Artefact Hunters: Ikimono's Mirror

     It was the morning after the second incident with Ikimono’s Mirror, and Brynn was really starting to worry about her partner.

     From the corner of her eye, she watched him chew mechanically on some dried fruit from their supplies while she straightened the satchel against her back and cinched it tight again. They’d found a rather large bush to hide under while they slept, but she didn’t want to take any more chances with the mirror and had kept the satchel on, loose, while she tucked herself between two branches to keep from shifting too much in her sleep. It was far from the most comfortable way to spend a night, but she’d been through worse.

     Hanso did not look like he’d ever been through worse. Brynn knew that he had, and had managed. Even discounting their various adventures together, long-wanted career criminals of the sort he’d once been did not live the lives of luxury they all seemed to dream of. He might complain about it at times, but the guy knew how to rough it when he needed to.

     No, Hanso’s sluggish movements and the tired look in his eyes had nothing to do with last night’s sleeping arrangements. He had been acting quiet and subdued ever since their run-in with the poachers the night before, like he either hadn’t recovered from that or else from their scare with the mirror.

     That really wasn’t like him. Hanso always bounced back from threats once they’d been dealt with, and that was when he was taking the threats seriously in the first place. He handled scares and stress by playing it cool, and cracking jokes, and –

     Oh.

     Brynn sat up straighter, shoulders tense and tail twitching. Was that the issue? Hanso didn’t have his usual outlets for dealing with problems, so now he was just… bottling everything up?

     She should talk to him. As much as she could, at least.

     Hanso’s ears perked a little when he saw Brynn grab her writing stick and plod up to him. She paused for a moment, thinking, and then scratched out, “Be okay.”

     Hanso’s face scrunched in confusion at the words. Brynn grumbled to herself. Stupid stick writing made it hard to find the right words without taking forever to write several of them out. Just before what she’d already written, she added the word, “We’ll.”

     Then, after another moment’s thought, she cleared away another patch of dirt and added something she’d been mulling over that morning. “Mirror whole. Even if wasn’t, Fyora can help.”

     It only made sense, really. Queen Fyora had managed to save Hanso from Xandra’s out-of-control, artefact-fed petrification. And that was after she’d been weakened from months of being petrified herself. Surely, even if something did happen to Ikimono’s Mirror, the faerie queen would find a way to reverse its spell on the two of them.

     Hanso read her words and nodded. It was a quick nod, like he had already thought about that.

     Brynn studied his face. He didn’t look like he was being dishonest, or like he didn’t believe her reassurance. But she could see from the dark look in his eyes and the slight hunch in his shoulders that something was still wrong. And it didn’t escape her that he hadn’t written anything yet.

     Feeling a little foolish for asking the question at a time like this, but unable to think of how else to put it, she wrote, “What’s wrong?”

     Hanso tensed, and for a moment, Brynn was afraid that he wouldn’t even answer her. Then, he reached forward with a hoof and scratched out, “My fault.”

     Brynn stared at the two words. His fault? What?

     Before she could ask for clarification, he snorted in frustration and stamped out everything that had been written so far.

     Starting at the top of their makeshift writing pad, he wrote, “This is my fault. All of it, ever since we picked up the mirror. I jumped in that pool when I should have known better, and now you’re –”

     Brynn scrambled back as the message got longer and longer, its letters shrinking in size as Hanso ran out of room to scratch out the words. With another snort, he moved to another rootless spot, cleared away the detritus with such force that his hooves gouged into the dirt and pulled up some of the grass at the edge, and continued in increasingly jagged letters.

     “– mad at me and we could get stuck like this forever if we don’t get captured by hunters or eaten first and I don’t know how to fix it and I just want to hear you laugh again.”

     Brynn watched him finish the message with wide eyes, ears pinned back in shock. He blamed himself for everything? And he thought she did, too? Where in Neopia had he gotten that idea?

     She looked up at him, staring down at his own writing with heaving breaths and his head held in shame. She looked back at the words, so much longer and more eloquent than anything either of them had written out since yesterday.

     Did… Did he think she’d been writing so little because she was still mad at him? Just how much had he been misunderstanding her?

     How much had she been misunderstanding him?

     Gingerly, Brynn picked up her stick and manoeuvred it back into position. She glanced back at Hanso and grunted, gesturing with it toward the first patch of dirt that had been filled with his words.

     Hanso nodded, and Brynn set a paw over the first line. She started to swipe it across, but looked back at him to make sure he understood her intentions before she’d erased more than the first word. Hanso blinked, sat up a little straighter, and nodded again.

