It took every single bit of willpower I had to coax myself into getting out of bed. I was so used to lower quality beds from inns designed for the working folk and before that the discomfort of random sticks poking me all night from my tree nests that I had forgotten what it was like to sleep on something relatively soft. For several moments I had drifted, wrapped up tightly in the soft blankets thinking that it must be a really nice dream and I wanted to linger just a bit longer. Coupled with the fact that lazy rain was still tapping gently on the window and I felt slightly hungover from the excess wine, it was difficult to talk myself into leaving the hazy comfort. Finally it was the knowledge that I did need to face the day because I needed to get my bow and maybe a case in the event the wedding did happen. It was a long shot, but I needed to focus on the possibility that I was still gainfully employed otherwise I would be depressed and terrified about my prospects. I couldn’t afford to linger and miss any opportunities now, I already was cursing myself for putting all my eggs into this basket. I think any reasonable person would have assumed this was a sure thing, but I couldn’t shake the parting warning from my parents and their commune members against trusting anything a city dweller assured me of. They had made clear that society would let me down time and time again and at the time I had just dismissed them as brainwashed by their little nature cult, but now… maybe they did know something I didn’t.

With a great groan of effort, I sat up, blearily blinking away the fogginess from my vision. I rubbed the bridge of my nose, trying to massage away a blossoming headache. It had been a while since I had been hung over. When you live in an inn full time you get used to a certain level of constant inebriation so for me to feel much of anything meant that their wine was a much higher alcohol content than I was used to or I had somehow managed to let the number of glasses get away from me. I strained my drunken memory trying to remember and felt fairly certain that I had stopped at six glasses since I was feeling that I was already far gone. That was way under my normal limit, which probably makes it very potent and expensive, another mistake that I was going to be grumbling about for days to come. There was a reason I drank the cheap stuff, I could only reasonably afford cheap. I get into a city for less than a day and already I’m thinking like a cosmopolitan. Despite the complaint in my throbbing head with every movement I made, I managed through fumbling out of my travel clothes and into a fresh blouse and trousers from my pack. I would need to ask about some soap and a wash bin to freshen all my clothes after I came back for the day from figuring out if I was going to be a vagabond for a while. At the very least I could hit the road as a traveling bard in fresh clothes, a stinky musician gathers far less tips than a sweet smelling one.

When I opened the door and stepped out into the hallway, I was greeted by the sight of Bleu’s naked behind as he closed the door to Mable’s room as slowly and quietly as he could so as to not alert anyone to where he had spent his night. By his wobbly movements and lack of foresight to put on his clothing before he left the room it appeared that he was likely still pretty drunk. Neither of them had the foresight to cut themselves off when I did and I could remember them still downing glass after glass like it was water. It was going to be a struggle to get Mable out of bed and convince her that it was worth it to go get her reeds and figure out if we had jobs or not, but it would have to be done. Truth was I was a bit nervous about being in the city on my own, it was a far cry from the forested landscape I was comfortable with. Having her with me to do even simple chores made me feel infinitely more confident.

It finally dawned on Bleu that he was completely naked in the middle of the hallway and he cursed under his breath, haphazardly throwing on the clothing he had been carrying as a bundle tightly to his chest. Part of me wanted to call out that he had forgotten his boots as he padded away barefoot, but it wasn’t like Mable or I would take them and it was going to be pretty obvious either way what he had been up to all night. His mother was going to be incredibly pleased with herself. As soon as I heard Bleu stumble his way down the steps to the bottom floor, I made my way to Mable’s door and saw that in his drunkenness he had failed to even close the door all the way. Still, I rapped my knuckles on the door and waited to hear Mable’s surprisingly cheery greeting to enter.

“You’re much more awake than I thought you’d be,” I said with a grin as I entered.

Mable’s bed was in shambles, the hefty down blanket smooshed into the corner and her sheets still tied to the headboard. It looked like she had an awful lot of fun and though I hadn’t really thought about it before, I had a small pang of jealousy. I didn’t want Bleu, he was just some guy we had met, but it had been far too long since I had serenaded a man into my bed. It was good stress relief and man was I ever stressed about how things were turning out.

“The key is to know how to hold your liquor and stop when you know you’ve had enough,” she said matter of factly.

“You drank more than I did,” I countered.

“Did I?” A mischievous smile clung to her lips. “I am rather good at faking that. I stopped before you did actually, the key is to look like you’re accepting their generosity while pouring what they’re giving you slowly into their glass while they’re not looking. All three of them are probably a lot more tipsy than they intended this morning.”

