environment for farming or building, and even worse on the far side, which left civilization an uncomfortably long hike away on uneven footing. Sarahi’s claws helped, but she still found herself using her hands nearly as much as her feet in certain places, and her spear was making that awkward. Kitt seemed to be selectively ignoring gravity as she skipped between the trees and down the rocks.

“He’ll be fine,” the little Hound assured Sarahi, noticing her looking back up the slope every few dozen yards, “Broro’s gone off on his own in way worse places than this. Or are you looking for the monster?” she asked, scenting the wind again, “It’s getting closer. I’d say it’s on to us. Hmm...I wonder if it got whisked over here by that ward, too,” she seemed to ask herself.

Sarahi was much less concerned about how it had gotten here, and much more concerned about how she was going to fend it off on this slope. Below, and a little to her right, she saw an area that looked comfortably level, if a little more dense with trees than she’d like. No swinging; she’d have to rely on thrusts around her shield, and try to maneuver around the trees. Acceptable.

Sarahi quickly angled toward that spot, and Kitt followed right along without so much as a question. Maybe she’d made the same assessment Sarahi had, or maybe terrain just wasn’t as much of a concern for her, given the way she skipped from foot to foot, over rock and root and sometimes even a vertical trunk, like none of it mattered to her balance. The moment the Sha’khari shook the little bag off the head of her spear and formed her shield, Kitt bounced back and forth between a couple of thin trees, to perch about halfway up the left one with both feet on the trunk and one hand keeping hold on a branch.

Taking another deep breath through her nose, the little Dog pointing up the slope they’d just been descending. “It’s coming. No, wait...they’re coming,” she blinked.

“There’s more than one?!” Sarahi hissed, now wishing in vain that they might somehow miss seeing her and the Hound.

But Kitt nodded, albeit still with a smile. “Don’t panic. I was just wrong. The scents are identical, like simulacrums or something, so it confused me. I can’t tell you how rare that is,” she grinned, as if impressed on some professional level, “But it’s not big. Just a lot. Look,” she pointed again, and Sarahi saw the first of them.

It was big enough. Nearly half her height, and every bit her length. It was followed immediately by two more, then five behind them. Their dark, hazy bodies kept her from seeing their shape clearly, each one’s outline obscured by those beside and behind it, but the luminous white markings suggested something like a rat, if a rat were the size of a large dog. She didn’t even try to count their ranks, but was increasingly disheartened by the sheer length of the shadowy blanket following those first few that crested the slope.

Kitt struck first, the instant that first pair of eyes turned in their direction, making it clear it had seen them. Sarahi saw the three knives dive down out of the tree, and heard the muted thump of the blades striking flesh. They stuck there for a second, as if flung at a wooden target, then just sort of flopped over and disappeared beneath the advancing mass. “Well, no surprise there,” Kitt shrugged as if half expecting that particular outcome, “Magic it is.”

Sarahi was genuinely surprised when the Dog dropped back to the ground beside her, pulling a pair of long, thick punch-daggers from under her cloak. The blades looked something like large shark’s teeth, anchored on a silver arch that curved down past the handles all the way to Kitt’s elbow. “You can fight up close?” the Sha’khari blinked, thinking the Dog had favored range out of a practical consideration for her size.

Kitt laughed. “I’d never keep up with Broro on all his adventures if I couldn’t,” she answered, like the question was absurd, then quickly warned, “Mind your legs!” as the first of the monsters came within reach of Sarahi’s spear.

It was comforting, if a little embarrassing to Sarahi, to be reminded that she was wading fearfully into something that the bubbly Dog considered a standard part of every-day life. Fighting, killing, possibly dying...shopping, eating, possibly upsetting her stomach...they were all in the same mental bucket for Kitt. Some amount had to be done more-or-less every day, and the risk taken for the sake of the comforts. Sarahi silently apologized for underestimating her, once more, and swore not to discount the foreign Hound’s optimism ever again.

