Chương 64: Decompressing Squirt

Dismounting, she nodded to Tobias as she approached. Tobias stood over Jul, keeping a watchful eye out. Pity had replaced the aggressive anger in his eyes. Squirt didn't care. Marching forward, she thrust the two bags at Jul.

"Here." Tears sprang anew in Jul's eyes, and her shoulders hunched. She bared her teeth in a grimace of frustration at his emotions. She couldn't fucking comfort, she just wanted it to stop. Jul's hands trembled as they reached out to take the bags, first covering her hand with both of his, bowing his head, and whispering out the hateful, magic words.

"Thank you, huntress." Disgust for the words and the magic that settled between them wrinkled her nose and deepened her glare, but she held her tongue as his hands slipped down to the leather bags. He carefully opened them to check each one, then dropped his head and cried. Gods damnit, couldn't he be done yet? Squirt could feel Tobias's eyes on her, waiting to see what she would do. She huffed, scowling at the ground and just wanting his tears to stop.

"… come on. Mole, follow." Jul's eyes lifted to her, and she glared harder, daring him to question her. Wisely, he did not, simply scooping up the heads and following along after her in a stumbling, weeping, yet determined daze. She led him just north of the clearing through the trees, pausing to grab out some feystones. At an excited yip from Pakos, she sacrificed a few to his hunger and muttered, "If you are going to get eaten by the beast, stay here."

He chuffed, sending her confident reassurance that he'd be quite safe. She scowled, then pulled out the small, thin blade to get some blood on the stones, turning to the fata—who had finally stopped crying—and saying, "Give me your hand." He did, his eyes looking up to the clearing ahead as he said, "But huntress, this is—" She snapped, "I know where this is," as she sliced down his wrist to get some blood from him, then turned to Tobias. Tobias considered her before saying quietly, "I'll watch from here."

Glaring at him in annoyance, she gave Mole the command to stay, said, "Come on, Jul," and marched into the clearing. As always, at the center of it, she kneeled and presented the offering of stones. Jul hesitated just long enough for her to shoot him a glare and point to the spot next to her. He obeyed and slowly lowered himself to his knees just as the diamond crane stepped forward.

They bowed their heads, staying still while the crane considered and then consumed the offering, calling out a challenge for dominance before then preening their hair. It stepped away to patrol, and Squirt stood, stalking over to the base of the earth tree, pulling out her trowel and beginning to carefully dig around the roots into the soil, making sure each scoop was as neat and orderly as the dirt. For a little while, Jul simply watched in a daze.

She made quick work of the soft soil, using her hands for some of it to ensure she dug without harming the twisted roots at the base of the tree. Just a touch of energy returned to Jul's body, and he stood, staggering over to watch. Squirt didn't dig down too far, perhaps a couple of feet, just enough to uncover the deeper roots. Seemingly pleased, she set the trowel aside and gestured to Jul.

He stared at her uncomprehendingly for several seconds, watching her grow frustrated enough to growl before he handed her one of the bags. She took out the head, her hands surprisingly respectful as she cradled it, placing it between two roots on one side, then repeating the act with the other. She didn't meet his eyes as she held out the trowel with a scowl.

"Here. Take this. This way the animals won't pick at them, and they'll give life back to the forest. Keep it all nice and neat and stay as long as you need." He didn't immediately take it from her, and after a moment of hesitation, she jerkily twitched her face in his direction to check why. He was staring at her as the tears flowed freely down his face in a way that sent shivers of discomfort down her spine. She snapped, "What?" He smiled. Genuinely, truly smiled at her.

"I just… never realized how kind you are." She snarled, "I'm not being kind, I'm being pragmatic. Clearly, you need to grieve, and I refuse to babysit you all night to defend you from beasts. This way I don't have to." His smile softened, if it were possible. Furious at him now deliberately misunderstanding her, she shoved the trowel into his hands, snarled, "I want this back tomorrow, understand?" Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.

"Yes, huntress."

"Good," she stood, remaining terse and deeply uncomfortable.

"And you're not a fucking traitor no matter how much you cry, so you better be back for training tomorrow." He chuckled, the sound not quite as empty as before, sniffling as he nodded. She turned to leave before abruptly coming to a halt.

"… do you have your sleeping gear?"

"Ah… no…" She stomped over to Tobias.

"Tobias, do you have a sleeping roll?" Tobias gave her a thoughtful look.

"I do."

"Can you lend him it for the night?"

"… why?" he asked quietly. Naturally, she bristled. But much like when he had first started trying to befriend her, there was a natural genuineness to his question that made her pause. Studying it, Squirt's fury eased to general prickliness as she said flatly, "He has been many things. Rude. Arrogant. Annoying. But the one thing he's never been to me is intentionally cruel. I don't have so many allies to get rid of one so easily, and you don't let dead stay to say."

It was an old proverb, based on a tale of a necromancer who would bring people's loved ones back to the realm of the living with instructions of how to send them back when the living had finished saying their goodbyes. Everyone who failed to return their loved ones to their resting grounds faced greater tragedy and heartache because they let the dead stay to have a say in the lives of the living. For a long while, Tobias simply considered what she said while leaning against a tree, his arms crossed.

