Omake Week 2022, Day 3: It wouldn't be an Omake Week without the obligatory entry from the Alys-and-Joss series that was the origin of my omake writing in the first place, now, would it?

~X X X~

Philosophers claimed that death and taxes were the only certainties in life. Alys Brangwin found this surprising, because in her experience most philosophy was conceived three or four drinks into an evening, and anyone who spent that much time at the Hunter's Guild bar surely would be aware of life's third certainty.

"Yo! Alys, babe!"

The ox-like bellow was spawned from the ox-like brain of Joss Howland, a veteran hunter and equally veteran nuisance. He'd started out thinking of himself as a rival to Alys's title as Motavia's most celebrated hunter, and when the impossibility of that had been made painfully clear he had decided that she was instead his ideal woman.

"See, Chaz?" Alys told her new trainee, who was seated beside her at the bar, sipping from the glass of mila in his left hand while his right was free to work his way through the bowl of noodles balanced in his lap. "This is why I said that you shouldn't let your mistakes get you down. No matter how badly you screw something up, you can always find yourself doing something worse."

"Yeah, but...Joss never lets his mistakes get him down, either. Isn't his having no regrets part of what makes him...him?"

Alys shook her head.

"You're missing the point. 'Don't imitate the bad example' is a good principle, but that needs you to spot what the bad example actually is."

Chaz was a promising young man, and showed one of his good qualities when his curiosity cut through his dejection.

(Besides, the duck poo had washed out of his hair, and it was at least partly the client's fault for not letting them know the birds didn't have clipped wings and thus could still fly.)

"Huh? What am I missing, Alys?"

"I'll demonstrate. I'd call Joss over, but he'll take care of that for himself."

Indeed, without any invitation, acknowledgement, or hint of desire for his company on Alys's part, Joss wound his way through the tables towards where she and Chaz sat. He beamed at them, full of good cheer and at least enough thought to conclude that complimenting Alys's trainee was a good idea.

"Hey, there! I saw on the board that you'd cleared that job about the missing ducks. Giving the kid a chance to get his feet wet on some easy ones, huh?"

Alys, who'd known better than to stand under a nervous waterfowl even at Chaz's age, shrugged.

"More his head than his feet, but he successfully completed the job, and that's what counts."

"Well, then, congratulations! How's about I treat the kid to his dinner and a second round, and you and I can go celebrate, huh, babe?"

"The client paid their fee, so it's not like we need anything."

"Nah, I insist! Us hunters, we've got to support each other, right?"

Joss plucked several meseta out of his coin pouch and slapped them down onto the bar, then lifted his hand to signal Garn, the barkeeper. Or at least he tried to, because his palm stayed firmly stuck in place on the wood.

"Hey!" Garn cried out. "What do you think you're doing? I just varnished the bar top! Did you think the kid's got his dinner on his lap for the fun of it?"

"Huh? What? But I—"

"Just don't hurt yourself trying to yank it loose; I'll go and get the solvent." Garn sighed and headed towards the back room, they called back over his shoulder, "And you're paying to have it redone!"

"Now you see, Chaz, this is exactly what I was talking about," Alys said.

"What do you mean?"

"This is at least the third different time that Joss has managed to stick himself, or something of his, to the furniture around here. You'd assume that he'd start looking out for that, but nope, Glue Boy is at it again. Do you get it now?"

"Oh, I think I see."

"Good." Just in case he didn't, though, Alys put it into words. "It's okay to mess up sometimes. Everybody does that. What's important is that you look at your mistakes, figure out why you made them, and not do the same thing in the future. Otherwise," she concluded with a glance back at the discomfited Joss, "you just end up stuck in the past."