Okay, let us see where this next chapter goes. Yes, I know, the boy is a little wimpy but isn't Hrimfaxi cool? I'm trying to portray him as a 10- year-old, mal-treated child who desperately wants to be loved. Get it?

-Chapter Two:

Hrimfaxi trotted out of the stable, the boy slung across her shoulder; (centaurs treat their offspring differently then humans). The boy remained limp and quiet as the centaur trotted up to Murphy's Inn -the only other inn in the village- she nearly forgot the boy's presence. Murphy's Inn was more costly then the Full Gallon Inn, probably cleaner too, and Hrimfaxi knew that she didn't want to spend the night in the Full Gallon inn after how angry she had made Mr. Kutter.

Instead of climbing the five stairs to the inn she took them all in one leap and went in though the door. She set the boy down, who seemed slightly dizzy, and as she rang the bell to get the innkeeper's attention she noticed that he looked sick, probably thanks to that Kutter guy. A short man in a properly cleaned smock came up to them with a bow.

"Do you have any ground floor rooms?" she asked.

"Ground floor?" the man answered. "Yes we do."

"Then I would like a ground floor room," continued the bard. "With one cot for the child and dinner for two."

"May I ask how long you plan on staying?"

"Only a night."

"Right away." The man went off into a hallway.

Hrimfaxi, while waiting for the innkeeper to return, turned to face the boy. He looked half-asleep and was clinging tightly to the end of Hrimfaxi's tail. With a snort she whipped it out of his grasped and he stumbled backwards, surprised. "What's your name, boy?": she asked him.

"Cleon." His speech was slightly slurred and he talked timidly.

"Well, Cleon," Hrimfaxi continued, looking him over critically. "You're a pretty skinny colt. I'd be ashamed to call you my foal."

Cleon replied. "I'm not a foal, I'm a kid!"

"You're a baby goat?" the centaur asked, a smile coming to her face. Cleon didn't answer but he too smiled as much as his bruised face allowed him too.

By that time the innkeeper had come back. "You're room is ready," he said. Hrimfaxi followed him past the kitchen and the dining area; Cleon grabbed onto her tail once again. "Dinner will be at eight," the man said while leaving them in front of their room. The room was quite nice -worth the extra expense- with a cot for Cleon, a closet, and a warm bath drawn up before a fire. Hrimfaxi walked over to the closet and started putting her things -carried in a saddlebag strung across her withers- away. She gingerly took her lute -broken by the orcs' arrows- and plucked a frayed string. It let out a pitifully off-key sound and Hrimfaxi felt off-key magic leak out. Immediately the centaur bard stopped the string from vibrating, shut the lute in the closet, and felt the bad magic dissipate. As she slammed the closet door shut, her spear -which had been leaning against the wall- fell to the floor. Immediately Cleon's small, quick, fingers picked it up. Taking the edge of his shirt he began cleaning the blood and dust off meekly.

"Maybe you'll be useful after all," Hrimfaxi said approvingly. "But you're not helping; that shirt is as dirty as my spear. After you've taken a bath we'll get you some new clothes."

"A bath?" shrieked Cleon.

"Yes, a bath," she ordered and Hrimfaxi, seeing the run-away-look come into his eyes, grabbed him before he could escape.

"Let go of me!" he yelped, forgetting that she had just rescued him twice. The centaur ignored him and instead picked him up where he wriggled in her grasp like a fish. The water in the tub was already soapy because the maid had already dumped a bar of soap in. Hrimfaxi dropped the boy into the sudsy water; shoes and clothes still on. The tub was large and the boy small so Cleon had to cling to the side to keep from sinking down. From here he glared at Hrimfaxi but the centaur just glared back and with a large hand dunked his head underwater so all of him was wet.

Now Hrimfaxi's treatment of Cleon may seem rough (especially leaving his clothes still on) but you must remember that she is a centaur, and centaurs treat their young differently.

A couple minutes later Hrimfaxi dragged Cleon out of the water where he fairly stopped down because of the weight of water in his clothes. Hrimfaxi, suddenly realizing her mistake, laughed out-loud even though the ten-year-old looked perfectly miserably with his own little puddle of water forming around his feet.

"Go sit near the fire to dry off," Hrimfaxi told him while handing the boy a couple towels. But now that she had her laugh she was wondering: "What have I done? I've agreed to take care of a child...a human child and I know nothing about raising foals...not even centaur ones." And while she was glad that she could finally see the true color of Cleon's hair, she was sad that some new bruises and scars had also made themselves apparent. Folding her four legs under her she knelt down next to the sitting boy -even kneeling she towered above him- and raised her hand. The boy, upon seeing Hrimfaxi's hand, immediately cringed, expecting a blow. "Don't worry," she said, shocked at the child's reaction and feeling hatred against Mr. Kutter. "I will never hurt you...I may dunk you in bath-water, but that's for your own good. Right now I want to heal those bruises you have."

Hrimfaxi began humming a tune and Cleon could feel the sound vibrating, creating a disturbance around the centaur and causing her fingers to glow. She pressed her glowing fingertips against a purple-black bruise above Cleon's brow. Cleon felt a slight sting and to him it seemed as if his heart suddenly sped up and his breathing raced. All the heartbeats and breath intakes it would have taken over a series of days to heal the bruise naturally, happened magically in only a couple of seconds; in a few moments pink, healthy skin replaced scabs, welts, and bruises. Healing made any person tired and so before the boy could nod off, Hrimfaxi whipped the towels off of a reasonably-dry Cleon.

"Before you fall asleep make sure you eat something, and before dinner arrives I want to get you some proper clothes."

"You don't need to do this," Cleon protested sleepily as the bard dragged him out the door.

"Of course I do. I'd be ashamed to have my servant dressed in such rags. Besides, we need to get you some traveling supplies and I need to get a new horse-shoe; I think one of mine was torn loose at the orcs' camp."

"Wait," said Cleon, stopping so that Hrimfaxi had to grab his hand and jerk him out of the inn. "So we really are leaving tomorrow?"

"Yes."

"Where are we going?"

"To Hensville, which is a little town in the Gorgon Kingdom."