“How long does it last, Vim?” I asked as I scribbled a small drawing onto the parchment.

“Hm… probably a couple dozen pages worth at your style of writing? If you draw with it like that though, maybe less?” Vim said, answering a bit off-handedly as he read the newspaper.

I glanced up to frown at him. But not because he had not given me his full attention… rather it was upsetting that he seemingly had known such an answer so readily, off the top of his head. Sometimes Vim seemed uncaring, and as if he didn’t pay attention, yet other times he showcased the exact opposite traits. I’d been doodling, as he called it, with one of the pens I’d taken from his little stash at the Crystal Cavern since we left it a few days ago, and it seemed he’d been keeping a tab on the stuff I’d been drawing and writing with it.

Considering I’d not really shown him directly the stuff I’d been doodling, it was quite interesting how he seemingly knew them well enough to be able to calculate such a thing as the pen’s ink capacity to my own writing and drawing. I liked it when Vim paid such attention to the things I did, even when he both hadn’t needed to and also was busy himself. We’d been traveling, rather quickly, to Telmik and as such only stopped on a few occasions. In fact this small stop, at a smaller town only a day away from Telmik, was our longest and what Vim would likely consider the most wasteful stop we’d made so far.

I wasn’t sure yet if Vim planned on letting us stay the night here or not, but right now we were waiting for food. We sat at a smaller than usual table, but we were alone in our little quiet corner of the building. Alone enough to let us talk without much worry, especially since the rest of the place was noisy in their own corners. We’d already ordered, and Vim was reading the newspaper that was distributed by the church here in the Nation of the Blind. He had gotten two, one for him and me, but I myself still couldn’t outright read the language here. I was only able to recognize simple words like what were on signage and stuff, so had chosen to draw on the newspaper instead of reading it.

“Anything neat going on?” I asked as I paused in my doodling. I’d drawn a small duck. It wasn’t like painting with paint though, so it looked a tad… off. I’d need to draw some more with this pen to really get a feel of it, though how far I could get proficient with it I couldn’t tell. It was a good thing I had several dozen now.

“The wars are still going on down south… the plague seems to be over, since I see no mention of it anywhere. But that might just mean that society as a whole has simply accepted it as normal and natural, like one would bad weather. There’s a big political statement by one of the nobles, takes up nearly half the page, too,” Vim said as he calmly kept reading.

“What kind of statement…?” I asked with a frown. Didn’t the church, thus our Society, basically rule and control the nobles here?

“Another noble committed a crime. They’re basically just condemning them and such.”

Oh…? “What kind of crime? Who did it?”

I watched Vim blink, but slowly. And then I watched his eyes move ever so slightly as he… read what was likely the very thing we were talking about. “Harvard. The head of the noble family that runs businesses in the north of Telmik. The man was caught selling shoes and other clothing to the populace from the dead and buried. Basically they’re saying he was stealing the clothes off those meant to be buried in peace and then re-selling them, he must have been running or owned some kind of caretaker business or something,” Vim explained as he basically either reread the article or read it for the first time. Which made me wonder if he did that for all the articles or not. Did he just check these while we traveled occasionally out of habit, or was he ever looking for specific things?

Unable to contain my curiosity, I smirked softly as I nodded at him. “Did you reread it for me, or…?”

“I had only glanced at it before you asked. I checked the contents and found it unrelated to any of us, and not something to worry or care over, so had not read it in full,” Vim said, confirming my suspicion.

“What is it you normally look for anyway…? When you read them?” I asked as I glanced down at my own newspaper. I had doodled all over it, so even if I could read it I doubted it’d be something one could reasonably do. Some of my drawings had even used the little printed words as a part of the drawings, so they became even more unrecognizable in certain areas.

“We have control over the printing press, as you know. The family that runs the newspaper is one that has been in the Society since the beginning. But over the last few decades they’ve started hiring out for their little articles. Stuff that to them, and the one who oversees them in the Society, deem insignificant. I though find the little stuff very telling of a nation’s health, and good smoke signals,” he said, explaining.

“Little articles? And smoke signals?” I asked as I mindlessly started drawing little smoke clouds on one of the edge spots of the newspaper before me.

“Basically I look for articles that signify something might be amiss. The old adage where there’s smoke there’s fire, and stuff,” he said as he lowered the newspaper… then went ahead and slid it my way, likely as to let me draw on it too.

“Smoke…” I whispered as I glanced to the other side of the building, where most of the other customers were waiting for their food too. There were a bunch of people smoking stuff in pipes over there, and as such it was cloudy in that area. Luckily our side of the building was the one with windows, and there was a nice gentle and warm breeze at the moment so I wasn’t suffering because of it.

“There’s a hotel a bit outside of town, one where we can rent a private house for the night. I plan to stay there, not here,” Vim then said.

