The Sniff Test

Loaf disappeared again.

I woke up, stretched, reached over to scratch his ear, and found nothing but damp leaves. Typical.

"Loaf!" I shouted into the mist. Nothing. "Loaf, ye great black menace!"

A distant snort. East. Of course it was east. East was the marshy bit with the sinkholes and the crocolisks and all the things Loaf finds fascinating.

I pulled on my boots and started running.

The Wetlands are not a good place to run. Everything is wet. Everything is slippery. Every third step sinks ankle-deep into something you'd rather not think about. By the time I heard Loaf again I was wheezing like a broken bellows.

I crashed through the last bit of undergrowth and there he was. Standing in a small clearing. Looking very pleased with himself.

And standing in front of him, frozen like a statue, was a human woman with a knife in her hand.

A very small knife.

I stopped. Bent over. Put my hands on my knees. Tried to remember how breathing works.

"Don't... move..."

Deep breath. The world was spinning slightly.

"...he's..."

Another breath.

"...a good Loaf..."

The woman stared at me. Then at Loaf. Then back at me. Her knife hand didn't waver, which I respected. Most people drop their weapons when a boar the size of a pony appears in front of them. She held on.

"Get it away from me," she said.

Her voice was steady. Scared, but steady. I liked that too.

Loaf, meanwhile, had decided the standoff was boring. He ambled forward — slow, casual, like he was approaching a particularly interesting rock — and began inspecting her. Boots first. Then legs. Then her travel bag, which clearly contained something edible.

The woman stood perfectly still. Her eyes were very wide.

"Well," I said, finally catching my breath. "Congratulations."

She looked at me like I'd grown a second head.

"...for what?"

"Loaf likes ye."

A pause. Her grip on the knife loosened slightly.

"...I didn't know I was being evaluated."

"Everyone is," I said.

Loaf, satisfied with his inspection, turned and began wandering back toward the trees. But then he circled around — he always does that, it's like he forgets he already checked something — and started nosing at her bag with obvious intent.

"Loaf!" I said. "That's rude."

Loaf ignored me completely. He's very good at that.

And then the strangest thing happened. The woman laughed.

Not a nervous laugh. Not a polite one. A real laugh, the kind that comes from somewhere deep and surprises even the person doing it. Her whole face changed when she did it. For just a moment, all that tension melted away and I saw someone completely different underneath.

I grinned.

"There ye go," I said. "Loaf's good at that too."

She pushed Loaf's snout away from her bag — gently, which was either very brave or very foolish, I couldn't decide which — and looked at me properly for the first time.

"Where are ye headed?" I asked.

"Southshore. Eventually."

Southshore. I was heading south too. Eventually. I've always liked that word. It means you've got a direction but not a deadline.

"Wonderful," I said.

I started walking. South, more or less. Loaf fell in beside me, and after a moment I heard her footsteps behind us.

I didn't ask any questions. I've learned that questions push people away. Silence pulls them in. If she wanted to talk, she would. If not, we'd walk together for a while and then go our separate ways. Either way was fine.

That's what I told myself, anyway.

But I was curious about her. More curious than I'd been about anyone in a long time. The knife. The tension. The way she'd laughed like it surprised her.

People who don't want to be noticed are always the most interesting ones.

And Loaf liked her. Loaf's never wrong about people.