Chapter 7: The Not-So-Simple Life

virgilknightley

We took a leisurely little tour through Tater Town, and it left quite an impression. It was pretty, picturesque, and peaceful, and the collection of monster girls that populated it was much the same. The simple thatched roof cottages and primitive cabins were far from the comforts of modern architecture and construction that I was used to, but they held an inescapable rustic charm.

The bright weather lent the scenery a certain cheerfulness which made me feel more at home. The town indeed was something like what my imagination had pictured when first I heard about the community—a rural hamlet where life seemed still very close to its primordial roots.

Calling this a town was generous, though. There were a dozen houses by my count, most of them doubling as some sort of local business, like a smithy owned by a busty bunny girl, a tanner and clothier run by a satyr MILF, or Scalia's inn, which I learned was also used to distribute food from nearby farms among the people in town. It was a tight-knit community, and sure as the sky was blue, all I saw as I walked around was a cornucopia of gorgeous monster girls.

“This is a nice place to retire,” I said, humming pleasantly as we walked from building to building, introducing ourselves, making the whole town officially aware of the presence of me, the so-called hero. We were greeted similarly everywhere we went—eager, lustful eyes that consumed me as though I were the first man they’d seen in ages.

When I'd said that, Autumn shot me a look that could make a candle extinguish itself. “You’re not retiring, Bucky. You’re just starting your career as a hero. Don’t even jest about such things.”

I chuckled. Truth be told I was trying to set her off, and it worked. Too easy.

We came to hear there was one other man in town—a human by the name of Jacob Mercer. He was a level 9 breeder from another world. Maybe from my own, for all I knew, but it didn’t seem to matter. When I showed up at his door, the look he greeted me with was understandably less lit by excitement than I was used to by that point.

“Aww, fuckin’ great,” he said with a guttural groan. He was graying on the sides of his head, and had a bit of a tubby belly, but his face was handsome and he sported a well-maintained beard. “Well, I knew it wouldn’t last forever.”

“Umm, hello,” I said in response, waving meekly.

He looked at me, looked over my three girls in a way that made me a bit uncomfortable, and then gestured for us to step inside.

“So you’re the new hero everyone’s fawnin’ over,” he groaned as he sat down on a rug by his fireplace. “Nice to meet you, I guess.”

“Doesn’t seem like it,” I said, his tone not eluding me.

“Well, I think you can understand my situation, kiddo. Only dick in a town full of beauties nigh on two decades. All of a sudden, a hot new piece of meat strolls in, stronger and younger than myself. You catch my drift?”

I nodded. “Girls, why don’t you wait outside? I’d like to talk to the gentleman alone.”  Autumn and May Belle nodded and stood back up wordlessly and headed for the door, but Daisy was a bit more hesitant to let me go, tugging at my elbow as I tried to shrug her off.

“I, uh, don’t trust him,” she whispered in my ear, but that wasn’t it. She just was unwilling to let me out of her sight. I was used to this by now. I could practically smell the abandonment issues on her.

“It’ll be fine,” I assured her, humoring her. “Now go. Time for boys' talk.”

Hesitantly, she exited, and the breeder and I were left alone.

“Name’s Bucky,” I said, extending a hand.

“Jacob Mercer,” he replied, taking it.

“So how do we deal with this?” I asked, entirely sympathetic to the situation.

“Honestly?” he grunted, “I have no fucking clue. I’ve been the community cock here for ages, but I tell ya what, I live with three girls. Maya, Esper, and Karma.”

“Okay,” I replied cautiously, trying to guess his purpose.

“Just... be careful with them, for your own good. I’ve marked them, so they’re bound to me exclusively, and touching them will mess you up. You’ll also make them feel awkward if you try to put the moves on them, so be warned. And, if you force yourself on my girls… it’ll be much worse for you than it is for them. Not a threat, by the way. That’s just how marking works.”

I winced. “I would never do that,” I said. “Don’t worry. Honestly, I’ve already got my hands full with just those three.” I gestured to the door behind us.

“You say that now,” he chuckled. “The appetite grows, my friend. It’s a bottomless pit from which there is no real escape.”

I chuckled. “I can see how that might be true,” I confessed, thinking of what I’d recently experienced. “But, sorry, what’s marking?”