His attention wandered from Squirt, his gaze unfocused and moving aimlessly around them and the greater forest beyond. She wasn't in a rush, and separated from Jul, in the privacy of the forest where only Tobias could see her, she slowly relaxed. Allowing him to think gave her time to decompress. Gods, she was tired, and it was barely midday. Others were far too much effort. The wolves were crawling under her skin in a way Stalf had never been able to.

Not for his lack of trying, it was just that Stalf never really asked questions. It didn't matter to him, and it didn't matter to her, either, because while he annoyed the shit out of her and they'd never had a deep, meaningful conversation, he was the only person in the world that she trusted with her life implicitly. Or he had been. Until the pack. It scared her. The fear was mild. Not the all-encompassing panic she was used to, but certainly there.

The fear that she would lose them, either through betrayal or death, after they'd become such big parts of her life. It'd only been a few months, after all. And in that moment, she realized it was an okay fear to have. It wasn't crippling. It existed. It was just drowned out by a wash of hope and affection, enough of it that she had relaxed, beginning to decompress after the stress of the last hour. Reveling in the simplicity of it. She wasn't alone, anymore. Tobias finally broke the silence with a quiet, "Never?"

Squirt blinked, coming out of her own thoughts of planning out what to do with the rest of her day today, dazedly trying to remember the context to answer the question.

"Oh. No. Even in the first week, he'd made assumptions about me being pathetic, yes, but rather than treat me as a waste of space, he told me to keep close if the feybeasts attacked and he'd keep me safe. I wanted to stab him, yes. But no more than I've wanted to stab you." The corner of Tobias's lip quirked up in a small smile.

"… okay, Braveheart. I'll let him borrow my gear. Stove, too, and rations. And I'll sort out the other hunters while you're out." She nodded, relaxing. Tobias considered something before saying quietly, "You should consider taking him with you. Along with Cirn and Zakam. He'll have a unique advantage acting as a regular guard instead of a hunter because he'll have the hunter knowledge. Something the other two lack." She bit her bottom lip.

"Ala'ole won't like that." He shrugged.

"Vakiex will, and Ala'ole will like that." Squirt blinked. He grinned.

"Oh yeah." Good. Maybe they'd stop teasing her about one damn kiss— She was obviously ignoring the fact that it was, in fact, two. She held out her hands and he passed her his bag.

"It's in there."

"Obviously," she muttered as she trotted back into the clearing. Already, Jul was looking better. The tears were clearly slowing. Good. Thrusting the dimensional bag into his hold, she muttered, "It's Tobias's. It's got a bed and stove and stuff." She shifted from foot to foot before muttering in an even darker tone, "Take however long you need." Then, without another word, she trotted off into the forest to go on a much, much longer loop on Mole for the next few days without a single other person to bother her.

Thank the fucking gods. Over the next week, Squirt spent as much of it alone as she could. With Mole by her side, she was able to go much farther distances, and with Pakos she never failed to find an earth tree by sunset. Every morning she'd set the self-stirring drying stoves to run. She had collected and gathered more materials from the further Wylds to replace old or craft new items and always had more things that needed to be processed.

While they were running, she spent a few hours on her bows and sword, breaking to top up the feystones on the devices or do whatever next step in the process needed to be done, before stopping for lunch. She'd pack, hunt while traveling, and then repeat the morning practice after dark in the earth tree clearing. Every time she fed Pakos, he got a little bigger, and by this point he was already as tall as her hip at the shoulder, running alongside her and Mole instead of hitching a ride.

Their bond was growing stronger, able to pass more information to each other more readily, the time with just them helping to cement it. She had returned for her five-day check-in, but when she got to the clearing, Tobias waved her off and told her, "Nah, I've got it. We're getting new hunter trainees, and we're going to build a barracks to replace the tents. Trainees tent. Hunters get the barracks." She scowled, hissing out, "This clearing is not meant for this many—""Easy, Braveheart.

It'll be mostly underground, which will keep the temperature a little more even in the winter." He paused awkwardly.

"Telos says she can manipulate the earth tree roots to help reinforce the walls, which we believe will help hide the fey that sleep there. And a magis patented a design to keep it from flooding, so Telos is going to use that, build it right under where the tents are." Squirt narrowed her eyes at the odd expression in the wolf's eyes but chose not to comment. She ignored the genuine urge to stab Telos if he broke Tobias's heart, because that would be stupid. She didn't care.

He continued more confidently, returning to a smile instead of that awkward pinched look and easing the tension in her shoulders.

"You had a point that traipsing to and from the castle was inefficient, and all four of our Capital hunters agreed the surges were manageable here with the wards in place. It makes more sense for hunters to be out here." She gave him a piteous look as she mumbled, "I'm never getting that peaceful private clearing back, am I?" He chuckled.

"Nope. Not a chance, Braveheart. Now go back to the forest where you're happy and I'll see you in two days by the roadside turnoff an hour before sunset. We'll get your fittings done for final adjustments, and you'll set off the next morning." She could have kissed him. Instead, her eyes lit up as she turned Mole around then kicked him into a fast run back into freedom and solitude.