Chapter Text
I.
“Oh, Chilchuck Tims? Yeah, I’d vouch for him. Why?”
“Just sorting through his credentials,” Laios said.
The half-foot girl perched on the tall stool behind the bar counter cocked her head. “What kinds of rumors have you heard about him?”
“Uh…”
The girl leaned forward, elbows on the bar. “Fair trade, if I tell you what I know.”
Falin stepped in, thank goodness. “We’d like to hire a pick-lock, and we heard he’s open to the idea. We don’t know his former parties, though. And he insists on payment up front. We have enough, but… it’s a lot to spend on someone we don’t know. He said there’s a guild?”
“He started it, sure,” the girl said. “Guild of Half-foot Adventurers. Emberlow Slees is the primary contract negotiator, since she took that nasty fall on level three. Chilchuck stepped away.” The girl beckoned the tall-men to lean in towards her and murmured, when she judged that they were close enough, “I hear he’s looking to take on more dungeon-crawling contracts. Nothing too dangerous, mind, but he wouldn’t turn down a couple weeks away from that empty house of his.”
Falin and Laios looked at each other. Laios was the one to ask, “Empty house? Has there been some kind of death in his family, or…?”
“Oh, no, no, no. Something in his life went ass-backwards, I hear. But he’s a professional. He won’t tell you a thing about his personal life and he’ll show up on time, kitted out, and complaining if anyone tries to pry about what he’s been up to in his off-time.” The girl laughed. It was a bit of a dirty laugh, and made Laios mentally try and adjust how he’d been thinking of her; she had to at least be a teenager. Especially since she was working a mixed-race bar and grill in the center of town.
It was hard to tell her age, with the round cheeks and that deceptive height. Laios had to remind himself that half-foot proportions were different from tall-men; just because she probably barely came up to his waist, it didn’t mean she was a little kid.
“Thank you, ma’am,” Falin was saying, because she was good at being polite. “So, he’s a good pick-lock?”
“And he’s good at trap identification, disarming those traps, creative thinking, excessive drinking, and he can shoot a bow damn well but you didn’t hear that from me. Bit of a pacifist, I think.” She snorted, then reached under the counter to pull up a dwarf-forged tankard almost the size of her torso without a single grunt of effort. Laios mentally readjusted again—she was strong. Like ants. He wondered how he could calculate her carrying capacity relative to her size.
Falin was beaming. “That’s all good to hear! Thank you very much. Should we go through the Guild to request his services for our party?”
“Sure,” the woman said. She was pulling some drink garnishes from behind the counter, but she pointed with her chin towards the door. “Take a right out of here and follow the street till there’s a fork. Take the left, keep an eye at your shoulder height for a sign, and tell them Mirbannoy Dis sent you.”
“Thanks! We really appreciate it,” Falin said. She was smiling ear to ear as she rushed off, leaving Laios to nod as respectfully as he could while trying to keep his sister in sight.
II.
It shouldn’t have been difficult to find Chilchuck, but there were so many half-foots living in the district, Marcille found herself squinting at every smooth, brown head of hair she saw. If he wore something other than that green cowl and brown or black, she might miss him completely.
“Marcille! Over here!”
He was, of course, wearing something other than his green cowl and brown or black. Marcille hurried over to Chilchuck, who was leaning against a fountain, dressed in an orange tunic and rust-colored vest over grey trousers. His expression was annoyed, which was at least familiar.
“Sorry, I forgot what the cross streets were—“
“Thanks,” Chilchuck told a freckled half-foot girl who was standing by him. She had her long, straggly brown hair in a couple of frayed pigtails and her eyes were tired. She gave Marcille a nod as she walked off.
Marcille blinked after her. “Did—? Who was she?”
“She told me where you were,” Chilchuck said. “When you didn’t show, I figured you’d gotten lost. I asked her to keep an eye out for you. Here, come on. The shop’s back this way.”
