Tom Stonewall had known of Bessie Bridgett long before they really met.

Everybody knew everybody else in their village, of course: there were only a little over three-hundred permanent residents all told, and if anybody had named their sorry collection of mostly farms, he hadn't been told about it. But Bessie in particular stood out. She was always running around, climbing trees, asking questions, sometimes helping out and sometimes getting in the way, and wandering off so often her family stopped noticing or caring.

Just seeing her endless energy in action exhausted him. Maybe this was because she was two years younger, but he doubted it. He didn't remember ever being the type to run and jump around.

Then again, if he had, his father would have beaten it out of him.

His father had once been a great man, the personal servant to an even greater man, one of those nobles with more money than sense, with too much power and too little responsibility. In other words, a typical noble. Humphrey Stonewall could go on and on for hours with stories of how awful nobles were, or how awful the other servants were, or how awful Tom's mother had been, but he always ended with an angry rant over his mistreatment in particular, beaten and thrown out for an imagined crime he didn't commit.

Tom wanted to ask, "Why would you expect any differently? If they treated everybody like dirt, what would make you the exception?"

But of course he didn't. Just keeping his mouth shut didn't work, either. That would earn him an extra beating and, "Well, fatty? Are you mute? Is even my own son ignoring me?"

So Tom learned to give small noises and short sentences to reassure his father that yes, this one person was completely under his control, listening to his every repeated word. He learned not to complain about the pain, how to roll with the punches to take less hurt...

And he even learned how to cook.

This was at first just for his one enjoyment in life, food, but then he discovered he could also keep his father fed and less unhappy. When his father drank on an empty stomach, he always turned bitter -- more bitter -- and then violent. But when he drank while eating, he sometimes stopped midway through his rant to take a nap.

This was infinitely preferable all around. The better the food, the better the chances his father would sleep instead of giving a beating.

Best of all, Tom learned to love cooking, or maybe that was just normal because he loved eating.

Who cared if he was a bit thick around the waist, or if people whispered about him, or if kids pointed and laughed -- "fatty" -- when he had more important things to worry about, like how he'd broken a chair sitting down, and his father found out and beat him senseless? He stopped looking in mirrors, which just showed him the same straw-blond hair as his father, the same round features that easily blotched red, the same bulging waistline. He learned to avoid people too, since they sure tried to avoid him, and when they failed, he found he could see as much awfulness all around as his father ever had, starting with how they turned a blind eye to his once-daily beatings.

Then one day his father worked himself up repeating one of his favorite stories, which had the nobles showing off even more than usual of their typical awfulness, while occasionally laying into Tom as though beating someone could help beat the awful people he was talking about -- a typical day, in other words -- when a young female voice shouted: "Hey!"

And that was how Tom really met Bessie. He looked up from the floor where he was curled up, and there she stood in the open doorway, hands on hips, glaring at his father like she wasn't a third his size and a child to his adult. Tom was slightly dizzy from one fist he'd taken on his ear and also extremely confused by this sudden change in events, so he only caught snatches of their argument, with his father bellowing to piss off and the little girl yelling right back, calling him all sorts of awful, and saying Tom's name? Was she... was she here for him?

But then while he was still struggling to understand this, his father let out a terrible roar and charged across the room. The girl dove outside before he barreled through, and then Tom could hear shouts and screams and crashing sounds, more than he would expect from a single man beating a single girl.

He wondered if he should do something. Get up, maybe. Naw, the floor was terribly comfortable, and he... didn't want to see anything awful...

Later, while he was lying bandaged on a bed for the first time, a perfectly healthy and unscratched Bessie told him her friend Garry had booted his father from the village. Tom knew Garry too, of course; everybody did. Basically, Garry was the first person they called whenever they spotted a monster they couldn't handle, and no matter how dangerous things seemed, he always handled it. People in the village talked about him with stars in their eyes, and Bessie seemed no exception, trailing after him and nagging him until he'd agreed to teach her.

She'd already moved up from wooden practice swords to real ones made of steel, she said proudly, and Tom just stared at her. "Aren't you like, eleven?"

"And you're thirteen," she said, "So?"

He didn't have an answer to that, especially since he still wasn't sure how to feel at the moment. His father was gone? Just like that? Wasn't he sort of important in the village or something?

