Quick Author's Note: If anyone is freaked out by the idea of eating a piglet, go out to any farm and they'll tell you the younger animals have the most tender meat. I don't like the idea either, but I'm trying to be accurate to rural society.
Chapter One: Two Winds on the Mountain
A light layer of sweat rested on his brow as he peered through the wisps of mist to see his prey: a bull Mountain Stag. It was nibbling peacefully on a rare patch of grass growing out of the mountain side. Sigurd knew that if it noticed him before he could hit it, it would run. He may have been a native to the region, his body and blood sired by generations of men and women who lived daily on the Lauserian Mountain Range, but even he couldn't traverse the rocky slopes, more vertical than horizontal, faster than a stag.
Through the late afternoon mists, he could see it was still over a mile to the bottom of the valley where the mountain slope started to even out; if this stag caught wind of him, it would be gone. He couldn't allow that. Getting any closer would be dangerous, so he had to take the shot where he was.
Reaching behind his back to reach into his quiver, he pulled out an arrow. As he nocked it on his bow, his elbow brushed the pommel of his cheap iron sword. It was useless at this point, he couldn't catch up with the stag, but he was certain old man Yamasa could. Driving that thought out of his head, he focused on the target ahead of him. He pulled back the waxed string to his cheek, and regulated his breathing so it wouldn't affect his aim. He was about thirty yards away, uphill, maybe twenty-two yards higher than the target; he adjusted to compensate for the trajectory, and aimed a little lower, an old hunter's trick.
Sigurd waited a moment longer than necessary, then another moment, and then let the arrow fly. The stag heard the string snap, lowered its body to get away, moving its heart right into the arrows path. The arrow hit its mark. The stag bull took off in a heartbeat. Sigurd ran after it, but took his time to carefully navigate the rocky crops covering the mountain side, lest he fall and hit a lot of sharp stones before coming to a stop.
He only had to travel about a thousand feet down the mountain to reach the dead stag. If he had hit it in the lungs, it would've gotten maybe a mile before dying, and Sigurd would have had to carry it a lot further. Sighing in contentment, he looped his bow over his head so it rested on his shoulder, and carefully lifted the stag onto his other shoulder. Taking a deep breath, he prepared himself for the exertion of carrying it back up the mountain and back home.
He made each step carefully, not wanting to lose his balance; it slowed him down, but he estimated he would get back before dark. The stag's wound was slowly leaking a tiny stream of blood onto his brown leather jerkin. He wore it over his white linen shirt to keep it from staining, as blood washes from leather easier. His blue pants were covered by brown leather chaps, making whatever slips and trips he made a lot less painful, also protecting his pants from the drips of blood.
From the books he had read, it seemed like very few city folk had to hunt, that they bought nearly all their food. Sigurd considered his life to be fairly comfortable, work for your food and take pride in the fruits of your labor, but he had a hard time imagining living in luxury like that; and supposedly, royalty had it even better than that. He was comfortable with his life, but sometimes he wished something different would come along sometimes. 'It's always nice to put spices in yer food from time to time' his uncle would say.
He had left Twin Peaks on a few occasions, a couple times for fishing and some just for the fun of traveling, and it were those times that were the most exhilarating times he could remember. He had often considered striking out on his own as a Wanderer, an adventuring vagabond who lived off the land, traveling from city to city, selling monster hides and other spoils, working and hunting out of necessity. He knew such romantic ideas weren't healthy in excess, as his uncle would say, 'the higher you fly, the harder you will hit the ground when you come back down', but lately he wondered if this itch would ever go away.
After an hour of climbing up and across the mountains toward the cloud-line, he became aware of someone else on the mountain besides himself.
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She had to stop to catch her breath again. She wiped sweat off her brow, or at least she thought it was mostly sweat; she was close to the cloud-line, merely a hundred feet away from the bottom of those nimbuses, so it could have been just condensation. She didn't know, and didn't really care; she couldn't travel more than half a mile before being forced to catch her breath. She moved her dark brown bangs out of her eyes before gathering her waist length hair behind her, and then remembered she didn't have anything to tie it together.
Sighing, she sat down on a large stone to overlook Lauseria Valley. The mountains surrounding it were mostly loose rock and dirt, but the valley was lush with green grass and flowers, with a beautiful river running down it, which would eventually lead to Lake Lauseria, which would drain out into the ocean some fifty miles away. The entire sight was beautiful, and one of the reasons she stayed a Wanderer.
Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a bit of movement. There she saw a young man, probably her age, moving toward her. She must've been tired if she hadn't noticed him until now; a fundamental survival skill for Wanderers was to know the surroundings and anything within them.
He was tall, with the thick limbs of a countryman, broad shoulders, one of which carried a large deer or something, with a bow, quiver, and a long sword at his hip. He had silver hair, the back of which was long enough that it was in a short pony-tail, and he had a thin, angular face with deep blue eyes.
She lowered her hand cautiously to one of her pistols; not all countrymen were kind to strangers, and there were some Wanderers who liked to hunt other Wanderers for sport or to lessen the competition.
He stopped a respectable, safe distance of fifty feet, and called out, "Greetings, Wanderer. You lost?" His tone was almost purely inquisitive, no hint of a threat.
She called back, "I'm not lost." At least, not completely. She silently added, but she'd be damned if she'll admit it. "How far 'till Twin Peaks?" She asked, silently praying she was on the right mountain.
Keeping his other hand on his catch, the young man pointed up the northwestern face of the mountain, "About five miles that way, at the summit." Whatever relief she felt that she was on the right path was overshadowed by hearing the distance. "I'm heading back there, so if you want to travel with me, I'd accept the company."
She kept her face neutral, though she was torn between accepting and not. She didn't accept help from anyone, let alone a farm boy or whatever he was, but at that point she was ready to do just about anything to find a warm meal and a soft bed. "Fine, I'll go with you." I'm just following him; I'm not actually being helped. She stubbornly told herself.
Despite the steep grade and his heavy load, he crossed the distance to her swiftly and with little trouble. "I'm Sigurd Rhine." He said, offering his hand.
"Brynhilda Wagner." She introduced, taking his hand.
He nodded, and started walking across the side of the mountain as if it were as easy as when it was flat. She suppressed a moan and followed him.
"Hey, Brynhilda," he called back to her as soon as she started following him, "if you notice one of those buzzards looking at us funny, could you let me know? I'd rather not be surprised by them, and lose some of this stag."
Buzzards? She looked away from the mountain, and saw off in the distance a few avian circling. She had earlier assumed them to be small birds, but on closer inspection, she saw they were, indeed, buzzards. Damn it! She silently cursed. No, he just knows this area better than you, that doesn't mean anything.
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"Okay, that's enough." Brynhilda stated twenty minutes after they started their hike. He had been aware that she was breathing hard, but he saw she was really panting when she stopped and sat down.
"Hmm, must be the altitude." He murmured before gently setting down the stag and sitting down as well.
"What about the altitude?" She asked through her panting. He wasn't certain, but she sounded somewhat frustrated.
"The air's thinner this high up." He explained. "Your body's working overtime to provide oxygen to your muscles. After a few days your blood will start carrying more oxygen, and you'll be fine."
She continued looking down at the ground in front of her, arms resting on her knees, for a few seconds before muttering, "So that's why I'm so off today."
"Excuse me?"
"Forget it." She answered, dismissively.
She was quite an interesting sight, he mused; she was tall and slender, and not very imposing, with her tan pants, non-lace boots, cream blouse and thick yellow jacket, but her step was secure and her eyes sharp, very much like Yamasa when they were sparring. She seemed innocuous, but he wouldn't have been surprised if she could pull out and use those two pistols of hers, as well as any other skills she might have, in the blink of an eye.
After a few minutes, she spoke up, "How did you know I was a Wanderer?"
"No one else comes to these parts, especially since there are no Roads near here. How did you come around these parts, anyway?"
She waved her hand in a 'who knows' gesture. "I guess I wanted to go somewhere I've never been."
Sigurd knitted his brow in surprise; if Lauseria was her first choice of places she'd never been to, she must've traveled most of Terra. "Where've you been?"
"Oh, here and there." She answered, her gazing wandering.
He was about to ask her to be more specific, but guessed she wasn't going to be. He waited a couple more minutes, then stood back up and resumed his hike, and his companion wordlessly, and without complaint, followed.
Nearly an hour later, they reached the summit line, and continued their hike using it as their path. The stone and mortar walls became visible right when he knew it would, right at the point in the path it always did the countless times he traversed the summit path, and it took the two another twenty minutes to reach the southern gate. The walls were a sturdy amalgamation of grey and black, with a gate that was anachronistic, even for such an outlying village, made simply of lashed together tree trunks.
