“I don’t see why we have to help,” Mouse pursed his lips. That, paired with his furrowed brow resembled a pouting child. Taiga shook his head with a sigh.

  “Because it doesn’t hurt you to learn to respect other people and their property.” Taiga slid a few shingles to the side, picking the most intact one and placing it over a wooden beam. “And I’m tired of paying for damages you and Sweet Bun keep making. We’ll be in debt at this rate.”

  He and Mouse had finished repairing the stall before lunch. Situated to the south of the city, a small village of farms and fields lay against the wall. The land and space were limited, passed down from generation to generation and well established enough to have been kept within the city wall.

  Not many people came out this far, and the young had turned to the city for better opportunities. The overgrown garden and dilapidated farmhouse were left to ruin without the hands of the young and sturdy to keep them in shape. Since they were already out there, Taiga didn’t mind fixing the roof or clearing the weeds, and volunteered themselves for the afternoon.

  “We could’ve gotten away with it. She was scared of getting in trouble with what you said.” Mouse handed him another decent looking shingle from his ladder leaning against the old woman’s roof.

  “Oh, please. I only did that because she hit you. She deserved a little scare.” He strung rope through a latch on the shingles, tying it off and hammering it into the grooves of other singles. They fit like puzzle pieces, though age and wear on them made hammering them back into place necessary.

  An elderly man watched them from a bench beneath a tree. The loss of his teeth left a permanent smile on his face. The thief trudged past him, lugging a wheelbarrow of weeds to the compost pile.

  Apparently, the old woman recognized the thief. She’d hit Mouse out of some misguided concern for the woman’s wellbeing. The thief’s temper lost her several jobs since arriving in Winolin a few months prior. If it wasn’t for her older sibling and their stable job, she’d have been kicked out of Winolin by now.

  “Hey, I could use some help pulling up some broken fencing.” The old woman smiled, waddling between swollen feet and arms overfilled with sundried sheets.

  “Mouse.” Taiga nodded towards the woman.

  He clicked his tongue. “Why do I gotta help?”

  “Because I’m repairing the roof, and Nena,” Taiga waved a hand towards the thief, “is tending to the garden.”

  Mouse watched Taiga as he placed down another shingle. He tied the shingle off, and positioned it against the grooves of the one beneath it. Before he brought the hammer down on it, Mouse let out an over dramatic sigh. “Fine.”

  Taiga paused, eyeing Mouse as he stomped over to the old woman. They talked a moment before he sighed again, and continued down the road to the broken fence line surrounding the property.

  He returned to his work, raising the hammer up and pounding it down on the shingle with just enough strength to wedge it into place rather than break it. He checked it for any loose spots and, upon satisfaction, double checked its knot.

  “You know, you do good work despite the circumstances.” The old woman beamed at him from below. He’d thought she’d retreated back into the house.

  He set the hammer down, brushing his pants of dust and leaves. “I’m not in the habit of deciding something half-heartedly. And well, despite what I said earlier,” he cleared his throat, “it wouldn’t be right to leave you without a way to make a living.”

  The old woman’s smile widened, “with all the help, it’ll put us in a good position for winter. I appreciate it.”

  “You don’t have any help out here?” He asked. A few older folk had wandered past to survey the visitors shortly after they arrived.

  The woman shook her head. A red curl fell from her headscarf. “My son only visits occasionally. He lives in the northern part of town, but he said he can’t be bothered to come out here.”

  They weren’t far from town, but the hustle and bustle of town life felt a world away to the spacious fields and small buildings dotting small water canals built long ago. It was a quieter life, simpler than most wanted. A slowness that allowed minds to wonder what more they could find.

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  “If it weren’t for my family’s prominence once upon a time, I’m sure my land would've been taken over by one of those farmers out there.” She pointed out towards the western wall.

  “Prominence?” Taiga picked up a few shingles in his hand, turning them over in his hand and revealing their unpainted, rough, ceramic underbellies. A crack drew across one, and he set it aside with the other unusables.

  The old woman nodded. “Back when Winolin was young, and mining in the mountains was under development, my family put down stakes here and helped provide food for the miners.”

  “Impressive.” He tied a new shingle and lined it up.

  “All the farming families here banded together back then.” She waved her arms around them, “that’s why, when the wall was built, it was built around us.”

