The Heart Grows

"What about Felna?" Tammy asked. At the same time, she inspected her mug and tried to find out how it had gotten so low so fast.

Ogmera screwed her face up at that. "She has a type, and I wasn't it. Also, I guess I kinda have a type too." No no no, Ogmera said internally, not wanting to stray back into talking about him. "What about you two? Any guys you're hunting?"

"If I was hunting guys, you can bet I would have already bagged them." Anichka made a gesture akin to sighting down a rifle. "Wrong species, though."

Blinking at that, Ogmera took way too long to catch on to the meaning, then laughed. "That's fair. I prefer guys." She stuck her little finger out and waggled it, grinning at the laughter of Anichka and Tammy. "Why do things become so complicated?"

"It'd be easier," Tammy mused, "if you didn't have to mess with all the love bit. Find someone you can put up with for an evening, get everything out of your system, still be friends the next day and not have to worry about it."

"Yes!" Ogmera closed her eyes and leaned back to balance on the back legs of her chair. "But… Ugh." Rocking forward again, she dropped the chair back onto all four legs. "I always wanted a tavern for myself. My family had one, and I loved growing up with all the people around that would come and go. At first, I planned this so him and me could go into it together, but then he—" She slumped in her seat. "He left for… some other city."

"There's a flip side to that." Taking a fresh mug from the barkeep, who'd brought them over more drinks, Anichka took a sip before delivering the revelation. "You don't have to see him walking around."

"I'll drink to that," Ogmera said, draining a good half of her fresh mug. With that decided, she hoped, Ogmera judged it time to move on conversationally. "Want to know the real truth about why I'm giving up on adventuring?"

The way she'd said it made Anichka think it was some kind of conspiracy. That Ogmera was slurring a little ruined the effect a little. "Surrrrre. I'll bite."

"The more I talked to Travis, his people, and now Breeze's folks—I don't think I could go into a hostile dungeon and fight them. They're people, ya know? Kobolds, dragon warriors, dragons, wyverns— Ugh. The wyverns! Did you know Travis' wyverns are basically big puppies? Once they know you're meant to be there, they just want attention and…" She took another drink.

Nodding her head, Anichka sobered a little at the implications. "I've killed a lot of people. Most of them were doing their best to kill me, but I'm a soldier. The best I can manage is finding people who will use us"—she nodded to Tammy—"to protect more lives than we'll take."

"The Baron is such a man?" Ogmera asked, morbidly curious at the turn the conversation took.

Tammy found herself nodding. "Yeah. He is. Remember, when he was charged with protecting the city and ensuring no dungeons gained a strong foothold—he trusted a bunch of kobolds. He treated them like people before it was the law around here."

"And the King," Anichka added. "Time an' again he put us somewhere we could do the most damage with the least deaths."

"I don't know if I could do that. I trust my party. They're friends and professionals. But…" Ogmera drained her drink and turned to look at her barkeep.

The mugs would have piled up, except Anichka was keen eyed enough to notice the barkeep kept removing the empty ones. Along with the others, she'd been forced to get up and deal with the consequences of a night drinking ale. The last time (and she assured herself it was the last time) had required significant effort to keep her balance.

Returning to the taproom, Anichka saw Tammy and Ogmera leaning against each other, laughing at something she'd missed. "C-Come on. We gotta go or we'll never make it outta here."

Tammy tried to stand up only to have Ogmera start to slide dangerously toward the ground. "I can't," she said, clinging to their benefactor. "If I move, she'll fall down!"

Ogmera looked up at the pair and blinked owlishly. Shaking her head a little, seemingly trying to regain use of what remained of her faculties, she did her best to say, "You can't get home like this. There're spare rooms upstairs." Of course, given she was fall-down drunk, it came out far less coherent.

"See!" Tammy had to reposition herself to keep Ogmera from falling. "Help me out, Annie. We'll stuff her in a room and then walk home."

Anichka felt unsteady enough on her feet, but her two seemed better by far than Ogmera and Tammy's combined four. She looked over at the barkeep, who was cleaning up, and nodded to her. "Dammit, Tam." She insinuated herself between the pair, supporting both, and aimed the three of them at the stairs.

The stairs weren't easy to navigate. Six legs, side by side, and only two of them seemed capable of supporting their owner. Reaching the top, she looked left and right through the haze in her mind. The alcohol, it didn't take much for her to realize, was coming on slower—but now it was here and she wondered if she would make it to a room before she passed out completely.

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Shaking her head, that was the last thing Anichka remembered of the previous night. Cracking one eye open a sliver resulted in her perceiving more of the world than she wanted to, so she closed it again. "Am I alone?" The words were far too loud, even as quiet as she spoke them. There wasn't any answer, so she sought to explore her environment.

"Wha—?"

Now sure she wasn't alone, Anichka pulled her hand back—but not before feeling skin. "Ogmera?"

"Maybe in an hour or two. Right now I'm just—" Ogmera's words cut off. "Anichka?"

There wasn't much else to use in Anichka's condition but brutal honesty. It wasn't so much she wasn't capable of using tact, normally, but right now she couldn't swing that much social care. "Yeah. Uh, do you remember what happened?"

"I remember dinner and having a few beers. Talking about…" Ogmera was quiet for a moment. "I don't even remember much of that."