Sigurd whistled at the base of the gate. The day's gate keeper stuck his adolescent, freckled head out, and called, "Ah Sig, you're here to pay me that venison you owe me?"
"Like hell I will!" Sigurd shouted back, "How many times do I have to tell you 'I never agreed to that bet'?"
"At least until the next time I ask." He answered before his head disappeared over the wall. A moment later, the sounds of cranks and pulleys activating came before the gate started inching up. Within a minute, the sharpened tips were safely over their heads, and the two walked into the village.
Twin Peaks was comprised of two summit peaks, one to the south-east and the other to the north-west, dividing the village roughly in half. The north-western peak, dubbed The Steeple, due to its steep slopes, was carved out into steps and was used for agriculture. The other, known as The Crest, was the residential area, with huts and houses and a hundred chimneys; half a mile wide and long, taking up just under half the area within the village walls.
Sigurd turned around and watched the gate to make sure no animals got in while the hydraulic pumps from the spring slowly lowered it back down. Despite a population of two hundred and fifty residents within an area just over a square mile, a rogue raccoon was difficult to catch.
When it was shut, Sigurd turned his attention back to his companion. She looked about ready to drop. "The large building there is the Inn. Madam Frigg includes hot baths with the room and meals."
Brynhilda, for a moment, looked like she was about to cry, but immediately composed herself and thanked Sigurd before moving, as fast as she could while still technically walking, toward the large inn.
Securing the stag on his shoulder, Sigurd started down the familiar dirt road. The village comprised of picketed fences surrounding houses of brick, wood, and in some cases, straw, as well as a few burrows and sheds for storage, as the hill gently sloped up toward the peak. Akaji over on the western border of the residential district owned the only vehicle in the village, a ruddy truck that the kids called 'old dirt'. Yamasa, an old man who in his youth was a highly skilled Wanderer who made his fortune and retired to the tiny rural village of Twin Peaks, lived in a small house on the north-eastern most part of the Crest, about as far from Sigurd's house as one could be. For years, he had taken lessons from Yamasa at the behest of his uncle because he was 'way too rowdy for a ten year old'. The old man was hesitant at first, but eventually agreed to train the young man in the ways of the sword and defensive magic.
Sigurd's home lay near the mid-southern region, in a house with brown chocobo feather thatching, a privilege for the village wranglers, and a small barn. Behind the house, enclosed between the housing and the carved out wall of the hill, lay the small family graveyard, where Sigurd's parents and grandparents were laid to rest.
His mother fell ill and died when he was just a baby, but he had some vague memories of his father. Mostly, he remembered wanting to know why his father, Sigmund, wouldn't wake up, and being confused when others tried to explain what death was, and that his father was 'in a better place'. But he's right there, he remembered yelling in frustration, he hasn't gone anywhere! Though he didn't remember his father well, he remembered him being very fun and kind, always at his son's beck and call. His uncle told him Sigmund likely doted on him because he took his mother's death hard.
Sigurd carefully opened the fence so he wouldn't drop his catch, and stepped onto his property right as his uncle walked out of the barn with Boko, their brown chocobo, in tow. His uncle's face brightened at the sight of the stag on his shoulder. "Ah, good timing, m'boy, I had just finished feed ol' Boko here."
Siegfried, Sigurd's father's brother, shared the same tall, broad frame Sigurd did, but little else. Those who knew his father always told him he resembled him greatly, right down to the silver hair. Siegfried had black hair, cut short, with grey at the temples, and had a wide round face opposed to Sigurd's thin, angular one.
Siegfried tethered Boko to a fence before moving over to his nephew. "Gimme that, m'boy. Ya did 'nough by catching it, now go take a bath while I prep it, yeah?"
Sigurd gratefully handed over the stag and watched his uncle take it into the shed. Sighing at the alleviated burden, he walked into the small house. The walls were simple wooden planks, with a small living room with a couch, rug, a couple of chairs, a table, kitchen, and a television, one of the few in the village. Both the men had their own bedrooms, with a third used for storage, and a bathroom, completing the entire household. He hung up his sword, unstrung his longbow, and turned on the television to a random program, they only had ten channels out there, and set it loud enough to be heard in the bathroom. He picked a change of clothing and walked into the bathroom, turned copper facet open, slowly filling the tub. He flipped on the switch for the highest setting for the heater. The Flame Magicite under the tug soon warmed up the water to near boiling.
