Vaozey kept quiet while the caravan packed up, but I could tell from her body language that she was going to snap at me once they were out of earshot. As it turned out, one of the wagons’ wheels had broken when the driver took it offroad to get out of the fighting, which slowed the caravan’s departure speed as they hastily unloaded as many valuables as possible and hitched the animal that was pulling it in front of Ngvahp’s wagon. While they worked on that, Vaozey and I examined the corpses of the bandits we killed for valuables, then rummaged through the wreckage of the wooden structure once it finished burning, all in verbal silence. We didn’t find much of use besides a single working crossbow and three intact bolts, combat and flames had ruined the rest.

Once the caravan finally departed we both went over to see what they left in the wagon with the broken wheel. Aside from some firewood and a crate of low-quality cloth, there wasn’t much of value left. Not even any of that awful soup, I thought, they really do want us to die out here if possible. I wonder if the threats have anything to do with that, or if they would have done it regardless.

The sun was beginning to set, so I pulled out one of the bundles of firewood and began hastily digging a firepit. Half a day will put some distance between us and them, I thought, I’ll need to keep an eye out though, I’m guessing they won’t take any future encounters well. After picking out a few thumbnail-sized rocks to use as ammunition and magic practice, I took four pieces of wood and stacked them in the pit, then looked up to see Vaozey glaring down at me.

“We don’t have any food,” she scowled. “What are you making a fire for?”

“I’m going to get some,” I replied, standing up straight. After the fire, a large number of birds had shown up in the nearby trees, singing in blissful ignorance of the fate I was planning for them.

“I’m not eating those seytoydh bony squirrels,” Vaozey growled.

“There are plenty of birds,” I countered.

“You npoyt,” she spat. “That’s all you have to say?” Here it comes, I thought, watching her take a deep breath.

“It seems like you’re the one with something to say,” I replied. Several cracking noises came from Vaozey, mostly around the jaw area but also from her hands, and I could see her struggling not to ready a punch and strike me in anger.

“Why did you let them go!?” she shouted. In the moment of quiet that followed, I heard flapping all around us, and sighed in response. “We could have fought! We could have won! You had just finished tearing four men to pieces, but those niyzaob made you back down!? What is wrong with you!?”

“What would we have gained by fighting them?” I asked, my tone level and calm. “Tell me, did you think about that at all? Can you list, for me, the benefits and detriments to us that would have resulted from that conflict?”

“We would have a wagon!” Vaozey yelled. “We would have rations! We would have more than three days of firewood and a way to carry it!” With a groan, I rubbed my eyebrows, suddenly feeling tired.

“Do you know how to drive a wagon?” I asked.

“YES, I DO!” Vaozey yelled back. Oh, I thought, that would have been good to know, actually.

“Do you have a trading caravan license?” I continued. “Are those wagons registered in some way to the company or companies that sponsored that caravan? How would you explain the lack of caravan guards upon entry to Towrkah?”

“I could have-” Vaozey began.

“There were at least two, possibly three separate organizations providing personnel for that caravan,” I interrupted. “The entire caravan was expected to arrive in Towrkah on a schedule, most likely. Do you know how long we might have to stay in the city, and how long it will take those organizations to notice that their caravan vanished? Were we included in those expected in Towrkah? Will they be able to connect us to the disappearance?”

“You’re making a lot of assumptions,” Vaozey countered.

“Those bandits knew to look for us in the caravan,” I said. “They also wanted to bring us to Towrkah, which means that someone there is probably looking for us. How do you know we wouldn’t be intercepted on entry if we tried to go in with that caravan? If our location was leaked to these idiots, surely more powerful people must know as well. Is Towrkah a Rehvite-controlled city?”

“Probably,” Vaozey muttered. “Everything out east is these days.”

“So now, there were essentially four possibilities for how this issue with the caravan could have turned out, assuming we didn’t die,” I explained. “The first one is that we killed some of the caravan, and the rest of the members ran off. In that case, at best, we could have had a wagon that we would need to ditch before entry to Towrkah anyway. If any of the surviving members reached Towrkah, we would probably be arrested or encounter more trouble, and even if they didn’t, it would only be a matter of time before someone connected us to their disappearance.”

“Yeah, that’s why we should have just killed them all,” Vaozey retorted.