He smiled warmly at last, and I relaxed a bit. “That’s a question for your catgirl. I don’t want to get into the nitty gritty myself. Now, is there anything I can do for you, or are you just poppin’ in to say howdy?”

I thumbed at my chin. I had already trained a few skills with the other people I’d met in town—skills that I thought might be immediately useful, but I still had plenty of Skill Points to burn. “You got anything that might be useful for farming or fighting?”

He seemed to think about it, but only for a fraction of a second. “You mean tools? Or what?”

“Skills, maybe? Could you train me in a skill?”

He smiled, “Matter of fact, I got just the one. Farmin’, fightin’, fuckin,’ this one’ll get you covered.”

I was obviously intrigued. “Well, let’s do it then,” I said.

Training was a weird process. It involved two people opening up their HUDs together, and then joining hands. I went through the motions, and honestly, it was a little awkward to do with Mercer. His hands were rough and dirty—he clearly didn’t live an overly privileged life despite his role as breeder. They definitely had him putting in hours on hard labor, and you could tell from the sunburnt and rough look and feel of him.

A message appeared on my HUD, hovering in front of my stats. I’d picked up a few new skills by talking to locals, and I'd upgraded several others that seemed useful. I still had 8 Skill Points remaining, just in case. I was thinking about Discovering a new skill later, maybe after we settled in. For now, though, a separate matter was at hand.

Jacob F. Mercer would like to Train you in Endure 1. Do you accept?

Ohh. That did sound good. Without a hint of hesitation I accepted the alert’s conditions and felt the new ability assimilate into my being.

“Thank you, my guy,” I said, grinning. “What does this do, exactly?”

“This will keep your stamina full much longer, but you can only use it for a couple hours a day. It is absolutely crucial for breeders in more populated areas and it’s one of the skills we all start with, but it’s useful for just about anyone.”

“I can imagine,” I said, my mouth hanging open in awe at the completion of my words. The potential of this one skill to blow my whole world wide open was plainly obvious. “Thanks again.”

“Just make sure to leave some tail for me, alright?” he said. “Worst case scenario, I suppose I can take my gals and hightail it on over to the next town in need of a breeder.”

“Hopefully it won’t come to that,” I chuckled. “It’d probably be nice to have another man around.”

He seemed to consider that. “Yeah,” he said, smirking just a little. “You just might be right about that.” But there was something else in his tired eyes that told me he wasn't considering it all too hard. I half-expected him gone by morning.

I went back out into the town and was immediately surrounded on three sides by gorgeous women. Daisy instantly attached herself to my arm again, while May Belle strolled alongside me, leaning her pretty little head against my shoulder as she hummed a tune. Autumn walked ahead of us.

“While you were bonding with the breeder, I did a bit of asking around,” she said, not looking back. She just beckoned for us to follow, so we did. “To be assigned a plot of land to farm on, we’ll need to talk to the lorekeeper and founder of Tater Town.”

“Sounds good to me. Who’s the nice lady?” I asked, slipping an arm around the waists of both of my holstaurs. Daisy flinched at my touch—just before melting against it completely. May Belle succumbed at the first instant, tightening her grip around me in kind.

“Her name is Etherea,” and then she stopped, turned to face us, and looked around before she continued, now in a shrill whisper. “She’s a knife-ear!”

My eyes went wide, and I almost gasped. “What kind of monster is that?” I asked. “Sounds freaky. Knife-ear?”

Daisy also gasped, but for an apparently different reason. “Autumn, you are incorrigible! The word is ‘elf’!”

I facepalmed. “Did you just use a derogatory word for elves in a town run by one?”

Autumn looked suddenly embarrassed. “Is 'elf' the preferred term nowadays?”

“What in the name of the gods would make you think that 'knife-ear' would be the preferred term?” May Belle asked, rolling her eyes with such force that I worried she might experience a dizzy spell.

“Well that explains why people always react badly when I say that,” she shrugged. "Life is full of learning experiences."

“Okay, okay. Let’s all agree, Autumn, never ever acknowledge anyone’s race ever again, alright?”

“Agreed,” Daisy and May Belle said in unison.

Autumn sighed. “Well, anyway, she’s in this lodge up ahead, and I assume she’s expecting us to pop in and visit sooner rather than later. So let’s go.”

“I have an idea,” I offered, “Maybe we let May Belle do the talking?”

Autumn’s head whipped back around just as she started walking toward the lodge. “What?! Are you ashamed of me?!”