When it was half full, he stripped and slowly got in the hot water, letting his muscles finally find some relaxation. The last few weeks had been tiresome; poor harvests over in the Steeple caused the farmers to employe even a wrangler's apprentice like Sigurd. They had gone through poor seasons like this before, even had much worse ones, but each time he had been too young or small to help out. Now, he was nearly a man, one who cared more about his sword practice and magic studies than earning his daily bread shoveling dung in the stables.
Oh well, the Mayor and his council had decided the famine wasn't bad enough to ration the food, or that they wouldn't be able to offer their annual donation to the Wind Shrine.
He let his mind drift as the hot water unknotted his muscles. Within the next few days, the village would elect a few representatives to send their annual offering of food and choices of craft to the Wind Shrine, a two day journey east of the village, just outside the Lauserian Providence. Yamasa was always the caravan's escort, so he would need to get a few lessons in before then. Sigurd had changed these last seven years since taking lesson from the mountain master. He chuckled, remembering their first encounter.
The six year old Sigurd raced through the village toward the gate, bumping into people constantly and even knocked over a stand with a couple chocobo eggs, ruining Ms. Hanson's dinner, which made him run even faster, lest he get a face-full of dirty broom.
There, at the gate, he saw what Mitch had told him about: a newcomer. There was a brown chocobo pulling a cart with his stuff right outside the open gate. Unable to contain his excitement, he rushed through the gate and jumped on the railing to the cart, leaning over it to rummage through the open crates.
Suddenly, a hand grabbed the nape of his shirt, lifted him up and turned him around the face the oldest, ugliest man he had ever seen in his short life. He was mostly bald with only a few tufts of grey hair left and numerous color blemishes. He wore loose blue silk pants and a green silk shirt that went down nearly to his ankles, with slits in the sides to allow freedom of leg movement.
"What are you doing, child?" He demanded in a harsh tone. "Didn't your parents ever teach you not to mess with other people's stuff?"
"Why awe you weawing a dwess, mister?" Sigurd asked.
"Listen," before he could continue, he did a double take, "this is NOT a dress, you little brat, now are you going to apologize or-"
"Wow, you're ugly," Sigurd cut him off, "and old! You must be a hundred million bajillioAAAAAHHHH!" His train of speech was cut off as he suddenly found himself skyrocketing upward at breakneck speeds. Nearly thirty seconds later, when he reached the apex of his ascent, he looked down and saw the entire village laid out under him, with humans looking like ants. He screamed the entire way down.
The split second before he could become a bloodstain on the mountain peaks, the old man caught him with one hand. He had fallen maybe ten feet away from where he was originally thrown upward. "Are you ready to apologize now?" He asked, smugly.
"DO IT AGAIN! DO IT AGAIN! DO IT AGAIN!" Sigurd started screaming, causing the old man to deadpan.
"Of all the places I could've retired to…" The old man muttered before unceremoniously dropping Sigurd right there. He then turned and walked into the village, calling to someone, sounding like he was about to complain, just like most old people seemed to do.
With an oomph, Sigurd got up and ran back to the cart, hoping to find something really cool. He soon found it in the form of a beautifully crafted sword in its sheath. He tried to lift it up, only to find it was too heavy for his young arms, but that didn't stop him from trying.
During his struggles, he occasionally felt a minor tremor in the ground, but he ignored it, still trying to yank the heavy piece of metal out to play with.
Suddenly, he heard someone scream his name in pure panic. He turned around, and saw a monster, a T-Rexaur, running along the outside of the village gate right toward him. Panicking, Sigurd let go of the sword, and curled up in a ball, screaming his little head off in terror. He heard and felt the massive monster's feet get closer, and closer, and closer…
Then suddenly, it stopped. After a few seconds, curiosity overcame his fear and he looked up. There, hold the monster back, was the old man. He was holding the monster back by grabbing hold of its teeth. Both were struggling to push the other out of the way, and the old man was obviously struggling with the effort. Suddenly, using the leverage on the monster's teeth, he twisted the monster's head sharply, forcing it onto its side.
Almost faster than Sigurd's eyes could track, he grabbed his sword out of the cart, and rammed it into the monster's skull. After a few convulsions, the T-Rexaur died.
