As predicted it was a trivial matter for Lucy, Grell, and I to pick up the carriage, passenger and all. In fact, I’m fairly certain that Lucy could have handled the entire matter by herself. Not that I was boorish enough to suggest such a thing - after all, we were only carrying it as a favor to our new…friends? Acquaintances? Whatever they were.

For several hours we walked, occasionally talking - or perhaps it would be better described as responding to Lucy’s chipper questions. Little of note was discussed and our travel went unimpeded until we came across a tree in the middle of the road.

“Is there any chance this isn't a trap?” I asked, wondering whether I should move to lower the carriage. Holding it up was rather trivial, but fighting while carrying it with one hand was another matter entirely…though I suppose I could always just hold them down with magic while Lucy went and tied them all up.

“I don’t think so,” Lucy said. Her normal cheer was nowhere to be found, replaced by something more… resigned. “There are no roots on the tree, so I think it was chopped down.”

“It was dragged for a bit, too!” Grell noted. “Whoever did it must have been pretty strong, don’t you think?”

“Would my Lady please not focus on the potential ‘hotitude’ of the local bandits?"

“Hey, how did you know what I was… uh… I mean. I’m just thinking about the logistics of fighting them? Yeah!”

There was no immediate response from inside the carriage, only a chilling silence. After making Grell fidget a moment or two, though, Dyona did eventually speak again.

“Yes, well, that… matter… aside, I would have expected someone to have attacked us by now, no?”

“You’re right,” Grell confirmed. “Most of the bandits I’ve beaten up were pretty quick to attack us…”

“Do you think they might be waiting for us to put the carriage down for some reason?” Lucy asked.

“Or perhaps the sight of three women actually outright carrying a carriage warned them off trying anything?” Dyona suggested, sticking her head outside the carriage. “Also, does anyone else smell food, or is it just me?”

I frowned, sniffing the air. At first, I detected nothing, but as I gradually upped my sensitivity I finally caught onto what Dyona had smelled. The girl must have had an unusually good sense of smell to have detected it, but when I traced the smell I eventually found…

“Is that pork?”

It was lying on the ground, muddied by footprints and surrounded by the trampled stalks of weeds. Whoever had been eating it had apparently taken off in a great rush.

Perhaps Dyona’s words were correct, then?

“We could go after them,” Grell suggested. “It would probably mean leaving the carriage alone, but it isn’t like there’s anything of value in there.”

“Other than all our supplies you mean?” Dyona asked.

“I mean, I can just hunt for food if we really need it, right?” Grell suggested.

“Assuming you can track it,” Dyona replied. “Speaking of which, do any of you have the tracking skills to find bandits?”

“A little,” Lucy said. “But not much… Usually I only go after bandits that are pretty well established in the area, to the point where everyone knows where their hideout is.”

“You’ve gone after bandits before?” I asked, questioning my ears. I’d been worrying how she’d handle fighting a human opponent, but apparently she already had.

“I’ve managed to avoid killing anyone, so far,” she told me. “I mean, most people don’t want to fight the Heroine, you know? Sometimes a few bandits will even gang up on any of their own who try it. I’d like to think it’s because they believe in me and what I represent, deep down - but they might just be afraid the goddess will strike them down and send them to some sort of super hell if anything goes wrong. Other times the leader will challenge me head-on, to try and bolster the men, but when they go down everyone else just gives up or scatters. I know it might not always go that way, though… Still, I want to do whatever’s in my power to make sure everyone survives! Even bandits can have their reasons, after all! And while that doesn’t make what they’re doing okay, it’s still important to try and understand them! I mean, I’m supposed to be the Heroine for everyone!”

“A good sentiment,” I agreed with a small smile. I only hoped it would never be tested too harshly.

In the end, despite Lucy’s optimism, her tracking skills weren’t up to the task of finding the bandits - at least not fast enough to catch up to them when all signs pointed to them sprinting away at full tilt. As such, we had little recourse but to move on and report the attempted ambush to the city when we reached it. Of course, we also took care of removing the log from the road, carrying it deep enough into the forest that it wouldn’t be easily pushed out onto the road again.

Even with that diversion, though, the day went far too fast. Before I knew it, night had fallen and we were setting up tents. While Grell and Dyona began to pull out ingredients for a proper dinner from their carriage - something I was very happy to see, if only for Lucy’s sake - I begged off to my tent early, telling everyone that I wasn’t feeling well.

Lucy knew the true reason for it. I had a date to keep, and despite my nerves not even this unexpected meeting of ours was going to keep me from it.