But Bessie had no trouble filling the silence all on her own. Unlike his father, though, her stories were of exciting things she'd done and more exciting things she wanted to do, and she didn't seem to care if he didn't respond.

After the dozenth time she mentioned Garry, Tom couldn't help asking, "Do you just want to follow him? Because... you like him?"

Was this like his father, the great man, following the noble, who was supposedly even greater, though both had been awful people?

"Huh?" Bessie stared at him like he'd said something completely stupid. "No, I like him because he's my friend and a great person, and I want to follow him to become as great as he is, or who knows, maybe someday even greater." Then she grinned like she hadn't said something completely ridiculous.

"Does he know you think that way?"

"Yeah, course." She shrugged. "He says we're a lot alike. Think that's why he likes me too, you know?" She swung her legs, looking very much like an innocent little girl instead of the she-demon of her stories who went around seeking nearby monsters to slaughter, with Garry apparently encouraging her craziness and saving her life more than once. "He even told me how I could learn [Fireball]."

Tom's jaw dropped. "You're a mage?"

"No, not yet... I only have [Meditation] so far, but I've been practicing everyday! Also, if I succeed I'll be a spellsword, like someone Garry met once..."

She went on to explain her method, freely, to Tom's greater astonishment, until he heard what she was saying.

"Wait, wait," he said. "So you managed to cast it once with a Scroll. And every day since you've been wasting hours and risking your life... for the last three years... all in the hopes of gaining this one Skill you might never have?"

"Yeah!"

"But why?"

"Because it's my dream," she said. "I thought about what I want most in life, and that's adventure, the kind stories are made of. So I decided to become an adventurer, the greatest, the kind who can use a sword and spells, who has a team of trusted friends and leaps into danger unafraid -- all right, with maybe a little fear -- and is always ready with a laugh or a joke."

She turned bright blue eyes from this vision onto him. "Why, what do you want?" When he just stared at her, she said, "Come on, you must want something? Or do you just want to lie in your father's house and bed? Living off peasants, just because your father bought some land? Er, no offense. My parents told me I should say that whenever I might offend somebody, so basically, every other sentence."

He had never before thought about his life goals, other than avoiding his father's beatings and reducing the hurt, and... "Food," he said. "I want to cook and eat good food."

She grinned. "That's great! Say, if you ever feel like getting up, will you cook something for me?" He was just starting to feel flattered and a little shy when she added, "That's a good ending to a good adventure, I'd say!"

Right, she'd changed his whole life, but he was just another adventure to her.

Tom couldn't help feeling like there was something awful about that. A new kind of awful he'd never felt before, but awful all the same.

He felt pride for perhaps the first time when she exclaimed over his cooking, but then she told him -- no offense -- he'd added too many sauces, flavors, and potatoes and maybe he should learn from her aunt-in-law, who had seriously the best cooking in the village. He sulked about this for a few days before his love for food won out, and to his surprise he did discover better food and learn a lot about cooking, but then on his way out he heard those whispers: "fatty," "drunk father," and "Bessie's pity project."

He locked himself in his home and wouldn't answer the door.

Bessie came in through a window after about a week. When she found him surrounded by different mostly eaten dishes, she just grinned and went, "You should've said," as though he hadn't been avoiding her. She ate and chatted, telling him about how she'd successfully thrown another Fireball, and she hadn't even needed Garry's rescue though it'd possibly been a slightly close call, and also his cooking was so much better than before but maybe try a little less salt.

Then she left.

This cycle went on, with Bessie occasionally popping by. She was cheerful, funny, and didn't seem to care about Tom's moodiness, poking fun easily at herself: "I honestly think my parents named me after their favorite cow."

But she also introduced him to all new kinds of awfulness. Seeing how sure she was of herself and her place in the world made something inside him hurt, and it wasn't the type his lifetime of learning or even his [Pain Resistance] could help deal with. Feeling this awfulness toward his... his only friend just made him realize he was an awful person.

No wonder everything seemed so awful. No wonder his father had beaten him.

Then came the day Garry left. They'd all been expecting it, since he finally turned eighteen and could claim his inheritance, or rather his father's artifacts that his greedy extended family had kept hidden from him. Tom learned these dirty details as Garry publicly denounced them, then took the opportunity on his way out to tell everybody just what he thought of the whole village, which was in so many words: awful.

