The Longest Road, Part 9


You walk alongside Khaytala in comfortable silence, both of you enjoying the warm summer day as you prepare to enact your gambit. You're well-fed and at the top of your game, pursuing a truly intriguing prey, unlike any mortal you've hunted to date. Khaytala is also eating as she walks—a piece of hardtack, in her case.

Not as good-looking as the meal you recently had... but you suppose it's easier to pocket, at least.

About the only distraction is the caravan master, Arne Rothach, who is glaring furious daggers at the back of your head. Word must have trickled back to him by now that his daughter was making eyes at you, and he's begun to keep a suspicious watch on you himself when he has a spare moment.

He doesn't know what you've actually done with Greta—if he did, most of the guards in the caravan would no doubt be trying to murder you right now—but even just the idea of something like that is enough to make him regard you with seething distrust. You can tell he regrets ever letting a "tiefling" demon-spawn like you into his caravan, no matter how much extra coin you paid.

But you ignore him, focusing on Khaytala. "By the way," you say. "I was thinking about what you said in the tavern, about how you were learning elvish. The thing is... I'm a bit rusty on it myself. So I'd love the chance to practice it a bit with someone else who speaks it, to keep my memory fresh. Would you be interested?"

Khaytala's eyes light up. "Of course!" she says eagerly. Then she hesitates. "Though I'm not very fluent yet. I haven't been studying for long."

"We'll take it slow," you say in elvish. "To begin with, how are you feeling today?"

"Very good," is Khaytala's response, albeit heavily accented. "I am... taking the stop... in work... to eat and talk... with the friend. It is very good."

She has to pause and think in between many of the words, but considering that she's only been studying it a short time—not to mention how little personal instruction she's had—her progress is actually quite astonishing. "I agree," you say, keeping your speech measured and enunciated, and your vocabulary simple. "Talking with a friend is very good indeed."

Khaytala listens intently as you speak. "Are the... other caravan men... making you trouble?" she asks, glancing back to where Arne is still glaring at you, while using the foreign language to give you a privacy you didn't have before. "If the men do something... call for me. I would give help."

You smile. "Thank you. But don't worry. I'm sure that once they get to know me, they will see how wrong their suspicions are."

The minutes fly by as you continue to talk. Khaytala is clearly excited to have this chance, and she engages in it eagerly. Eventually you talk her into a little game, ostensibly for practicing vocabulary. It's a simple idea; the two of you take turns saying elvish words to each other. The catch is that are that each word has to relate in some way to the preceding one, and the first person to run out of words loses the round.

Khaytala is a little skeptical at first... but she displays a distinct competitive streak once you get her going. You play the first few rounds out normally... then start to make your move.

Your word of "dream" gets a quick response from Khaytala of "sleep", which you respond to in turn with "blanket". That leads to "warm" which leads to "campfire". Khaytala shoots back with "flame", and you reply with "lantern".

Khaytala has to think for a bit, which probably means her supply of elvish words near "lantern" must be running low, but eventually she responds with "light". Judging the time to be right, you respond to that with "sunrise".

You've already used up most of her light-related words, but there's an easy out. "Beautiful!" says Khaytala.

And then, simply—as though it were just the most obvious thing in the world—you respond to that word with "you."

Khaytala turns to look at you, her eyes wide in surprise and incomprehension. Then she laughs. But it's a weak, forced laugh, and you can see pain in her eyes that she's trying her best to hide. "Heh heh. That's... that's a good one, Talavar. Didn't figure you for that kind of joker."

"It wasn't a joke," you tell her. "I meant exactly what I said."

She frowns, studying you, as though trying to decide whether she can believe you or not. Looking at the disbelief, the hurt in her eyes, you realize for the first time just how skewed her perception of herself truly is. You'd seen with your own eyes how nearly everyone around her treats her like a monster, with Brannek even calling her that right to her face.

What you hadn't realized until just now is the sheer extent to which—after hearing that from so many people for so very long—Khaytala has come to believe it herself. Even to the point of not being able to hear someone saying she's attractive as anything other than cruel mockery.

Watching her hesitate, you place a hand on her arm, looking her in the eye. "Khaytala," you say, quietly but firmly. "You are a beautiful woman."

The half-orc woman hesitates, opens her mouth as though to speak, then closes it again. She looks at you, a tumult of twisting emotions running across her face. But a whole lifetime of self-hatred can't be unlearned with a single compliment—not even from you. "Look..." she says shakily. "I... I know you probably mean well, but... you don't need to say things like that to try and make me feel better. Really. I can handle the truth."

"If it makes you uncomfortable, I can stop talking about it," you say. "But don't ask me to agree that what I said wasn't true. Because I can't."

Khaytala stares at you, her expression torn and conflicted. Then she looks away, and the two of you continue on in strained silence for a while. Eventually, Khaytala makes an excuse about needing to get back to her duties, then hurries up toward the front of the caravan.

As she departs, your supernatural hearing catches her cursing herself under her breath for a being stupid, stupid idiot who always ruins everything. She's using dwarfish this time, as an added precaution, and you note that she's considerably more fluent in that than elvish.

Though of course, she doesn't know that you can understand that language perfectly as well.

You release a sigh as you watch her go, trying to figure out what your next step will be. That compliment didn't go over nearly as well as you'd hoped. Still, at least the subject is out in the open now, meaning you could try to follow up on it more if you wanted, now that you have a better idea of how badly those blind idiots around her have warped her view of her own desirability. In fact, it's even possible that—

But your thoughts are interrupted as you catch a distant movement out of the corner of your eye. Something about it triggers your instincts, and you turn to look closely at the hilltop from which it came.

Your eyes widen. There is a figure lying on that hill, camouflaged beneath a grass-colored blanket, their face obscured by a black hood and a red scarf. But whoever it is, they've just pulled out a crossbow and have it trained toward the caravan. You track their aim as best you can from that distance, but even before you look, you already know who the most likely target here is. And you're right.

The crossbow is aimed at Khaytala.

You curse under your breath. If only you'd noticed the sniper sooner! Then you might have had more options. But even with your demonic senses, from such a long distance it was only the readying of the weapon that caught your attention. You don't know exactly how much time you have... but it's probably only seconds, if that.

You could shout a warning, pointing out the sniper's position to Khaytala and trusting her to defend herself. There would be more unknowns with that tactic, as it leaves more out of your direct control.

On the other hand, if you instead pushed yourself to the limits of your speed, you could probably get between the sniper and Khaytala, protecting her yourself. You feel confident that you should be able to survive a crossbow bolt from this range, especially if you're choosing how to take the hit.

The latter tactic would allow you to personally ensure that Khaytala isn't harmed, leaving less to chance. On the other hand, displaying your regeneration like that would increase suspicion that you are more than what you seem. After all, most ordinary tieflings wouldn't have such incredible healing. But either way, you'll need to make a decision.

And you have only a split-second to do it in.