>>5795026From a purely pragmatic standpoint, it was hard to overstate how useful Muffins was on an endeavour like this. Even in Hawksong, near to the Initiates’ Village where magical beasts were a common enough sight, the three-headed ‘natural chimera’ turned heads—or sent people skittering to side-streets to avoid the ravening lion-head’s attentions. If you came under attack by bandits, well… Goblins weren’t known for their courage, were they? The main reason you brought him was for sake of YOUR courage, though. This was the furthest you’d ever traveled from civilization, and not through the wholesome and familiar forests of your youth or the well-domesticated lands of Man, but into untamed and barely-livable goblin realms. Muffins, great and cuddly thing that he was, brought you immense comfort.
Maybe that was why you brought Logan Pearce, too?
“What,” you laughed, “you want to snuggle?”
You glared at him, and said: “You’re being too literal.”
“Your words, not mine,” he said. “And anyway… HOW long is this little expedition going to be, did you say?”
“If all goes well, a week,” you said.
“So I miss the usual party,” Pearce noted.
You nodded.
“…And if it DOESN’T all go well?”
“A bit longer,” you admitted.
Pearce had sighed, looking away with furrowed brow, and then back to you.
“We don’t all have your grades and your crimson hatband, you know?” he’d said. “I can’t just MISS key classes.”
Your heart had fallen a little, but you’d nodded. You understood, of course. With his size and strength and aptitude for combat-casting, you’d just hoped…
“Aw, damn it Tips, don’t do the FACE.”
You’d blinked. What face, you’d demanded?
“The damnable FACE! You know the one. Your ears droop and wobble, and your eyes go all wide. Like a puppy that’s been left outside overnight.”
You maintain to this day that you weren’t ‘doing a face’, but whatever the case, Pearce came along and you were glad for it.