Kitt worked well around her. Their enemy didn’t seem to have much in the way of strategy, but played hard into their one strength. Sarahi stabbed one after another in thrusts as quick as she could manage, and if she missed her intended target, that usually just meant the end of the one behind it. But she couldn’t keep pace with their sheer numbers. Within seconds she was on an offensive retreat, backing across the little level spot they’d made their stand on with more rats working their way around either side of her. Kitt kept those at bay, rolling under or vaulting across the Sha’khari’s back as needed, stabbing anything that tried to nip at her sides. Those ivory knives were almost as effective as Sarahi’s spear, slicing through the enemy flesh like so much butter.

Out of the corner of her eye, Sarahi noticed the slope of the mountain become visible again behind the blanket of enemies, proving their ranks weren’t without limit...but that wasn’t much encouragement at this point. She was already starting to tire, and running out of space before the loose, rocky terrain behind her made her footing uncertain. If she fell, Kitt would be hard-pressed to keep the swarm off of her while still giving her room to stand again. They couldn’t afford to relent for even a second.

Someone screamed behind them. Above them, more accurately, starting from behind them and falling in an arc over their heads to slam heavily into the side of the mountain right smack in the middle of the rat swarm. “...Oro?!” Sarahi barely had time to register the scarlet color of the fur before it disappeared into the dirt, but the voice doing the screaming was familiar, sounding uncannily like the single vowel in his favorite expletive. Even the swarm seemed startled for a moment, giving her and Kitt a chance to take about two good breaths before the nearest rats began diving into the hole.

A scarlet hand burst up through the ground in front of Sarahi’s paws, grabbing the next rat in her path by the neck. “Who the fuck...,” Oro growled as his head and shoulders emerged from the ground, rising at an angle like he was walking up stairs. “...Told you rat bastards...,” he continued, clamping his other hand on the rat’s hips. The demon-coated fingers dug into the shadowy flesh, letting him firm up his grip directly on the spine above the hips and at the base of the skull. “...You could lay your damned, dirty whiskers on my wife?!” Oro demanded in a roar, pulling the shadowy beast in two with his bare hands and clubbing each of the rats beside him with the remains.

Sarahi took a step back, both relieved and a little frightened to see him. He was alive, and she could not be more elated to see that. But he was pissed...that hot, seething anger that made it dangerous even for his dearest friends to come near him. Her spear hummed in warning and, still very much in the mindset of a fight, she instinctively followed its guidance, leveling the tip at his heart before she realized what she was doing. Kitt slapped both daggers on top of the shaft, forcing the tip down to the ground and bringing Sarahi back to her senses.

“Wait,” was the only protest Oro hissed, never attempting to move out of the line of her fire, “Not safe yet.” He was angry...and he was hungry...and his demon could not have declared its praise any better with horns and fireworks. It rippled his skin and peeled away from his back to fan out like boneless, ragged wings behind him. The rats tried to bite him, lunging at his legs and hips and the appendages stretching out from his shoulder-blades. He bit back, eating teeth and tongues and skulls and everything else attached, until the enemy began to understand who was the predator and who was the prey...and act accordingly.

“Don’t let one escape,” her husband warned, drawing one “wing” back into himself to give her a clear shot at the handful of rats skittering back up the mountain.

With a firm nod, Sarahi took aim on a target she had no qualms about destroying, and let her spear fly. The explosion disintegrated five of them in a blast. She wiped out three more groups as they tried to escape the maw snapping out from Oro’s back...and then, finally, it seemed they were done. Oro’s skin clung tight to his body, imitating ordinary fur again...but the infuriated scowl on his face had not softened one bit. “Is it time?” he asked, eyes fixed on Sarahi and his posture unmoving.

