Of Magic and Fur (Part 4)
#5 of Old stuff/To fix/etc.
If I had a dime for every time an indent error came up, I'd have enough to fund a federal school lunch, assuming I stay within the federal budget.
For the love of cod, not even the thumbnail works anymore. rage flips table
Down by the river, I realize I haven't washed my fur in a while, and licking can only do so much, so I decide I should go into the river. First, I look upstream, looking for the human, making sure I won't contaminate his drinking water. Seeing him upstream, I dive into the frigid water. As I get myself clean, I notice some paper impaled on a branch near the edge of the riverbed, so grab it. There's something written on it in the human language, which I never learned how to read. I place it on the top of the bank, and decide to show it to the human when I'm done splashing around in the river. After I finish cleaning myself, I hop out of the river, and shake off the most of the excess water on me.
Edward I decide to wait until we get to the nearest city to wash up, even though I probably don't smell too good. I go to get Grace, and see that she's pretty wet. "Should I wait for you to dry off, or..." I ask. "You should probably get out the way, I need to shake the rest of this excess water off." I move out of the way, and then Grace gets on all fours and starts shaking off the water rapidly. Apparently, I didn't move far enough away, as my face gets pelted with more than a few stray droplets. Then, about half a minute later, mostly dry, she stands up. "Well, we should probably get going now." I say, still wiping the water from my eyes. "Hold on. I found something, and I was hoping you might be able to find out what it means." Grace says. She then proceeds to run and grab some damp paper, and gives it to me. "Wanted: Rai Halston. Dangerous rogue warrior with red hair, dark skin, an..." I say, glancing over at Grace. The paper is ripped right under this part of the description, and there's nothing left to read. "Sorry, the rest of the page is missing." I say. "Oh, that doesn't really help us." says Grace. "Yeah, I guess it doesn't." But I put it in my pocket, just incase.
I look at Grace, and realized that I didn't know if the other humans even knew about wolfgirls, and if they did, what were they thought as. Incarnations of demons? I almost laugh out loud at the thought. Maybe they were just commonplace people in the village we were going to, in this weird world I can't remember. I decide to play it safe. "When we get to the town, you should probably keep out of the main areas." I say. "Oh, it's ok. You can just say that I'm your wolfgirl slave." says Grace, holding out her paws, with a pained smile. "I've been a slave before, so I can just pretend to be yours. I'm okay with it. Besides, it's the easiest way to get me in." "Alright, you sure?" I ask. "Yep." she says. In my head, I wonder how such an intelligent animal could be a slave. Honestly, she's barely animal, except in physical form and actions like eating raw meat. (Then again, I did that also...) I also realize I don't have anything to tie Grace up with to make her look like a slave. I look around, and then I see a vine that's attached to a tree. I rip it off the branch, and tie it around Grace's paws, so I can lead her around. "Alright, let's go." I say.
After about half an hour of walking and following Grace's directions, I finally spot a village in the distance. "There it is!" I say to Grace, excited. "Oh, good." We start running towards the village, but even with vinecuffs, she's still much faster than me, and I quickly start to lose energy and my breath. But once we got closer to the village, I get a second wind, and I could easily run as fast as Grace. It felt strange, but so good at the same time. "Woah, slow down!" I heard Grace say, so I stopped, almost falling over. "We're there." I looked around, and I found a public bath. "Ah, nice!" Then I realized that Grace was still tied up, and I obviously couldn't take her into the men's public bath with me.
Then, I remember that I still had the parchment. Now, if only there was something to write with. I look around and see a mud puddle and a stick. "That'll have to do." I take the parchment, and using the muddy stick, crudely write "PROPERTY OF" on it. Then I realized that I didn't even know my own name, so I decide to just use the name that was on the letter. Now I have some parchment that said, "PROPERTY OF RAI HALSTON." I shaped the vinecuffs into a primitive sort of leash, and put the parchment in it. I don't know exactly what I was trying to accomplish with this, but I had a feeling that it would keep her safe, and free up her hands for self-defense, just in case. "Sorry, I know it's uncomfortable, but it'll have to work until I finish bathing." "I won't take long, so you can just wander around." Grace looks annoyed with the leash, but seems to understand why I made it. Done with the issue of Grace's leash, I walk into the public bathhouse.