“Unabashedly, yes,” I confirmed with a serious expression. “You need sensitivity training or something, and having you be my ambassador or whatever? It’s an insane notion. You call Daisy and May Belle cows. You called Scalia a serpent. You called the lore-whatever of this town a full-on slur. So, yeah, until you earn my trust, I’m firing you as my representative.”

She pouted, her shoulders slumping defeatedly. “Fine,” she whined. “May Belle, you talk.”

May Belle shook her head. “How about Bucky talks for himself? I’d rather just stay focused on snuggling up against him. That's my primary skill-set.” I laughed at that, knowing full well that she was a lot more capable than she was letting on. I remembered how quickly her instincts took over and she dispatched the fallen greenskin when I first met her, and she was certainly a charismatic girl to say the least.

“Same,” Daisy said. I looked at her in surprise to hear her chime in unprompted. “I mean—I don’t want to talk,” she said, her cheeks gone hot and red as she dodged my eyes.

“Nice recovery,” Autumn laughed. “Alright, Bucky. You’re up.”

We sauntered over to the lodge and knocked on the wooden door. Without much delay, it opened, and standing just inside was one of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen. She wore a diaphanous silvery gown that glittered temptingly as she stood in the frame of her door. Her figure was fit, but with monstrous breasts, and she hardly looked like she could be older than mid-twenties. It boggled my mind to think she was the elder and founder of this settlement.

Perhaps even paler than her silvery dress was the tone of her skin. She was a pale blue, the color of cornflowers in bloom. Her silky hair was long, moon-white, and perfectly straight. Her narrow figure straightened at her back as she took in the sight of me, jutting out her eye-catching titties. Her cerulean eyes studied me from head to toe, giving me license, I hoped, to return my own assessing gaze. She didn’t seem to mind.

“So,” she started, her voice as sweet as maple syrup, “This is the hero that we’ve all been gossiping about since last night.”

“Apex Hero,” Autumn corrected her. May Belle kicked her not-so-subtly in the back of the leg, doing her part to remind Autumn to stay quiet.

“Yeah, that’s me, I guess,” I said.

“You guess?” the elfmaid asked. “Are you or are you not?”

“I mean—I am,” I said. “And I’m looking to settle here and, uh—”

“—Start a sanctuary!” Autumn said. “We want to—OW!”

That time Daisy kicked, and much harder than May Belle by the sound of it.

“A sanctuary?” the elf asked. “What an honor to have such a big, strong, handsome Apex Hero settle in my humble village."  A pink tongue darted out, licking her narrow lips as she made eye contact with me again. “And what would be the purpose of this sanctuary?”

“Umm, I mean, giving a home to monster girls who lost their homes to the Dark Queen’s forces,” I said, scratching my neck, sweating under the heat of her horny gaze.

“And breeding the ones who need to produce children,” May Belle added, expertly reading the atmosphere. “And those who just need a good fucking.” She winked very deliberately, so much so that her entire head bobbed with it.

“Is that so?” the elfmaid asked coyly. She giggled—like music, rich and bold. “I might… know someone who would be interested.”

I grinned. This was going well. “Does that mean we have your permission to settle?”

“Yes, of course. Who am I to refuse an Apex Hero?” she shrugged. “Indeed, it would be nigh on blasphemy for me to refuse you in… any capacity.” She straight up tugged at her dress so that a supple, perky elven tit popped out, and I groaned audibly.

This time, Daisy kicked me. “Aw fuck!”

“Your kindness has been noted,” May Belle said, ignoring her sister's brutality. “And it will be repaid. Stop on by when we’re all set up—and I’m sure Bucky-Baby can make house calls from time-to-time as needed.”

“Oh,” I grunted. “Sure, anything to help out,” I said, probably blushing.

“Mmmm,” she moaned. “You’ll be a great help indeed. Take the plot just south of the town. You’ll know it when you see it—it’s flat and overrun with rushes and tall grass. It’s a field fit for a farm or, as you call it, a sanctuary.”

I nodded. “Thank you, miss, umm—”

“Etherea,” she reiterated. “Just call me Etherea.”

“Thank you Etherea,” I said, and I waved and turned my back. I took a few steps toward the south and my entourage of beautiful monster girls followed with me until, suddenly, I turned on my heel, raising my finger in an inquisitive gesture, just wanting to be sure of something.

