As it turned out, the goblin was right. The villagers didn’t intend to do anything about the Queen. When Ai had spoken to the village elder about it she had just been told that they would honour the dead. The village elder had made it quite clear she didn’t want to be questioned beyond that.

Ai had voiced her opinion (loudly) on not even warning the people to stop taking their carts through there, and subsequently been thrown out of the village elders hut. With wind.

She was too pissed off to even be amazed at the show of magic. At least she hadn’t lost her balance, she could thank her cat-like reflexes for that.

Over the next dozen of days Ai spent most of her time in the forest with Kele. He was an interesting man, and through coaxing him to talk about stuff other than plants or building shelters, she had learned a fair bit of gossip that went round the village.

At first, it seemed odd that he should know so much, given that he hardly talked, but all anyone really needed was ears apparently. He sat on his perch atop the wall, and people just didn’t bother to censor themselves around him.

Apparently the village people weren’t married off by their parents, which surprised Ai, given how backwards a lot of their society was. And Tal was up to far more than she let on, apparently she had been seen meeting with one of the older (male) villagers, who just so happened to be unattached. Whether or not they were getting down and dirty was yet to be ascertained, but Ai couldn’t see any other reason for meeting a man and not telling anyone.

Kele was remarkably chill about it, he’d said ‘how can I get mad at my daughter for doing that when her mother and I were doing far worse at her age. As long as she’s safe, it doesn’t matter.’ He didn’t really match up to the grizzly, overprotective father image Ai had built in her head.

The goblin had been released from the ‘old bitches’ care and spent a disturbing amount of time following Ai around. He had given her some Fluff Ball pelts, which apparently went missing from one of their neighbours’ homes. Ai asked the goblin about it and got told that it had ‘stolen them fair and square’.

She stopped intervening with other people’s matters then.

She also didn’t give the pelts back.

She was 99% sure that Ermine was avoiding her (he looked like a deer in the headlights every time she saw him, then he slid away). The goblin had made it very clear what he thought of the childish crush he had on Ai, and how he had put her on a pedestal.

Ai ignored it. She didn’t know what the goblin did when it wasn’t around her but she wasn’t particularly keen on finding out either.

She had come to terms as much as she could with the death (murder) of Kar, or whatever her name had been. Ai couldn’t actually remember her name, but she had justified that to herself given the stress of the circumstances.

Now she was sat on a stump, in rapidly fading light. Outside the wall.

“This is a bloody stupid idea. What do they hope to achieve? We might as well just leave now.” The goblin grumbled from her left.

“You didn’t have to come with me.” Ai stared into the flickering flames of the campfire.

“Of course I did. What am I going to do if you get killed? I don’t fancy looking for one of the villagers for help, and my cl-old clan would kill me for being a cripple. If you die, it’ll be a giant pain in the ass for me.”

Lord give me the strength not to enact one of my many murder fantasies.

“You just thought something ungrateful didn’t you?”

“What are you now, a mind reader?” Ais sarcasm was biting.

“Please. They all go mad young. I’m just very perceptive, unlike the plebeians you usually hang around with.” There are mind readers?

“You know, you don’t have to insult the villagers every other sentence.”

“No, but I want to.”

“Of course you do.” Why would I ever think differently?

“I don’t want to stay out here a week.” The goblin gave a dramatic sigh rocking on its haunches. Ai wondered how she had ever had the creature comfort her.

“You can leave.”

“Are we really going to do this again?”

“You’re the one who keeps starting it!”

“We’re doing the who started it thing now? How old are you, three?”

Will. Not. Kill.

“I think we should try and warn people about the monster.”

The goblin gave her a look, probably at the abrupt subject change. Ai didn’t care; she was fed up of hearing him whine.

“I think we should mind our own business. Nothing good comes of meddling of other peoples affairs.”

“One of those other people could have been us. Or someone we care about. Would you still feel the same way then?”

“Aye, and I don’t have anyone I care about.”

“There must have been someone.”

The goblin gave her a look.

Or not.

Ai poked at the foliage on the ground. She didn’t know what she was doing here. Some sort of ‘can you survive?’ test. It wasn’t quite what she’d had in mind when Kele told her she would be tested on her knowledge, but she guessed being thrown out to live in the forest on her own for a week worked.

Apparently if she needed help then help wouldn’t be far, so Ai assumed she had a shadow somewhere too. Where exactly, she had no idea.

She hadn’t picked up any tracks so either the follower was very, very good or she was nowhere near as good at tracking as she thought she was.

There was no dinner, shelter was always the first thing she had to sort out. By the time she had mangaged to build said shelter light was rapidly disappearing. Then there was the campfire. Ai really, really didn’t want to sleep without a camp fire. Fire was great for scaring off all animals great and small. The goblin had chosen that moment to show up with a couple of fire stones. It had probably stolen those ‘fair and square’ too but Ai didn’t care.

She never really thought of herself as a cheater. It was more like…bending the rules. She might not be able to bring supplies other than the ones she was given, but there was noting said about anyone else bringing supplies. And she hadn’t touched the fire stones anyway. The goblin had. It started the fire too. Why would Ai not make use of something that was already there?

So other than the fact it was rapidly getting chilly, and Ai had nothing for dinner, all was going well.

“I’m soooooo hungry. Are you sure you didn’t bring any food?”

Except for the (whiny) goblin of course.