She blinked at him, confused, and it took another minute for her to understand what he was asking. With a frown, she leaned her spear on her shoulder, blade pointed harmlessly at the sky. “No,” the Sha’khari answered softly, “But it is time to tell us where you’ve been...and when you learned to fly. I thought some idiot sky-diver forgot his parachute for a second there.” She gave him a worried look, as Oro remained unmoving and unblinking, still trembling in fury. “Seriously, Oro...are you okay?” She wasn’t sure if it was the fall or the fight that destroyed his clothes, but his shirt was completely gone and the rest wasn’t faring much better. The belt around his hips was valiantly holding up the most ragged, tattered set of shorts she’d ever seen, and she fully understood that was in part because they had been pants an hour ago. “What happened to you when we got separated?”

His first answer was to force himself to move. He popped his neck, and both shoulders. Sarahi was pretty sure part of his back popped, too, before he unclenched his fists like tiny firecrackers. “You disappeared,” he growled at last, not quite succeeding in relaxing his jaw, “I know that wasn’t your fault...but it scared me for a second. I got pissed. Then I met something like Rikko, and the bastard wouldn’t tell me anything, so I got more pissed.”

Sarahi blinked in surprise. “Something like Rikko? What do you mean?”

“...Who?” Kitt interrupted gently with an inquisitive tilt to her head, even as she offered Oro some clothes to change into. The Rabbit arched a brow at the neatly folded stack of cloth...then finished tearing off what remained of his pants and took the set from the little Dog’s arms.

“He’s a Rabbit we know. Our employer’s adopted brother,” Sarahi explained briefly while Oro tried to stuff his legs into the snug replacements.

“Too tight,” Oro grunted, kicking the garment off the one leg he’d gotten partway on. Kitt dropped that set back through her gate, pulling out another in practically the same movement. “I mean it looked like Rikko, if the guy was less tired, more proud, and had antlers. Fucking deer antlers,” the Rabbit explained, trying on the new set, to similar results, “Like a Jackalope or something. I asked what he was doing there, what happened to you, that sort of shit. I know the bastard’s mute, but he wouldn’t even shake his head or shrug or anything. Just smirked, like he thought I was cute.” Kitt next handed him what looked like a very fancy—and very foreign—suit.

Sarahi put her face in her hand, seeing where his story was going, and begged quietly, “Please tell me you didn’t say something stupid like ‘tell me or I’ll beat the fuck out of you’.” The look he gave her in return said she’d got the line word-for-word.

“Yeah,” Oro growled as he finished getting the new clothes straightened out. The ruffled shirt and smooth pants both looked to be made of silk, and buttoned with jewels. Sarahi thought he actually would have looked quite handsome in them if the fit hadn’t been so baggy. “So when I took a swing, the bastard spanked me,” Oro continued in a growl, replacing Sarahi’s disappointment with confusion again, “Tapped my chest, swatted my tail, and said something I couldn’t understand. Then...it was like someone grabbed me by the shirt and pants. Someone tall. Yanked me up into the sky, pointed me right at you and those rat bastards, then tossed me at you. Fuck yeah, I was pissed when I landed,” he snarled, getting worked back up at just the memory.

“Rikko...spoke?” Sarahi blinked, “You’re sure it was him?”

“Fuck no,” the Rabbit huffed, “Does it sound like him? Horns and talking and wide awake and fucking fast? I couldn’t touch him, but he tapped me like it was nothing. I’m just saying it was Rikko’s face, okay? Maybe he’s got a twin,” Oro shrugged, “Add it to the fucking long list of questions I don’t have answers to floating around this town.”

That seemed fair enough to Sarahi. Even she had to admit their home-town seemed to have become increasingly strange over the last year or so, for her and her family if no one else. “Alright,” she nodded reluctantly, pulling her phone from her pocket, “I’ll let Nayeli know we’re going to be late, then—?!”

She was surprised once more, though a little more pleasantly this time, to be interrupted by a tight hug being thrown around her shoulders. He almost pulled her off-balance despite her four legs. Sarahi blinked, then smiled, then returned his hug gently. “Feeling better?” she asked her husband gently when he relaxed his grip on her shoulders...though not by much.