“Chilchuck!” another half-foot girl called out as they took a narrow road between tilted buildings. “Hey! Dad said to tell you that Miss Dots will pay up next week!”
Chilchuck waved but didn’t stop walking.
“You seem well-known around here,” Marcille said.
“Yeah, it’s where I live,” Chilchuck said. “Of course I know my neighbors.”
“Really? I don’t know any of mine.”
“You’re an elf,” he said, as if that explained anything.
“What do you mean by that?” Marcille snapped.
“Humans are afraid of you. Dwarves are suspicious of you. Gnomes don’t notice anything unless it’s something research-worthy. And we—" he gestured vaguely to the bustle around him "—tend to assume you don’t care about any of our problems.”
Even in the dim alleyway, Marcille could hear chatter in Common and the half-foot language, which she’d never heard much of. A couple of babies were crying, and a few more were laughing. Someone was singing. Someone else was playing a stringed instrument, a different song that dipped and bounced off of the notes of the singer’s jaunty tune.
“That’s kind of a rude thing to assume,” Marcille muttered. “I’m not going to judge you for your lifespan. That’s messed up.”
Chilchuck sighed. “You’ve never met a half-foot before, have you?”
“Uh. Well, I think I’ve met a few?” Marcille tried to remember. She’d surely met some half-foots in her lifetime?
“You were at magic school, right?” Chilchuck said, not pausing for her answer. “Not many of us have mana at the level you need to cast more than a spell or two. And some places won’t teach us because they don’t see the point of shorter-lived races learning magic. This—“ he gestured around again “—is pretty normal for us. We set up in neighborhoods that fit our size and we all get to know each other. We take care of each other. Here, it's left.”
Marcille blinked as the sounds of Chilchuck’s street almost immediately vanished and they stepped onto a normal-sized road.
Chilchuck explained, “We’re going to a tall-man shop for your pouch, but he gets his stuff from us. Says the stitching’s better or something.”
“You know how to sew, right? You could make your own gear.”
“I do, some of it. I’d rather fix stuff than make it from scratch. And I don’t want to go through all the hassle of figuring out where to buy good-quality leather and hardware and everything. There’s no problem buying ready-made gear and customizing it later.” He pointed ahead, to one of the shops lining this wider thoroughfare. “That’s the spot.”
“Why didn’t we meet here?” Marcille asked.
Chilchuck looked up at her and smiled. It wasn’t a nice smile—more of a smirk. He said, “I don’t like this guy. If he saw you loitering outside the shop, he’d drag you in and make you buy something for twice or three times the price you should be paying for it. And he doesn’t like me, so if I was the one waiting out here for you, he’d come out and tell me to hit the bricks. So, the strategy is, you pick up two or three pouches, then when you find the one you want, you let me talk to him about what the price should be. Just tap it in the sneak-past-the-mimic rhythm when you’ve found you want. Think you can do that?”
“You’ll handle haggling?”
“Yeah.”
Marcille took a deep breath and nodded. “I can do that.”
“Good.” Chilchuck gave his mean little smirk again and shoved open the shop door with a jingle.
III.
The bar was crowded with adventuring parties. Namari had sent Laios, as the tallest among them, to pick up drinks. He was also on the hook for the second round. Marcille was complaining to Falin about something or other that had gone wrong this time around—whatever it was hadn’t been that bad, the party had only needed healing instead of any resurrections—and Shuro was sitting on the edge of the bench, hands tight around his first drink. It was untouched. He was staring at Falin.
Namari rolled her eyes and turned back to Chilchuck, who was also complaining.
“We’re back a full day early,” Chilchuck said. “I can return half of the last day, but there’s a mandatory partial payment for days scheduled but not used. But my mortgage is due in a few days, and it sounds like Laios wants to get back in there sooner than that. So I have to sort out the next contract by tomorrow at the latest, and maybe I can count the rest of the partial payment— I mean, the full payment, if I can keep it, goes towards part of the next contract. Do you think he’d go for that?”
