Horsing Around

“Hm?” Jill wandered over to where Bob was sitting, peering around to get a decent look at the math stuff in question. “Math? I was never good at math either, remember?” She snorted. “I don’t remember anything from when I was learning it, but I’m sure we can hit up a library or a book store. Lemme see that.” 

She slid the paper over to where she was and blinked. Once. Twice. What even was this stuff? “Yeah, I have no idea what this is. Library. And if that fails, a bookstore.”

It was somewhat a comfort to see that Jill also had no idea what Tim was studying. At least he wasn’t alone. There were a lot of fractions, decimals, and talks of probability in his brother’s homework.

⚔ - “Fuck…”

Ever since Orland’s birth, Jake had promised himself not to overdo it when it came to his usual work. As a miner, blacksmith, and explorer, danger tended to be drawn to him, whether he liked it or not.

But since he wanted to be there for his wife and son during such a vital time, he cut back on his work hours, and started giving his more dangerous responsibilities to his other co-workers.

Jake didn’t want to feel completely useless, however, so he decided to go on a little job for the Mining Company. He would just go into the mines, find what materials he could, and get out. Easy. Simple. Something he’s done plenty of times.

Of course, fate has a funny way of subverting expectations. Instead of the uneventful time he (mostly) expected, Jake ends up getting attacked by a silver wolf lurking in the caves. Even though he managed to dispatch it with relative ease, the monster had put up one hell of a fight before going down.

The aftermath of that battle left the half-elf with a bloody gash in his shoulder, and a noticeable limp as he stumbles out of the caves. He only manages to make it a few more steps before losing his strength entirely and collapsing to his knees. Shit. Meg wouldn’t be happy about this…

Not many knew, but Bob had once been an apprentice blacksmith to his grandfather. He still practiced the art, though more to keep the skill sharp than to make any sort of profit off it. It did help when a horse needed re-shoeing or tools needed repairs. Mining was also a great workout.

What he didn’t expect to see on this fine day was a half bloody man collapsing outside the mine. Without a second thought, Bob abandoned all thoughts of heading into the mines for the day and hurried over.

Claire sighed softly, the exhale hardly making any noise with it. There was already a drink before her on the bar counter, the short blonde seated high up on the bar stool. The glass that held her liquor was sweating, condensation building up and dripping down it every now and then as time went on. 

While the blonde was normally a spitfire and burning spirit, Claire felt the weight of her past heavy on her shoulders that day. It burdened her, the past, and it caused her grief to think of betrayal she’d faced so early in her life. While it did her no good to reminisce about such sad memories, she simply couldn’t help it. It wasn’t until someone took a seat next to her at the bar did Claire even snap out of her trip down memory lane, a bit of orientation coming back to her glazed-over expression. 

A long day of work deserved a hard drink. Bob didn’t think much of where he sat, only that he didn’t hit anyone accidentally as he did so, and ordered a beer. When he did take a closer look at who was around him, it was to see a woman that just looked downright depressed.

Julia placed a hand over her mouth to stifle her laughter. “Oh no, are you okay?” Although she was fairly concerned about him, she couldn’t stop the smile that she tried to hide. It was a typical Bob thing to do. Once she cleared her throat and composed herself, she walked over to the freezer and opened it to check for an ice pack — the chances were fifty-fifty with him. Luckily, in his favor there was one hidden towards the back.

“Let me see it.” She pulled out a chair with her foot and motioned for him to sit down. “And if you sit, you’ll temporarily be out of harm’s way,” she teased.

“La, la la, hm, hmm hmm~”

Mist hummed to herself, holding a basket of groceries on one arm. She’d bought a couple of things to cook up for the week, including rice, carrots, and of course, turnips. She was in a rather good mood, and allowed her thoughts to wander, as she meandered back towards home. Because of that, she didn’t register the sound of hooves rapidly approaching, until they were practically behind her.

She turned around, and was met with the sight of a rearing horse. 

“Eep!” 

Mist quickly backed up, although the horse had mostly stopped at that point. A large man got off the horse, apologizing for nearly running her over.

