Shaynen angrily stormed through the city’s outskirts. Looking for someplace quiet and isolated to calm down. He found himself at a little pond of fat koi fish with large trees that made a barrier from the world. He sat beside the water and stared into the moving water. Still hearing Odelia’s voice in his head and just reigniting the fire inside him.

“Oh, hello.” A Dwarven man came along the path to the pool. Shaynen jumped to his feet.

“Oh sorry, I didn’t realize this was private property.” He said.

“It’s not. I just come here to think, how about you?” The Dwarf sat a few feet away from Shaynen.

“Thinking too, I guess.” Shaynen said as he slowly sat back down.

“You seem a little conflicted about that.” The man said. Shaynen shifted uncomfortably the anger just kept bubbling.

“Well, I’m travelling with a group of absolute… terrible people! They never get my name right! They keep calling me Shannon! One keeps referring to me as a woman. They don’t listen to me, they abandon me. They-”

“Sounds like you have an awful lot of problems with them.” The dwarf nodded. “Why stay with them? You know you don’t have to, you could make a very good living here in our city.” Shaynen started to speak but paused. The idea of just staying in the city was a nice one. Wandering around the city he’d seen lots of places. His mind wandered back to a little park area where perfect little tables were set up.

The tables reminded Shaynen of how Cleatus taught him dragonchess and that led to campfire nights where Cleatus would explain the mystery stories he was fond of and that led to the nights Haagut would inspect the wounds of the party and talk about the differences between goblins, elves, human and tabaxi anatomy. Which led to that time Haagut smelled him which was weird, but that led to Haagut being paralyzed and beaten by Cleatus which in hindsight was kind of funny and made him subconsciously smile.

There was even that time Odelia lied to cover up a (even now it was hard to admit aloud) dumb desicion that he’d made.

“Maybe it isn’t that your companions are terrible as you put it. But maybe you’re too focused on the bad things that you can’t see the good. Too obsessed with your own perspective, you’ve inadvertently blinded yourself to theirs.” The Dwarf said. “I won’t claim to know anything about your situation. But perhaps, before condemning those around you, you should try changing your perspective.” The dwarf stood and began to leave.

“Just a thought,” He said as he left. Shaynen stared into the water, the reflective surface making a doorway of memory for Shaynen to look into, aware, and willing to look with a different perspective.

“Wow,” Odelia jumped off the stage. Her entire body was covered with wooden armor hard as iron. “Damn, I’ve never had armor fit this good!” She moved around fluidly barely encumbered by the armor at all.

“Good, I’m glad.” The armorsmith sighed and collapsed onto the bench. Odelia scooped up her bag and looked at the scraps of leather. “You can leave those, I’ll make some use of them.”

“Cool, what do I owe you?” Odelia opened up her coin purse and felt her stomach in her throat.

“No charge for those tasked by Grandfather tree.” He said. Odelia nodded.

“Thanks. I appreciate it.” Odelia shouldered her bag. She left the armorsmith and back onto the streets of the city.

“Hey,” Cleatus walked up beside her. He pointed at her new armor. “Nice.”

“Thanks.” Odelia nodded. “Let’s find a place to wait for everyone else. Then we can figure out which way we’re going to take to get to this mountain river or whatever.”

“You wouldn’t know where to find someone who could work with these?” Shaynen pulled out one of his emerald green dragon scales and showed it to the elven woman sweeping off the front step of a tree like home.

“Oh I think a few doors down, there’s someone who might.” She pointed. Shaynen thanked her and walked off down the road. On the main strip was a single house that wasn’t grown out of the massive central tree. Shaynen knocked on the door and entered. Inside was the dwarf Shaynen had met earlier was braiding leather around a wooden weapon.

“Oh welcome in! What do you need from me?” He dropped what he was working on. Wiping his hands on his blacksmith’s apron as he approached.

“Can you work with these?” Shaynen pulled out the three scales from his bag. The dwarf took them and looked them over.

“Depends on what you’re looking to have made.” The dwarf asked.