“How’d you get through half a pitcher already?” Namari asked. “And how are you still thinking about work?”
“I’m thinking about getting paid,” Chilchuck said, stabbing the table with his finger for emphasis. “And it’s a good ale.”
“I know a guy back on the mainland who does small-batch keg stuff that’d knock those mittens off you.”
Chilchuck peeled his fingerless gloves off. “I’ll stick with the sure thing, if you’re asking for my investment in some brewery.”
“I wasn’t,” Namari shrugged. “Just saying. This is basically piss.”
“Snob.”
“Pleb.”
“Mæčuur.”
“Ha’ak.”
Chilchuck’s eyebrows shot up. His hand clenched around the handle of his mug. “Woah.”
Namari slapped a hand over her mouth, feeling a blush rise. “Oh shit, do you know Dwarvish?”
“I know some Dwarvish,” he said. Namari was relieved to see he was suppressing a smirk. She raised her middle finger at him. He made a similar-looking gesture that she tried to copy. He laughed and performed it again, hunching his shoulders to hide the movement from the rest of the room.
“You’re nasty, kid,” Namari said, trying the gesture again. “Where’d you learn such dirty words?”
Chilchuck’s mouth flattened into a tense line. “I’m not a kid.”
“Oh, so you heard it firsthand?”
Chilchuck’s lips were white now, pressed tightly together.
Namari winced. “Ah, shit. I put my foot in it again. I’m sorry, Chilchuck. What rat-bastard called you that?”
He waved a hand, brushing away her question, and slurped his mug of beer. It was as tall as his forearm was long. “Doesn’t matter. Words get thrown around.”
“Still, I didn’t mean to call you that. Shouldn’t’ve said it to anyone, really.”
“Who taught it to you?”
Namari looked away. “Kids trying to be edgy. We were all kids, then, though, and didn’t know what we were saying. I should’ve forgotten it.”
“It’s not an easy term to forget.”
“No. It isn’t. I was trying to be shocking. I didn’t even know what you called me. I don’t speak, uh, half-foot-ese.”
Chilchuck snorted. “We have a lot of foul words. It’s more fun that way. You can insult people without a lot of personal impact.”
“What? Personal impact?”
“Hm, how to explain…?” Chilchuck sipped his beer, looking at the ceiling in thought. “What I called you was like… Cat-attitude? Aloof, but the way cats will refuse to engage with something for arbitrary reasons. Like, it’s cute and ridiculous to watch you turn your nose up. But that’s all captured in one word, and it describes a snobby person in a way connected to an animal. It’s insulting, but it’s not saying anything about how you look or your lifestyle.” He gave Namari a narrow, pointed glare. “I know what kind of lifestyle you were putting on me in Dwarvish. That has personal impact.”
“Oh. So insults are really common for half-foots?”
“I guess. We have the right words for it, in our language. If I called you something like ‘asswipe’ in Common, that’s not very interesting or descriptive. We don’t really use general terms like that. They’re useful in their own way, but they’re intended to make someone feel bad, not feel seen.”
“…Okay, you’re losing me again. You want to make people feel seen when you’re insulting them?”
“No… Perceived, maybe? It gets into the specificity of the insult. You pick them really carefully for the people you’re yelling at. It shows care.” Chilchuck sighed and drained his mug. “Damn, I didn’t expect to get into a dissertation on language over a beer.”
“It’s interesting,” Namari insisted. “I’ve known a few half-foots but none of them really talked to me much. I thought you people were all shy.”
Chilchuck snorted. “Should have gotten more of us a drink, then. We get way less shy when we have a beer.”
“Ehh, it kind of… means something, to ask someone to have a beer with you,” Namari said. She shifted her mug on its coaster a bit to center it and kept her eyes locked on the table.
“Is it a courting thing?” Chilchuck asked. There was a laugh on the edge of his voice.
“It is, a bit. It’s old fashioned thinking, now,” Namari added quickly. “Young dwarves who grew up around tall-men and half-foots know it’s just social for other races, but it meant something pretty significant when I was growing up. You drink together to see what you have in common and to smooth the conversational flow.”