Pulling his sword out, the old man cleaned it off and walked over to Sigurd. "Ready to apologize yet?"
Now that the danger had passed, the young boy's normal personality emerged. "DO IT AGAIN!" He was going to say it several more times, but the next thing he knew, he woke up three days later with a really large lump on his head.
The insular village was usually suspicious of newcomers, but that event earned Yamasa everyone's trust. Sigurd couldn't help but smile at the memory of when his uncle took him to Yamasa, four years later, and asked the retired Wanderer if he could train, and hopefully discipline, the rambunctious ten year old. He would never forget the look of total panic on the old man's ugly face. He never admitted it, but ever since Yamasa saved his life four years before that, Sigurd greatly respected the old man.
"How are you so strong?" Sigurd asked.
"Fighting is not all about strength, Sigurd." Yamasa insisted.
"I'm not asking about fighting, I wanna know how you're so strong."
Yamasa kept his tongue in check. "White magic and potions."
"Oh, so you're not actually strong, you just use witchcraft?"
"No, no, you idiot, it's not magic that makes me strong, it helped make me strong."
"That's what I said."
A vein popped out on the old man's forehead, visible even through the deep wrinkles. "Okay, little brat, you want a straight answer? Muscles get larger and stronger through exertion by breaking down the muscles into proteins, and as it heals, it reforms stronger than before. In other words, we temporarily lose four parts strength only to gain back five parts. Magic and potions do the healing for us, so we lose one or two parts strength, and gain four or five back. Understand?"
"No."
"Of course not! You're a brat, and a stupid one at that. The moral of this lesson is: don't ask questions where you wouldn't understand the answer."
"You dunno what you're talking about, do you?" The vein on Yamasa's head grew to the width of a man's thumb.
Sigurd chuckled softly at that memory. Occasionally, on the few channels they got out there, he saw some cheesy martial arts movies about the callow student and the grumpy master who begrudgingly takes the student under his wing. He didn't take any pride in how he had the real thing, wishing his master was, at least sometimes, a little more patient with kids. As he got older and more mature (mostly out of necessity due to his master's temper), the old man gradually warmed up to him.
His mind gradually drifted back to Brynhilda. He hoped Master and Madam Frigg treated her well. Wanderers were rare, but they did come, and a few times, they were let into the village only to commit theft before leaving. This lead many villagers to distrust any outsiders.
When he heard Siegfried open the door, he wondered how long he had been in the bathtub. If his uncle was already done gutting, skinning, and hanging up the stag, he must've been more overworked than he thought to zone out like that.
"Oi, Sigurd!" Siegfried called out through the bathroom door. "The mayor asked to talk to me this eve'ning. Could ya do dinner tonight?"
"Sure, no problem." Sigurd called back, letting his head rest against the wall with his eyes closed. Even if he had to fix dinner tonight, the bath completely rejuvenated his sore body. As he got out, drained the water, and dried himself off, he wondered how long Brynhilda would stay in the village.
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That night, Siegfried seemed unusually distant as they ate their dinner of squash, potatoes, and chocobo. Sigurd figured his mind must've been on whatever business he had with the mayor.
The next morning, when he arrived at Yamasa's house, the old man was also unusually quiet, just letting him in and quickly making up some tea for the two of them. Over the years, the two of them had come to develop a sort of routine of conduct. The old man would initiate the first conversation, and unless they were in the middle of a lesson, Sigurd could start any appropriate conversation he wanted. Since Yamasa hadn't said a word since Sigurd arrived, they had their tea in complete silence. Even though the silver haired youth had learned patience over the years and outgrew his obnoxious behavior, the silence was testing him.
Finally, after nearly thirty minutes of nothing, Yamasa spoke. "I'm not going to escort the caravan this time."
That startled Sigurd. "What? But master…no one's better at fighting monsters than you!"
"I'm old, Sig." It was rare that he called his apprentice by his nickname. It meant he was talking to him, not as his student, but as his friend. "The thought of jumping the village walls alone makes me feel my age. I came to this rural village to retire, so I could live in peace and quiet. The problem is I never really retired. I still leave the village walls to hunt or escort people, and my bones are feeling it. I've given this a lot of thought, and decided to fully retire."
"But, but…who's going to escort the caravan for the annual offerings? Or anyone else for that matter?"