“I saw that,” I giggled, “Bleu looked a bit nude and drunk still.”

She let out a laugh and motioned for me to have a seat while she finished brushing out her hair. I tried in vain to find a spot on the bed that wasn’t suspiciously damp or crumbled like someone had had the bedding clenched tightly in their fist. I sanely chose a crumbled spot and made sure to be aware of where I could and couldn’t put my hands if I ended up wanting to lean back. I watched her brush out her long, luscious locks as she hummed a happy tune, a purple bruise prominently visible on the side of her neck. Once all the tangles from the night of passion had been dealt with and smoothed, she deftly began the one of many braids that would create an elegant, but protective hairstyle.

“So I see you had some fun,” I said, wanting to strike up a conversation. I was not good with silences, they always made me feel uncomfortable.

“Very,” she laughed, “he was good for a bit of fun.”

“You’re going to break his heart.”

“So? I didn’t promise him anything and in fact I basically told his mother that there was no chance I would stick around. Not my fault if they don’t take me at my word and think I can be convinced otherwise. I was blunt about it and he got a fun time out of it, maybe a couple more depending on how long we end up staying.”

A frown crept to my lips and I let out a frustrated sigh. “Yeah, been trying not to think about what’s going to happen if these contracts end up being voided. I’m not sure how I’m going to make it unless I start playing on the street for tips and hoping and with practically every decent musician in the kingdom currently here as well… I don’t think that would end up working out very well for me. I’ve never been very good at playing for tips on the street, always felt way too much like begging and you know how I feel about that.”

Mable paused after the braid she had just finished up and looked at me with a serious expression on her face. “Knowing you, you're going to hate me for asking this, but please consider letting me give you a loan? I know you won’t take any money I give you, but if you pay it back later it’s not charity.”

I grumbled and crossed my arms in front of my chest. She was right, I did hate the idea. I had enough charity for a lifetime when I had to take advantage of people’s kindness when I first joined the rest of society. My commune had not had any money to give and I had barely any idea of how necessary it was when I stumbled into the nearest town. If not for a couple of very generous people who felt bad for the stinky girl with leaves for clothing I would have probably eaten out of trash piles and slept in alleyways before figuring it out on my own. Honestly, I probably wouldn’t have figured anything out, I was simply too naive, and I would have given up after a while and retreated back to the forest. Thanks to the people who found me while I was freezing next to a heap of discarded, rotting fruit I was attempting to find non-rotten bits to eat from, I had avoided returning with my tail between my legs and I had never forgotten the unquestioning acts of generosity. I had vowed to go back one day when I managed to get a comfortable amount of disposable income and pay them all back with interest, but that had yet to come to fruition. It still bothered me when I thought about it and I seemed to tend to think about it nearly every day.

“I’m not going to push you, but I’ve explained before that I’m lucky, I have the ability to help if you need and I don’t mind helping friends. I would be fine just handing you gold and never expecting it back, we can go down to the bank right now and I can take out whatever you need.”

“No, I couldn’t do that,” I sighed. It was tempting, very, very tempting, especially knowing that by the sound of it whatever she would give me would not even make a dent in what she was allowed. “If you don’t mind me asking, just how do you have this seemingly limitless pile of gold and if you have it, why are you a traveling bard?”

“My father is the head of his noble family,” she said with a shrug of her shoulders. “I was just born lucky I suppose”

“And you’re out on the road singing for your super? Are you crazy?”

There was no way given that set of circumstances that I would ever want to lift my finger again. I would happily lounge on a couch all day reading book after book and enjoying the finer pleasures in life. At no point could I see myself longing to get back out to work, who in their right mind would choose to toil for a living when everything could be handed to you?

“You’d be surprised how boring that life gets after a while. I watched my mother pace the hallways from boredom my entire childhood since all the housework was done for her by maids. I had a nanny to do all the child care for her as well, so my needs never needed to be a concern for her. I think she read through every book in existence and eventually my father thought it was a good idea to ‘lighten’ the load of the gardening my mother put all her time into by hiring a gardener to do it for her. After that she basically stalked the maid around the house, re-cleaning everything in an attempt to feel useful and talking the ear off of anyone who lingered too long near her. I never wanted to end up like that, it seemed like a terrible existence that just isn’t for me. I like the travel, the randomness of where I end up laying my head at night, and the freedom to do whatever I want without anyone being concerned about what reputation I’m putting forth for the family name. I would have been married off to some other rich family long ago if I hadn’t left and the idea of sticking with just one man for the rest of my life makes me feel anxious. Surely married couples must get sick of looking at each other after a while.”