“Good to know,” Chilchuck said. He pressed the back of his knuckles over his mouth.
“What?” Namari asked.
“Nothing.”
She squinted at the smirk on Chilchuck’s face and considered the last minutes of their conversation. “What are you thinking about dwarves? Did one try to get you drunk?”
Chilchuck shook his head. He took his hand away from his mouth and leaned in to murmur, “Have you been out behind the dwarven blacksmith’s shop? Past where the farrier works?”
“No?”
Chilchuck sat back with a sigh that sounded a bit regretful. “You won’t get it, then. Just a joke with myself. And I found the punchline.”
“Why’s there a farrier here?” Namari asked, distracted. “They don’t bring horses or ponies into the dungeon anymore. Everyone has to cart out their own loot.”
“People still ride horses to other towns,” Chilchuck said. He was contemplating his empty mug. “The dungeon isn’t the only place in the world.”
“Might as well be. There’s a lot of dungeon diving and a lot of research happening here. My friend’s cousin said this dungeon’s one of the most complex on record. I’m kind of surprised there aren’t more elves showing up to scout it out.”
“Elves don’t explore dungeons. They leave that to us short-lived races,” Chilchuck said. “They watch for a few of our generations, then sweep up what’s left.” He slid off his chair with a grunt. “I need a refill. I think Laios got lost.”
Namari tried to keep an eye on him, but Chilchuck vanished into the crowd. She sighed, and then spotted a beautiful tall-woman with legs for days, talking to a gnome who looked like a pile of laundry with glasses and a bad attitude. And the beautiful woman had a beautiful twin brother. And the gnome was explaining why he was here, and Namari was right about the dungeon research being some of the best going on right now.
Chilchuck never came back for her to lord it over him.
IV.
“Elves don’t really… do that,” Marcille said. “Sorry, Falin. I thought you knew.”
“Aw,” Falin sighed. “I have spells to deal with cramps, but I don’t think I have enough spare rags… And we’re already two floors deep. Maybe I can ask Laios to stop for laundry next time we find a fountain? I don’t like using bandages for this sort of thing, it feels wasteful.”
“What’s up?” Chilchuck said, startling both women. He was crouched over a set of his tools, cleaning cloth in hand—they hadn’t noticed him. “Bandages? Are you hurt, Falin?”
“It’s female stuff,” Marcille said.
Chilchuck raised his eyebrows. “Okay?”
“I’m menstruating,” Falin explained. “I’m about a week early.”
Marcille made a sound like a teakettle and blushed. “Falin! It’s not his business!”
“It’s not,” Chilchuck agreed. He straightened up, stretching his back. “Didn’t bring supplies? I think I have a few spare cloths. They’re clean,” he added. Marcille was still whining and scoffing furiously, but Falin smiled.
“That would be great, Chilchuck. Thank you!”
“Sure. Come with me. You need any, Marcille?”
“I do not!” She stomped out with a huff. The tips of her ears were bright red.
“Elves don’t menstruate, I guess,” Falin said.
“Sounds unhealthy,” Chilchuck said. He dug around in one of the small pockets sewn to the side of his pack. He pulled out a wallet, then frowned at it. “Ah, shit. These might be kind of small for you.”
“I can make it work,” Falin said. “It’s only for a couple of days. Honestly, having even one spare would be helpful.”
“Okay, if you don’t mind.” Chilchuck handed the wallet over. “Take what you need. It’s all new stuff, totally clean.”
“Oh!” Falin’s eyes widened as she saw the neat stitching around the edges of what were clearly designed to be menstrual pads. There was even a button to secure the cloth pad to the underwear. “Chilchuck, these are… This is really well-made. Why do you have these?”
“It helps to have some things people forget to bring,” Chilchuck said with a shrug. “Minimizes back-tracking. Some monsters can smell blood, too. That’s usually on the third floor, though, with all the fish people.”