A slight smile crossed Yamasa's ragged leather-like face as he leaned across the table and gave Sigurd a light pat on the arm. "You. I believe you're ready for this." Sitting back into his chair, reveling in his students dumbfounded look, he continued, "You've got a long ways to go if you really want to be as good as I was in my youth, but you won't get that good just taking daily lessons with me and occasionally fighting a grat or goblin while hunting. You've grown a lot since you were a boy, but I can tell you're still restless. I think this'll be good for you. Besides, however much you like chocobos, I don't think a life of wrangling will satisfy you."
Sigurd couldn't argue with his master there. "Did you run this by the mayor?"
"I told Gibs yesterday, he didn't have any problem with it. The cunning bastard even found a way to use it to his advantage." He realized this must have involved his uncle. "You know how Gibs is, he just has to be prepared for the worst, and that includes strangers."
Surprise overtook Sigurd as he realized what Yamasa was talking about. "Brynhilda?"
"Yes, I heard that was her name. Our mayor's not paranoid, he just likes to be cautious, and there are enough villagers that truly distrust outsiders that if she stays very long, there could be trouble, and if that trouble finds its way to a Wanderer, especially ones with short tempers, that could cause even more trouble. I've known enough Wanderers to know not to underestimate them just because they're young and female."
"This involves me, doesn't it?" Sigurd asked, the pieces clicking into place. "The mayor wants me to invite her along to the Wind Shrine to get her out of the village. I brought her here, so I should make her leave."
"Essentially yes, but not quite that cynical." Yamasa answered, silently taking pride in his student's insightfulness. "The mayor just figured she would trust you a little more than a complete stranger. Give her the offer, but don't push her into it. He'd rather she left of her own accord rather than alienate her, which might make her stay just to spite us."
"And this involves Uncle Siegfried, too. Gibs wants him to be the wrangler this time, as a means of encouraging me to go along with it."
Yamasa raised his eyebrows in surprise. "You should be mayor someday. That's all of it in a nutshell. The caravan leaves tomorrow morning, so you'll have to decide before then."
Sigurd sighed and leaned back in his chair. He didn't like being manipulated or coerced, though, when he thought about, he knew the mayor was better than that; he was simply doing what he thought was best for the village. On the other hand, the idea excited him. He had only heard stories about the Wind Shrine, he had never actually been there, it would be a rare chance for an adventure, even if it was just a five day trip there and back, and most of it was on the Roads.
He didn't have very good reasons either way, but even Yamasa agreed that sometimes you just had to be a little impulsive. "Alright, I'll do it."
"Not with that piece of blacksmith scrap you have." Yamasa said, nodding toward Sigurd's sword, before getting up and walking into another room. The silver haired wrangler's interest was piqued, and a small, somewhat ridiculous dream came to his mind.
A minute later, the old Wanderer came back into the kitchen with a new sword. Sigurd tried not to show his disappointment that it wasn't Excalibur, Yamasa's most prized possession. Oh well, it was never meant to be.
He handed the heavy weapon to his student, who promptly unsheathed it while his master explained, "This is a backup I usually kept close incase Excalibur wasn't available. It was made by a whitesmith named Murakumo." The hilt was nearly a foot long, covered in wood contoured like a double helix with cutouts in the middle showing the steel tang within, and copper wire wrapped around for added grip. The blade was a milky white, three-and-a-half feet long, wide, thick and sharp. At the base, instead of a hand-guard, the blade widened out and extended below the top of the hilt, protecting the hand. "The smithy called that design Ame-no-Murakumo, or 'Cloud of the Heavens'. I just liked to call it Heaven's Cloud."
"It's beautiful." Sigurd said. The sword was second only to Excalibur in beauty.
"Don't let its beauty deceive you, it may be a looker but it's still mass produced. If you search any place that can be rightfully be called a city, you'll inevitably find a higher quality sword. Its beauty is mostly for driving up the price, but it'll serve you well."
Looking over the sword, and feeling how its hilt design made it easy to grip, he found he could not wait to start the journey tomorrow.
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It took fifteen minutes to get to the Peak Nest Inn from Yamasa's house, during which time, Sigurd considered how he would approach Brynhilda with his offer. The Peak Nest itself had a large floor room, since it was the only Inn in the village it had to handle a lot of guests for diners, drinkers, and parties, but the second level was barely half the size of the first floor, with only a few rooms for the rare visitor or seasonal merchant, a couple of storage rooms, and Madam Frigg's prized baths.