“Which only removes the risk of a surviving member reporting us,” I shot back. “Every other problem still exists, and we gain basically nothing but a wagon for a few days. We don’t even gain time, because the wagons move at walking pace.”

“I don’t get what part of ‘not starving to death’ you seem to be missing here,” Vaozey snapped.

“We’re not going to starve,” I replied. “Now, in the cases where they live, what happens?”

“They snitch on us the second they get into the city,” Vaozey shrugged. “You really think they’re scared enough to keep their mouths shut?”

“And if they do, what does that change?” I asked. “Towrkah is probably already expecting us, considering what happened here. The worst-case outcome for that scenario is that they create a hostile situation for us that we are already assuming exists. However, that will only happen if Towrkah actually is looking for us, because we haven’t done anything wrong here. Killing bandits isn’t a crime, is it?”

“Technically it’s murder if you’re not in the employ of the province or a city,” Vaozey replied. “It’s just that it’s usually outside the jurisdiction of anybody who cares about it happening, and no sane ruler would want to discourage it.”

“Will Towrkah care about us killing them?” I asked, gesturing to the corpses.

“Probably not,” Vaozey admitted.

“So then, no issue,” I replied. “Meanwhile, if we killed the caravan, would they have cared?”

“I see where you’re going with this,” Vaozey sighed.

“Then let me finish,” I said. “If they keep quiet, which they might, we make minimal gains because we retain the scenario where people will not be looking for us. So, logically speaking, killing them would have gained us nothing, but letting them live can potentially save us a gigantic hassle. That is why I let them live.”

“You thought of all this while they were pointing a crossbow at you and yelling?” Vaozey huffed incredulously.

“Not in so many words, but yes,” I answered truthfully. Vaozey watched me, obviously trying to spot the lie, then shook her head and broke eye contact.

“Fine, maybe you were right,” she muttered. “I still think it would have been better, even justified, if we killed them.”

“There’s a saying where I’m from that goes something like this,” I said. “‘Nearly any problem can be solved with a sufficient application of destructive force.’”

“I’d agree with that,” Vaozey grunted.

“Yet, that’s only half the saying,” I continued. “The other half is: ‘but such solutions are rarely optimal or final.’ Killing people is usually the means to an end, not the end in itself. Often times killing can create new problems if not done correctly.”

“Yeah, okay,” Vaozey scoffed. “Now tell that to whatever’s been stalking through those bushes around us for the last two minutes. I’m sure it’ll be very swayed by your words.”

“It’s a naalfay,” I said confidently. Technically I wasn’t sure, but I had caught a glimpse of black fur and a feline shape out of the corner of my eye, and the stalking behavior was similar to the animal I had encountered shortly after arriving on Awsriyah island. “It’s afraid of the smell of fire and ash, it won’t get much closer than it has already.”

“Jhaayjh rural ngeyyntoyl,” Vaozey muttered under her breath. “Is it edible? I’m starving.”

“I’ll get some birds,” I replied. “Just stay here and try not to scare them off again. If any come this way, shoot them with the crossbow.”

The following two days were fairly quiet. Vaozey didn’t talk much, and neither did I, so most of our time was spent looking for animals to hunt as we walked along the road or listening for sources of water. The naalfay that had been watching us on the first night continued to stalk along throughout the first day until I shot it a few times with rocks to scare it off, but after that, we had no trouble with predators. I learned, through a short conversation as I de-feathered birds on the second night, that Vaozey had been raised in a city, and the longest she had ever been outside of one before our present situation was on her trip to Kahvahrniydah. That explains her nervousness, I thought, though I don’t understand why she sleeps further away from the fire now than she did when we were in a large group.

At noon on the third day, just after we got done restocking our water and washing off in a creek, Vaozey started muttering under her breath. The words weren’t clear at first, but the volume of them increased gradually over the next half hour until I could make them out. “I hate this road,” Vaozey muttered. “I hate these trees. I hate these animals. I hate those seytoydh caravaneers. I hate…” She went on and on, listing out a rather impressive number of things over the next twenty minutes until she finally stopped. Some items were repeated multiple times but most were unique. Twenty minutes later, she broke the silence again.

“You’re too quiet,” Vaozey said.