"I do."

Anichka froze in place and, despite the way the room spun, she leaned up on her elbows and looked over Ogmera to see Tammy on the other side of the bed, her muzzle pulled into a smug smile. Slumping back on the bed and closing her eyes, she said, "I'll wake up and be on my own again, right?"

The turn of the conversation triggered Anichka to do a sanity check. She was in bed, she had (after a little movement to check) most of her clothes on, and not only was her best friend in there with her, but also a woman who she only barely knew. All told, it could have been worse. "At least my pants are still on—"

"I'm naked," Tammy said and, after a gasp from Ogmera, she added, "and so is Ogmera. Want to know what we got up to?" When silence was her answer, Tammy sighed. "Annie, none of us did anything. Ogmera—"

"Can you call me Mer?"

Clearing her throat, Tammy started over. "We were both drunk enough to do stupid stuff, but Mer passed out before we could and you were long asleep." Propped up as she was now, Tammy noticed that both the other occupants of the bed were looking at her. Anichka looked, if Tammy was any judge of her lifelong friend, nervous. Ogmera looked curious with maybe a touch of horniness. "If you'd like to try it without the drinking, I wouldn't say no."

"'Kay," Ogmera said, her mind and libido having gotten captured by her vision filling with Tammy's chest. It took her one moment to realize she'd just agreed to a date and maybe more, then another moment to add the knowledge it didn't bother her as much as it would have the day before.

Anichka lay there as Ogmera climbed out of the bed, trying to ignore her own interest in the woman. A moment later it was just her and Tammy in the bed. "Tam?"

"I love how big this bed is." Tammy slid closer to Anichka. "What's up, Annie?"

It felt a little like a tipping moment to Anichka. She could smile, say "nothing" and get out of the bed and they'd continue as they'd always had, though perhaps with Ogmera and Tammy spending some time together. Or, she could say, "Maybe we could try being more?"

Snuggling up to Anichka's side, Tammy cuddled her. "We'll see if it works. Remember the idea from last night—just having friends who we can have a quick roll in the hay with?"

Anichka batted at Tammy's ears. "I don't remember anything from last night."

Though his legs burned, Dag kept jogging across the snow. "She got caught, Egil."

Having gotten caught looking behind them again, Egil cursed and spat into the snow. "When we get back, we'll raise a bonfire for her. We wouldn't have gotten away if she hadn't drawn them down on her."

"And we'll have to tell her story to her family." Sucking in air and forcing it back out, Dag wouldn't falter from the blistering pace they set over the snow.

"Her family are wolves."

"Yeah. That's why it's twice as important to get back fast. The Warmaster will need all our information, but I have to honor Frida first."

Egil wouldn't want to be the one to tell a family their daughter had been left to die in the South. "Yer a brave man, Dag."

The fast march continued. It took them the better part of two weeks to cross the mountain pass and reach the southernmost outpost of their people. Furnished with sleds and a pack of dogs to pull them, they made quick time back to the central city of the North: Ribe. Entering the south gates, they picked up an escort of two local fighters.

"Egil, you take the reports to the Warmaster. I'll find Frida's family and let them know." Reaching into his vest, he pulled out the maps and notes he'd made and paused at the sight of the remaining two satchels. One was Frida's own and one was his copy of them. Making a decision, he took his copies out and added them to his own original notes.

Standing straighter, Egil saluted. "Go well," he said.

"Frida Gertrudesdottir's family. They're here at the Warmaster's behest. Where can I find them?" Dag asked one of the fighters before they left.

"If they're one of the clans come in for the war, they'll be north of the city."

With a nod for thanks, Dag took off at a jog, filtering through the city's busy streets. The Northern city stank more than usual, but he took that as a matter of course.

Leaving out the north gate, he saw the huge encampment spread out before him. Longhouses built from rough-hewn timber stood low and resisted the weight of the snow clinging to the sharp slopes of their roofs. He asked around, eventually finding the one belonging to Frida's family.

Advancing on the indicated longhouse, he stood out front where several of their people saw him—and waited. It was an old tradition. Barging into someone's hall and delivering bad news without allowing them time to prepare was a poor way for a guest to behave. Consequently, anyone waiting outside your longhouse was bound to be delivering bad news—and you were to prepare yourself for the grim reality of life in the North.

A tall woman opened the door. She narrowed her eyes at the hard expression on Dag's face. "A raven. That means you're here with bad news about Frida. Come in and be welcome at my fire. Did she die well?"

"She held off a pack of Southern wolves so we could return north with our report for the Warmaster. She died fighting." Dag could see by the savage look that took over the woman's face, that the news was far better received than he had any reason to hope. "Her notes. The originals. I copied them for delivery to the Warmaster. These were written by her hand." It felt right to give her the originals. It wouldn't matter to the Warmaster that he got copies, but it would to Frida's mother.

Despite her grief at losing her daughter, and even the joy she felt to hear the girl had died defending her fellows and completing her mission, Gertrude could see some advantage to having the same information her Warmaster did. "Tell me more of the last days of her life. Leave nothing from your account."

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This story is released under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license. If you are paying money to see this or the original creator, Damaged, is not credited, you are viewing a plagiarized copy of the story.