Issue Two Out Now!

A Birthday For Windy

A place in the middle of nowhere. A town somehow built where it shouldn’t be. Time seems to slip by. Slow. Real slow. Nothing happens. It never does.

Ritley turns the page. The words already boring him. Even the paper itself is cheap and useless. Thin and easy to tear. No wonder it cost so little at that cobbler’s house. Should have known his ability to spot a find hidden within the treasures of a poor man’s belongings wasn’t that good.

He’s read this piece half a dozen times already. Too long has passed by since they’ve been anywhere respectable enough for him to purchase anything that might ‘stretch’ his abilities better than this.

Now, Windy?

He considers her for a moment, but then tosses the idea away. Learning and stretching her limited skills is one thing that she desperately needs, but it’s better to go in the correct direction from the start. Down the wrong path and she’ll be little more than a cliché adventurer slinging fireballs at everything.

“Any good thoughts in that head of yours?” Stench asks.

Ritley closes his book. The snap of the cover carries with it the annoyance of the big orc’s insistence on bothering him. She of course does not seem to get the message. Her big dopey brown eyes watch him, the question hanging there, stretched across her green skin and blank expression.

“My mind is always full of ‘good’ thoughts. Like how with the flick of my wrist I could send you flying into those woods, and I would finally have a moment of peace and quiet.”

A big ugly smile stretches across her face, the husks of her lower teeth sparkling in the afternoon light regardless if he’s never once seen the big woman brush them clean. Her even bigger hand, all useless muscle and callouses, taps the handle of her gargantuan ax.

“Stench like to see you try.”

Ritley turns away, opens his pack and drops the book inside. Complex Spells for the Advanced Wizard. A bigger lie has never been spoken. He breathes a sigh, holds onto it, and lets it go.

This entire place is a waste. There isn’t anything here. Just like this clearing where the grass takes its time doing nothing. Forest all around them, walls of conifers and oaks, maples and junipers. Civilization leagues away in almost every direction. Even the clouds above get the picture. They move along at their own pace but move along they do.

Unlike them.

They’ve been here a week. Seven days after their one and only job. What little coin they received is quickly disappearing behind buying what they need to survive. Now Stench wants to get a gift. A birthday gift of all things.

“And dare I ask what your suggestion for us to get her would be? What does the ingenious Stench want to get Windy for her birthday that she doesn’t currently have?”

Ritley closes up his bag. Certain to check that the buckles and straps are in place and pulled tight. The wind picks up as if saying it is ready to carry away whatever the big woman has to say. He takes a deep breath. Like it or not, the fresh taste of pine and woods is better than them riding endlessly on their horses where all there is to eat is road dust that somehow carries with it the taste of horse dung. The horses need a bath just as much as the big orc does.

“We could hunt deer. Make her a good birthday hearth with warm ale and steaming meat!”

Stench pounds her big fist into her chest, her smile somehow growing larger as her eyes glaze over looking up at the sky.

Ritley digs the heel of his palms into his eyes. The splitting headache that extends from the bridge of his nose all the way to the base of his skull threatens to rip his head in half.

“How? How would that be any different than what we always have? I’m tired of venison as much as the next farmhand. How do you think Windy feels?”

Stench struggles for the words. Her lower lip snaps shut and one finger scratches at the bristly hair on her chin. At least it isn’t as red as what is on her head. Ritley isn’t certain if it would make her look more comical or better than her ugly persona already does.

“We don’t have warm ale every night.”

Ritley can’t hold back the chuckle. He grinds his hands deeper, explosions of white within the darkness of his vision. The thought of empowering each one until they break right into his skull passes in a fleeting moment, but he won’t lie that it wasn’t there.

“That you are correct for once, my big,” the word friend stalls on his lips. “You are correct. Windy would love warm ale to go along with our twenty seventh straight night of venison.”

A big smile, all the way up to brighten her deep brown eyes, stretches the tight skin across the orc’s face. Her shoulders roll back, and she pounds her fist against her chest again.

“Does little friend have a better idea?”

He ponders going back into his bag and pulling out the book. Reading something is better than sitting here and listening to more babbling, but he doesn’t. Somehow the thought of giving up and giving her the book returns. He resists. Burning the useless thing is probably a better thing to do.

“I’m going to go back into town. Father Seagrim said something about their local Apothecary.” Maybe they have a potion or trinket that would do Windy some good to learn. At worst maybe she could keep it and use it to save the big oaf whenever they happen to find themselves in a fight again. Not like the big girl doesn’t get hurt EVERY SINGLE time.

Stench’s smile goes away, her eyes trailing off toward the shadows within the forest. She scratches the top of her head then looks at whatever is stuck beneath her nails.

“Father said to avoid that place. They are not welcome.”

Ritley gets up onto his feet, his bag heavy on his shoulder. Stench goes to get up, but he waves her off.

“Stay. Find us a deer. Windy will want something to wash down with that warm ale. I’ll find you back at the tavern when darkness decides to find its way here.”

Not like anything else wants to.

Stench’s smile returns and she nods.

Ritley doesn’t wait for any response. Adjusting his bag on his shoulder, he makes his way through the clearing and into the woods that will eventually spit him back out into a town that has really no reason to exist.