     With a nod back, Brynn erased the first half of his message to make room for her own.

     “I’m not mad at you,” she wrote out. She was a little annoyed at how much time and effort it took, but this was important. “The stable hands and the poachers made their choices. Everything else was an accident.”

     She paused long enough to make sure he read it, and then erased that part of the message to continue. This was a clearer work surface than the one he’d made in his haste before.

     “I write few words because writing them is hard. Not because of you.

     “I’m sorry.”

     Hanso seemed to slump a little as she finished scratching out the last two words. Brynn eyed him again, concern furrowing her brow. Was that a sign that he was starting to relax, or had she somehow managed to upset him even more?

     Hanso reached forward, seemed to consider it for a moment, and then twisted around to erase what he’d written into the other dirt patch instead. In its place, he wrote out, “Guess you’re better at swinging a metal sword than writing with that wooden one.”

     Brynn cocked her head as she tried to understand that. Hanso snorted, tapped on her stick and the corner of the satchel’s strap where she stowed it, and then sat back and mimed the action of sheathing a sword against his back.

     Ah. Brynn let out a good-natured snort and batted him gently on the shoulder with a paw, the way she sometimes did when he shared bad jokes. In response, Hanso grinned – or at least the best approximation a Nuk could make – and she swore he could see his tail wag a little.

     Before either of them could think twice about it, Brynn reached forward and wrapped a forelimb around him with a soft, purr-like moan. It was a sound that she hadn’t had occasion to make before, gentle and loving and comforting in a way that was too emotionally intimate for just any time. Hanso stiffened in surprise, and then melted into the half-hug and returned it with one of his own forelegs.

     Brynn couldn’t say she’d be able to keep up all these long writing sessions, and she honestly doubted that Hanso would be able to do so either. They did still have a long journey ahead, after all. But this kind of miscommunication wasn’t going to happen again, not if she could help it. She would do whatever it took to ensure they truly and fully understood each other.

     And whatever else happened, they were going to make it through this.

     It was the second day after Hanso’s little incident with the mirror pool, and he was really starting to appreciate the Misty Spires.

     No, wait. He was starting to hate the Misty Spires. Eh, maybe it was a little of both.

     At around this time the day before, he and Brynn had found the mountain river that went through Chiaki and started following it back toward the high mountain where it had its source. It had been simple enough, if a little rocky, while they were in the valley. But now, upstream was going, well, up. He’d lost count of the rocky rapids and waterfalls the two of them had trekked alongside. While they’d been pretty interesting at first, now they mostly served as a signal that he was in for yet another climb.

     At least it was a pretty climb.

     Hanso plodded along a few yards behind Brynn, trying to ignore the mud squelching beneath his hooves and the way his bag slipped and shifted over his mist-soaked fur. She’d been quiet for the last few hours, in more ways than one. She had given up on carrying a stick for writing after it rubbed the skin raw where she tucked it under her artefact satchel. She could still grab new ones if she had to “say” something particular, but Hanso could see now why she didn’t enjoy writing too many words at a time.

     He was just thankful that she’d set his head straight regarding her intentions. Still, it didn’t make the lack of conversation any less… well, boring.

     Hanso sighed and glanced back at the pack draped over his back. It was probably around lunchtime, right? Maybe they could take a moment to relieve one of the little unpleasantries of the long trek, and sneak in a few words besides.

     Looking forward again, he made a closed-mouth noise to signal Brynn to stop a moment. She paused and turned, watching him quizzically while he slipped off his bag and pulled it open to look over their supplies.

     Their food was starting to get lighter than he liked. Back in Kasuma, he’d packed more than enough for the anticipated trip to Chiaki, just in case. But neither of them had anticipated needing to leg it all the way to the capital, especially without being able to stop and restock in any other towns along the way. At least their smaller frames didn’t need quite as much food as they normally did.

     Brynn loped up to join him, nose twitching as she studied the dried fruits and meats in the bag. After a moment, she turned and gave the river a contemplative look.

     With a soft grunt, she turned back and made her way toward the river’s edge. Hanso watched her with a small frown as she peered in. Was she seriously considering…?

     Backing up a little, Brynn found a patch of muddy ground. Forgoing a writing stick, she started scraping out lines in the soft sediment with a forepaw. “Leave mine.”

     She was. Hanso’s nose wrinkled in distaste when his partner waded into the cold water, mud swirling off of her paws as she watched intently for fish. It wasn’t like they hadn’t hunted or foraged before – they’d traveled in and around the Haunted Woods for a while during the faerie crisis, and there weren’t many towns to stock up in there. But they’d been able to use tools to clean and prepare their food then. Plus, you know, cook the stuff.