“...Less like I want to eat the entire fucking world,” he grumbled, sounding more tired than irritated now as the last of his adrenaline ebbed, “Wouldn’t mind a few more of those rats, though. You okay?”

“Yeah,” she assured him, rubbing his back gently to at least reassure him that she felt safe and comfortable again, “I was better the moment you popped out of that hole. Nice trick, by the way.”

She could feel the Rabbit nod against her shoulder. “Fucking lucky Gorgorond can eat shit so fast. Deadened the impact and even managed to turn me around like a fucking worm.”

Sarahi tried not to giggle at the image, straight out of their childhood cartoons, and was too grateful to have him alive and safe again to question Gorgorond’s fortuitous abilities. “So, as I was saying, I’ll tell Nayeli we’ll be late, then we should really get headed for the road. I don’t know if we can make it home tonight, but I’m not too keen on spending the night on a mountainside unprepared.”

Kitt suddenly looked confused. “Why not?” she asked, head tilted curiously before checking the sky, “It’ll be warm tonight, the weather’s going to be clear, and even natural predators aren’t going to come anywhere near this area until the scent of those monsters fades. It’s the best conditions one could ask for in the wilderness.”

Oro and Sarahi finally let go, and the Rabbit reclaimed his usual demeanor. “Yeah, but neither of us is actually that big on camping. And unlike me, you two are going to start getting hungry in a way that matters soon,” he reasoned, motioning for all of them to start walking, “Come on. Town’s not that far away. Just get to the road, and we can probably hitch-hike to one of the hotels.”

Kitt followed obediently, but her smile only seemed to grow more smug as she sauntered along at Sarahi’s shoulder while the Sha’khari exchanged a handful of quick messages with Nayeli. “So...ya hungry?” the little Dog asked after a few minutes of walking, offering Sarahi a packaged meal-bar.

The Sha’khari blinked at the sudden appearance of food, and her belly growled involuntarily. Breakfast had been a long time ago. “...Thanks,” she said slowly, accepting the bar with a growing suspicion and a grin to accompany it. “Just out of curiosity...what else have you got in that ‘bag’ of yours?”

The little Hound’s tail started wagging excitedly, like Sarahi had finally asked about a secret she’d been dying to share. “Oh, I’ve got all kinds of useful things tucked away. Like a pack or two of these,” she pulled a can of soda from behind her hip, “And some water and jerky, obviously. Cookies for dessert, nuts to nibble, there’s still some elven wine if you want a little more...fun,” she winked, “A couple of lanterns, a dozen bedrolls, three sizes of tent...though there’s not really space around here for the pavilion-tent...”

Sarahi began to laugh. “I really mustn’t use the word ‘unprepared’ anytime you’re around, huh?”

Kitt shrugged. “Well, I’ve been politely keeping out of your closets so far, so I don’t have any spare clothes sure to fit anyone besides me,” she gestured to the loose-fitting outfit on Oro with a wink, “He’s a bit thicker than he used to be...and shorter,” she giggled, “But you can hand me anything you’d like to have ‘just in case’, and I’ll always have it on hand. Broro and I lived on the road for a long time. I’ve slept under canvas and stars more often than any kind of roof for nearly half my life now, so I’ve got all the basics, and more luxuries than most travelers. It helps that weight isn’t a consideration for me,” she giggled.

“That is super handy,” Sarahi nodded, biting into the bar in her hand gratefully...and just as gratefully accepting the soda can to wash it down with. “So, what’s the biggest thing you’ve got tucked away then?” she asked, more to make small talk than out of any burning curiosity. They had quite a walk ahead of them, at the least, and she really didn’t want to think too hard about the monsters they’d just fought or what Oro had shared until she’d had a chance to sleep on it.

The little Hound beside her seemed to think about it for a minute. “I pulled in a frigate once, though it wouldn’t be safe to sail yet. I kind of forgot about it, so we never got it repaired,” she admitted.

Oro quirked a brow, “You have a boat? Like...sailing-the-seas kind of boat?”

