FSE

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As the cart drew closer to the town, everything seemed more and more civilized. Log cabins and wooden huts of all different shapes and sizes dotted the road with greater and greater frequency. The forest grew less dense, with un-removed tree stumps scattered about. Paths splintered off from the main road and wound off into the forest.

Reya had heard about stone buildings, but she didn't see any yet. She could never imagine how those things were constructed. According to Gither, people would use all kinds of strange tools and techniques to move the large blocks of stone around. Artaaga could maybe lift things like that, but Reya doubted that bears were the only ones who were hired to build buildings.

As the structures grew denser, Reya began to see the first people, other than Torren, Aris, and Walaski, that she'd seen in three days. A family of geese played outside one house. Two antelopes raced past the cart at breakneck speed. Reya grinned. She'd love to race Torren like that.

With a sudden bounce of the cart and a change from the constant vibration to periodic bumps, the gravel path transitioned into a sturdy cobblestone one. Reya peered over the edge. The stones were placed close together and had a distinct pattern, unlike the gravel path where stones of every imaginable size scattered the road with no sense of order.

'Hey!' Torren waved his paws to catch Reya's attention. 'Look up ahead!' He scampered up onto one of the boxes to get a better view. Reya, after a second of struggling, joined him. They couldn't see past the wall of buildings on either side of them, but the path continued off into the distance with the buildings shoved together side-by-side. Everything had its place. There were small three foot high structures built for rodents and huge fifteen foot tall structures built for equines, primates, or other large people.

She also started to see stone buildings. Many rodent houses were carved out of stone with wooden supplements and supports. Reya guessed that stone was easier to maintain on a small scale than wood was.

By that point there were people everywhere. Walaski cut a swath through a growing crowd of people. They weren't stuffed shoulder to shoulder in the streets like Reya had guessed that they'd be, but there were still a number of different animals of every shape and size going in any given direction.

Walaski and Aris were talking the whole way. Reya couldn't hear them through the commotion.

"This is incredible!" she whispered to Torren like it was some great secret.

'I guess it is,' Torren signed absentmindedly.

"You guess? What do you mean?"

He smiled. 'I'll have to show you a big city sometime. There are great towers and keeps of stone... They're an incredible sight.'

"I can imagine. Maybe when all this stuff is over with, you know? I guess there's nothing holding me here with Gither gone."

Walaski pulled the cart off of the main road and twisted and turned through several winding roads before he eventually came to a stop in front of a particularly large stone building.

"What is this place?" Reya asked quietly.

'It looks like a prison to me. Guess this is Talip's stop.'

Reya gingerly dropped herself down onto the cobbled pathway. The stones felt cool and sturdy even through the wrappings over her paws. Torren looked nervous at first. He reached out a paw halfway to stop her, but he pulled it back after a moment and she managed to make it down without any complaint.

Aris was walking towards her. "Oh! I was going to set something out for you to step on."

"I'm fine, don't worry!" Reya tried to look thankful. "So what is this place?"

"This is the Lenwick Rangers' Headquarters!" the beagle yipped. He shifted his eyes around before leaning in to whisper, "I'm not sure why they chose this place. It's an ugly monstrosity if you ask me."

Reya giggled. It was pretty ugly. The dark stone building looked derelict and foreboding. It was at least as tall again as some of the structures next to it. It gave off the impression that it was plucked from some other place, and not actually meant to be there. It was disproportionately tall and seemed very thin to be such an important structure. Reya wondered if the rangers were really unable to find someplace that had more space.

"You guys'll have sleeping room in there. It won't be much, but it should do," he continued, "Walaski has his own accommodations with his guild. Umm... Anything else I'm forgetting?"

"What about food?"

"Well, you're free to pick something up in town or come back here. If Melly's still here, she'll probably be able to feed us all. You can eat meat, right? Not just fish?"

"Yup! Are you staying too?"

"Mhm," Aris responded, nodding, "They won't pay for any lodging unless the place gets full. I don't think that happens a lot in out-of-the-way towns like this. Anyway, she's a badger. She'll have some good meat ready; I'll tell her to avoid worms and stuff for tonight."

Reya wrinkled her nose. "I'll never know how they do it! Worms are just so... wriggly!"

"And I don't get how you people can stomach a living thing!" Walaski interjected.

She chuckled, "I'm just joking. I get it. People have different diets."

"Anyway, to be honest, there's... eh... not exactly that much to do here. This's a lot smaller than Fenbury," Aris said.

"Really? But there are so many houses! You literally couldn't see a tree from the main road either way you looked!" "Well, we were pretty close to the center of town. It's only about a five to ten minute walk to get back to the forest from the dead center of Lenwick. It could take half an hour to find your way out of Fenbury!"

"So, um, before we leave, what exactly is there to do around here? You sound like you know this place pretty well, Aris." She glanced at Walaski, "Oh! Well you're probably the expert on this!"

