Silverleaf

Ducked behind a tree, Mouse peered around just enough to get a glimpse of the road. A young girl held a small toy sword. She looked in every direction, sometimes forcefully enough to knock herself off balance. The girl would barely catch herself, before smiling again and wandering a few meters in another direction to start her search anew.

“Outsider, outsider, where are you?” She sang, cupping a hand around her mouth.

Mouse put a hand to the side of his mouth, faced to the left, and called out, “I’m here!” before darting behind a bush.

The girl spun towards the direction of his voice, and ran to the tree Mouse called from behind. She stomped her foot when no one was there, her blond ringlets bouncing around her. Mouse snuck behind the bush, inching to the right. A boy tiptoed up next to him, giggling.

“Outsider, outsider, where are you?” The girl called again, running back into the road for a better vantage point.

Mouse and the boy both called out, “I’m here!”

A few other small calls scattered about repeated the same words, “I’m here!” Mouse saw a girl hiding behind a shop on the other side of the street, muffling her laughs. The blond girl turned, and ran after a voice to the left. Mouse and the boy shifted towards the right.

A small yelp, and the girl appeared with another boy in hand, “I’ve caught the outsider!”

Mouse and the boy stood from their hiding place. A few other kids popped up from their spots, some older or younger. A young woman and a gruffer man stood from the opposite side of the road. Mouse followed the boy out to the road where the girl and captured boy were.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Taiga leaned against the wall of a bakery. He waved him over, and Mouse left the group. From behind him, the kids shot playful insults, ”arrest the outsider,” “punish the criminal!”

“Having fun?” Taiga asked, looking Mouse up and down.

Mouse glanced down at his clothes; a couple of grass stains on his knees, a few leaves and a crumbled tunic. Nothing concerning. Mouse nodded, his smile widening. Taiga let out a laugh, and put out a hand with a small package in it. Yellow cloth tied together with red ribbon hiding its small contents.

“From one of the fathers,” he nodded towards the kids, “as thanks for entertaining them.”

Mouse untied it, and the corners of the cloth fell open. Three cookies with sprinkled sugar sat in the palm of Taiga’s hand. Promptly, Mouse took the package, and the warmth of the fresh cookies sunk beneath the cloth and into his palm. He picked up the top one with the ends of his fingers, and the cookie’s freshness nearly folded the cookie on itself.

Mouse scooped it into his mouth before it fell apart. The sweetness of the sugary top nearly melted in his mouth. He savored it, taking his time chewing. Taiga let him finish the first cookie before pointing behind him. Adjacent to the bakery, a wide road lay beyond them.

“I found where we can register for the mercenary guild.” Taiga turned, leading the way. Mouse spent most of the walk focused on his remaining two cookies. At one point, Taiga pulled on his tunic to keep Mouse from following the wrong person when someone walked between them.

“Mouse, we’re farmers, got it?” Taiga watched him. Mouse nodded, slipping the last sliver of cookie in his mouth. “Human farmers. From the West. Our village was raided in the battles with Monx.” He waited again, and Mouse nodded again. They pulled over to the side of the road.

Taiga hesitated, watching him. He seemed to decide something within himself, then walked through a large archway leading into a shaded sitting area. Mouse glanced ahead for the first time since Taiga led the way. But now he paused, taking in the boisterous laughter and overlapping conversations around him.

Lines of tables sat ahead of him, a little less than half of the benches filled with groups of people. No one paid them any heed, and Mouse followed Taiga a step closer than when they walked the wide road. Many people carried weapons openly on them, although some kept them closer to their persons than others.

Beyond the tables, a wooden staircase leading to the next floor stood in the center. To each side, counters with signage and workers littered the back walls. The smell of grilled meat wafted from the other end of the hall, where most of the people flocked.

“Over there, see it?” Mouse followed Taiga’s direction, towards an empty counter with a sign above it reading ‘registration’.

Laughter broke out at a table near them, and Mouse flinched at the loudness of it. The noise echoed through his ears. His focus shifted to a man nearly falling out of his seat from laughter. His companion laughed while pouring more drink into his friend’s cup.

A tap to his arm made Mouse whirl back towards Taiga, who watched him closely. “Are you sure about being mercenaries? We’ll have to come to loud places like this occasionally, and work with others.”

The chattering of people around him drew Mouse’s attention back towards the tables. He forced his eyes to Taiga, trying to pull his words back into focus. The gazes around him burned into his back, until finally Mouse turned and shot a glare in every direction. But no one watched them.

So who was it? Where were they?