“Yep!” Kitt grinned, “Sails and cannons and everything. Maybe some cargo, too. I forget what was in it. We were driven ashore by a storm, and I pulled it in with the idea we could get it repaired when we got back to civilization and the captain would owe us a major favor. But he didn’t make it back, and we didn’t need to sail again at the time, so...,” she finished with a shrug.

Sarahi was staring at her, unable to decide whether she should ask what had happened...and maybe just a little bothered by how casually Kitt recalled dead companions. Oro seemed to be thinking of something else: “Have you ever put a person in?”

At that, Kitt shook her head. “No. I did check whether living things would be hurt by it once, by putting in a mouse. I left it there for a full day, then pulled it back out. It ran off with a bit of my hardtack in its mouth. So I figured it would be a bad idea to put anyone I didn’t trust inside, and nobody I did trust had any interest in exploring.”

“Exploring?” Sarahi tilted her head, “Explore what, exactly? Is there actually a place on the other side?”

Kitt shrugged with a grin. “I don’t know. That’s what I mean. The mouse ran off with some of my food...meaning it can reach other things I’ve stored. They aren’t kept in individual pockets. It survived, so there’s air and a tolerable temperature, and I already knew food rots inside if it’s not preserved, so there’s time...and I need to remember to swap out my stock once in a while. But I have uncontained water in there, too,” she demonstrated, pouring a thin stream from one glowing circle into another, “And it doesn’t seem to be soaking anything else. There’s some sort of division. I’d love to know more, but I’d need someone to go in and take a look around.”

“That’s...interesting,” the Sha’khari admitted, “You can’t check for yourself?”

“Very dangerous,” Kitt shook her head emphatically, “I can open a gate at pretty much any point I can see, but I have to be able to see the spot. If I go inside, I might not be able to open a gate to the outside again. Also, it’s usually pretty difficult to put the key to a pocket dimension inside the pocket dimension, but it’s a well-known rule that you shouldn’t even if you can. There’s a high probability the space will crumple up, and warp the area around it, too. People don’t tend to survive that, and what it leaves behind will be dangerous even for high-tier wizards to approach.”

Oro rocked his head, apparently considering something seriously. “Okay, so all that makes as much sense as magic ever has to me—and maybe more than most—but what’s so dangerous about tossing someone you don’t trust inside if they can’t get out on their own? It’s effectively a portable prison at that point, isn’t it?”

For once, Kitt seemed neither amused nor smug. “Because they could reach things, like I said. You wouldn’t remember, I guess, but I’ve got a lot more than transport and camping supplies stowed away. There are tools in there to make trouble for kings and wizards. There are weapons to contend with giants. There’s a Rod of Desolation that will shrivel this entire valley into a wasteland if you wave it carelessly. I control when a person goes in or comes out, but I don’t control what they could bring with them.”

Oro grimaced, so the Hound figured she’d made her point. Sarahi finished her little meal in thoughtful quiet, crumpling up the empty can to stash in her own pocket. “I can see why someone would be reluctant to just hop into that,” she nodded at last, “Especially if you were on a dangerous journey. You can pull them out whenever you want, but if anything happened to you before you could...?”

“They’d definitely be stuck,” Kitt agreed, following her reasoning, “I have no idea what will happen to the key when I die, but it’s unlikely everything inside will just dump out into this sphere of existence again. It’ll probably be lost forever, and that includes anyone inside. At best, they’d only last until the food ran out. So no, it definitely shouldn’t be thought of as an emergency shelter.”

“Magic is weird shit,” Oro remarked, pulling the sagging shoulders of his temporary outfit back up close to his neck, “But what you’ve got in your world is on a whole other level.”

That got Kitt to laugh again. “What’s weird,” she grinned, plucking her phone from behind her back, “Is wandering around blind when you have this right in your pocket!” Opening up the map application, with its little blue flag indicating their current position, she steered them a little more to the east, on a direct route to the nearest road. The terrain was steep, but manageable, and soon they were walking along a winding lane of pavement leading towards the lights of the valley.