“Right. Well, thank you again. This is really thoughtful. I never expect men to think about menstruation.”
“It’s a part of life,” Chilchuck said. “I don’t know why everyone makes such a big deal about it.”
“Do you menstruate?”
Chilchuck blinked. “Uh. No?”
“Oh, I’m sorry if that’s insensitive!”
“I think it’s just… private.” Chilchuck ran a hand through his hair, looking uncomfortable for the first time in this conversation. “Not really the kind of thing you ask your coworkers.”
Falin frowned, then remembered Mirbannoy Dis’ summary of Chilchuck, all those months ago. “Ah! That’s right, you don’t like sharing personal information.”
“We work together,” Chilchuck said, gesturing between himself and Falin. “You don’t have to tell me about your… monthlies or anything. It’s not relevant to the job and, honestly, I don’t care. Unless it’s something I can help out with.”
“Like right now,” Falin said, holding out the wallet. “Thanks, Chilchuck.”
Chilchuck took it back and stowed it away. “Yeah. I try to be prepared for when my party members fuck up.”
Falin flinched a little at the swear word, and the implication. “O-oh.”
“No, this— Sorry, that came out wrong,” Chilchuck said. He scraped a hand through his hair and glared at the ground for a moment. Falin waited, shifting her weight nervously as the silence dragged. Finally, Chilchuck blew out a breath and said, “I carry spare gear when I can and it’s been handy before. Even if I don’t use them, I know that other people could need some… sanitary products. It’s inconvenient when you’re in the dungeon.” He waved vaguely at Falin’s torso.
She tried to smile. “Inconvenient? That’s one way of putting it.”
“I can’t help with spells or anything, but practical supplies are kind of my specialty. I’ve been exploring this dungeon as long as anybody in the area. I know what’s nice to have when you’re a few days deep.”
“I appreciate it, Chilchuck. Really.”
“I didn’t mean to say you messed up,” he said. “It’s something I could help with, though. So, if you need an item or something, just let me know. I might have it.”
Falin smiled at him, sincerely now. “I will.”
“Good. And don’t tell your brother.”
“That you have useful tools?”
Chilchuck returned to cleaning a set of his lockpicks. “That I gave you pads. If it sounds that weird to you, maybe I shouldn’t advertise that I'm a man who knows what a menstrual cycle is.”
“It’s not relevant to the job,” Falin assured him. “I won’t tell Laios.”
Chilchuck hummed an acknowledgement that he’d heard her. Falin headed out to find the room that had been designated the latrine. When she glanced back, Chilchuck was looking away from her. He was very still. She couldn’t see his face, but his fingers were hooked in that green, circular scarf he always wore.
If Chilchuck wanted to be mysterious, she reminded herself, that was his business.
V.
Senshi wasn’t sure about this kid. He was cocky, but maybe it was actually well-earned confidence. He was crude, but he cared. He puttered around the campsite, doing chores and little projects that showed he knew all the small ways to make life in a dungeon camp easier for the people around him.
When Senshi looked closer, trying to capture what Chilchuck looked like in his log-book, he realized there was fuzz running down his cheeks and across his chest. He was as hairy as Senshi had been as a child. And he kept insisting he wasn’t a child. He was so thin, though. He looked fragile.
Senshi wasn’t the type to ask personal questions. He also wasn’t the type to answer personal questions. He observed his party members for the moment and drew his own conclusions about what they were bringing to the table. Laios loved his sister and wanted to know about monster cuisine, which was wonderful. The elf-girl made Senshi nervous for a while, but she was just trying to get the woman she loved back. He could respect that.
Chilchuck was a mystery. He was afraid of the dungeon. Fragile as he was, it was probably a healthy fear to have. But he was here anyway, and he was persistent. He knew shortcuts that Senshi thought were secret. He could find traps that Senshi didn’t notice. He listened to the dungeon in a way that even Senshi couldn’t.