Was anyone even watching him?

“Mouse,” Taiga lowered his voice, calm and gentle.

“I can do it,” Mouse finally muttered. Taiga didn’t seem convinced, but after a moment he turned and began towards the registration counter. Mouse followed Taiga closely, desperately pushing the laughter to the back of his mind.

As they approached the counter, a woman sat back down in the chair, and looked up at them. She took a glance at each of them, and grabbed two papers from the side of her desk without looking.

“Registering?” She looked to Taiga and set the two sheets down in front of her, “are either of you literate?”

“I am,” Taiga replied, and the woman turned the papers around to face him. He glanced over the sheet, and slid both towards himself. Seeing him take both papers, the woman handed him a pen. Mouse could read enough to get by, but he didn’t mind. The thought of filling out paperwork annoyed him anyways.

While Taiga set to work scribbling on the papers, the woman studied him, and then Mouse. She then pulled a sheet of paper from a folder, and wrote something in at the top. She then looked to Mouse.

“Are you wanting to register together?” She waited, and Mouse stared back at her. Clearly they did, why would she even ask something so obvious.

“Yes, we will,” Taiga replied when the silence between them lingered. She wrote something down.

“Registering together means both of your earnings will be combined, and can be picked up by either of you. This isn’t recommended unless—”

“We’re brothers,” Mouse blurted. The woman lingered her stare at him, then on Taiga.

Taiga paused writing, and turned to Mouse, his eyes asking why. Mouse shrugged. She annoyed him. The woman glanced back between them, then as if needing verification, “brothers…?”

“Friends, we grew up as brothers, though.” Taiga twisted the lie into a half-truth, returning to his writing.

“I see,” she glanced back at her paper, “do you have your identification papers?” Taiga seemed to expect this, because he pulled his and Mouse’s passbooks and identifications out without question, and handed them to her. She accepted them, opened them, and looked them over.

“And your reason for joining?” She didn’t look up at them, but glanced between documents and writing on her paper.

Did their reason matter? Mouse sighed, a prick of annoyance falling off him. But Taiga spoke before Mouse. “We’ve had a rough patch. We escaped from the west after our plantation got hit in a raid. We’re trying to find work while we head north.”

Her eyes flicked to him.

“The west? Sorry about that, I didn’t notice your accent.” The woman blinked away, scribbling back onto her paper.

“Yeah? Good to hear, I’ve been working on it.” Taiga smiled. Mouse watched as they made eye contact, she smiled sheepishly and Taiga returned it, overly genuine. Lies spilled from him like truth. Mouse assumed this was why Queen Nolara was so fond of him; Taiga could please anyone.

“Do either of you have any fighting experience?” She waited for Taiga to finish the first page of writing before asking.

“A bit, we’ve had to fight off our fair share of demons from the fields on occasion, and defend from Monx bandits.” She nodded, accepting Taiga’s words and jotting down his answer.

“We have jobs made for fighters and for civilians, you just need to be able to defend yourselves when needed. So that’s acceptable.”

Taiga shot Mouse a satisfactory glance, then he switched papers and started filling out the second page. Mouse looked around them, watching the people mingle about, the workers taking care of their jobs, money exchanging between hands. The woman asked Taiga a few more questions while they both handled the paperwork and licensing.

“We do require new recruits to accompany veteran mercenaries on their first job. To let them get a feel for the work and process. Is this acceptable?”

Mouse spun around, breathing in, ready to refute. But Taiga cut him off with a “no problem,” before eyeing him, right? Mouse bit his tongue back, nodding and wishing he hadn’t eaten his cookies so quickly.

The woman took Taiga’s papers when he’d finished, and put her own paper over it. “If you can wait around for a little while, I’ll have your papers processed and, if approved, I will give you licenses. At that point, the Missions Master will organize who you two will accompany for your first mission. You’ll need three stamps of approval; mine, the master of the hall’s,” she pointed above her towards the second floor, “and one by a guild commissioner after a successful completion of a mission with a recommendation by an established mercenary, ideally the one you completed your trial mission with.”

Taiga nodded, and with that, she turned from them and left through a back door to her small station. Taiga wandered towards the eatery on the other side of the hall, but Mouse lingered, watching the woman come around the back of the tavern, and walk up the stairs.

Even as he took his first steps to follow Taiga, Mouse considered the weight of those three papers. With their approval, they could gather intel about the Guardians and could access information that may contain a cure for them. It was also an easy way to earn money for their travels. If they were rejected… well, Mouse’s sword could fix that.