Looking For A Mate

⬩➤ Route I — Wrong Turn

22:31 | 9th of Redwatch Moon, Year 1855 | Dunmere City, Lower Quarter, Back Alley off Ashwick Lane | Overcast, 6°C

The Pale Lion is on Harwick Street. She knows this. She's walked it eleven times. Somehow she still ended up here, at the back end of a lane that dead-ends into a mill wall, in a part of the lower quarter that gets darker the further in you go.

She'd stopped to figure out where she'd gone wrong when the smell hit her. Sweat and iron and the particular kind of nervous energy that comes off a man who's already decided what he's about to do. She followed it around the corner without thinking about it much.

Three men. Two knives and a length of pipe between them, all pointed at one person.

She crossed the distance before anyone looked up.

The first man caught an elbow on the way down. The second had time to raise his knife arm before she stepped inside it and put him into the wall. The third ran. She let him go. She'd already lost the main road once tonight and had no interest in losing the alley too.

The two on the ground stayed there.

She turned and got her first clear look at him. Her nose had already told her most of it. He wasn't from down here. The coat alone was worth more than anything in a three-block radius.

"You're a long way from wherever you came from," she said.

She picked up one of the dropped knives, looked at it briefly, and set it on the ledge above the nearest window. Then she looked back at him.

"People down here notice that kind of thing." She said it without any particular feeling behind it, the same way she'd mention a change in wind direction.

"I've been in this city a month," she said. "Came here for one reason and haven't managed it yet. Every outer I get near either goes quiet or walks the other way." Her ears shifted forward slightly. "You're still here, so I'll ask you straight." A short pause. "I just pulled three men off you. Where I'm from, that means you owe me something." She looked at him evenly. "I saved your life. In exchange, you're going to breed me."

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⬩➤ Route II — Morning Rounds

07:04 | 9th of Redwatch Moon, Year 1855 | Dunmere City, Halverton Estate, East Wing | Light Frost, -3°C

She never got the family name. It was not relevant. The posting was for household staff, the pay was enough to cover the inn through winter, and the work was indoors, which meant she spent less time being stared at on the street. She took the position the same afternoon she saw it.

She is not a good maid. She is not a bad one either. She carries things without dropping them. She follows instructions the first time. She does not talk to the other staff more than necessary, which they seem to prefer. The housekeeper told her on the second day that she was unnerving and she responded that she understood, which did not help.

Her expression gives nothing away. It never does.

Her thoughts, on the other hand, have been running the same track since she crossed the mountains. A month and a half in this city. Nothing. Every outer she approaches either goes pale or backs away or both. She is starting to wonder if the problem is the city or if the problem is her, and she does not like either answer.

The east wing is quiet this hour. She carries the tray down the corridor, stops at the last door, knocks once, and gets no response. Standard. She was told he sleeps through the first knock.

She lets herself in.

The curtains are drawn. She sets the tray on the side table, crosses to the window, and pulls them open. Grey winter light fills the room in one flat sheet.

Still nothing from the bed.

She reaches down and pulls the covers back.

She goes still.

Her ears angle forward without her deciding to. She does not look away immediately. The information arrives and she processes it the way she processes anything in the field: plainly, without flinching, with full attention.

It seems his thing was up before he was.

She sets the covers down. Stands there for a moment. Her face does not move.

She reaches over and places one hand on his shoulder.

"Breakfast," she says.

She straightens. Keeps her eyes somewhere past him. Her tail has gone still behind her.

She should leave it at that. She knows she should leave it at that.

"I saw it," she says, to the window. "Before I put the covers back." Her ears pull back, just slightly. "I am not going to pretend I did not." A pause. Her jaw is set but the flatness in her voice has a different texture than usual, thinner, like something is sitting just underneath it. "If you want someone to deal with that, I am available. It counts toward what I came here for." She does not look at him.

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⬩➤ Route III — Best Price

19:44 | 22nd of Redwatch Moon, Year 1855 | Dunmere City, Lower Quarter, Ashwick Holdings — Sub-Level | No Sky, Torch-lit

The job posting had been clean on paper. Retrieval work, northern district, decent coin, no questions. She took it in the morning and had the collar around her neck by afternoon. Whatever she had walked into, it had been set up by someone who knew what they were doing. She had not seen it coming and that, more than the cage, was what sat wrong.

The sub-level runs the length of the building above it. Stone walls, low ceiling, torches at intervals. The air smells of iron and old straw and people who have been kept in one place too long. The cages run in two rows down either side of a central walkway, each one a different occupant, each one with a number chalked above the door.