As he entered the mostly-red-brick building, he saw a few members of Council sitting near one of the fireplaces, smoking on pipes while the fumes were pulled up the chimney. Master Frigg was washing the counters, looking for whatever specks of dust he likely didn't miss before, the man was notoriously meticulous. Looking around the room, Sigurd found Byrnhilda at one of the tables, eating from a large platter.
As he got closer, he recognized, with some surprise, that her breakfast was a roasted piglet. He'd had piglet only once, and that was from a single roast that several farmers paid together to share. He never was overly fond of pork, but along with Master Frigg's secret recipe of herbs and spices, that tender meat was some of the best he had ever eaten. Madam Frigg charged a hundred and fifty gil to give up one of her piglets! This Wanderer must have had some money to spare!
He had to stop himself from salivating at the sight. "Miss Wagner?" He said softly.
While ripping off some juicy meat, she turned her head to look at him. She took a few seconds to chew and swallow before replying, "Checking up on me?"
"No…well, that too, but I was curious," he motioned to one of the chairs inquisitively, and she nodded. As he sat down, he continued, "I don't get out of the village much, so I was wondering how ours compared to others."
Taking a few seconds to swallow another mouth full, she considered, "Most places, especially rural villages, charge extra for the baths, and they're not half as good as the ones here." She took another bite before continuing while chewing, "I never much liked chocobo down mattresses or pillows, but these were much more comfortable than most." This slightly surprised Sigurd, as he didn't know there were other kinds of mattresses. "The cooking here is astounding, though. The Friggs must take a lot of pride in their work."
He was about comment that it was their motto when his companion took an unusually large bite, spilling juices down her chin and onto the plate, leaving her unable to chew with her mouth closed. Master Frigg would grimace if he saw that, and Sigurd fought not to do so as well.
He apparently didn't do as well as he had hoped when she saw him looking at her. She repositioned the food in her mouth enough to say, while wagging a haunch at him, in a slightly reprimanding tone, "If you went three weeks of nothing but bread, cheese, and plain stew, you wouldn't hold back either."
"Uh…yeah, I suppose." He stumbled. "Hey, you said you were looking for places you've never been. Ever been to the Wind Shrine?"
The question stopped her chewing for a brief moment, then she resumed, swallowed, and asked, "Are you asking me out?"
"What?! No!" He quickly said, caught off guard. Realizing how flustered that left him, and how it made her snicker, he quickly reorganized himself. "Tomorrow, we were going to make our annual offering of food to the Shrine. We live several hours away from the nearest Road, so we have to be careful of monsters. I've been assigned escort duty for the caravan, so I was wondering, seeing as you are a Wanderer, and have likely dealt with monsters before, you might be willing to help out?"
Her chewing slowed down a little as she mulled over the proposal. "Okay, I'm in. Tomorrow, you said?" He nodded. "I'll see you then."
Sigurd smiled and stood up. "Thank you, Miss Wagner. Or should I call you Brynhilda?"
"Just Hilda." She said before continuing her voracious devouring of her delicacy. As Sigurd was about to exit the building, Hilda called out, "And Sigurd," he stopped in the doorway to hear her, "tell your mayor that I appreciate the polite hospitality, but if he wants me to leave the village, all he has to do is ask."
Sigurd winced. So he wasn't as subtle as he thought he was.
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Author's Note: I WAS going to make this chapter include the first fight sequence, but it turned out to be too long. Oh well. Just so you know, nearly all the characters are based off of classic RPG archetypes in terms of their abilities, usually with a few tweaks. Sigurd, if you haven't figured it out, is a Paladin, but instead of only a few weak spells, he uses defensive spells like Shell and Protect, as well as a few other unique things I thought up. I'll give out a free spoiler of what's to come for anyone who can guess what Hilda is. Here's a hint: it's a mixture of two different classes.
Also, most of the names in this story are either taken from mythology or Final Fantasy, or are clever (for me) names describing the character or organization in some way. Yamasa is Japanese for 'Mountain Master', as far as I can tell, and Akaji could (I think) mean 'dirt old', inspiring the name of his truck.
Finally, this is my first time writing my own world. Any constructive criticism would be greatly appreciated, and I'll likely need it if I'm to ever get anything original published.