Until this point, Tom had seriously believed he and his father were the only ones to see awfulness everywhere, so he was shocked to discover the supposed village hero felt the same, and to hear all the words he'd kept inside finally voiced aloud. It appeared everyone else was just shocked, listening in silence except for soft gasps or cries as Garry's rant rang off the rooftops: "Where is your drive, your pride? How can you stand doing the same things day after day, complaining about the same things without bothering to change? You all make me sick! I can't stand to stay another--"

What brought his speech to an end was a single, firm SLAP.

They all stared as Bessie lowered her hand, including Garry. "Did you seriously use [Quick Slash] on your hand?"

"Are you seriously trying to burn every bridge before you leave?" she retorted.

His lips pulled back. "You know, you were the best part of this pitiful place. Shame you're going to get yourself killed before you can join my team."

She huffed. "With that attitude, why don't we see who's dying first?"

They grinned at each other. Tom realized even now, when they were publicly falling out, they respected each other probably more than anyone else around.

He also soon realized Garry might be right. Even without her older, stronger friend to watch out for her, Bessie didn't hesitate to throw herself into danger. Now that Garry was gone, she became the go-to person for too-strong monsters, and few villagers seemed to care she was still only twelve. They were farmers, right? What business did they have risking their crops, lives, or tools when somebody else was happy to do it for them? Didn't she have the Skills and keep saying she wanted to be an adventurer?

Tom clenched his fists and thought every awful thought at them that Garry had said, before he realized he was no better. The only reason he didn't have to call for help was because nothing bigger than a pest made it into the house, which he rarely left.

The idea came to him when Bessie was complaining about how the smith's son could barely hold a sword and how she missed sparring with Garry, who'd been gone less than two weeks. Her feet still didn't quite reach the floor, since the household chairs were sized for people like him and his father. Anybody who was told only one of them was an adventurer would assume it must be him.

"Teach me, then," he said.

She paused mid-sentence. "What?"

"I don't know anything about swords either, but I guess I have more time to learn. I should learn to protect myself." And her. "Besides, you're leaving, right?"

"Yeah, when I turn fifteen. My family already promised to give me a horse and everything. They've been able to make and grow some useful stuff from the monster parts I've brought back, and maybe once I'm a rich adventurer I can move them out of here."

So he had less than three years. "Well, I don't really want to stay here when you're gone. And I still don't know what I want. I like cooking and eating, but not enough to make a life out of it? So I might as well try being an adventurer."

Bessie stared at him as though waiting for him to laugh and say he was joking. Then, slowly, she started to grin.

The next few weeks were awful. He didn't have Bessie's energy, but he also didn't have the will to resist her prodding. Every day saw him running laps around the village, swinging a sword until he thought his arms would fall off, doing various other exercises she claimed Garry had shown her, holding a heavy shield while she kept slipping a wooden sword past his guard, and even joining her on monster hunts, though his role for now involved staying in the back and keeping an eye out.

But he didn't even think about quitting. Compared to life with his father, this was nothing, no, this was everything. His whole life had been about taking pain, but finally it had a purpose. He went to bed aching but feeling strangely satisfied, and he woke up well-rested, so he must be doing something right.

The other villagers treated him differently, too. It soon became apparent everybody loved Bessie, and since he'd volunteered himself to watch out for her, they suddenly became interested in making sure he could keep up with her on a horse, run in cheap heavy armor carrying a thick shield, and cook all her favorite foods.

They also filled his head with stories of all the possible awfulness outside the village. "Now, Bessie could charm a rattlesnake," her cousin said, "But that's no excuse to give snakes the chance to bite her!"

Her father pulled him aside. Tom was all set for some dire warnings and threats, but instead: "About your father." If Mr. Bridgett saw him stiffen, he didn't say anything. "Thought he'd make trouble for us once he reached civilization, but haven't heard a peep from him since. Reckon he got himself killed. No wonder..." The man paused, coughed. "Thought you should know. You're a good boy. Take care of our Bessie, y'hear?"

He would've thought her family would be more suspicious of him, since they would be traveling alone together, and considering his father, but maybe they were too relieved to have somebody willingly accompanying Bessie, or maybe they knew she was more than capable of handling him.

Or maybe it was something else. "I wouldn't trust Garry not to bring her into more trouble," said Mrs. Bridgett, "But you're not like them. You don't want to learn to fight because you like fighting, or power, or danger. You just want to protect, isn't that right?"