“You’re too loud,” I countered. “You keep scaring all the animals away, stomping around and muttering and cursing. Why do you even insist on holding the crossbow if you’re not going to use it on anything? You’ve shot it a grand total of twice in the last three days and missed both times. Just gi-” I stopped abruptly when I saw some trees nearby move, and gestured for Vaozey to keep her mouth shut when she tried to speak up to rebuke me.

Just fifteen meters away, about five meters up in a tree, was a monkey with green fur. Unlike the ones with specialized arms for throwing rocks, this one had normal proportions and looked to be just under a meter in total length. Its hands and feet both had wicked claw-like nails, probably for climbing, and upon closer inspection, I noticed that its tail was actually hairless and covered in moss. Slowly, I reached over and took the crossbow from Vaozey’s hands, then aimed and pulled the trigger. An instant later, the monkey fell out of the tree with the bolt embedded in its skull, from its left ear to its right eye.

“How did you see that?” Vaozey asked after I handed the crossbow back to her.

“How didn’t you?” I asked back as I started to walk over to my kill. “It jostled the branches all around it. A child could have spotted it.” I heard Vaozey following behind me, and when we reached the monkey she inhaled sharply.

“I can’t eat that,” she said.

“Suit yourself,” I replied, grabbing the corpse and pushing the bolt the rest of the way through its body. Signs of wear on the shaft, I thought, examining the projectile, might break after a few more shots, maybe just one if it hits something hard. “Don’t use this one unless you have to,” I said, passing the bolt back to Vaozey. Once she took it, I drew my sword and cut the monkey’s head off, then threw its body over my shoulder and held onto its feet. With any luck, it’ll be fully drained by tonight, I thought, hopefully it tastes better than it smells.

“How can you eat that?” Vaozey asked later that night while we sat by the fire. She had found some fruit not long after we hunted the monkey, and had opted to abstain from any meat for the day. The monkey itself was fairly tasty, better than squirrels and birds at least, but without any seasoning, it lacked something.

“It’s just meat,” I replied with a shrug.

“It looks too human,” Vaozey said. “It almost looks like you’ve got a child cooking over the fire if I ignore the claws and the tail.”

“The limb proportions don’t match,” I added. “There are also two more ribs on each side, the spine’s curvature is wrong, and the collarbone is much thicker than a human one.” There were likely more anatomical differences, but without removing more of the meat I couldn’t be sure.

“Still looks like you’re cooking a kid,” Vaozey muttered. “I don’t like looking at it.” I reached out and ripped off more of the thigh meat while Vaozey stared off into the darkness. Not as paranoid as last night, I thought as I watched her eye movements, still twitchy though. “I hate this,” she whispered, barely moving her mouth at all.

“Tomorrow, you need to be quiet,” I told her. “We might have been able to hunt a deer or some other larger animal today if you hadn’t scared everything off. This isn’t a city, it’s not just the volume of noise that’s the problem, it’s the kind of noises you make. Human speech, metal on metal from your armor, those kinds of things alert animals and make them run away. Be conscious of them.”

“Fine,” Vaozey sighed. “No promises.” Slowly, she reached out and touched the dead monkey on the arm, then pulled away a piece of meat. After staring at it for a few seconds, she put it in her mouth and suppressed a gag, then chewed and swallowed hard. “It’s even worse than I thought,” she winced.

“It’s not that bad,” I replied. “You should have tasted all the deer meat I ate back when I didn’t know I was supposed to drain the blood from them.”

At some point in the middle of the night, I was awoken by the sound of two animals fighting nearby. Vaozey also snapped awake, shouting involuntarily and grabbing for her weapon as she scrambled to her feet. I ignited an orb of light above my head and then stood up, casting shadows all around us and illuminating a large circle on the ground. The sounds of fighting stopped, then a moment later two eyes flashed in the darkness. A naalfay, with a fox in its jaws, glared at me for a moment and then ran off. They really do look just like panthers, I thought.

“Seyt,” Vaozey swore. “What the seyt was that!?”

“Just animals hunting,” I yawned, letting the light die out and sitting back in my resting spot. “Go back to sleep.” I plunged straight back into a dream about hunting in the woods as soon as my eyes were shut, and was dragged out of it just as quickly again and I heard the sound of wood snapping. Opening one eye, I saw Vaozey leaning over the glowing remains of the fire, trying to light it up again with magic.

