One More Day

I left Southshore.

Walked about half a mile north, boots crunching on the dark road, the harbour lights shrinking behind me. The air smelled of salt and pine. A good night for travelling. Cool, clear, the kind of night where you can make real distance before dawn.

I stopped. Stood there for maybe a full minute. Then I turned around and walked back.

I told myself it was because the road north could wait one more day. Told myself I'd left something at the inn. Told myself a dozen small lies, each one thinner than the last, while my feet carried me through the quiet streets toward the room she'd pointed out earlier.

I knocked before I could change my mind.

She opened the door and looked at me for a long moment without saying anything. Just took me in, standing there in the lantern light like she was deciding whether I was worth the trouble.

"Changed your mind?" she said.

"Something like that."

She stepped aside. I went in.

The room was small and bare and clearly not hers. A rented space, furnished by someone else, with none of the little marks that make a place feel lived in. The only thing that felt like her was a small bundle of dried herbs hanging by the window. Lavender, maybe. Something medicinal underneath.

"Making yourself at home?" she asked, closing the door.

"Working on it."

---

We talked for hours.

Not about anything important, at first. Just the easy back-and-forth of two people finding their rhythm again. She told me about the road north, about the Wetlands and a dwarf with a war-boar the size of a horse. I told her about Westfall, about the dust and the Defias and a mad old captain's treasure that had actually been real.

She laughed when I told her about swimming to a rock in the middle of the night for a chest of old coins.

"You swam to an island in the dark for treasure."

"It was a very small island."

"That's not the part I'm questioning."

We walked down to the harbour when the inns got too loud. Sat on the edge of a dock with our legs hanging over the dark water, watching the lantern light ripple across the surface. She asked me once, casually, what I was doing in Southshore.

"Passing through," I said. "Heard about some work nearby. A delivery job, maybe. Don't know much about it yet."

She didn't push. Just nodded and let the silence sit between us like a comfortable thing. I'm not used to silences that feel comfortable. Most silences feel like traps, like spaces where the wrong question might slip out. This one didn't.

She talked a little about her father. Just fragments. The way he used to grind herbs. The way he never answered her questions. The way he'd protected her from something she still didn't fully understand.

"That's why you're here?" I asked.

"That's why I'm anywhere."

I didn't ask more. I've learned that people tell you what they want you to know, when they're ready. Pushing just makes them clam up. She seemed to appreciate that I didn't push.

We stayed at the dock until the lights in the houses along the shore started going out one by one.

---

She stood up, stretched, and looked down at me with that same half-smile from Goldshire.

"I usually have something better than the inn's ale inside," she said. "If you feel like talking more."

Same words. Almost exactly. I remembered saying no the last time. Remembered walking away and wondering if I'd made a mistake.

I got to my feet.

"That sounds good."

Her smile widened, just a fraction, before she turned and led the way back through the dark streets.

---

I woke up the next morning with grey light filtering through a thin curtain and her breathing slow and even beside me. I lay there for a long time, not moving, not wanting to break whatever spell had settled over the room.

She stirred eventually, blinked at me, and didn't seem surprised to find me still there.

"You're still here," she said.

"I'm still here."

A pause. Then, quieter:

"One more day?"

I thought about the road north. About the delivery job I'd heard about. About all the reasons I should get up, pack, and keep moving before I got too comfortable.

"One more day," I said.

---

That second day was different. Lighter, somehow. We wandered through Southshore like we had all the time in the world. She showed me the good spots, like the baker who still made proper bread, the quiet cove where the water was clear enough to see the bottom, the old watchtower with a view of the whole harbour.

I bought her something small. A little leather pouch for her herbs, nicer than the worn cloth she'd been using. She raised an eyebrow when I handed it to her.

"You didn't have to do that."

"I know."

She tucked it into her pocket without another word, but she was still holding it later when we sat down to eat.

I told her about the delivery job. A man in a town further north needed someone to move something. I didn't know what. Didn't know who. Just that the pay was good and that I'd heard about it through a chain of people I didn't entirely trust.

"That sounds like a bad idea," she said.

"Most of my ideas are."

She didn't try to talk me out of it. I think she knew it wouldn't have worked anyway.

---

The second evening came too fast. We were standing at her door, the street behind me darkening, and neither of us seemed to know what to say.

"I should go," I said. Again. The same words I'd used two nights ago at the inn. They felt heavier this time.

She nodded. Didn't say "Take care of yourself" this time. Just looked at me with those sharp eyes that missed nothing.

"Will I see you again?"

It was the first time she'd asked a question like that. Direct. No hiding.

I wanted to say yes. Wanted to promise her something. But I've learned not to make promises I can't keep.

"I'll try," I said.

She let out a soft breath that might have been a laugh. "That's more than most people give me."

I leaned in. Brief. Warm. When I pulled back, her hand was resting on the little leather pouch at her belt.

"Be careful, Willers."

"I'm never anything else."

She gave me a look that said she didn't believe me for a second. Then she smiled, just a little, and closed the door.

I stood there for a moment, staring at the wood grain. Then I turned and walked north.

I didn't look back.