The horse gave a deep throaty laugh. "I'm off traveling more often than I'm actually here, but yeah, me 'n Lenwick are pretty close. There's not much to do, really. There're some stalls in the town square with food and trinkets. Some gallows and a pretty lookin' fountain in the same area. Can't say there's really much else though."

"Oh," Reya sighed, "how long are we going to be here?"

Aris laughed, "just two days! I've got to ship some of this stuff off at the port and then get the cart ready for some actual travel."

"Why don't we just go by boat?"

"Well, um, it's a bit expensive," the beagle said sheepishly, "I don't think the Rangers would fund us. I'm mostly sending off farmed goods from your home town."

Reya nodded. "You ready to carry me around, Torren?"

Torren jumped down next to her, a small satchel hanging from his neck. He rolled his eyes. 'Of course. Anything for you, your grace.'

"Good! Let's ditch these suckers!"

Reya leaned against her friend and started to slowly walk away, only pausing to turn her head and stick her tongue out at the two snickering animals behind her.

"So... um... do you know where we're going?"

'Aris said that this is a really small town... It can't be too hard to get to the center, right?'

It took a while to get to the town square, but the two otters made it there without much confusion. The streets of the city wrapped around the circular town square in larger and larger arcs until they petered out into the forest. Reya learned this from a rather cordial barn owl who she asked how to get to the town square.

She then had him explain exactly how everything looked from the sky. Torren didn't seem very interested and tried to pull her away. Reya, however, didn't give up easily. She was soon drawn into a long conversation bouncing from what the world looked like in the winter from the sky to the many different medical supplies that she normally ordered from cities. She could tell that the second point of conversation quickly started to wear on the owl. He eventually flew away, citing some job at the Avian Association that he was late for.

People were staring at Reya. There were a few glances when she was on the cart, but her bandages weren't as visible then. Now she was out in the open, and everyone was looking at her. It was the best she could do to keep conversation with the owl going and not pay attention to anyone else.

Torren growled softly at two rodents who were talking about her as she was explaining precisely what fireweed was and how the stems could be used to calm a fever. She tried not to look like she noticed, but she did.

It took the two otters about twenty minutes to make it to the town square; Reya had to stop to rest twice. When she made it, however, she felt like she could never get tired again. It was incredible! Seven terraced marble ledges spread out underneath the spout, a detailed sculpture of two dancing foxes locked in a kiss. Many townsfolk were collected around its edges, filling their buckets with the clear flowing water.

Street peddlers wove a ring around the outside edge of the circular town square. Most had just a small wheeled platform to sell their wares on. Some had full wheeled wooden shop-faces and some had nothing but a ragged cloth.

"How do they keep the water coming out? Is this built over a spring?"

'No idea."

"Oh! Do you smell that?" Something nearby smelled absolutely delicious. It was fragrant and inviting, warm and aromatic. Reya immediately spotted the source. One peddler, a large burly cat, was cooking a large shank of meat over smoking charcoals. He had a luxurious golden mane around his neck and a long thin tail that ended in a tassel. She'd never seen one of his kind before, but from what Gither had told her of the different intelligent species of the world, she was sure he was a lion.

Salivating, she watched him slice of a long strip of it with one of his sharp claws and set it over flatbread covered with herbs. He drizzled some sauce over the top. It sizzled and released a hearty aroma into the air.

'You want one?' Torren asked.

The smaller otter's eyes lit up in excitement. "Yeah! They smell so good!"

'How much?' Reya trotted over to the lion and repeated Torren's question.

"Ah! You're interested in one of my delicious Etresian flatbreads! Nothing in all of Lenwick will leave you more satisfied! Now, my normal price is five coin, but for a pretty little otter like yourself I'll knock it down one. How does four sound?"

Torren elbowed her before she could say anything.

'Six for two.'

"What?" She whispered.

'Offer five coin for two.'

"Um... How about five for two of them?"

The lion laughed a hearty laugh that, coming from a lion, was rather frightening. "I'm already trying to give you a deal, sweetie! I can't just give these things away! I'll tell you what though. Since your friend there wants some for himself, I'll give you them both for seven."

'I'm sorry, but we just don't have that much coin. I can give you six, but that's all we can afford.'

"Spotty there has a funny way of talking. What's 'e trying to say?"

"I - uh - we don't really have that much money. We can pay six for the two of them, but that's it... Sorry..."

"I don't know, running this stand isn't cheap and that price is awfully close to what it takes to make these things! Selling 'm for 3 each could run me out of business!"

Torren nudged Reya and started to pull away. She was about to ask him why they were leaving when he signed for her to be quiet. She nodded and began to walk away with him, her ears flat against her head and her face drooping with disappointment.

"Hey! Fine! I'll do it, just get back here!"

Torren grinned and gently nudged the smaller otter. Reya whirled around, beaming with excitement. In her eagerness, the gauze wrapped tip of her tail whacked against a groundhog who grunted a few choice words that she certainly didn't approve of. She winced slightly; her tail was still sore.