     Oh, well. If Brynn wanted some way-too-fresh sushi, that was her choice. She was the one stuck as a meat eater, while his own Nuk body wouldn’t appreciate the meat even if he wanted it like that.

     Still, she had a point. Better to forage now while they still had access to the river’s abundance than wait until they ran out of the prepared food that would otherwise last a while. Hanso started sniffing around the nearby bushes, trying to find… something. Something that smelled good, he guessed?

     He paused. Would stuff that was poisonous still smell good?

     A loud splash cut into his line of mental questioning. He looked over just in time to see Brynn burst back up to the water’s surface with a wriggling fish in her jaws.

     Nope. Hanso turned back toward the bush he’d been eyeing and started shifting on his hooves. Weren’t Ixilike petpets supposed to be able to eat anything? Or was that a myth? Ugh, this would be better if he actually knew the plants in this land.

     With a frustrated snort, he turned away from the bush to see if he could find something more useful. He caught a glimpse of Brynn tearing into her fish, immediately looked away, and tried to tell himself that it really was no different from sushi. Huh, maybe that was why she wanted to catch her own food now while they had the river available. He certainly didn’t want to think of her having to do the same to, like, a Pyugi or something.

     Hanso shook his head. Focus.

     A stand of bamboo caught his eye a little further down the riverbank. His ears perked in interest. That was something he’d seen in Shenkese cooking. He trotted up to give it a closer look, and a sniff for good measure. It smelled tasty enough to his Nuk nose. Was it okay raw?

     …Whatever, he was a goat. If Pandaphants could chow down on this stuff all day and Neopians cooked with it, he was sure he’d be fine.

     He craned his neck forward to take a bite, and then paused. This was absurd. Here he was, reduced to eating leaves off of trees while his partner hunted raw fish with her teeth. Put like that, he almost envied Brynn. At least she had the cool-sounding way of getting food like… well, like a petpet.

     Enough stalling. Craning forward again, he nipped off part of a tender young leaf and started chewing. No big deal. Just a salad, and in fact the freshest one he could ask for.

     He kept chewing. Not a bad salad, actually. Maybe it was the Nuk palate? He had to admit, the dried fruits were starting to taste a little sickly-sweet and make him feel nauseous if he had too many at once. Maybe he should find some bamboo shoots or something to dig up. That might suit his body better than the fruit and still let this all feel more… normal.

     A soft growl sounded behind Hanso, and he jolted and almost choked on his leaf. He turned to find that Brynn had come up behind him, head lowered a little and ears erect. She looked worried.

     Hanso let out a questioning bleat. Had she lost him for a moment? Did something about the bamboo worry her? Was it poisonous like this?

     Brynn glanced back at him and motioned with a paw for him to get down. Her nose was twitching. Ooh, that… that wasn’t good.

     Hanso did as directed, crouching back against a thicker part of the bamboo stand for some kind of cover and lowering his horns a little. He wasn’t sure what she had smelled or heard or seen, but he remembered what had happened with the wild Biyako the other night. He risked a sniff of his own. There was something on the wind, something musky like another creature. He didn’t have the experience to know just what it was, though.

     Brynn stepped in front of him and growled again, her hackles raising. The satchel on her back lessened the effect a little, but she still looked intimidating. Hanso followed her gaze just in time to hear another, smaller growl return hers.

     A ways back, hidden among the underbrush, a wild Petpet moved. It was mostly green – a Razumi, he thought. He could see long claws as it picked up its paws and started to back away. Its dark eyes flashed with fear as Brynn’s own bored into it. She was the stronger predator here.

     After a few eternal seconds, the Razumi turned and disappeared far into the brush. Hanso released a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding and inched up closer to Brynn. She looked back at him, fur settling, and grunted in concern.

     There weren’t any good spots for writing with all the bamboo shoots around, so Hanso let out a reassuring bleat and mimed sheathing a sword for her again. ‘I’m just glad I’ve got a bodyguard around.’

     Brynn watched him for a few moments longer, careful to ensure she understood him right. He scooted up closer to her again, sat down, and grinned a Nuk grin.

     That seemed to satisfy her, so she laid down next to the stand and motioned for him to go back to browsing. It looked like she was done with her own meal, and Hanso appreciated the extra protection.

     He meant it about sticking close to her, though. It was a humbling experience, coming face-to-face with the fact that he wasn’t at the top of the food chain here. And if it meant having a top predator around to scare off anything that might want to snack on him, he wasn’t going to begrudge her need for fresh meat.