“We’re going to fuck later, right? That’s the vibe I was getting.”

“Oh we’re super gonna fuck,” she nodded, her eyes wide and hungry as she grinned at me.

“Sweet,” I grinned, nodding serenely. “This town is awesome.”

***

I looked out at the flat plane of land that had been generously allotted to me—it was quite a bit more than I could reasonably ever expect to use. If I had to estimate the size, I’d put it somewhere around five or six acres. If I were back on Earth, that might not be a lot, certainly not enough for a commercial farm with modern machinery, but out here, damn, it was a hell of a lot of space for just the four of us.

Still, looking at it for the first time, it hit me just how much work it would entail. The grass was tall, weed-ridden, and untended, to start, and I didn’t have an abundance of tools to work with at the moment—though I’m sure that would soon be remedied with the help of some of the incredible ladies in town.

Also, the plot was still half a mile from the local river, though there was a well already on the property from a previous attempt at cultivating the land, but routing irrigation to my crops would be necessary—thankfully, farms nearby had already done much of the groundwork, and I became aware of a series of dug canals that I, too, could likely make use of with a bit of effort and ingenuity.

But the duties of a farmer were numerous, far beyond digging trenches to the local water source. I needed to till the land, develop a composting system, build a house and a barn, come up with a storage solution for harvested crops, fence in whatever animals I ended up raising and provide for them each day, and more. And, although I’d spent loads of time on YouTube watching videos on these topics in the past, I had no actual experience running a farm, other than playing Harvest Moon and Stardew Valley in the days of my youth.

Thankfully, I wasn’t alone, and I had super powers to help me along. I knew that, for all her whining, Autumn would be a great help if she thought it would get me closer to her goal of establishing me as a local hero and leveling me up. May Belle would do whatever she was asked, I was sure, and even Daisy seemed thankful to just have a place to call our own.

“It’s beautiful,” she said with misty eyes, surveying the greenery of the land that was now ours.

“It’s going to be a pain in the ass, you know,” Autumn added, looking at me. “It would be way easier to just run off and go questing right away.”

I shook my head firmly. “And what would become of May Belle and Daisy?” I pointed out. “Are you suggesting I drag them into dangerous combat situations?”

“Well, no, I mean—”

“Didn’t think that through, did ya?” May Belle giggled.

I could see by the dumb look on the catgirl’s face that it was true. “It’s a fair point, but honestly, you could just leave them here in Tater Town. You're not a breeder, after all. You don't need them around you all the time, though they do provide benefits.”

“You mean he should abandon us?!” Daisy gasped at the suggestion.

“The town is safe for the most part,” Autumn said, looking away from Daisy's worried face. “It wouldn’t be so bad.”

“I thought we were under your protection,” May Belle pouted at me.

“You are,” I said. “Don’t listen to her. Even the gods suggested we take our time to build relationships with the people, first, so that's what I'm doing. I’m not leaving you. No one is running off on dangerous quests until we get this farm up and running, and by the looks of things, that could be a while. Plus, I need all of you for XP,” I winked.

“I would be enough, technically,” Autumn shamelessly suggested with a shrug.

“You greedy bitch,” May Belle growled at her.

“But even if you promise not to leave us forever,” Daisy started, looking nervous, “once the farm is all set up… are you going to run off on adventures and make us stay here... waiting for you?”

“He has a duty to Lusteria,” Autumn pointed out, huffing in irritation as she crossed her arms. “That supersedes your neediness and dependency issues.”

“My duty is to the people I care about,” I said. “If I can use my powers to help out the town from time to time, then that’s a good place to start, but I have no intention of abandoning anyone.”

Autumn furrowed her brow and curled her lip outward in a pout. “Fine,” she said. “If you won’t heed the call of adventure, then wait for adventure to come to you. It’ll put more people at risk, but if that’s the way you want to do it—”

“What are you talking about?” I said, interrupting her with a sigh and a scowl.

“If you aren’t proactive in taking care of regional threats, then those threats will come to us eventually. It’s as simple as that. This town is already apparently enduring raids from General Darkmaw, and news of your arrival will certainly be of interest to others. It may be weeks or months before they make a move, but it will happen eventually, and blood will be on your hands if anyone dies in their next assault. If you’re comfortable with that, then so am I.”

