The Wanderer's Rebirth: Other Paths

Who does that!? Myra silently fumed as she stared at the door. What sort of rude, uneducated, uncouth, unrefined, rude-head does that?!

Who does he think he is?! We came out here, just for him! I damn-well hope that Theril doesn’t expect me to be polite to that damn human after this!

And so on and so forth went her thoughts as she stared at the door, not noticing that her Skill to hide her tails had lapsed due to her increasingly bad mood.

When the door once again opened, there stood “Joram”, sans towel, and now with a shirt on. What did that matter? She thought as she noticed his eyes once again widen in apparent shock, or surprise as they fixed on her waist area.

What’s up with this human?! First he slams the door in her face, then he starts staring at her hips! She’d even made sure to dress in her traditional attire, that of a [Miko]. White, long-sleeved shirt, with flowing and loose pants, all held together with a sash around her waist. Nothing to gawk at.

Had he never seen a woman before?

She quickly looked down at herself, making sure that the fold in her shirt hadn’t shifted too much during the hike and found that it was more than acceptably positioned, as were her pants and sash. Then she spotted her tails, and her frown deepened.

“Stop staring at my tails, you pervert!” she yelled as her foot came up to kick him between the legs with all of her 6 Strength.

For his part, the pervert blinked at her as his left leg shifted slightly so that it took the full brunt of her kick, causing him to lose his balance slightly before once again regaining it a moment later.

“What?” the pervert asked, looking more than a little bit annoyed with her.

“What do you mean, ‘what’?! Don’t you know it’s rude to stare at a person’s tail?!” she practically yelled at him, wagging a finger under his nose as she leaned forward while trying not to show how sore her foot was from connecting with his leg.

“Myra, stop,” Kalduin said from her side as the same time that Theril piped in. “Enough!”

The tone of command in Theril’s voice stopped her mid-wag, causing her to stare at him incredulously.

“He doesn’t understand what you’re saying,” Theril said, physically picking her up by her shoulders and setting her aside so that he could step up and address the jerk.

“Sorry,” Theril said slowly to the blockhead. “We come to teach.”

Her would-be student just glared for a minute before finally nodding, opening the door further so that they could enter his “home”.

Now that she wasn’t as distracted by his rudeness, Myra finally noticed that the brute wasn’t quite as brutish as she’d initially thought.

Not only was he now properly attired for company, but he also cut a decent profile for a human. He was taller than her by at least half a head, but also very broad at the shoulders. He seemed to have a square jaw under that short beard of his, which was remarkably full for someone so young-looking.

Then there was his house.

The inside was almost as bright as it was outside due to some sort of exotic lights on the walls. The floor looked to be tiled by something very hard that looked a bit like flecked marble, but didn’t have the same look that marble did.

The room that they’d entered seemed to be connected with what looked like a kitchen, its cabinets much fancier than she’d ever seen, never mind the strange things she saw in there. There was also a large table with chairs to the left, though the whole left side of said table was pushed against the wall, likely due to the lack of space in the room.

Then there was everything else. She couldn’t identify most of what she saw, not truly. Sure, that was certainly a bookshelf, but she couldn’t read any of the words on what looked like incredibly expensive books. Are they spell books or something?

Then there were the various items in the room. Nothing resembled anything that she’d ever seen in her entire life. From a black, glass topped… thing the size of a standard writing board to a greyish coloured device that was somewhat blocky, but rounded at the edges that also had a sort of opening at the bottom for… paper?

“What is that…?” she unconsciously murmured to herself as she stared at the impossibly smooth and white stuff.

*Ahem*

“It is good to see you, Joram,” Theril spoke slowly, enunciating his words as best he could as he held out his hand for the weird guy to shake.

“It is good,” the weird guy agreed, taking Theril’s hand in his surprisingly large one.

Even Theril was shorter than the weird guy, only standing slightly taller than Kalduin, who was only slightly taller than her; even though she was considered tall for a woman.

Taking another look, she realized that the weird guy was larger than Theril, a [Guardian]. Someone who was supposed to be the defender of a group.

She was brought back to the moment when Kalduin stepped forward to introduce himself.

“Hello, I am Kalduin,” he said, also speaking annoyingly slowly as he too reached out a hand to shake.

“Good,” the linguistically challenged guy said as he took Kalduin’s hand in his massive one.

After that, both her brother and Theril turned to her with expectant look as the silence stretched.

She grudgingly stepped forward, conscious of both her foot and how large this Unknown was, but firmed her resolve as she introduced herself.

“I am Myra,” she said, then stuck her own hand out to shake his.