“Goodness… Well, that was frightening,” she said. “My heart’s still pounding… But yes, I’m okay. You managed to stop just in time! One more second, and I would have been flat as a pancake!~”

Bob laughed. “Nah! Butterscotch here wouldn’t do that.” He patted the horses back, who snorted and shook his head. 

He was sad she now might have a poor opinion of Butterscotch though. The horse was a real sweetheart. “I promise he’s not mean or anything. Would it help if you pet him maybe? He ain’t gonna bite or stamp you into a pancake.” 

Ondorus looked at the jam with some vague surprise. The gesture was something familiar to him, back when he lived in the Univir settlement. Monsters often lived communally, helped each other, and gave each other gifts. However…he scarcely experienced it while living in the human settlements. Perhaps part of the problem was that he lived in such a detached manner.

But still, the gesture made Ondorus feel vaguely nostalgic.

“I would, thank you very much,” Ondorus held out a hand to take a jar.

Bob offered him one of the jars. “How about two? They got rave reviews from Tim so it might go faster than you think.” He jiggled the box, glass and metal clinking with the action.

“Well, I didn’t get any on me, but that almost would have been preferable,” Rosetta began through clenched teeth.  She was wearing light colors, but she would have rather the coffee spilt directly onto her than her hours of hard work.  The pile of papers was now soaked through in coffee, the dark colors of the drink and running ink blending together made it mostly illegible. Not to mention if she tried to pick it up, it would probably just fall apart. 

Some people were so dreadfully clumsy, or in general just physically out of sync with the world around them.  A small part of Rosetta almost wanted to give this hulking guy a pass, but a greater part of her felt that if this guy was as big as he was, he should be used to carrying himself in different spaces.  After all, he was an adult, so he would have been roughly this size for long enough to know how much space he truly took up.

“The drink was–”  Rosetta began, fishing through her bag for the receipt.  The papers couldn’t be replaced, but the drink could at the very least be reimbursed, petty as it may have seemed.

Bob was feeling downright awful and would’ve done anything she asked. When she produced the receipt, it was almost a relief, and there was no argument from him when she offered it. “I’ll go get this.” He held onto the receipt with a tight grip. “Is there anything I can do for your work?” Bob had no idea what she was working on but it looked important. Arcadia had a library, and they had printers and stuff, right? Not that he knew much about working them but he knew he could figure it out. 

When he confirmed that the recipe was the same one she had remembered from her childhood, she smiled. It brought back many cherished and warm memories from her time spent in the small town. The people she had met were kind and to this day offer her a place to stay in hopes that she’d visit again. They were truly lifelong friends; Bob included.

At the thought of him, she looked up from her brownie after being lost in thought and found that he was already staring at her with a grin on his face. 

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Oh!” Bob realized he was staring and started in surprise, the action causing him to bang his head on one of the cabinets that hung in a precarious place a guy his size. His skull was thick, though. It sure stung but was nothing he couldn’t handle, especially since that cabinet always had it out for him.

Rosetta had spent the greater part of the morning crunching numbers, with little success.  Trying to do math on only a couple hours sleep was difficult, and her brain was completely fried.  She knew that she needed to get it done, but she also knew that without a change of scenery, she wasn’t going to move very fast. So she set off to the nearest coffeeshop for a drink.  

The walk helped Rosetta to clear her head, and after the breath of fresh air, she found herself with a renewed sense of purpose. Upon arriving at the shop, she ordered herself a coffee, took out her work, and began looking over it again.

… That is, until someone knocked right into her table, knocking over the scalding beverage.

She hissed through her teeth, quickly scooting the chair out and jumping up.  She managed to avoid getting coffee on herself, but all of her hard work wasn’t so lucky.

It was hard for Bob not to make a scene the few times he did visit Leuda. On Arcadia, his time was mostly spent outdoors, where his large frame didn’t cause him much trouble In small coffee shops, however, he was in competition with everything. It was no surprise when he accidentally banged into someone’s table, but he was instantly distraught all the same.