I frowned at her. “You know full well I’m not comfortable with that,” I said.

“Then you know what you have to do.”

“No, I don’t.” I was practically seething at the coldness of her tone.

“There are greenskin camps nearby, a troll guarding the bridge that leads to this town, and apparently a pack of Great Wolf shifters making raids on the town, whittling away at its supply of mutton and wool.” She looked at me, an impatient gleam in her eye as she sighed. “Do I really need to spell it out for you?”

“I guess not,” I said, reflecting that sigh right back at her. “You’re saying I need to take care of the threats—”

“—Before they take care of our new friends.” Her hand was pointing in the direction of Tater Town. Smoke plumed from the chimneys of the nearest houses. It struck me as so insanely wrong that anything violent could befall such a peaceful place.

“What are you suggesting exactly?” Daisy said, shaking with nerves. “Please, don’t leave us, Bucky.”

I looked at her, my guts twisting at the sight of her discontent. “Never,” I said. “If I ever leave, it’ll only be for as long as I need to complete a mission, and then I’ll be right back.”

“The nearest greenskin camp is probably less than two days away on foot, but on the back of a blue dragon-steed? Try half a day,” Autumn beamed. “He’ll be here and back before a single sun is spent.”

“Am I ready for that?” I asked. “A whole camp? By myself, I take it?”

“You will be when I’m through with you,” she said, grabbing me by the collar seductively. Then she took a whiff. “We really need to get you a bath and a new pair of clothes, though.”

“Some armor would be good, too,” May Belle giggled, pulling on the sleeve of my tattered dirt and blood-caked uniform.

“You’re fine with this, May Belle?” Daisy gasped. “He’s going to leave us!”

“He’ll be back,” she smiled at me, not even looking at her distraught sister. “We can trust him.”

“I know, but—”

“We can trust him,” she reaffirmed, this time smiling at Daisy.

Autumn turned to them. “Girls, let me be candid. Bucky, can you go over there for a minute?”

“Bucky stays here,” Daisy said. “I’m… I don't think it's a good idea for us to be apart from him, that's all.” She blushed, and looked away from me, refusing to make eye contact with the sweet admission. "It's not like I like you or anything, it's just that you make me feel... safe."

“It's literally like ten paces away, but fine,” Autumn said, clearly exasperated. “May Belle, Daisy, Bucky’s the one. He’s the only true hero I've ever encountered with a suitable Umbercore. He also has the true making of a hero in his heart. You saw how fast he left to try and save that poor girl earlier. She was probably dead by the time he ran out the door, but he threw himself at danger without thinking just at the off-chance that he could rescue one little satyr.”

Daisy scoffed. “We know,” she said. “We’ve known since we met him. He’s reckless—”

“That’s not the point,” Autumn went on, shaking her head. “Bucky is selfless, not reckless. He may protest and play at being lazy, but there’s nothing more natural to him than inserting himself between danger and an innocent victim. This is his calling. This is why I brought him here.”

“So what are you trying to say?” May Belle asked, cocking her head like a confused puppy.

“It would be wrong to keep him to yourself. The world needs him, and I don’t say this lightly. He’s the genuine article. The other six Heroes Foretold are warriors, gladiators, and killers, through and through—I saw them myself.” She looked at me and groaned a bit, making me shift uneasily as she appraised me. “Bucky is not any of those things—but he is the only true hero of the bunch. We all have a duty to let Bucky be Bucky.”

“Let Bucky be Bucky,” May Belle repeated, nipping playfully at my shoulder as she stood on her tiptoes. “I wouldn’t want him to be anything else. She leaned against me and pulled me down to kiss me on the cheek. “And you’re right, of course. He saved our lives within five minutes of arriving in Lusteria. He heard a scream and ran straight to it, unarmed.” She beamed up at me.

“Well, he had a stick,” Daisy corrected her, her lips curling in a grin as she recalled the events of our meeting.

I felt my cheeks burning with all the attention and unfiltered praise. “You honestly have me all wrong,” I said. “I’m no hero—”

“That satyr girl ran through the door, and before she’d even finished explaining the situation you were rushing out to save the day,” Autumn interrupted me, cocking an eyebrow and resting her hands on her hips to show her skepticism of my claim. "How is that not heroic?"