“Yer good at this,” Senshi told him one evening. Laios was working on annotating in that awful, inaccurate cookbook of his and Marcille was tucked up tight in her bedroll. Chilchuck was mending a piece of his kit that looked fine, but Senshi wasn’t the expert.
“Yeah,” Chilchuck said without looking up. “This is probably my last party, though. Retirement is looming.”
“What?”
“I’m middle-aged next year.”
Senshi squinted at him. He still saw a child, smooth-faced and round-cheeked, with skinny limbs that needed feeding. Chilchuck had told them all his age, but Senshi couldn’t see it on him. It was only in his attitude, really, which was serious and deeply cynical. And maybe in how slowly he got up in the morning, how he stretched his back and popped his joints. Twenty-nine was young to Senshi, but it sat differently on Chilchuck.
“What’re ye gonna do in retirement?” Senshi asked.
Chilchuck raised one shoulder. His attention was still on the pack strap he was fiddling with. “I like locks and traps. Might set up a shop to pick locks and sort out other mechanisms. People always need locks either installed or undone.”
“Oh. Ye gonna stay on the island?”
“Eh. I don’t mind it here but…” Chilchuck lowered the stuff he was holding and looked around. He squinted suspiciously at Laios, then scooted a bit closer to Senshi and lowered his voice. “I would rather head back to the mainland. Kahka Brud was all right. Kind of crowded—I bought up a plot of land at the edge of town where I may try to start a business. I mostly want to just do my work without having to worry about politics and interpersonal drama.”
“So, ye’d still be working?”
“I have some money set aside, but I’m not rich. And I’m—“ he paused and looked away, mouth twisting “—kind of on the outs with some folks in the half-foot community. I have connections here, mediating and interpreting and consulting, but the political climate is getting weird. Not just for me, either. Elves might show up soon.”
Senshi nodded blankly. He glanced at Marcille.
“Not her,” Chilchuck said, waving a hand dismissively. “The type of elves who try to manage anyone who they think is beneath them. Shorter-lived races. Whenever there’s a dungeon that’s explored intensely for a few years, sometimes a few decades, they sweep in and say it isn’t safe anymore. Hah! Dungeons are never safe.”
“Well, sure, nothing’s completely safe,” Senshi said.
“Yeah. Ridiculous. We don’t need protecting, like we’re all children,” Chilchuck scoffed. “I’ve spent most of my life working in and around dungeons. And you’ve lived in here for what, a few years?”
“Sure,” Senshi said, trying to remember how many decades he’d been in this dungeon.
Chilchuck nodded in satisfaction. “And we’re perfectly fine. Just have to be careful and find people you can trust to watch your back and not turn you into monster bait.”
“Right. Wait, did that happen to ye?”
“Sure did,” Chilchuck said, a gleam of rage in his dark eyes. “Right when I was starting out and didn’t know any better. It’s why I started the Guild. I wanted to protect half-foots from that kind of treatment. Our lives aren’t worth less just because they’re shorter. We live plenty in the time we have.”
Senshi nodded slowly. “Yeah. That makes sense. Still kinda hard to wrap my head around.”
“What, that you and I are at similar development stages, even if we aren’t the same age?” Chilchuck looked annoyed. “It’s an old argument.”
“Senshi, could you tell me what you did to get the dried slime to act like noodles?” Laios called.
“Shhh!” Chilchuck hissed. He pointed at Marcille, who was making little snuffling noises in her sleep. Laios winced and covered his own mouth with his hand, embarrassed.
“Ponza.” Chilchuck scooted back to his previous spot with a grunt and started his repairs again.
“Thanks for explaining it to me,” Senshi said as he stood to join Laios by the fire.
“What?” Chilchuck asked
“Yer life. Yer plans. It’s nice to know what motivates ye.”
“Oh. Sure. Any time. Well, any time we have downtime.” Chilchuck smiled a crooked little grin. It put wrinkles by his eyes that did make him look a bit closer to the age he must see himself as. The age he was.