After two days we were finally within a few hours distance to Garnet. The supply wagon stopped, and we got off to finish our journey on foot. As his wagon quickly sped away, the driver used his right hand to properly bid us farewell, his bow fingers raised high.

“Is that the local way of saying goodbye?”

“Don’t ever do that to anyone.”

While it might be funny to see Kevin provoke a good beating, we were traveling together. Were he to insult somebody, I’d no doubt find myself a less than savory part in such a joke.

I slung my rucksack over my shoulder and fumbled clumsily to get my arm through the strap on the other side.

“Why are we getting off here?”

The driver had said, “Git’ the hell off!” fairly brusquely while holding a large double-bladed axe. Kevin had understood that gesture easily enough.

“The Commoner’s Mage Spire is a day’s ride from Garnet, so we’ll be huffing it the rest of the way.”

I pointed to the smaller path that branched out perpendicularly from where we were standing.

“We’re supposed to walk!? Why not have the wagon bring us there first?”

“Because we’re adults, with full use of our legs.”

Not the politest response I could have mustered, but there was something deeply shameful about a man who required a wagon to travel. We weren’t dainty lords, ladies, or mages (at least not yet).

I looked warily at the tree branches leaning in menacingly towards the poorly maintained road. Due to my unique circumstances, I couldn’t help but agree that a wagon might be preferable. But what was he complaining about? Every green thing wasn’t out to get him, just most humans.

Kevin slowly sat down beside his rucksack. Other worlders were easily confused and prone to fits so I thought it prudent to give him a moment. He sat idly, playing with a large emerald lodestone on his breastplate. After a few minutes I shut my eyes tightly and squeezed the bridge of my nose before doing something I knew I’d regret.

“What are you doing?”

“Huh?” He looked at me puzzled.

“What are…” No, repeating myself would elicit the same confusion, I had discovered this peculiarity of his upon our first day, “Uh, why are you just sitting there?”

“I’m waiting for a wagon that’ll be willing to take us to the Spire.”

I looked at him blankly for a moment. I wanted to kick him, but his armor was sturdier than my boots.

“It’s almost evening Kevin, wagons traveling long paths like this one leave early in the morning to avoid nightfall, it’s unlikely that there’ll be any wagons coming by, and even if there is one, it will be speeding towards Garnet.”

“So, w, we’ll be out here after dark?”

“Unfortunately, but if we plan to make it there before nightfall tomorrow, we really need to make some distance, now.”

Kevin sighed, stood up, and adroitly donned his rucksack. I thought back to how I’d put mine on…

Damned other worlders, always got to make us locals look bad.

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We walked quickly for the next three hours, only stopping once the last remnant of sunlight had disappeared. Ten feet away from the path, we pitched our small burlap tents. While I didn’t like being surrounded by trees, it was safer than risking highwaymen. I dug us out a firepit and got some kindling started while Kevin searched the woods for larger fare. He was proving useful already, no way in hell did I want to be walking deeper into my archenemy’s den in this darkness.

I used the back of my axe to hammer two branches vertically into the earth near the back of the fire, a foot out of range of the flames. When he returned, I stacked three of the logs against those fixed branches so that the heat would be better directed towards our tents while also obscuring a bit of the fire light from the road. I added a few more of the branches and one split log he’d found to the pyre.

Night wasn’t dangerously chilly, no, it was potentially dangerously full of surprises. Primarily the animal and monster variety for average travelers. I sighed in relief when the log was properly burning. Next to the firepit were two ready to light improvised torches I had prepared during Kevin’s absence. Just you try it, Nature, let’s see how you handle a torch up your roots.

I had enjoyed a rare 10 minutes of silence when Kevin was busy. Ah, but sadly all good things must come to an end.

“How come the Spire has to be so far from the city?”

“Kevin, it’s a mage spire, where mages practice magics.”

I thought he would understand his foolish question and hang his head in shame. But no, no, not Kevin. He cocked his head to the side in confusion.

“Is magic that dangerous?”

I debated on responding with, “Why of course not Kevin, in fact, the only dangers of a rogue spell are sunshine, rainbows, or the occasional blossoming of the power of friendship!”

But sarcasm was wasted on him, so I decided on another route.

“In the grand scheme of things, what are people, Kevin?”

He opened his mouth and proceeded to stare at me vacantly.

