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Heading to Town

If anything Hashal is almost more annoying now than before. Now that he knows what I am, his questions about me all the more specific about which stories about my kind are true and which ones are false. What's worse is that now he's taking notes. When he was asking about my Anaelin it was mainly out of a sense of curiosity and more importantly information about my Anaelin wouldn't be useful for anyone to use on any other of my kind. But asking about my species specifically is a completely different matter, especially sense he's writing down what I say. Meaning that he intends on potentially telling others everything he learned from me which can then be used against my own people. What's worse, is that it also means that we potentially will no longer be able to use our greatest defense, which is that no one knows what we look like. And given how the other species react to us, it could mean people hunting us down and killing us all off.

And yet the entire time we're walking the main thought on my mind is whether or not I should make a point of splitting up and separating from him for good once we get to this other town. After all, he needs me far more than I need him, at least that will be the case once we do make it to the next town. My blood did not burn for him. As such my body is telling me that he will have no real impact on whether I live or die. Meaning other than for company there is no reason to keep traveling with him. The longer we travel together the more he'll probably learn about us and the fact he knows so much already as well as what we look like can become a big risk and can definitely mean endangering not only myself but potentially every single member of my species.

That would be one reason to keep him around at least for a little while at any rate, in order to either prevent him from sharing this information or at least convince him why letting people know what we look like would be a bad thing. And I don't even want to consider the notion of killing him to make sure that he can't share it with anyone. Considering I'm on this pilgrimage to try and fight to stop my own death, it'd seem wrong to do it by going around killing someone just because they might possibly pose a threat. Killing for food is one thing and I have no problem with the concept. I have no problem with the concept of killing something that is unable to reason why you're trying to kill it as most food is and I have no problem if someone did kill me so that they could eat me and survive. But for me to kill something that can reason, can understand why you're trying to kill it just doesn't seem right. I would imagine there'd always be that nagging little doubt that if you just tried a bit harder they would have made the reason to kill them no longer valid.

So distracted over this particular topic and so intent on not revealing too much about my kind I end up being extremely quiet for much of the journey, saying very little. At first he takes it as if I'm just trying to dodge the questions a bit more but eventually seems to understand that I simply have no interest in talking much anymore and decides to be polite and not try to initiate any conversations that aren't directly related to the act of traveling to the town.

However, when I can start to smell a lot of hominids nearby as well as a bunch of noise Hashal convinces me to spend this last night outside of town before going in straight away, my initial assumption simply being no way to get any decent sleeping location inside. That or he's still caught up on all the events that have transpired recently and wants to make sure the town is still safe to enter in the morning or doesn't want me killing them all in the darkness. Either way, having still not come to any conclusive decision about what to do about Hashal I agree. Though one thing that does sway me to keeping him, if for no other reason than that he gives me no other choice in the matter is his suggestion of what to do to explain the fact I look like an animal but can talk just like the rest of them without raising suspicion. His suggestion is one that seems complete lunacy but having no better idea of my own will have to do. His idea is simply to enter town and whenever asked simply say that I am a specially modified wizard's familiar, which would explain my ability to speak and use magic and most people would take that as answer enough.

The next morning we approach the town, a sense of much anxiety on my part on what he'll do when we get in there, in particular if he tries to turn people against me or not. I decide to give him the benefit of a doubt and wait to see what he does before deciding on whether to let him come with me. Well that and I suppose it pays to make sure that I do actually find some of the people my blood burns for before giving up on someone to travel with. Given how early it is in my trip if my death is somewhere far away from here it is entirely possible I won't get a single person in this town. On top of all that the main thing I need to do is stay on guard. In which case if he does end up betraying me and I don't find anyone then I could be in a lot of trouble.