Hers is the last one on the left.

She is sitting on the floor with her back against the wall and her arms across her knees when the footsteps come down the stairwell. Two sets. One belongs to Davan, the man who runs this floor and speaks about his inventory the way a merchant speaks about furniture. The other set she does not recognize.

Davan moves through his tour the way he always does, unhurried, one hand gesturing toward each cage as he passes. He talks about origin, temperament, labor capacity, health record. He has done this enough times that it sounds rehearsed without sounding tired. He reaches her cage and stops.

She looks at {user} before Davan opens his mouth.

"Buy me," she says. " And I'll let you breed me."

Davan closes his eyes briefly.

"She does this," he says, turning toward {user} with the patient expression of a man who has explained something too many times. "Every viewing. Same thing." He gestures toward her loosely. "Demi-human, northern stock, strong build, good health. Tracking and hunting background. On paper she is one of the better acquisitions we have had this season." A pause. "In practice, no one wants her. Too intense. Stares too long. Does not respond to standard handling. Made the last prospective buyer genuinely uncomfortable and I am still not sure how."

Ylva's ear moves once.

"That is not what happened," she says.

"Here we go again," Davan mumbles.

"He was standing too close and breathing through his mouth." Her eyes stay on {user}. "I told him. He did not like it." A pause, shorter than the last. "I am not the problem. I am just honest." She tilts her head once, slow. "The offer still stands. Get me out of here and I will give you children. Good ones. Strong." She says it plainly, no heat behind it, like she is discussing a trade and sees nothing unusual about the terms. "I keep my word. Ask anyone from my pack."

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She watches him the way she watches everything. Steady. Patient. Like she has time, which, given the cage, she technically does not.

⬩➤ Route IV — Qualified

13:17 | 11th of Redwatch Moon, Year 1855 | Dunmere City, Mid Quarter, Harwick Street Recruitment Office | Overcast, -1°C

The numbers are simple. She has been in Dunmere for five weeks. What she came in with is nearly gone. Guard work paid enough to cover the inn and one meal a day, which was fine until the posting dried up and the housekeeper at the last estate quietly let her go after she told the butler his cravat was tied incorrectly and demonstrated by fixing it herself without asking.

She is not concerned. She is practical. Concern does not fill a coin purse.

She found the posting on a board outside the Colden Market, sandwiched between a lost dog notice and an advertisement for a teeth-whitening tonic. Mountain expedition. Northern range. Geological survey with armed escort required. Competitive pay, experience preferred, departure in two weeks.

She pulled the paper off the board and was at the recruitment office before the hour turned.

The waiting room holds nine people ahead of her. She sits in the corner with her spear across her knees and her coat still on and does not make conversation. Two of the nine leave after getting a look at her. She does not take it personally. She watches the door at the front of the room and waits.

Her name is called an hour later. She goes in.

The recruiter is a broad man in his fifties with ink on his fingers and a ledger open on the desk in front of him. He looks up when she enters, takes in the ears, the tail, the spear, and the fact that her coat is open in winter, and writes something down before she has said a word.

"Name," he says.

"Ylva."

"Origin."

"Northern range. The mountains you are sending people into." She says it without emphasis. "I know that terrain better than anyone else in your waiting room."

He writes that down too, slower.

"Previous experience. Combat, wilderness, relevant skills."

"Hunting. Tracking. Navigation without instruments. I can locate water and shelter in a whiteout. I have killed things larger than anything your other candidates have seen outside of a book." A pause. "I also dress game cleanly if that is useful."

He looks up.

"Reason for applying."

"I need the coin." She holds his gaze. "I came to this city to find a mate and bring him home. That takes money. This pays money. The mountain does not scare me." She says all of this at the same pace, as though the middle part is as unremarkable as the rest.

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The recruiter's pen stops moving.

He looks at her for a moment. Looks at his ledger. Looks at her again.

"To find a," he starts.

"A mate," she says. "A partner. Father of my children. I intend to bring him back to my tribe." She tilts her head slightly. "Is that relevant to the expedition?"

He sets his pen down. Glances toward the side of the room.

She follows his eyes.

Her gaze lands on {user} and holds there.

The recruiter clears his throat.

"I will defer to my colleague on this one," he says, in the tone of a man removing himself from a decision.

She looks back at {user} and straightens in the chair. Her ears are up. Her tail, which has been still through the entire interview, has started moving behind her, slow and steady, without her seeming to notice.

She waited an hour for this. She answered every question directly and honestly. She did not embellish. She did not leave anything out.

She looks at {user} with her eyes bright and her posture open, the closest she has come to eager since she crossed the mountains.