     It was the evening of the third day since they’d retrieved the mirror, and Brynn felt soreness in muscles she hadn’t even known she had. And for an active knight, that was saying something.

     She imagined the Biyako body was to blame for that. For all she knew, Kougras didn’t have all the same muscles. But the rugged mountain paths couldn’t be helping, either.

     She and Hanso had left the river behind the evening before, in order to round the mountain and cross to another one closer to the capital. They’d since found another river they could follow for a short way, though. That would help them keep easier track of where they were and provide her with another source of fresh fish.

     Right now, though, the river was causing a bit of trouble. They’d come upon a steep rise they needed to climb, which was both a familiar sight and a painful one by now. It also meant they were climbing past a fairly high waterfall, which threw up a dense spray all around their intended path.

     Hanso was a short ways ahead, searching out an area that wasn’t too steep or wet to climb and wouldn’t drive them too far off their route. His long ears twitched in thought, and his supply bag bounced a little against his back as he tested the firmness of the ground with a forehoof. Behind him, Brynn craned her head to study the top of the rise for any issues they might encounter up ahead.

     Hanso turned his head with a satisfied snort and pointed his hoof up the path he’d been studying. Brynn eyed it a moment longer, and then nodded with a small chuff. ‘Looks like our best option.’

     Hanso nodded back and started weaving his way up the rise. Brynn gave him a few moments to put a safe gap between them before following. She kept alert as she did, though. She didn’t like the idea of another predator getting a jump on him, or a territorial Biyako coming after either of them.

     She didn’t see or hear or smell anything out of the ordinary. Hoping that was because there was nothing out of the ordinary and not because the mist had obscured anything, she started climbing up after him.

     The two of them picked their way up the rise carefully, searching out rocky outcroppings that were both sturdy and dry and taking the gentlest inclines and root-packed steps of earth they could find. It was strange how quickly something could become routine, Brynn surmised as she pulled herself up a small rise and around the scraggly bush holding it in place. In just a few days, she’d lost count of how many times she and Hanso had done something like this. By this point, finding the best route up or down a steep bit of mountain almost felt like second nature.

     That didn’t make it easy, though. Hanso had paused just up ahead, and it wasn’t hard to guess why. He’d reached a sheer bit of rock that couldn’t be climbed. It was short enough to jump, especially for a Nuk or Biyako, as the two of them had figured out the last time something like this happened. But moments like this tended to remind Brynn that, for as long as it had felt, she and Hanso hadn’t really spent much time in these bodies.

     Hanso pawed at the ground a moment – maybe double-checking that the waterfall’s spray hadn’t reached it, maybe just mentally preparing himself. Then, with a shake of his little tail, he leaped up onto the higher ground.

     Brynn waited for him to get ahead again and give her space to come up after, her own tail flicking back and forth a little. Once he’d made some headway, she jumped up after him. She was bigger, so she cleared it with no real issue.

     As it turned out, that was the problem: she was bigger. Before she could finish getting her bearings and continue, an unseen fissure in the rock cracked under her sudden weight. Her heart dropped with the rock that broke away under her hind paws, and for a split second, she could only think Not again!

     Then she didn’t have time to think coherently at all – only scramble forward and dig her claws into whatever gave her purchase. By instinct or miracle, she managed to catch some part of the upper rock with her foreclaws and hang on long enough to dig her hindclaws into the new wall.

     Once she had a chance to think clearly again, she clambered up until she had her whole body on the stable remaining rock. Hanso had barely had time to turn when she first fell, but now he scrambled over as quickly as he dared to make sure she was okay.

     Brynn got up onto shaky paws and nodded to him with a soft grunt. ‘I’m fine.’ Hanso looked her over a second longer, and then nodded back.

     While he went back on ahead, she took a moment to check that her satchel was still secure. Everything was still in place. Ikimono’s Mirror was both intact and as safe as it could be.

     Even if it wasn’t, Fyora would still find a way to help, she tried to reassure herself.

     The climb was a bit slower going than before, between the scare of Brynn’s near-fall and her and Hanso’s resultant extra caution. So it came as no small relief when the ground started to level out again and the roar of the nearby waterfall faded into the ridge behind them.

     Hanso stayed close by Brynn’s side as the two of them returned to trotting alongside the river. She spared him a quick glance. He seemed to be doing much better since that first morning, but she could tell now that he hadn’t taken to this whole petpet business as well as she had. She hoped that his current habit of staying close was simple friendliness, or a little extra caution against wild predators, rather than some deeper worry.