“Flammable. The Royal Mage Spire is closer to the city, but even then the mages there are required to travel farther away from the city if they’re practicing larger spells. Where we’re going you can just walk outside and do whatever spell you want.”

Which was expedient for learning magic, though unfortunately by just being near the Spire there was the ever-real risk of randomly being caught up in an explosion. One of my tutors had been a one-armed, one-legged, one-eyed former mage. He was quite descriptive on what could, and often enough, did go wrong.

“You seem to know a lot about these things?”

That was a bit insulting, other worlders always seemed to assume that anyone who wasn’t a noble was a stupid country-bumpkin who didn’t even know how to walk without stumbling over tree roots every other minute. Though in my defense, those Godsdamn things tended to lift themselves an inch or two from their hiding places more often than I liked.

Well, he did have a point about knowledge on mage spires.

“My family hired tutors for me and my siblings. Important to know about more than just your own neck of the woods when haggling,” or running for that matter.

I thought of my great grandfather who’d immigrated to the Republic. Poor bastard had hauled an entire bag of lodestone from the old country, only to find the whole of the state overflowing with it. After that, he made it an iron clad rule that each Rimoude know everything possible about the world. While he made a huge mistake, he did that once, and only once. He was the one who created our family motto; What didn’t kill you, would certainly do so the next time.

“Oh, cool! In my world everyone had to be educated. Most of the people in this world aren’t very smart.”

He said this with a touch of pride. My lip twitched noticeably.

Luckily for him, he seemed more oblivious to common courtesy than smug or I would’ve told him how worthless his education was. Sure, he could read, write and do arithmetic, those were handy skills not everyone picked up in our world, but the things he couldn’t do were so much more valuable. He didn’t know how to properly sharpen his blades, to keep an eye out at all times, how to identify trees, to have several shivs hidden about your person, to not wear too shiny of accessories unless you had the strength to keep them, etc., etc. The most damning skill he lacked was the ability to speak without causing the other party to want to cause him harm.

I calmed down for a moment. I was judging him on the standards of my world without even attempting to consider his view (my eldest brother would’ve slapped me, when haggling you had to be keenly aware of where the other thief, haggler, was coming from if you wanted to come out ahead).

From all that I’d heard, his world was one of plenty, where game was obtained in huge bazaars called supermarkets with spells that controlled the temperature called refri-ja-her-rader-ders (I think, it was an unnaturally long and difficult word). You traded pretty colored papers for the privilege of hunting already dressed food off of an array of endless shelves. In such a world, the skills I possessed would probably be equally as worthless as his in mine. And what little swordsmanship I knew easily overcome by the slightest toss of those nightmarish cell phones.

“Ugh,” I groaned quietly.

I had made an even larger error, and was only just know realizing how discourteous I had been. I began mentally tallying the facts; First, Kevin had yet to punch, stab, or attempt to eviscerate me. Second, he was an other worlder who had recently come to my world. Third, we were sharing a campfire for the night. He was without a doubt, my guest.

The Rimoude family is renowned for two things; our industriousness and our hospitality (some replace the first with spite, well at least the ones smart enough to say that while protected by superior numbers). I was being an incredibly poor host at the moment, that was unbecoming of me and reflected poorly upon my entire family.

Not to mention perhaps a little too thin-skinned. Maybe this whole time I was taking innocent statements and assuming he was looking down on me and my world?

I walked over to my rucksack beside a pear tree. That tree had been a small cypress when we’d first made camp, of that I was certain. With apprehension my eyes darted over the numerous, fully ripened fruits. Their green skins shining alluringly. Too obvious, Demeres…

Ignoring the tree, I reached into the worn bag and pulled out a half-consumed bottle of wine along with my cup.

“Care for a cup?”

“Oh, no thanks. I don’t drink.”

I stood, my eyes blinking rapidly. That statement made absolutely no sense.

“You don’t drink? As in, your body doesn’t require liquids?”

“Ha, ha! No, stupid, I don’t drink alcohol!”

My lips twitched angrily before my mouth raised into an unnaturally wide smile, my teeth grinding ever so slightly. I turned back to the pear tree. I picked the largest, most delicious fruit I could find.

“What about fruit? Do you like fruit, Kevin?”

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The rules of hospitality cut both ways in my family…

-Tome Rimoude