The brute just grunted as he enveloped her slender hand in his very large, and warm, hand. He shook it once before letting go, not really giving her a chance to try to squeeze his hand for all she was worth.

“Learn time?” he asked, motioning to the chairs at the table.

Myra was about to say something when Theril actually elbowed her in the side, interrupting her.

“Yes, learning time,” he said, correcting the brute’s grammar.

“Learn-ing. Learning. Good,” he said, astonishing her with how quickly he both picked up the word and its proper pronunciation.

The not-so-dim guy then motioned to the chair again before taking the one at the foot of the table. Myra looked at her brother and Theril who were evidently trying to figure out who should sit where, and sighed. If she left things to those two, then who knew how long it would take to get bear-face fluent in common?

So, she took the chair closest to her new student, using her Path Skill to once again hide her tails. She did note, however, that the chairs they’d been offered all had ladder backs to them, making her think that maybe her student wasn’t as thoughtless as he seemed.

Her student, however, seemed more than a bit leery with how close she was to him. She also noticed that she subtly shifted his left leg behind the table leg that stood between the two of them.

Not so stupid, maybe…

* * *

Joram wasn’t very comfortable having the violent blue-eyed fox-lady named Myra sitting so close to him during the lesson. Nor with the fact that she seemed to have taken charge of said lesson.

That said, at least the kick hadn’t hurt that much. His own sisters had done much worse to him in his youth, after all. But, he still didn’t know what to think of the little vixen.

Wait, was that racist?

Whatever.

At least she seemed to know what she was doing, better than Reldan had, anyways. The lesson was much more thorough, going over a significantly larger range of topics than they’d gone over the day before yesterday.

Then there was Kalduin. Given how much they resembled each other, he very much suspected that they were siblings. Now, given how terrible he was at guessing ages, never mind those of foxkin, he couldn’t say who was older. But given the dynamics between the two, and the overly patient look on Kalduin’s face, he suspected that she was the younger sister.

At least he’d gotten another level in [Linguistics] out the whole affair. Which, upon minimal reflection, shouldn’t have been unexpected since the “tutoring” session had lasted almost four hours.

Poor Theril was practically asleep on his chair, fighting to stay awake and attentive as the other two taught him. Even Kalduin looked tired by the end of it, which was brought about by Theril’s growling stomach. Much to his relief.

For as pretty as Myra was, she was also a bit scary. Every time his eyes would go to where her two tails had been, her eyes would flash and he’d be back to staring at the book that she’d brought. One of the books. She’d brought seven.

At least that was done, and he could just concentrate on making them a bite to eat before sending them off.

What to make, what to make…?

Rifling through the pantry because he was getting a bit tired of mac’n’cheese with wieners, he eventually found something that might do.

The bag of macaroni in hand, he then retrieved a jar of pasta sauce and placed both on the counter. A quick trip to the freezer then saw him with two packs of ground beef, as they were only half a kilo each.

Soon enough, he had the ground beef thawing/browning under the lid of the saucepan, a generous sprinkling of herbs on top to give it some good flavour. As he worked on the onions next, because sauce without caramelized onions was a travesty, he noticed that Theril was looking a bit down.

On the other hand, the siblings’ attention was practically rivetted on him as he worked, their noses twitching appreciatively… until the onion vapours got to them, that is. At that point, both seemed to become skeptical of what was happening to their awaited meal, but he just shrugged.

Onions were indeed less offensive after having been cooked, so he’d wait until they tasted them to see what they ultimately thought of the experience.

Then the ground beef was ready to be shaved, so he took his spatula and worked off the browned meat, flipping the two slabs of ground beef over so that the other side could cook more while the raw side thawed. After that, he got to methodically chopping the cooked portion of the ground beef with this spatula, not stopping until the ground beef was smaller than a dime, at which point he repeated the shaving process again.

So on and so forth it went until the ground beef was completely thawed and almost all brown. That was when he added the slivered onions to the mix, stirring it in as he turned up the heat a bit. Then went in a bit of dried garlic- because garlic was life-, not having any fresh garlic on hand. Much to his shame.

Which got him thinking about the rest of the produce that was slowly wilting in his fridge. He’d either have to get rid of it, or find a way to plant it or something. Especially because the trio didn’t seem familiar with onions. Would he have access to anything remotely similar to what he was used to having. Used to using?

… did it matter? If he didn’t have to eat, did he care?

… yes. Yes he did.

Sure, he didn’t have to eat, but he still enjoyed doing so from time to time…. Since he’d arrived a few days ago, that is.