“Well I’ve been having some trouble in my wrists, probably from using them so much.” Shaynen rubbed around his wrists. “Those look like they’d be just the right size to brace them.”

“Set of bracers? That’s pretty simple.” The dwarf said. “What else?”

“Nothing else. Bracers are all I need.” Shaynen shrugged. The dwarf looked him up and down.

“All right then. I’ll see what I can do.” He agreed. The door opened again and Haagut walked in.

“Oh, Shaynen. You’re here,” Haagut said surprised.

“Dragon scales, you?” Shaynen said stiffly.

“Same.” Haagut agreed. Equally as wooden.

“More scales? Ah, well what do you want done with them?” The dwarf asked.

“I’d like to have a better, stronger shield. Perhaps enchanted if possible.” Haagut put down his shield and held out a small bag of scales.

“Enchantments? Eh…” The Dwarf scratched his beard thoughtfully. “Yeah. enchantments… Yes. I’ll take those items. Come back in about… four to eight hours.”

“Okay! Thanks!” Shaynen waved happily.

“Wait, we didn’t talk about cost.” Haagut called but the dwarf had already taken the things into the back room.

“You wanna find a place to wait?” Shaynen asked. Haagut looked at him oddly.

“Are you asking for company?” He asked curiously.

“Not sure yet.” Shaynen shrugged, he opened the door headed out. Haagut moved quickly to keep up with Shaynen. The elven monk walked out of the main roads with Haagut kept beside him. They walked in uncomfortable silence to the edge where a little grove of trees blew in the wind and sun all surrounded by soft green grass. Shaynen sat against one of the trees between the roots in the sunlight.

“Can I ask you something?” Haagut asked carefully. He slowly sat on the other side of the roots Shaynen sat between,.

“I guess,” Shaynen shrugged. Resting his hands behind his head on the tree.

“Why didn’t you tell someone?” Haagut asked quietly. Shaynen paused.

“Why would I? We didn’t exactly get off to a great start.” Shaynen shifted and closed his eyes. “I didn’t know any of you, and I didn’t really get the feeling any of you cared for my personal well-being.” Haagut looked around and slowly pulled off the hat of disguise and put it to the side. The halfling appearance faded away and left only the real Haagut.

“Look, kid. I learned early that you look out for yourself first. Persuade those that you can when you can. But when you can’t… then you can’t.” Haagut said slowly. “Doing the right thing, that’s great. If you can. But you can’t do anything for anyone if it kills you. This is going to sound bad but I really hope you can understand, we couldn’t convince you otherwise in that moment, and there was nothing we could have done to help you. What with that governor that was strangely overpowered. It was obvious that he would have been much better equipped to help us. We didn’t abandon you.”

“I was always taught that in the moment your first instinct is the truest reflection of who you are. That in that moment. The choice you make is the right one, it has to be, or you’re not right.” Shaynen said. Leaning forward to rest his head on his knees. “I. I guess I can say that. Maybe, I am not right.” Shaynen cleared his throat as it tried to close on him.

“That. Is.” Haagut hmmed and took a bit more time to choose his words. “I don’t claim to know much but. I know that there is no right or wrong answers. Things aren’t that simple, if you’re looking for something. Right. Then, well. No one got hurt. Your actions might not have been… smart? Impulsive. But you kept a hold of that consequence until it was safe to let it go. And that was right. So, while maybe you aren’t always right, you aren’t always wrong either.” Haagut put his hat back on and took on the appearance of the halfling again. They stared off into the rays of light that shone between the leaves and the falling flower petals.

“You know,” Shaynen said finally. Haagut looked up wearily. “You never told me any of those stories.” Haagut smiled and scratched at the back of his head awkwardly, tilting his hat to hide his eyes in embarrassment.

“I. Uh. Don’t know how many I remember but. Well… let’s just see where this goes then.” Haagut leaned back against the tree and Shaynen did the same. Resting his head back on his hands and watching the manic and sort of frantic and slightly manic movements of Haagut as he told disjointed but ultimately entertaining goblin-lore.