I perked up at that. “Hotel?” I asked.

Vim’s left eye twitched, in the way that told me he just realized he had used a word he hadn’t meant to. “Just another term for inn. I suppose I had called it that because I’d been thinking of the quality, and the privacy. You don’t get just a room, but a whole house… and they provide breakfast and stuff too if you want it. I’ve stayed there a few times over the last decade or two. When I’m alone. Sometimes I need to stop a moment and clear my mind before getting to Telmik,” he explained.

“And this is one of those moments,” I said, realizing now why we were even here. A part of me, for a tiny moment after hearing him mention a private place, had made me hope for something a tad… different. But this was fine too.

Vim nodded his head slowly as he leaned back a bit in his chair. It creaked, but not because he wasn’t keeping his weight in check. It instead was just because it, like my own chair and the table we were sitting at were a tad old. “If you’re okay with it. We can just hurry to Telmik if you’d like,” he offered.

I frowned as I quickly shook my head. “No, it’s fine!” I said, a tad too quickly. He blinked in a way that told me he had obviously heard the odd crack in my voice just now, which made me squirm in my seat as I glanced away from him.

Hopefully he hadn’t interpreted that oddly…!

Why’d he have to say a private house like that just now, anyway? Why couldn’t he have just said a place to sleep, or whatever? Why point such a thing out like that here and now…? It was almost as if he was completely unaware just how conscious I was of him lately, and it was really starting to…

I groaned as I leaned forward a little and pretended to focus on my doodling. I just drew circles and stuff as I tried to contain my squirming tail beneath my pants. I was acting foolish and I knew it.

He hadn’t been implying anything frisky, but instead something more serious. He genuinely had things he wanted to ponder and weigh, and they were important things too.

Stolen story; please report.

Vim’s head was elsewhere. With Tor’s betrayal, and his death, and the stuff he had learned because of it… Vim was not thinking of me in that way. Not here and now, at least. He had far more important things to think about and focus on than my weird desires…

He hadn’t even really noticed my naked body the other day, back at his stupid smelly cave…! Even when I had tried to make it obvious! That was how distracted he was at the moment. So why had I, even if for but a moment, thought he had meant something else just now?

“You okay, Renn…?”

I flinched as I glanced up from my wiggly circle doodles, and wanted to kick myself. He looked… worried. Likely because I had my feelings on my face, and he wasn’t aware of the obvious reason for them. So he likely just thought I was upset. I was, but not for why he likely thought so.

“I… am,” I said honestly.

“Quite a pause,” he noted.

“It had been…!” I groaned as I bit back a laugh. I had paused a bit longer than usual there!

Vim chuckled at me for a moment, which made me smile back at him and relax a little. I was about to tell him the real reason I had been acting odd, as to make him laugh a bit more… but before I could one of the waitresses walked over and placed a plate of breadstuff onto our table.

“Here ya go!” she said with a bit of a happy tone, but I frowned as I studied what looked to be some kind of toast.

“I’m sorry, I think you got the wrong table,” I said quickly since she was about to run off back to the kitchen.

She paused and grinned as she glanced back at me. “It’s on the house! One of the drunks ordered it and left before it was ready, so you get it! I’d rather you two have it than any of those jerks who make this place smell like a goat’s butt,” she said with a gesture to the other side of the room.

Oh my! “Thank you so much…! You should have some of it too though, before you go!” I said as I went to grab the plate and move it to the edge of the table, so she could easily take some of it without having to reach across us to do so.

The waitress giggled at me and stepped closer and leaned down a bit as to whisper. “I already ate the other one with the others, he had ordered two! Don’t tell anyone,” she said happily and then stepped away before I could say more.

Watching her go, and the happy step in her stride she had… I felt myself slightly giddy all of a sudden.

“Vim, she’s so nice!” I said happily as I looked at him.

Vim had a soft smile on his face but looked unimpressed at the same time as he nodded. “She was, wasn’t she?”

Was…? Oh. He’s teasing me… she had been pretty, hadn’t she? I hadn’t really noticed, I’d been more focused on the food. “I also like how she ate the other one too, that’s something I would have done,” I said as I went to tear a piece of the freshly toasted bread for myself.

“I bet. I’ve always figured if you ever worked in such a position you would either eat the owners out of business, or instead double it since everyone would always buy you food as a tip and stuff,” Vim said as he watched me eat a piece of the bread. It had some kind of spice or something on it I didn’t right away recognize but it was warm and tasted really good.

“I’ve worked in such places before. Before I realized it was too risky… no one ever bought me food then,” I said between bites.

He frowned at that. “Not once?”

I shook my head.

