The fields looked creepy. Rhies shuddered and turned his head back to the fire. Not that that was much better. The cooking fire was burrowed into the ground, supposedly to ‘hide it’ from anyone who might see. It looked eerie with the smoke glowing orange rising from the ground. Like a peephole into hell.

Then there was that wraith across the clearing to deal with. At least, she looked one, with the hood pulled up around her head once more. She sat huddled on a musty log. The axes had been removed from her back, but lay a hands reach away, leaning against the fallen tree. He couldn’t see her face, but imagined that she was watching him out of those hard gray eyes.

He looked out past the forest again into the grass beyond. He thought he saw a glow.

Ha, pixies, he thought. Now I know I’m going crazy. Aren stirred on the log. He whirled around. She yawned.

“I’m going to sleep now,” she said, and curled up with her back against the log, her face to the fire. ‘You get first watch.’

‘Damn women’ Rhies though. ‘Bossy cows.’

His eyes wandered again. The pixie was gone.

Rhies grunted. He was sleepy. To keep himself awake, he started talking to himself under his breath.

Rogh had gotten lucky. Not only had he crept upon the strange couple unseen, one of them was now talking about itself. A great many uncouth expressions sprang from the creature’s mouth, and Rogh had to work not to flinch with each curse.

‘Damn woman,’ it was saying.

Rogh assumed that it was talking about the other human.

‘Forcing me to take watch. Ha!’ here his voice mumbled out numerous verbal atrocities, and Rogh clenched his fists.

This was horrible. Flikkits were, after all, very polite creatures. The mere sounds of curses were akin to physical pain. He could at least understand why the human insisted upon deploying them. He was frightened; Rogh could smell that 6 yards away. The show of bravado helped to convince himself that he was really brave.

From what he was mumbling between curses, Rogh discovered that he had been planning an escape from his master when the girl had recruited him for her services, albeit grudgingly. Rogh thought that he really didn’t mind so much. The company on the road made him determined to actually go through with the escape. Now he had no chance to change his mind and run back to his master.

At least, that was what Rogh inferred from the human’s mutterings. He had to admire the boy though. For being rather dim-witted, the youth was very honest with himself.

How his honesty to other people measured, Rogh wasn’t so sure.