Chapter 38: Types of People

When Thirteen crossed the doorway of the farmhouse, he was met with a wave of warmth from inside. The ground beneath his feat and some of the walls were lined with pelts, while candles were lit in every room, a fire hazard to be sure, but certainly welcoming.

"Alright lads" The large, bearded man said as he saw them enter. "You can call me Ron"

Thirteen accepted the large outstretched hand and gave a firm shake replying "Thirteen", followed soon after by Ten and Nine doing the same.

The man—Ron, cocked a brow at their names but didn't pry. "Glad to meet you. Now, if you're going to be staying the night, I'd say we get to know each other. Come, we'll have an early dinner."

Thirteen did think about politely refusing, it's not like he expected strangers to share their food with him, but something about the man gave him the distinct impression that he wouldn't accept a refusal.

'Besides, I'd rather not have to eat more plain rations'

Ron led the three of them to a small dining room, where he took the seat of the host, signalling the others to sit wherever they please.

"So, why don't we start with what three children, like yourselves, are doing in this obviously unfamiliar village with trained horses and swords at your hip."

Thirteen froze for a moment. He assumed by the man's generous nature and that he hadn't pried into their names that he would just exchange small talk, leaving their circumstances out of it. Now that it was brought up, he failed to think of a valid excuse.

"Our father is a soldier," Nine said. "He's been assigned south, leaving mum and us alone in Beckton. Unfortunately…" He trailed off, a distressed expression plain to see.

'What are you doing?!' Thirteen shouted in his mind. 'What mum? What soldier dad?'

"I see. It's a common enough tale, I'm sorry about your mother"

"It's oka–"

"However, that doesn't answer my question. The swords I can believe, days like these everyone learns from young, but how and why do you have three spare, healthy horses."

As Nine looked down at the table, Thirteen could see him sweating as he thought of the next lie. He knew that Ron would likely see through it as well, and so, with a sharp breath, he made as guilty an expression as he could manage, thinking to how he felt when he first killed a man, and how those around him had looked at the time.

"We… We stole them." He muttered, his head low as he stared at the wooden table.

Ten too dropped her head and gulped audibly. Thirteen didn't know if it was from the suspense or if she was acting, but it certainly helped.

After a time, Ron's frowning face turned to Thirteen, whereupon it softened.

"Sigh… So that's it. You're trying to find your father then?"

"Yes sir" Nine picked up.

"You kids should have just stayed home. Whatever the situation was there it couldn't be more dangerous than the roads."

The three remained silent.

"Well, you can stay here for as long as you like. Do you know where your dad is stationed?"

Thirteen knew Nine was about to answer the most likely assignment for a foot soldier of eastern Demia, but he doubted a normal kid would know or remember the location, so he interrupted just as Nine went to speak.

"No. But he spoke of going southeast, and… and we know our uncle lives in Helbeck, so we're going there for now."

He would have preferred not to name the town, but if he seemed TOO unaware of his goal, the man might just stop them from leaving.

"Alright, well I won't stop you. And there's obviously more to it than that, but I understand. Just don't steal from me like you did the poor bastard who owned those horses and we won't have an issue."

As Thirteen was relaxing, having gotten past the hurdle, a female, scolding voice called.

"Oh, leave them alone Ron, do they look like thieves and liars?"

As Thirteen grimaced somewhat, feeling a bit guilty, a woman in her mid forties entered the dining room, bowls and plates in hand.

"And give me a hand with this will you?"

Thirteen found the woman very similar to his first impression of Ron. They each had that same softness in their eyes, though of course Ron's was guarded by a stricter outlook.

Walking around the table, the woman stopped by Ten.

"Here you go darling" She said, placing a bowl of soup and bread on the table before Ten, even going so far as to pat her head.

Thirteen almost burst into laughter as he saw Ten's reaction. Her whole expression froze, looking like a cat that had just been led to a lake, sitting there frozen as the woman ran fingers through her hair.

When the woman left Ten's side to deliver food to Nine, Ten's eyes followed her around the table forlornly.

As he was busy watching the others, Thirteen didn't notice Ron walking up to him, not until he placed the soup and bread on the table before him.

"Kid, greet my wife, Tilda."

"Nice to meet you, and thank you for the food" Thirteen said, followed by Nine and Ten mirroring.

"Oh, such good manners! I wish Ed had half your manners at that age."

"Ed?" Thirteen asked, looking to Ron as Tilda found her seat next to the man's.

"Our son. The boy's already a man himself now, left the village years ago."

"Oh."

'He left?' Thirteen thought. 'Why didn't he bring his parents with him?'

"Well go on then, it's not poison"

At Tilda's words, Thirteen realised he was the only one not yet eating. Taking a spoon full of soup, he inevitably felt it plain, as he did with most foods, but it was warm. Very very warm.

Almost two hours passed as everyone at the table talked long past the end of their dinner. Unfortunately, the three children didn't have much about their own lives they could speak of, especially now that they had to maintain a lie, so they focused instead on asking questions, truly interested about the lives of the villagers and of Ron and Tilda. Like this the afternoon passed pleasantly, every one of them filled with a sense of warmth.

When dusk truly set in to night, the three all retrieved their packs that lay by their feet and stood with Ron.

"Come on, I'll get you sorted out in the barn."

Tilda had asked Ron a few times to let them stay inside, but he wouldn't agree. Thirteen thought it smart. They had confessed to stealing afterall, not to mention they were all armed, even if they were children.

Ron didn't see them freeze though, as he had a very large spare blanket he offered them.

