Trek For Survival

"I"ll get the tailor and seamstress while you bathe, so they can take your measurements and whip something up for you really fast," said Bee, wrinkling her nose at the disheveled clothing they were wearing. "This look like they"ve seen better days."

"Honestly, I"m not sure how they"ve held up for so long," said Carla, running her hands over the front of her shirt where there were numerous st.i.tches over rips and tears.

"I"ll ask Martha if I can get you some blankets to wrap up in once you"re clean, so you don"t have to be naked while they make your clothes," chuckled Tunny, winking at Mikey.

Mikey laughed as the blonde halfling moved away, but the adults didn"t share the amus.e.m.e.nt.

"I want you to stay away from that woman, Mikey," said Gia with a frown. "Halflings are full grown by your size, and she may not realize you"re just a kid."

"Really?" he asked, surprised. "Then what do the kids look like?"

Gia thought about that for a moment, thinking about the kids she had seen playing with the fox kits. They may have been closer to adults than she had thought. "Probably much smaller than the ones we saw chasing foxes."

"Wow, that must be really tiny. No wonder we haven"t seen any. They"re probably afraid of hawks s.n.a.t.c.hing them up," said Mikey, petting his Limcheez while he waited for his dad and Vonn to get into the room to bathe.

The doors were very low here, not made for people like them, and Gia was worried what the bathtubs would look like, but her fears were quickly relieved as the tubs were plenty big enough. It didn"t take her and Carla long to strip down out of the nasty clothes they were wearing. Of the two tubs that were available, they decided to use the first tub to get as much of the grime off as possible, and ended up using some of the soap that had been laid out for them, before climbing into the second tub together to do a deeper clean. They took turns scrubbing backs and washing each other"s hair.

Tunny slid a pile of blankets into the room, without actually coming into the room with them, and Gia hoped she did the same thing with the men.

"Have you noticed how flirty that girl is?" asked Carla with a frown. "I don"t like it one bit."

"You would think that she wouldn"t flirt with the guys, them being so much bigger than her!" agreed Gia with a small shake to her head.

"If she did manage to get one of them into her bed, the babe would kill her!" exclaimed Carla, starting to get worked up.

"I just hope the seamstress is really fast at making clothes," said Gia, noticing her mother"s mood and trying to change the subject.

"Well, if we went with some dresses, then it would be really fast, but I think I would like some pants, since we"ve still got so far to go. It is wonderful to be able to stop and rest in an actual inn, though. So weird that the barkeeps name is Bob."

"It is! I couldn"t believe it! Do you think there"s some hidden group that goes around making sure that innkeepers keep the name Bob, or change their names to Bob when they become one?" asked Gia.

"You don"t think it could be the same person, do you? I mean, there wasn"t an innkeeper named Bob in the elven forest, was there?" asked Carla, scrunching her brow as she tried to remember.

"Not that we ran into," said Gia, rinsing the last of the soap out of her mom"s hair. "There may have been one in the capital, but we didn"t go there."

"I"m glad! After those twins, I would hate to see how the royal elves act!" said Carla, standing to get out of the tub.

Gia didn"t say anything. Her mother didn"t know the twins were royal, or that they were both dead, and she didn"t want to tell her. She was just glad that the dreams of falling had stopped.

"These blankets are so soft!" sighed Carla, wrapping one around her.

A sudden clap of thunder had them both shrieking in surprise and panic.

"Was that really what I think it was?" asked Gia, moving over to a window to peek out, with the blanket wrapped tightly around her shoulders.

Carla came over to see with her, and they both watched as a downpour seemed to wash the entire town clean.

"I"m glad we"re inside," said Gia softly.

Carla nodded, when they both heard a knock on the door.

"Come in," called Gia, thinking it was the seamstress.

A halfling man stepped inside, with his face averted enough to make it clear he wasn"t looking in their directions. "Greetings, Gia and Carla. I already spoke with your husbands and brother. I am Bob, and I came to greet you in person. I know that now isn"t an opportune time for you, due to your current state of dress, but I thought it important for you to know that I am asking all of my customers to please relocate further into the building. The storm that is whipping through the town is going to be bringing a flood, and only the inner upper floor rooms are safe at the moment. I have one room available for your entire family to stay in, so that none of the other customers will see you in your current state, and I am pleased to inform you that the seamstress and tailor were able to make it into the building before the storm hit, so they will be joining you momentarily."

"Thank you," said Gia, struggling to keep her blanket wrapped around her naked body while she went to pick up their bags.

Bob looked very similar to the man they had met in the dwarven inn, but Gia wasn"t sure if the distance and time wasn"t causing her to think that. She helped her mom carry their things across the hall, where Tom, Vonn and Mikey were already waiting for them.

"Did you hear the lightning?" asked Mikey excitedly, holding Sprout to his chest.

The little Limcheez was almost too big for the pouch Mikey had been keeping him in, and had a really long green tail wrapped around his wrist to steady it, since it didn"t have any upper arms. It watched them with big, triangular eyes, as they set their things down with the rest of the bags.

"Did you wash your Limcheez, too?" asked Gia, moving over next to Vonn, almost forgetting that they were both naked underneath their blankets.

"His fur was really dirty! But I think he might be a girl," said Mikey in excitement, coming over to her, for her to see. "See? His belly has a line where I think there might be a pouch!"

Gia looked at the soft little fuzzball carefully, as it clung to his hand with its tail, and sure enough, she saw what had to be a pouch on its belly.

"Are you going to change her name?" asked Gia, straightening back up.

"Nope, she likes the name I gave her," said Mikey with a grin, smoothing the fur down around her eyes.

A knock on the door had them all turning as it opened slowly. Two halflings popped their heads in and looked around before hurrying inside.

"So sorry to rush in like this, but Bob insisted we hurry!" said the woman apologetically.

"He made it sound like the flood was going to hit any moment!" added the man.

"Does it rain like this often?" asked Tom.

"Normally about spring we get some pretty big storms and lots of flooding. Because the rest of the year is so dry, whenever it rains, it always floods. We use this time to refill our water barrels underground that will provide us with drinking water for the rest of the year," explained the woman, taking out a measuring tape for an ap.r.o.n pocket and approaching Gia.

"You don"t need to uncover for me dear," said the woman, taking quick measurements and moving methodically around her, having her bend over to get her shoulders and chest.

"Can you really remember those numbers?" asked Mikey, as they both measured one person and quickly moved over to the next.

"Sure can," chuckled the man, stepping up next to Mikey, to measure him last. "We"ve been doing this for almost twenty years. Numbers just stay in our heads. I can tell you, if you were to come back next year, just how much you"ve grown over the year."

"Wow!" Mikey said, his eyes going wide. "I don"t think I"ll be back next year. I want to grow up and get a wife who"s human, and learn how to chop wood and hunt in the forest."

"Then I better get you some clothes that will last, if you"re going to travel all the way to the forests in the east," chuckled the man, stepping back to join the woman when he was done.

"Do you know how far that is?" asked Carla.

"Oh dear, it"s probably a month or more. You have a pretty nasty mountain between us and the human lands. There"s rumors that there are monsters that live on the mountain, and that"s why the humans haven"t started encroaching on our fields yet," said the woman with a sad smile.