     She snorted softly to herself. She couldn’t have that. Worrying was her job.

     After a moment’s thought, Brynn decided that this might be a good time to make sure they both knew how the other was doing. She drifted a little closer to the river, in search of both a good writing stick and an open space of not-too-thick mud to use it on. Hanso stopped to watch her as she searched, ears twitching with curiosity and perhaps a little confusion.

     The sun was setting now, and here at the river’s edge, the trees had thinned enough to give Brynn a proper view of it. She grabbed a suitable looking stick and looked up idly as she tried to think of what she might write.

     And then she looked some more. Broad swaths of colour painted the sky, a little muted compared to what she was used to, but still beautiful. The surrounding canopy framed the sunset, which seemed to streak out in rays from a distant mountaintop. It was like something out of a painting, soft and vibrant all at once.

     The writing stick not quite forgotten in the crook of her paw, Brynn turned toward Hanso and beckoned him closer with an excited half-roar. ‘Come see this!’

     Hanso cocked his head in confusion when Brynn suddenly beckoned him over. Wouldn’t he need to go that way to read whatever she was writing anyway?

     Still, she looked excited and he didn’t really need any more excuses to be close to her. As he trotted up to see whatever she’d found, she turned her attention to a little mud patch in front of her and scratched out a single word.

     “Look.” Hanso blinked down for a moment at the simple message, and then followed Brynn’s gaze up to whatever he was supposed to look at in the sky.

     It took him an embarrassing moment longer than it should have to realize that the sky was what he was supposed to be looking at. The sun was setting just right behind the mountains, and the trees kind of framed the colour-streaked sky above them and the winding river at their feet. It was like something out of a painting.

     Hanso had to admit, he’d kind of started taking the Misty Spires for granted. Or maybe just resenting them for all this hiking-while-stuck-as-a-petpet nonsense. If it hadn’t been for the whole “steep, spindly mountains” thing, this wouldn’t have been a half bad place to get stuck as a petpet out in the wilderness.

     After taking in the view for a few moments, Hanso looked back down to see Brynn Biyako-smiling at him. She took up her stick again and wrote out, “You good?” in the mud.

     After thinking it over for a moment, he responded with, “Managing. Nice now.” Then, “You?”

     Brynn let out a satisfied huff and wrote, “Same.”

     Not exactly a scintillating conversation, even if it got the point across. Brynn looked like she was debating between asking more and getting back to the road. Hanso figured they could do better.

     Well, the river was nearby and mountain climbing was dirty work. Especially after Brynn’s little mishap over on that last rise. Hanso decided all at once what he was going to do next, and promptly shrugged off his pack to drop it at the foot of the nearest tree.

     At Brynn’s quizzical expression, he wrote out, “Need a bath.” He’d leave it to her to decide whether he meant himself or her.

     Hanso waded into the water with all the dignity he could muster, which was very little. Mostly faked dignity, if he was being honest with himself. Brynn shrugged, dropped off her own satchel next to his, and followed him into the river shallows.

     Then, without warning, he turned around and splashed her.

     Brynn startled back at the brazen assault. She snorted and shook her head, as if above his childish antics, and started wading deeper into the water with what he thought was a much more genuine sort of dignity.

     Then, with an almost casual sweep of one great paw, she splashed him back.

     Hanso sputtered and stepped back. He had to admit, she’d had him for a moment there. But beneath it all, he grinned. It was so on.

     Hanso charged his partner with all of the gusto of an adventurer with treasure in sight, heedless of the icy water spraying up around him. He and Brynn mock-fought and feinted and splashed around like children, and though he wasn’t sure how clean it got either of them, he could say with confidence that they had both needed this.

     Yes, despite the fact that he couldn’t talk at the moment.

     An hour or so later, when they’d left the river behind and finished drying out in the warm spring air, they decided it was time to bed down for the night. As had become routine, Brynn managed to wriggle her way into the first big bush that would fit both of them while leaving them with minimal scratches. Hanso crawled in after her to settle down close enough that they could share body heat.

     As was very much not routine, as soon as Hanso had managed to shuffle himself into a semi-comfortable lying position, Brynn suddenly leaned forward and nuzzled gently into his neck. She let out a soft moan as she did so, that sweet purring kind that she’d voiced for him the morning that he broke down.

     Hanso blinked up at her, surprised, when she pulled back again. After only a moment’s hesitation, he returned the gesture, as soft and sweet as he could muster in this cramped, awkward space.

     ‘I love you, too.’

     To be continued…