“Hm… really…” Vim seemed to find that very odd for some reason, but I couldn’t see why. He might be the kind to flirt with food but from what I understood very few other people did. Plus I mean…

As he knew, before joining the Society I’d never really had anyone try to vie for my affection before. Not directly, or seriously, at least.

Though I’d not thought such a thing in a long time, I was pleased to realize I had a few recent memories of people trying. Haggo had sent me a small gift basket a few days before Sap had showed up and had called me back to the Owl’s Nest. He had sent it as a thank you gift, for bringing more business to him, but the others had teased me over it all the same. I don’t think he was actually flirting with me, but I liked to pretend he had been.

Plus I’ve been told that one of the twins had fancied me too, though I wasn’t sure as to yet which one people spoke of. “Did you know one of the twins found me attractive?” I asked Vim as I tore another piece of bread off.

“I was told, yes. Why’d you say it like that, do you not know which one it is?” Vim then asked, immediately noticing that I didn’t know somehow.

I groaned as I swallowed. “Why’d you figure that out so quickly? I wanted to tease you about it,” I said.

“Because I’d be more concerned if it had been Coin? Well, you’re right. Ledger is a buffoon. A good-hearted one, but an idiot all the same. Coin would have made me wary though,” Vim admitted.

I chuckled at that. “So it had been the brother!” I had kind of figured, since he had acted a tad odd when we met, but it was nice to hear confirmation of it.

And also to finally find myself with another man that I’ve caught the eye of! I of course had zero interest in him in that way, but it was… rather comforting to know someone else other than Vim finally looked at me and actually found me appealing enough to even consider it.

Many people have said I was cute, or pretty and whatnot… but none had meant it in the way Vim was teasing me about. So it was… different. Special. Maybe I should flirt with him next time I see him, just to see what Vim would say or do if he saw or heard about it…

“Don’t act all smug now. Pulling Ledger like that is not much of an achievement. Now, Lamp? Or Sap? They you can stick your chest out with pride and brag about,” Vim said with a sigh.

“Wait what?” I paused right as I was about to stuff my mouth with a huge chunk of bread.

Vim frowned at me, and for a very awkward and long moment… we just stared at each other.

“Wait, you didn’t realize?” Vim then asked, sounding odd as he did.

“Realize what! Are you saying they…?” I sat up as my mind tried to keep up with my now fast beating heart. Surely he was just teasing right!? Or making one of his weird little jokes? Right!?

He though wasn’t. His frown deepened, and not in the joyful way as he rolled a shoulder and suddenly looked uncomfortable.

“Vim…” I groaned at him, half tempted to throw the piece of bread I had at him. But I wouldn’t, because I didn’t want to be so wasteful with something that was tasty and also a gift.

But I could throw my doodles…

“I uh… thought you realized it. Though I guess I should specify, Lamp’s from a culture where it isn’t that weird and Sap is uh… like her mother. Archaic. She doesn’t see you the way I do, but well…”

“Oh no…” I groaned as I dropped the piece of bread back onto the plate and covered my eyes. What was I going to do!? What would I tell Lilly!?

Vim chuckled at me. “You should be complimented, Renn… do you know how many women like them I’ve been spurned by in my long life? Actually don’t ask that.”

“You just keep digging your hole deeper, don’t you…?” I asked with a laugh as I calmed down a bit.

Right. Vim was right. Even if he was telling the truth… which obviously he was, since he didn’t have that joking tone he used during such moments, it was exactly because of his seriousness that I knew I shouldn’t worry too much over it.

Lamp had settled down. Married. Had a child. Which meant she had simply… found me attractive…? And Sap…? Was Vim saying she was like Lamp? That she didn’t see me as if I was a potential mate but instead just…

“Sap… likes me like that?” I asked, a tad embarrassed to say so.

“She already promised her mother that she’d never try anything or ruin your friendship. Which is how I figured out by the way, I hadn’t realized it either until Sap told me too,” Vim said with a grin.

For a long moment I recounted the time I’d spent with the owlet… and very quickly realized he was likely right. Sap had on a few occasions acted a tad odd, or had…

“Is that why she hadn’t wanted to sleep with me?” I wondered. I had invited her once, she had so adamantly refused I had actually been a tad hurt over it. But if she instead had refused because of…

“For the opposite reason as you had assumed, yes,” Vim said, clarifying my thoughts.

Gosh… I took in a deep breath and sighed it out as I re-grabbed the piece of bread. “I wish you hadn’t told me,” I mumbled as I stuffed it into my mouth.

“Funny, I think the same thing about your stupid little fish friend too.”

“Not Merit too!?”

“What…? Oh… no. Not in that way… actually you know what? Just forget I said anything,” he said, suddenly looking unsettled.

I was about to complain, but the obvious reason why he no longer wanted to talk about this showed up as our food arrived… and I was forced to eat in awkward worried silence afterward, as I panicked over his real meaning.

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