  He hammered at the shingle while the old woman let herself get lost in her thoughts. Her smile shrank, eyes downcasted, “now all the farms out there compete to be the best and take the little land we have left here. Trying to replace us.”

  Taiga glanced across the roof, checking once more for any gaps before sitting and dropping his hammer beside him. “Competition breeds success for few, and failure for the rest.”

  “Where’d you hear that?” She put her hands on her hips, rocking her head to the side and watching him with a half smile.

  “A knight.” It was his former captain, to be exact. They’d passed through a Monx border village ravaged by hunger and famine. The only survivor had watched his own children starve while he snuck away with food scraps left behind by passing soldiers.

  “Can you just disappear??”

  Taiga glanced up, finding Mouse knelt by pieces of broken fencing he’d pulled up. The thief, Nena, stood on the other side of the fence, an arm pointing at him. Her face was scrunched up, eyes furrowed together at him. “All you did was cause more problems! Finish weeding the bed yourself!”

  He slid off the roof, landing softly on his feet beside the old woman. “What’s going on?” He called, walking over.

  Mouse met his eyes before tugging on a broken post and ripping it from the ground. Nena backed up a step as Taiga approached, before digging in her heels and turning to him. “I’m sick of this! I have more important things to—”

  A plank of wood conked her on the head, bouncing off with a thud. The force knocked Nena over, and she caught herself before landing on her knees. She shook the shock off, glaring at Mouse.

  Mouse, on the other hand, blinked unbothered at Taiga. “She said I needed to go tend the field in her place.”

  “And your response?”

  “‘Piss off’, were my exact words.” He smiled, nodding to himself.

  “And this,” Taiga turned to Nena, “led you to tell my partner to ‘disappear’? I suppose I don’t need to tell you how unacceptable telling someone to disappear is?”

  In case his calm, purposely restrained tone didn’t convey his simmered anger, he made sure his glare did. Nena looked away before stomping back towards the garden. He didn’t shift his eyes from her until she bent back over the ground, ripping another weed up.

  “How do you make people hate you so much?” Taiga sighed, picking up the plank of wood from the ground and inspecting it. It weighed little, and likely didn’t hurt when it hit her. Still, throwing things at people was not exactly the best way to handle things.

  Mouse shrugged. Taiga walked over to him, ruffling his hair and then fixing it before it tangled. He hinted a smile from where he crouched, untangling rope from the fencepost.

  “Don’t disappear,” Taiga muttered, quiet enough just for Mouse to hear.

  He smiled wider, “I won’t.”

  “Hey, Taiga?” The old woman called from the road. A man stood next to her, waving at them.

  Taiga recognized the man as one of the mercenaries from the guildhall. He’d fought with Mouse during the demon attack. Mouse stood up beside him, no recognition reflecting in his eyes.

  He walked over, treading carefully around any remaining crops. Mouse followed him, stepping beside him and stuffing his hands into his pockets. “You have dirt on your hands.”

  Mouse blinked at him, “so?”

  “So, now the dirt is in your pockets.” Taiga watched him remove his hands, look at them, rub them against the side of his pants, then stick them back into his pockets.

  “Better?” Mouse’s smile eased Taiga’s gaze.

  “I’ll clean them later.”

  As they approached the old woman and mercenary, Nena sat on the bench with the elderly man, once again trying to get out of work. The mercenary greeted them, and Taiga did a short bow in return.

  “I thought it was you two on the street before.” The mercenary smiled, ignoring Mouse’s lack of greeting. So, they’d been seen in that debacle.

  “Did you need something?” Taiga redirected the question, which the mercenary nodded to.

  “Yeah, we got a request from the mining community to the east. It’s a couple day’s ride from here. They asked for any mercs we could spare.”

  “What’s the request?” Taiga weighed the idea with pleasure. Considering the pending bill for Sweet Bun’s damages, they could use a little more cushion for their funds.

  The mercenary shrugged. “It was…. Vague. Just a basic request for help. It wasn’t marked urgent or anything. You two up for it? We know your skills are solid, so wanted to extend the offer to ya.”

  Taiga met Mouse’s eyes, and they nodded to each other. “When do we leave?”

  The mercenary smiled. “At first sun up.”