With those thoughts in mind, he idly perused the list of psionic powers in his mind and was pleasantly surprised to find a power that seemed like it would help. [Grow].

Now on autopilot, he reviewed the power in his head as his hands did their own thing, long familiar with the process.

For being a level one power, it was amazingly complex with how many options where were for augmenting it. Starting with making a seed sprout and grow at an accelerated rate, the options soon went a bit wild. He could create a seed from a portion of vegetable matter or even alter the seed’s properties so that he could get a different plant out of it. Then little things like changing the color of the plant, its flowers, when it flowered, if it would flower, or even be able to be used to make a cutting to create another plant.

For now, maybe he’d just stick with producing seeds and accelerating their growth. He truly didn’t want to be responsible for introducing a crazy new plant into a new ecosystem….

Ah, he thought, realizing that he’d be doing just that by making new seeds, new plants that might not be native to this world.

Could he make a greenhouse? Maybe that would be the solution to his veggie needs. Ooh, and fruits! Before his mind could go any further, though, the stove beeped at him to remind him to check on the macaroni noodles. So, he did.

For him, they were just right. Cooked enough to avoid any unnecessary firmness that would result in harder bits from getting stuck in your molars. He really hated over-done noodles, so he hoped that this bunch weren’t that kind of people.

Moments later, he was straining the pot, then quickly rinsing the noodles in cold water to stop the cooking process. He’d saved a bit of the original water so that he could re-coat the noodles, as that helped the sauce stick to them better. Some people liked that, after all.

Then came the bowls and spoons, because he was both practical and weird. Out came the grated parmesan from the fridge along with a bottle of Frank’s. He kinda liked a bit of spice with his meal, but he’d also run out of ground cayenne pepper, so it would have to do.

After portioning an equal amount of noodles into each of their bowls, he placed them in front of the trio, getting a bit of a weird look from Theril in the process.

Grinning, he then retrieved the saucepan, a serving ladle, and stepped back over to them.

“Some people like more, some less,” he said, motioning to the covered pan with the ladle, getting nods of understanding in return.

Since Myra was closest, he grudgingly presented the ladle to her first. Once she had the ladle in hand, he removed the lid, then allowed the condensed steam to flow down and back into the pan before turning the lid upside down while presenting the pan’s contents to her.

Up to that point, the trio had remained somewhat wary of the red sauce due to the presence of the onions earlier. But once their noses caught a whiff of the bolognaise, their tails began to wag slightly. Though, for Myra, she just seemed to drool a bit from the corner of her mouth.

Good enough, he thought with a mental chuckle.

Very carefully, Myra inserted the ladle into the bolognaise and brought it to her bowl, spreading the sauce over the noodles.

“Quickly. It is better when hot,” he said, encouraging her to hurry the hell up.

That seemed to bring her out of her foody-daze, though, as she then quickly took a slightly smaller scoop of the sauce before awkwardly looking at both of his full hands. Rolling his eyes, he set the lid down on the counter and retrieved the ladle from her before stepping over to her brother.

Who took exactly the same amount as his sister had.

Sure, OK. Another mental shrug later, and he was now serving a grateful Theril.

After all that was done, he noticed that Myra hadn’t touched her food yet, causing him to wonder. Were table manners here pretty close to what they were back on Earth?

Thinking that that was the case, he hurriedly served up his own sauce before offering the parmesan to his guests. Myra took the container, giving it the once over- probably due to its alien nature to her. After a quick sniff, she almost sneezed before giving him another sharp look.

This time he managed to refrain from rolling his eyes as he took the container and shook the delicious bits of goodness onto his own meal. Then he handed it back before stirring everything together.

Seemingly taking courage from his actions, or perhaps not wanting to violate some sort of guest etiquette or something, Myra sprinkled a bit of parmesan onto her meal before passing the container to her brother, who just shrugged and followed suit.

Theril took a quick sniff when the got the container, causing his eyes to open a bit wider as a slight grin tugged at the corner of his mouth.

I guess it smells a bit similar to the other “cheese”…? He wondered, but ultimately couldn’t say for sure. During that time, Joram had also mixed in a bit of Frank’s into his meal, still lamenting the lack of actual cayenne pepper in his spice cupboard.

Myra raised a brow at the bottle, seemingly wondering if she should take some herself.

“Hot,” he said, making a fanning motion in front of his face.

Instead of looking understanding or something, Myra’s jaw got a stubborn set to it as she looked at the bottle. He really didn’t want her to ruin her meal if she wasn’t used to spicy food, so he just shook his head at her, moving the bottle to his right side, away from her.

That was when he truly discovered just how muleheaded his new teacher was.