“My parents seemed fine with it,” I answered with a shrug. “They had been together for years, though I don’t think they adhered to the traditional thought that couples need to be monogamous. I never wanted to find out, but I’m pretty sure I can guess what happens when all the adults share one common sleeping area.”

I shivered at the thought. As a child I had never really given it much thought and assumed that it was just how all adults slept, but now as an adult I was unfortunately keenly aware of what kind of behavior was sure to go on under those conditions.

“Really?” she asked with sincere interest. Her nostrils flared and her eyes dilated slightly as I assumed she was imagining the arrangement. “Druids live like that?”

“We did, don’t know if everyone does.”

She looked contemplative for a moment, finishing off the final braid to complete her look.

“Would it be possible to talk you into bringing me back to your old commune some time? Maybe that would be part of the interest for a loan if you end up needing it.”

I let a groan escape my lips but ended up nodding my head. I wasn’t thrilled at the idea of going back, especially since they would think that they had won and were right about how society would chew me up and spit me out and I’d end up crawling back eventually. Though, there would be a bit of satisfaction about coming back and showing them that I had made it fine before leaving again. I did somewhat miss my parents, even though I knew they would never miss me enough to consider giving up their lifestyle even just long enough to visit me out in the civilized world.

“I suppose I could take you to see sometime, whether I owe you or not. Maybe you could make them see that not all city people are money crazed maniacs.”

“I think they might actually be the lucky ones.”

I didn’t like the wistful look on her face. She had no idea what living life as a druid was like. On the surface people could understand the appeal of freedom to do whatever and free love, but they didn’t consider what exactly it took to make that lifestyle work. It was a lot of hard work to forage and build up food stores for winter, everyone smelled all the time, and there was always something broken or lacking or someone was sick. She might enjoy it for a little while and I’m sure that everyone would take it easy on her in the beginning to convince her to get entrenched and find it harder to leave later, but eventually it would wear on her, it did most people from what I could tell. It was just terrifying to leave after you’ve been there for too long. When people depend on you and you no longer have anything to go back to and no one waiting for you to help you rejoin society, it feels like an impossible task.

“You say that now when all you see is the free love with no attachments, but it’s not all just like that, the lifestyle is hard to maintain and it takes its toll over time. Trust me, why do you think I left?”

“Because we always hate what we grew up knowing and want what we didn’t have.”

“Well... I guess, “ I admitted. “That might be part of it.”

“I’m not saying I’ll fall in love with the idea of living there and never leave. Though it does sound like exactly the kind of thing I might like to try. I just want you to show me around, show me how you grew up. It seems really interesting and completely different from anything I’ve ever experienced.”

“I really don’t understand why you’d want to, but then I don’t understand why you’re not back at home living in the lap of luxury having all the spare time in the world to pursue anything you wanted. You could even go out and sing and play locally then just come home at night to a cushy bed and never want for anything. That sounds like my dream.”

Mable let out a long, drawn out sigh. “You wouldn’t understand, just like I don’t understand why you think your simple upbringing was so terrible. We just haven’t walked in each other's shoes, but I assure you it is horrifically boring and stifling, being a rich woman isn’t very fun.”

“And shitting behind the same tree every day gets old quickly,” I countered.

She let out a trilling laugh and rose to her feet to close the gap between us and give me a playful shove.

“So ladylike, you’d last a second in polite society.”

“And you’d last a second after being told it’s your turn to butcher the freshly hunted deer carcass.”

Before she could give me a smart retort, a loud set of gasps erupted from the floor beneath us, it sounded like someone had just received terrible news. We looked nervously to each other before rushing from the room and down the stairs to see what was the matter. My stomach sank as I figured it probably put the nail in the coffin of our chances of getting paid.

“Are you telling the truth?” Bri asked, a hand to her chest as she bent over the table that had been directly beneath Mable’s room.

It seemed like she had been bent forward to be up close to keep the gossip between herself and the tired looking nobles at the table, but she had been unable to contain her surprise.

“It is true,” the exhausted and soaked noblewoman explained, “I saw it with my own eyes. It was the bride to be herself, she poisoned the king at her own engagement dinner.”

“I can’t believe it,” Bri whispered hoarsely, “I would have never thought someone like her was capable of such a thing.”

“Neither did I, but it was plain as day that she was guilty,” the woman said gravely.

Great. Yeah, definitely no wedding and no pay. Just wonderful.