He realized it was. Bessie was his first and only friend, the first person who'd ever helped him, the first who made him see more than awfulness in the world, and so more than anything, more than good food or a cozy home, he wanted to protect her. He also wanted to protect himself, so he was never that helpless kid taking his blows again.

No wonder he was so comfortable with a shield, whereas he still fumbled with a sword. He would swing one if he had to, but as he discovered his first fight with a dangerous monster, his shield was just as useful for bashing the enemy to pieces.

But he couldn't protect Bessie from herself. That truth didn't change in three years.

Not a day out of the village, and she went off charging at a half-dozen bandits. The girl she helped save was also incredibly suspicious, looking like she'd never done a day of labor in her life. Even Tom and his father had to help out for harvests, or with a few waves of pests, or doing daily chores, or in occasional emergencies like the Ashwood barn catching fire. Rowena Loress, if that was her real name, watched them start a fire with wide eyes and kept watching in apparent fascination as he scrambled together a roadside meal. The more of her he observed, and the more she spoke in her snobbish way, the more awful the sinking feeling in his gut. He was almost certain he knew what she was, and he couldn't imagine many worse possibilities.

When she finally got to providing her awful version of an explanation, he had to resist the urge to scoff at the end of her every sentence. She'd belonged to nobles? He knew nobles! No way they would teach somebody beneath them anything outside how to serve, and if they had, they'd never let such an investment go, not even on their deathbed.

No, if she wasn't a runaway slave -- unlikely, since she'd had the time to come up with a better cover story in that case -- she was a runaway noble. His father had told a few stories of those, which usually ended with the noble being dragged back into the fold while anybody who'd helped them, or met them, or possibly seen them might be silenced.

The other ending involved the noble getting themselves killed, like this fool had almost done, and tended to go even worse for anybody who happened to be in the area.

The best thing to do would be to put as much distance as possible between themselves and this girl and then pretend they'd never seen her. The only reason Tom didn't jump up, call her out for her lies, and then share his near-certain suspicions was that he was afraid Bessie with her fearless bleeding heart would decide to keep helping her anyway. Tom wasn't a hypocrite; he knew if Bessie were a normal person, she'd have walked away from him, just like she should walk away from this little lady. But nobles were a different breed. Anyone else and the stakes might be a fine, a beating, or a fight to the death. With nobles, even when you won you lost, and they'd keep a special place for you and your whole family in their dungeon, not a monster dungeon but a place with human monsters worse than his father.

Tom had to get Bessie away from Rowena -- if that was even her real name -- but since he hadn't yet figured out how, he decided to play along until they reached the city. Surely they could wash their hands of each other then. The girl had been walking in no apparent hurry, so hopefully she was confident she wouldn't be caught so soon.

He felt less sure of this the next morning, when her clothes were noticeably less clean. He'd assumed she was wearing the expensive kind that stayed perfect, but if not, then was yesterday truly her first day on the road? Were guards going to ride them down any moment?

He may have shared his urgency with the horses, as they went pounding down the road like they were being chased and then took shorter breaks without complaint. In just three days, they reached Wilton, during which Bessie and the girl would not stop chatting as though they were already becoming fast friends. Tom was awash with relief as they made it past the guards without incident and were even helpfully directed toward the Scholar's Guildhall.

Finally, this trial and farce were about to end.

Senior Rubrik not only existed, he came hurrying out to meet them. "Rowena! Is that truly you? You had me incredibly worried when I heard you were traveling here alone."

However, while the girl smiled and responded pleasantly, she was visibly distracted, glancing around, before she finally said, "The wards on this building are incredible! I've never seen a ten-layer runic formation so compressed..."

"You can tell?" Almost absently, he waved them through to the guild's exclusively used private rooms. Tom couldn't help noticing how others looked at the Scholar with respect, even deference, treating him as though he was somebody important. "That is truly impressive. You must have upgraded your [Appraisal]...?"

"To [Advanced Appraisal]," the sixteen-year-old said, equally absently, nodding and still peering into the walls, and the most awful part was, she didn't even seem to be boasting.

In a daze, Tom trailed behind the two who continued speaking in what may as well have been a different language, though the mutual admiration was obvious. Seeing his face, Bessie burst out laughing. "You really thought we were about to get hanged, didn't you?"

"Who is she?" he hissed.

His awful friend just smiled. "If I had to guess? An incredibly lucky start to our adventure."