In a few seconds Torren was back at her side helping to ease the pressure on her limbs. She saw the glint of metal clutched in his big paw. He dropped the 5 coins, stamped out of a silvery metal, in front of the peddler.

"Now this is a one-time deal, you hear? I figure you look like you could use a bit of a break. Next time you come back, it'll be 5 coins each like it is for everyone else!"

Reya smiled a big toothy smile at the lion. "Thanks, sir! They smell delicious."

The two otters took their meals next to the fountain; splashed water made the stone cleaner than anywhere else on the well-trodden road. Torren didn't say anything, but his expression told Reya that he was very happy with himself. The spotted otter was already walking with three legs, using one of his forepaws to precariously balance the flatbread, so he didn't have any paws to spare for chitchat, anyway. Reya was holding hers similarly, but she had the advantage of not needing her limbs to talk.

"So I guess that was it, huh? You made six coins from your work? Well thanks so much for this! It smells absolutely amazing! I've had meat before several times - I normally just eat fish, you know. I lived right near the river so it's really easy for me to just catch some whenever I'm hungry. But this smells so much better than anything Gither every cooked up for us!

"My brother was such a terrible cook, you wouldn't believe it! You'd think that after like fifteen years of cooking the same fish from the same river he'd have gotten a bit better. Nope! I have this running theory that he lost his sense of taste in some tragic accident as a pup. Either that or he just likes his fish black, completely dry, and so covered in salt or whatever spices we had with us that you couldn't even taste the fish through it!"

She set her flatbread carefully down on one of the stones lining the rim of the fountain. "This looks like a good spot."

Torren nodded and sat himself down next to her. With his paws free, he started to talk.

'That wasn't it! Don't worry, I still have some money left.'

Reya gave him an odd look. "Why'd you lie to that lion guy? He seemed nice."

'He's Etresian! I don't know how much you people haggle up here, but Etresians are famous for it.'

"Oh! I wouldn't know anyway..." Reya said with a slight blush, "I've never really dealt with money before. I don't think my brother ever really saw the need. I mean, he did all the work and he paid for everything we needed himself. Besides, people shared most things anyway."

She took a bite of the bread and was not at all disappointed. The spices all blended with the hearty taste of the meat and the surprisingly light flatbread. She sighed in satisfaction.

'Good?'

"Excellent! I've never had anything that's tasted like this before. I bet he used all kinds of exotic Etresian spices on this thing. Mmph..." She tore another bite from the rapidly disappearing morsel. "If all food in the Etresian desert tastes like this, I might just go there and never come back!"

'You'll have to take me with you!' Torren agreed as he chewed on his own mouthful.

They finished their meals and spent the rest of the afternoon slowly wandering around the town. By the time they made it back to the Ranger headquarters the sun was beginning to set.

Torren used the low handle and pushed the door open with a loud and slow creaking. From deep inside Reya heard a thump, a loud clattering, and then the distinct sound of a frenzied scuttle of claws against wood. A frazzled badger stumbled down the spiral staircase on the other side of the room.

"Ah! You must be the otters Aris was talking about! Come in, come in! I didn't expect you so early - oh! It's already getting dark outside! Well time sure flies, doesn't it?"

"You're Melly?" Reya asked as she cautiously entered the room. Her nose tilted up to catch a soft scent of pine wood and moss.

"That's right! You must be Reya, and the big guy next to you must be Torren! No need to respond to me, spots! Doggie boy said that you're not much of a talker. I haven't quite started on dinner yet, but please make yourselves at home! You'll be staying upstairs, so I set out some mats for you guys. They're not the best, but they'll do, right? I always find that when I get back from a trip I can sleep on just about anything, those mats will seem like fluffy downy beds fitted for royalty, I'm sure!

"But that's enough of that! I'm here talking, and you guys must be starving, it's so late already. I'll get to work right away on the stew. Aris said that you otters like meat as well as fish. That's right, right? Well I'm sure we have some fish to toss into the pot. There's meat in there already, but I know you otters like your fish! I'll call you when its ready!" Without waiting for a response, the badger turned tail and scuttled down the steps and underground.

"Well then," said Reya.

'I didn't even think you could talk that fast!'

"Oh shut up! Let's check out the beds. Melly was right, I feel I could sleep just about anywhere after being stuck up in that cart for all those days."

Torren helped her up the steps. The upper room had boxes piled all around the wall and shelves filled with all sorts of odds and ends wherever there weren't boxes. In the center of the room, a circular space was cleared out with four wool mats spread out on the ground. Underneath each mat was a strip of leather to soften the firmness of the wood floor underneath. A candle burned on a wide thin metal tray in the middle of the room. One box was knocked over, several sheets of chainmail spilling onto the ground.

Reya wandered over to the window. She couldn't see far past the row of buildings on the opposite side, but she could see the mountains towering far off to the north. The same mountains that she could see from her own home. She found that to be somewhat comforting.