Chapter Text
Namari plopped down at the table next to Chilchuck, taking a long drink of her beer before setting the tankard down.
“Well that mission was a mess,” she said without preamble.
She wasn’t wrong. Things had been going well at first, but when they’d faced a pack of wolves, one of them had gotten its teeth into Falin and started trying to drag her away. Laios had told Namari to help her, but Shuro had broken ranks to rush to the spellcaster’s aid first. Laios, seeing that, had tried to move into the gap, but that left a different hole and allowed the wolves to get in among the party.
Shuro had been very apologetic after the fact, and Falin had looked utterly confused about why the swordsman had not followed orders, even though she thanked him for wanting to help her.
It was almost physically painful to see just how much she didn’t get it when it came to Shuro’s feelings, but Chilchuck preferred that to the actual physical pain when the group’s cohesion fell apart because of those feelings.
“I really wish everyone could just keep their mind on business when we’re in the dungeon,” she continued, slumping back in the chair.
Chilchuck muttered his agreement into his own cup. Namari chuckled.
“Yeah, I guess you’ve probably seen it as much as any of us,” she said. “So was that the worst one you’ve seen?”
Unbidden, his mind went back to a strange, smiling elf. Running from her. Realizing the signs of a mimic in the box, including the remains just outside its hiding place. Unlocking a nearby box, and tossing his lockpick over by the suspect container. Hiding in the one he’d unlocked and curling up in the bottom, listening and waiting and sure that his own hammering heart was going to give him away. The way he still, at the end of everything, felt bad as he turned his back on the twitching corpse and ran for the main room, sure at every moment that he was going to somehow hear her voice calling after him.
Expecting, for the following year, that he was going to see her one of those times, smiling at him as the group gathered up to go into the dungeon.
The way, even now, he sometimes thought he saw her when they were in town, hesitating half a moment at everyone with the same stature, similar hair.
“Chilchuck?”
“Yeah?” He didn’t want to think about this. The helpless feeling of having no idea what would happen if she found him out.
“Come on, spill? Now you’ve got me curious.”
“No,” he said.
“Come on, you have to-”
“I said leave it alone!”
His voice rose over the din of patrons talking, causing silence to sweep through the room as all eyes turned on them. Chilchuck, feeling pinned by the attention, tried to sink into his seat until the conversations slowly resumed.
In a more controlled voice, he added, “I’m not going to talk about it, so stop asking.”
“Hey, hey, sorry,” Namari said, holding her hands up in a surrender pose. “Didn’t know it was going to be such a forbidden topic.”
Chilchuck mentally scolded himself. That was well past. He’d never seen her again after that time. And even if he never understood why she’d done what she’d done, at least it was all behind him.
“No, my bad,” he said. “Just had something on my mind is all.”
She raised an eyebrow quizzically, but he just pulled from the mug of halfway decent beer again and waited for the topic to shift.