“It’s been an hour, I can’t sleep,” she said. An hour? I thought, both my eyes opening widely. It felt like just a few seconds.

“Just try to be quiet,” I yawned. Again, I felt myself drifting away, and again, I was pulled back by an unexpected sound. This time, it was speech, or whispering to be more precise. “Can you stop that?” I mumbled with my eyes closed.

“How did you do the finger thing?” Vaozey asked. In the haze of my fatigue, I had no idea what she was talking about for a moment, and my brain tried to rearrange the sentence to construct one that made sense to me. Once that failed, I opened my eyes and pushed myself up into a sitting position, then blinked until I could see clearly in the dim firelight.

“The finger thing?” I asked as I cracked my neck.

“You put your fingers back on,” Vaozey replied. “How did you do that? It’s not supposed to be possible. They were already healed over.”

“All you have to do is cut the wound again and focus your magic fuel on the area,” I murmured, feeling a yawn coming on. “I tried to explain to the caravan but-” I paused to yawn, “-they didn’t give me a chance.”

“What is ‘magic fuel’?” Vaozey asked.

“I’m too tired to explain the details,” I said. “It’s magic in your blood, you focus it on the area and it joins the pieces back together. Can do other stuff too.” For a while, that seemed to satisfy her, and I contemplated laying back down again. Thankfully, I was correct when I assumed she wasn’t done.

“Would that work on scars?” she asked.

“Probably not,” I replied. “Scars aren’t damage as far as the body is concerned, healing magic doesn’t work on them.” It’s possible that a similar technique could be used to make them fade more quickly, I thought, but I have no idea how I would do that.

“Seyt,” Vaozey swore under her breath. She went quiet for a while, but again, I sensed she was going to speak up after a delay. “What about-”

“To fix your burn scars, you would need to remove the affected skin and let it regenerate,” I said. Of all the things Vaozey had listed out during her hate-filled mutterings, her scars and face were among the ones she repeated most. “I’ve done it myself with my forearms and hands,” I added. “Even if the face is a difficult area, the rest of your body could be fixed with nothing more than a sharp knife, some food, and some time.”

“Could be fixed…” Vaozey repeated, a few sparks of rage slipping through in her voice. “Are you saying you couldn’t ‘fix’ a face then, mister miracle worker? You grew a whole arm back faster than most can grow a hand, but some scars on a face are too hard for you? I doubt it, I’m betting you know a way.”

“Maybe,” I replied. Depleting her magic so she couldn’t heal, removing the skin, then following with a magic booster would probably do it, I thought.

“Of course you do,” Vaozey muttered. “Let me guess, you'd just use a bit of that special juice you have in those vials you’ve been carrying around, and it would all ‘fix’ itself like it never happened.”

“Not exactly,” I said. “What do you know about the vials? That information was supposed to be secret.” Just how many people did it leak to? I wondered.

“Things get around between servants,” Vaozey replied. “They like to talk about anything and everything, especially secrets. I don’t know what that stuff in the vials is, but I know what the servants thought it was, and I know what it looks like. It’s what gave you the arm back, isn’t it? That’s why it was all pale, instead of normal looking.”

“That’s… not the whole truth,” I answered, suppressing another yawn. “It’s not a miracle drug or some kind of regeneration serum, and it requires proper administration and usage to be effective. Even with those, the extent of the effects isn't known yet. That’s why Aavspeyjh had me working on it.” Even though I wasn’t exactly lying, Vaozey’s expression told me she knew I wasn’t being entirely truthful. It's not like I'm intending to lie, it's just that the full explanation would take a long time, I thought, it would be better to do it when I'm fully awake.

“Whatever,” she growled. “You don’t want to tell me, fine. I don’t need it anyway, I’d have ‘fixed’ the rest of my skin years ago if I cared.”

“I’m not-” I began, trying to explain myself.

“I need to sleep,” Vaozey interrupted, abruptly laying down and facing away from me. “Don’t wake me up.” A minute later, I slumped back into my sleeping spot as well, and drifted back to sleep. It wasn't until the morning that I realized Vaozey hadn’t backed off to her normal comfort distance from the campfire.