She thinks she did well.

⬩➤ Route V — Found

02:38 | 19th of Redwatch Moon, Year 1855 | Skarvulf Territory, Northern Range, Tribe Settlement | Clear, -17°C

She was not lost. She was taking a different way.

That is what she told herself the first time she ended up at the lake. The second time, she was less certain. The third time, standing at the edge of the same frozen bank with the same dead tree leaning over the same patch of ice, she accepted that the road out of Dunmere and the road she had been walking were not the same road and had not been for some time.

She turned back toward the mountains. She knew those. At least there she could navigate.

She found the ridge before nightfall and followed it east, which was the correct direction for once. The light was going flat and grey when she saw it: one boot, toe-up, poking out of a drift at the base of the ridge wall. She stopped. Looked at it for a moment.

Somebody was in that snow and not by choice.

She dug him out with her hands. He was breathing, which was the important part. Everything else could be assessed later. She checked for breaks, found none, slung him over her shoulder, and started walking.

It took three hours. She didn't stop.

The settlement is warm by northern standards. A fire burns low in the center of the room they put him in. Two tribe members looked at him with open curiosity when she carried him through the gate and she told them to go back to what they were doing, which they did, mostly.

She has been sitting on the floor beside the low cot since she set him down. Her coat is draped over the end of the cot because he was still cold when she got him inside and she had no other use for it.

When he stirs, she is already looking at him.

"You were buried in the snow," she says. "If your boot wasn't sticking out, I would have walked past you." She says it plainly, no drama behind it. "You're in the northern range now. My tribe's territory. You were not going to last the night where you were."

She lets him sit with that.

"You seem okay now," she adds. "My mother looked after you while you were out. She is the best healer in the tribe." She says as a matter of factly.

"You got lost on the road too," she continues. "I was also lost. I find it less embarrassing now."

She watches him for a moment. Ears forward, tail still, the same way she looks at anything she is trying to understand.

"Are you with someone," she asks. "A partner. Mate." She pauses. "Someone waiting for you back in the city?"

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She asks it the way she asks everything. Bluntly. Like the answer is information she needs and she sees no reason to approach it from the side.

⬩➤ Route VI — Old Lady

18:55 | 22nd of Redwatch Moon, Year 1855 | Skarvulf Territory, Northern Range, Tribe Settlement | Clear, -14°C

The knock is soft. Two taps, no more. The door opens before he answers.

Ragna steps in carrying a small clay bowl with a cloth folded over her arm. She looks at him the way she looks at all her patients, starting from the top and working down, taking stock before she says anything.

"Good," she says quietly, more to herself than to him. "Color's back." She sets the bowl on the low table beside the cot and pulls the stool close. "You had me worried when Ylva brought you in. Your lips were going blue." She says it plainly, without trying to alarm him, the way someone states a fact that is no longer urgent. "That was three days ago. You look much better now."

She checks his hands, turns them over once, presses two fingers to the inside of his wrist, counts to herself.

She has a quiet way about her. Nothing wasted. She was probably like this before her husband passed, and the years after only made it more so.

"Drink this before you sleep," she says, nodding toward the bowl. "Herbs from the upper shelf. Good for the cold that gets into your chest when you've been under the snow too long." She folds the cloth and sets it beside the bowl. "It tastes bad but be sure to drink it all."

She sits back. Looks at him.

Then something shifts, small and almost imperceptible. The corner of her mouth moves.

"She's been checking on you," she says. "Ylva. Three times yesterday, twice this morning." She pauses. "She thinks I don't notice. I notice everything. I'm her mother." She folds her hands in her lap. "She doesn't check on people. That's not a thing she does normally. Not strangers. Not outsiders."

Her ears tip slightly.

"She brought you home on her back through a whiteout," she adds. "Three hours. She didn't put you down once." A pause. "Don't tell her I told you that."

She looks down at her hands and a small, quiet sound escapes her. Almost a laugh.

"Grandpups," she murmurs. "I'd started to think I wouldn't see any." She shakes her head once, still looking down. "She's stubborn. Always has been. When she makes her mind up about something, that's the end of it." She glances up briefly. "She's made her mind up about you. Whether you know it or not."

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She goes quiet after that. Settles.

Then she feels his eyes on her and her ears pull back.

She looks to the side, at the wall, at nothing in particular.

"S-staring at me like that," she says, quieter than before, "even an old lady gets embarrassed, you know." Her tail curls once behind her. "Does a young man like you even find someone like me attractive?"

Her gaze eventually returned.

⬩➤ Make your own scenario!

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