I tugged at my collar. “Well, that’s—”

“That’s because you’re you,” she said. “Accept it. That is not what normal people do. Normal people don’t volunteer to fight Great Wolves without a single thought to the risks. The only weapon you had was a secondhand axe. Only heroes are like that. End of story.”

“Well,” I started, “to be honest, right now all I want to do is build us a home. I’m not leaving for even a day if May Belle, Dasy, and you don’t have a place to stay while I’m gone.”

Autumn nodded, grinning as she realized she’d won the argument. “That’s fine. We can start with a single-room cabin and expand from there if needed, however far down the line that may be.”

We got started right away. Once we’d procured a few shovels from the local bunny blacksmith, we got to work digging a place for the foundation for the cabin. That took the rest of first day all on its own.

After that, with the use of my powers, getting the logs needed for the construction was easy. Our land was mercifully close to a thicket of cedar-like trees that were tall and of similar breadth and diameter. I felled about sixty trees in three hours using my Endurance 1 ability as well in combination with Cleave 3, a pair of skills that had a surprising amount of synergistic utility for lumberjacking.

After that it was just a matter of stripping the branches and leaving behind a smooth log, which the girls were able to help with, cutting down the amount of time spent considerably.

Then we had to improvise a chinking solution, something that we could put between the logs as we stacked them, making the structure airtight and keeping the elements out. We managed to procure a good amount of clay from the riverside, transporting it up in yokes that Blue shuttled from the bay to the construction site for us, again and again. That task was left to Daisy and May Belle, and they worked well together gathering the clay and filling the yoke’s buckets for my dragon-steed.

Meanwhile, Autumn and I were left to actually build the cabin. It was a grueling, sweat inducing project that took the better part of four days, but the weather cooperated the whole time, raining only at night by sheer dumb luck. On the second night, though, the rain compromised the integrity of our clay-based chinking on some of the fresher logs, as it hadn’t yet dried completely, and we had to redo a portion of the previous day’s work all over again.

That sort of hiccup was to be expected, though, and in the end we were still left with a completed, though extremely humble, one-room cabin.

It was… primitive. A fireplace constructed from brick provided to us by the townsfolk sat alongside one wall, exiting through a chimney that billowed smoke through a chimney in the southern wall of the house. The floor was earthen, made of flat-faced stones placed into the ground to create something like a tiled floor. We then filled in the cracks between the stones with a solution made mostly of clay and sand. There were windows, but for now they were sealed tightly with leather curtains, gifted to us by Vale the tanner—the mother of the satyr I tried and failed to save.

The mood in the town during the time it took for us to build our cabin was dark. People were mourning Silver Moon, and I was hesitant to show my face around town during those days because it felt so disruptive. Not one person blamed me for what happened, but it didn't make the loss any easier on Heather and her family. Other people in the town were also gloomily affected by it, and it dominated their hushed conversations for days afterward. Each time I heard the girl's name muttered, I took it personally on some level, even though to them it wasn't about me. They were way too kind.

"We're just so happy you tried," Vale said. "We need an alarm system. It's no one's fault but the wolves'. Don't you forget that."

The best thing I could do to drown out those unhappy thoughts was to focus on the job in front of me. And within a short amount of time, the cabin was finished and furnished, at least to an extent.

“It ain’t much,” I said, surveying it, “But it’s something, at least.”

“We can expand on it with time,” Autumn said, leaning against my shoulder in a rare display of something like affection. “You did well, Bucky Drake. The Sanctuary can open.”

“There’s still a lot of work to be done,” I said, scanning the overgrown field. “Tilling, planting, composting, harvesting, getting animals, seeds…”

“One day at a time, Bucky-Baby,” May Belle cooed, standing on my boots on tiptoes to kiss me on the cheek.

I nodded, smiling in spite of the daunting tasks still ahead of me. “Right. One day at a time.”

As I said that though, I squinted, a figure appearing on the horizon, silhouetted against the setting of the sun.

“Who’s that?” Daisy pointed, seeing what I was seeing, looping her arm around mine with obvious trepidation. I always felt a bit of triumph whenever she touched me like that, no matter what emotion was behind it.

I shrugged at her question, though, as the person, whoever they were, continued to lurch closer to us. The figure was decidedly feminine—no surprise in these lands, admittedly. I watched patiently, raising a hand to wave at her, though I began to grow more and more concerned. The mysterious shadow limped painstakingly in our direction… until she collapsed.