The first leg of the journey was quiet for the most part. The lack of monsters around the Serrinean Plains made the wagon ride about as peaceful as it could’ve been. There were the occasional lone goblins or feral hounds who had veered away from their pack, but one single beast could hardly pose a threat to an adventurer, let alone a full party. Blythe decided to use this time to learn more about their party members while also cracking a few jokes themselves.
Yuilli was still half a day’s travel away, and so as the night began to descend on the party, they decided it would be good to start setting up camp. The wagon driver had been at the head for the whole day, and by now even the muscled steeds who pulled at the reins had begun to slow.
Once camp had been set, Adan and Don began to work in the middle, with the latter bringing over a pile of firewood he had gathered prior and the boy using basic Fire magic to set alight the wood. Within half a minute, a steady fire was burning, providing a warm solace from the cold spring night.
Blythe had volunteered to be first watch—they were never someone who loved to sleep for extended periods of time. Perhaps it was the sense of cautiousness that stuck with them even as their thiefly activities came to an end. Sitting around the still burning fire, the shapeshifter watched as Lostros pulled apart her tent’s covers and sleepily walked out. Stifling a yawn, she sat down opposite Blythe and stared at the fire silently.
“Can’t sleep?” Blythe asked.
“I slept for a bit,” She shrugged. “Sorry, I’m usually the first watch, so I couldn’t help but get up.”
Blythe nodded. They had Lostros pinned as the most diligent of the party initially—maybe even going so far as to call her the party’s mother. So they were glad to see her motherly instincts remain ablaze. “Will you stay for a bit, then? I’ll be heading down to the river to take a bath.”
“You bathe in the middle of the night?” The knight questioned. “Is it not unsafe?”
“What, you think some creep’s going to make a pass at me? Pfft, I have countermeasures for that.”
As the shapeshifter left the knight at the fire, they slowly waltzed over to the river below the hill they had set up camp. Sneaking into a thick mass of trees, Blythe slowly started to pull off their clothes, until a snap was heard. The next moment, the shapeshifter walked out looking completely different. They were now wearing the skin of an overweight man with dark skin and a suspicious facial structure—a style of man even the most lustful of monsters would not dare lay with. Blythe enjoyed the extra skin, however, for it allowed them to lengthen their bathing time by a considerable amount of time.
Sticking a toe into the water, they were satisfied to find it just mildly cold to the touch. They placed the rest of their toes inside, allowing their blood to adjust to the change in temperature before they fully submerged themselves.
“Ahh…” Blythe sighed in joy, as they entered the water. The added push from the flowing river current added a small oomph to the bath, making it all that much more relaxing. Small schools of unnamed fish swam by, far too small to be carnivorous. The shapeshifter stuck their hands into the river forcefully, eventually feeling something scaly lodged in their grasp. When their hand resurfaced, a writhing, struggling lone fish flailed about. It was rather thin, smaller than goldfish, but retained a somewhat crimson shade all throughout its body.
“Off you go, then,” Having lost interest already and feeling pity on the fish, they chucked it back into the water, where it continued swimming alongside the current to catch up to its school. “Never did wonder how many fish there are in the world. Perhaps more than the bodies I can transform into.”
In the initial days when Blythe had discovered their power, they mostly stuck to a couple of bodies that they were intrinsically familiar with, like the shopkeeper that they used to buy bread from, or the headmistress at the orphanage. But as they grew and they gradually began to perform more heists, those bodies increased as well. Currently, even Blythe was unsure how many they had. Only the most recent ones remained on their mind, so that effectively limited their selection.
“I guess I, too, am fish. An extremely forgetful fish.”
A roar, Blythe heard. Their gaze traveled over to the opposite bank of the river, where they spotted a brown bear, thin and malnourished from its appearance. Unlike the typical bears that were shaggy and full of fur, the one in front of them seemed almost furless. Blythe judged from the size that it was a cub, most likely abandoned by its mother. It stuck its mouth into the river, almost as if trying to emulate the way adult bears would wait at a river to catch salmon.
“You won’t find any salmon here, buddy,” Blythe waved at the bear. “Where’s your mother?”
The bear merely responded with a weak growl, perhaps an affirmation that it was indeed alone. It continued to feebly scratch at the air, hoping something would come flying by. To no one’s surprise though, nothing but wind did.
“Agh,” Blythe scratched their head. They stood up from the river, picked up their clothes nearby, and moved to their side of the bank. “Come on. I’ve got food back at camp.”
It didn’t seem to understand what the shapeshifter meant initially, but a few ‘tsk’s’ from Blythe was all it took to encourage the bear. Gathering what little strength it had, the bear followed them past the river, believing the person in front of it was its last hope.
Trudging through the knee-deep shrubbery on the forest floor, it limped over to Blythe’s side, and at that point the shapeshifter had turned back to the form they had assimilated when conversing with the party. The bear initially looked confused, wondering where the initial man went. It was far too weak to care though, so it continued to follow.
Reaching the camp a few minutes later, Blythe watched as Lostros stood from her tree stump seat and approached them. She gestured toward the bear. “Done with your bath? I see you made a friend. Will he be a threat?”
They shrugged. “Probably not. Do you see how thin it looks? It’d probably fall over if it tried to swipe at something.” They continued over to their side of the camp, where they dug into their knapsack and pulled out dried jerky—probably their most favourite invention from Callus the Wise.
Blythe tossed the jerky to the bear’s side, where it eagerly began to munch on the food like it was the first honeycomb of spring. The shapeshifter watched with a smile, occasionally tossing more pieces once it had finished the first serving. It’s tongue rolled out, and the bear began to huff. “Thirsty, I’d assume. Sorry, it was the only meat I had on me.” They once again dug into their knapsack, this time their hand coming out with a large, bulky waterskin twice bigger than most adventurers carried.
They then approached the thirsty bear. With one hand on its chin, they tapped it repeatedly from below. “Open your mouth.”
A small pop sounded as the cap from the waterskin was flicked off, and Blythe brought it over the bear’s waiting mouth. Cool, spring water poured out a moment later, sating the bear’s thirst as it repeatedly took in the liquid for almost half a minute.
“That’s your entire provisions’ worth of water,’ Lostros commented as she watched the feeding spectacle. “Do you plan on taking the bear in as a pet?”
“Hmm, I never thought about it like that,” Blythe replied. “A performer does need a right-hand man. It’s a bit of a shame that bears don’t have opposable thumbs, however. I’ll see if I can teach it some tricks.”
“It needs a name, then,” The knight nodded. “Do you have anything in mind?”
“Loki,” Blythe replied almost immediately, dragging their fingers across the bear’s soft brown fur.
The knight’s brows raised. “I see. Were you already thinking of the name?”
“Not really… I was just looking at the bear and figured it should have a name that relates to its master in a way. Oh, and also, it looks like it would be called Loki. Don’t you agree?”
