“Dreamer, wake up,” Abigail says as she shakes your shoulder.

Wake up. Your two least favourite words being spoken by your most favourite person. You reach up and grab Abigail to pull her close. She squeals as she falls onto you and your arms wrap her in a warm hug. “Five more decades,” you protest as you bury you face into her neck and go back to sleep.

Abigail giggles. “Well, if you won’t wake up the easy way,” she begins. You feel cold fingers pressing up against the material of your pretty dress right over your ribs.

The comfy haze of sleep pulls back a little. “No,” you say.

“Hrm,” Abigail replies. “Maybe I won’t.” Then she starts poking your sides and you squirm. “Maybe I won’t stop until Dreamer is awake!”

“No!” you protest louder as Abigail begins to torture you, hard mean fingers poking into your ribs and sides. Your feet thump-thump on the wagon’s floor as you try to wiggle your way out of Abigail’s grasp, the noise is lost under the sounds of Abigail’s giggles. Your own laughter joins in a moment later, even though you’re telling your small body, quite sternly, not to laugh. It’s embarrassing.

“Are you awake now?”

You open your eyes to glare at Abigail. This has become her favourite way of waking you up and it’s mean and unfair. There’s an unspoken rule to the ritual that says that you’re not allowed to just tentacle her away while she tickle tortures you, otherwise you would turn the tables around. “Yes,” you say before sitting up and looking around.

You’re in a town. There are small homes with thatched roofs with plumes of smoke rising from their chimneys and there are people moving around and doing stuff. The laughter of kids and the bark of dogs competes with the distant birdsong from a nearby forest. Water gurgles and splashes nearby.

The other wagons are a little bit ahead, parked before the biggest building in the entire one-street village. “This is it?” you ask.

“It is!”

You turn to find Charlotte pulling a bag out from the back of the wagon and hoisting it onto her back. “Welcome to Twoforks,” she says.

“Like the things for eating?” Actually, now that you think on it, using two forks for eating makes more sense than a fork and a knife.

Charlotte shakes her head. “No, the river that runs through the town forks twice. Silly name, bit it works for them.”

You release Abigail and stand up, neck craning to take in the big inn building. You know it’s an inn because there’s a sign that says The Adventur Inn Stop dangling from the front with a shield and sword logo above it.

“Wanna see the inside?” Charlotte asks.

“Yes,” you say. This place has piqued your curiosity ever since you heard of it.

“I’ll be with Daphne,” Abigail says. “We’ll pay for the rooms and bring some meals to ours, is that okay?”

You don’t like leaving Abigail all alone, but she does need a little bit of room to spread her wings. You’ve heard this saying a few times already, and you’re really looking forward to Abigail sprouting wings. “Be safe,” you tell her before jumping out of the wagon. “I’ll be with Charlotte, but if you scream I’ll be there before you screamed.”

“Um, okay?” Abigail says before waving you goodbye. She looks a little confused but that’s alright.

“Never been to an Inn?” Charlotte asks.

You shake your head and reach up to grab her hand, as you’re supposed to do when walking with a bigger girl. Charlotte tightens her grip on your hand and smiles down at you. “You’re too cute,” she says.

“Yes,” you agree.

The inside of the inn is a big place, with plenty of tables and chairs and some people that look like they’re relaxing. There’s a big fireplace off to one side and the air smells like food and smoke and tobacco from the group of old men with pipes in one corner. A big staircase off to one side leads up to the second floor. “We have rooms three, four, and five,” Charlotte says, “For the entire group.”

You do some quick math. “So we get to sleep together?” you ask.

“I guess so. Just for tonight.” Charlotte nods. “We’ll be setting up a watch just in case too.”

“A watch?”

Charlotte lets go of your hand, but uses her now-freed limb to pat your head, so it’s okay. “One of us will stay awake all night to make sure nothing bad happens while the others sleep.

You freeze halfway up the stairs and turn to face Charlotte. “You’re not going to sleep just to make sure that we’re okay?” you ask.

She shrugs one shoulder. “I can sleep more later.”

You sniffle, holding back the tears that have sprung into your small body’s eyes before you crash into Charlotte and give her the best hug you can. Such a sacrifice! To go without sleep just to keep others safe. Charlotte is one of the best mortals. You would gladly call her a friend.

“Hey there, are you okay?” she asks.

You nod into her chest. “Yes. I have good friends. We need to get you better stuff,” you declare. “So that you can keep us safe better.”

Charlotte pats you some more because she’s the second best. “I don’t need anything like that,” she says. “Come on, let’s check out our room?”

Finding out which room is yours isn’t hard. It’s the one with all of Daphne’s stuff in it. She brought more luggage than you and Abigail and Charlotte combined so she must be very ready for anything bad that might happen. The room is small, a bit bigger than Daphne’s own room, but with four small beds and a few dressers taking up a lot of space, as well as a table with some chairs around it off to the side.

Right away, you begin inspecting the beds and mattresses and frown at their quality. Abigail’s stuff is better. But they’re bug free and mostly clean.

This whole Inn place is rather disappointing. Stil, you push all the beds together so that they form one great big sleeping spot and fluff everything up as best you can while thinking about what kind of equipment you could give Charlotte. The best would be combat tentacles, but mortals, especially girl mortals, don’t like having tentacles coming out of their bodies because they’re silly. The boys are a bit better about it, but they’re very particular about the location of their tentacles.

The solution strikes a moment later. A whip! Yes, that’s a perfect idea and the perfect weapon.

Now you only need to figure out the specifics of it.