When they were all settled in the upper story of the barn, really just a balcony construct on which bales of hay were stored, the three used bundles of clothes from their packs as pillows as they lay next to each other beneath the blanket.

Thirteen was next to Ten on one end, while Nine put distance between them and took the furthest reach of the blanket. 'Wierdo' Thirteen thought as stared at the ceiling, letting his thoughts wander as he grew tired.

After laying in silence for a while, long after Nine had fallen asleep, Ten spoke in a quiet, tired voice.

"They're really nice"

"Mn." Thirteen responded. "I feel bad about lying."

"Same."

…

"I wish I could have lived somewhere like this. A village."

"The towns are really so different?"

"Very."

…

"Do you miss home?" she asked.

"I… I miss Helga. The head of the orphanage."

Thirteen felt surprised by his response. 'I miss Helga… not home? I suppose, there isn't much left for me at home is there? It would feel weird, having nothing to challenge me, nothing to push me onwards. I guess... I am already a different type of person.'

Feeling both lost at thoughts of home and warm from his stay with the couple, Thirteen slowly fell asleep.

Thirteen often dreamt in his sleep. Though usually his dreams were filled with a sense of urgency or impending failure. But that was lacking this time. Instead, his dream was a stitched together sequence of nonsensical scenarios and settings, tied together by a theme of travel and exploration.

He dreamt of exploring a strange and crowded town, where everyone first buried their food in dirt before eating the trees it sprouted. He traveled down long roads with a large green wolf, as he and his friends overpowered bandits. He ventured into an unknown settlement, where everybody was kind and warm. But as he enjoyed the warm stew, made for him by every inhabitant of the settlement, a dark shadow crept over the land. The warmth was replaced with a horrible chill, as Thirteen felt the hairs on his arms and back raise.

With a start, Thirteen's eyes shot open, instinctually glowing with lifeforce. A living figure loomed over him, reaching down beside him. Thirteen acted within the same second that his eyes shot open, grasping a dagger that lay where he slept, he plunged the blade into the side of the shadows arm, and pulled down as he reached for the intruders collar, throwing the man to the ground beside him.

Thirteen felt that same sensation. His blood pumping faster, filled with incredible heat as he wrapped his hands around the intruder's neck, employing unfathomable strength as he squeezed.

With multiple disgusting, cracking noises, the intruder's throat was crushed and squeezed to an impossibly thin size, as he thrashed about in resistance, deep bruises forming beneath Thirteen's grasp.

Breathing heavily, Thirteen slowly released his grip after the man had stilled, his eyes no longer glowing as the silhouette of a dying life vanished to reveal the man's face. Seeing the man's beardless, thin face, Thirteen exhaled an incredible amount of air, his shoulders relaxing so suddenly that he fell forward, catching himself on the ground.

As he sat there, panting, he felt so incredibly glad.

'It's not him. It's not Ron.' He thought, as tears came to his eyes.

He had been so scared for a moment, that all the kindness and charity was a ploy, that the man was a villain, a thief or a murderer. He realised only when he heard the cracking that he hadn't stopped to see who the intruder was and immediately assumed the worst.

Feeling a hand on his shoulder, Thirteen turned to see Ten, awake and crouched next to him with a dagger in her other hand. It seemed she woke with his movements. Looking to Nine, the boy was still fast asleep.

Breathing in deeply, and then breathing out. Thirteen calmed himself far quicker than most, and began to assess what had happened. He looked to where the man's body lay and realised what he was after.

'My pack is open. It was set next to me as I slept. He was a thief.'

Looking at the man again, he was a lanky creature, but lacked the shifty eyes and crooked smile Thirteen so readily imagined of a thief. Rather, he seemed like a very normal man in his forties, though a bit ragged, with a stench of alcohol about him.

"What do we do about this?" Ten asked softly from the side.

"I don't know. Wake Nine up for now."

As she did so, Thirteen thought about what to do with the body. If this happened in a town, Thirteen might be fined, but that was all. If someone tresspassed into your house at night, and stood by your bed as you slept, it would be ridiculous to charge you for murder when you kill the intruder. But this wasn't a town. It was a village. Here, the village head or council, whoever had rule of the settlement would decide the punishment. And no man of a village would side with an outsider over one of their own, even if he knew the culprit was guilty. Not when the culprit had been killed.

'We could certainly just leave the body here, but I don't want to do that to Ron and Tilda. Even if it's obvious that we outsiders killed him, they might be ostracized for hosting us. Also, I really don't want them to have to see this.' He thought, looking back down to the crushed, purple neck and bloodshot eyes of the intruder.

"We'll leave now." Thirteen said just as Ten finished catching Nine up.

"We'll strap him to one of the horses, and we'll dump his body elsewhere, let the wolves have him."

The two nodded, and soon, they were packing their things and getting ready to leave. Thirteen did as he said, throwing the body over the back of the horse, and trying to tie it down in whatever ways he could manage.

When all three were mounted, their horses untied, and bags packed, they slowly paced their way out of the barn and away from the village, only picking up pace once they were sure not to wake old Ron or Tilda.

After They left the village and spent another twenty minutes very carefully riding in the dark, Thirteen dumped the body and cut it open, letting the smell of blood carry on the wind. They then traveled another 10 minutes before waiting by the roadside for an hour, until the first light of dawn shone.

Mounting up and readying to continue their journey, Thirteen looked back down the road they had come. He felt nothing for the life of the thief, which no longer surprised him. But he felt a clenching of his chest at the thought of Ron and Tilda despising them.

'Please understand' He thought, as he slowly rode the long and empty road.