Okay. Deep breaths, Abby. You can do this. You have a plan! Or at least sort of a plan? I mean, the closest I could come to a plan, anyways, without actually knowing a ton of what Devilla did or didn’t like…

Well, that wasn’t entirely true. I knew one thing Devilla liked, and I wasn’t afraid of abusing the hell out of that for at least the first part of our date. She liked food. Potatoes, obviously, but even more than that she loved anything unique. Stuff she hadn’t had a hundred times before, so that she didn’t know exactly what it was gonna taste like before she even put it in her mouth. A side effect of her perfect memory, I guess? 

I don’t know. All I knew for sure was that Devilla was going to have an appetite and that I was going to fill it. I took a deep breath, straightened out my skirt, faced the summoning circle, and- 

“Gah! How long have you been standing there!?”

“Since you started taking deep breaths… the first time. Is something wrong?” she asked, tilting her head to the side.

I hesitated a moment, wondering one, whether she knew how adorable she looked while doing that, and two, how to say things in a way that didn’t end with her blaming herself for everything and calling our whole date off. 

I wanted to say something witty and tactful and perfect for reassuring her and me both. Instead what came out of my mouth was, “So I’m nervous. So what?”

“I’m glad I’m not the only one,” Devilla admitted with a smile on her lips. It made her look even hotter, somehow, but it was gone a moment later. “Does that make me terrible? Taking pleasure in your pain?”

“It makes you normal, idiot,” I argued back with my hands on my hips. For once I wasn’t on the clock as a maid and I wasn’t going to hold anything back. “Stop looking for excuses to feel bad about yourself during our date. If nothing else, it’s going to make us run late.”

“Run late?” Devilla asked. “Are we adhering to a schedule, then?”

I waved my hand in a wiggly kinda-sorta gesture. “I called some old clients of mine, a few people with specific skill sets I thought might be useful to you.”

“What do you mean useful to me? I hope you aren’t solely considering my needs during our date.” Devilla questioned, tilting her head again. This time she had an adorable little frown on her face, and…focus Abby! 

“Yeah, no, I’m not you,” I retorted with a scowl. I wasn’t even entirely sure why I was scowling, though. She’d just asked a question! But the whole date thing had me nervous and when I was nervous I got extra prickly I guess. Thankfully Devilla didn’t seem to take it personally, just giving me a curious look. “I couldn’t figure out anything for the second half of our date, alright?! I set up a meeting with a weaponsmith. I figured you could… I don’t know, get a sword or something? I mean, stories about adventuring always involve swords and sorcery, and you’ve only got half of that down, so…”

“A blade?” Devilla asked, arching an eyebrow. “A thoughtful gift, if not exactly romantic…”

“Yeah, well, it’s practical and I’m a practical kind of gal,” I countered. “And maybe I kinda sorta wanna make sure you stay alive. Not that I think anything’s actually a threat to you, out there, but… A weapon couldn’t hurt, right?”

“I suppose not,” Devilla admitted with a little smile on her face. Which, again, was sort of adorable, but also kinda weirdly infuriating? Just a little bit. Like, she knew something I didn’t and she was trying not to gloat… that sort of feeling. Why the hell I found any part of that adorable was beyond me, though.

“We can worry about it later, alright?” I said, deciding to push the conversation along. “Right now we’ve got a different appointment with a chef I know. She offered to clear out the restaurant for me, but I told her we’d just need a quiet corner table. And a special menu.”

“A special menu?” Devilla asked, again doing that arched eyebrow thing.

“Yeah. That’s half of how I’m paying her - she’s got some experimental recipes she’s been meaning to try and I figured you’d be up for something a bit weird, so… Yeah.” 

I looked away, wringing my hands a little. Maybe this was a bad idea? I mean, trying to date your boss was pretty much the definition of a bad idea in most cases, but in this case I thought it was fine, but now-

Devilla’s hands enveloped mine and squeezed.

“Relax.”

“Easy for you to say,” I grumbled at her, “you’re the one who’s acting all cool under pressure for once.”

 “Actually, I suspect myself to be at least as nervous as you are,” Devilla admitted, shaking her head. “The mere idea that you might wish to date me still sends spikes of excitement and fear through my heart. The knowledge that I’ve done nothing to deserve it - and the understanding that you apparently think otherwise - has me practically quivering. None of my fear is directed towards the events you’ve planned, however. I’m merely scared that you’ll find yourself… unsatisfied at the end of it all.”

“Yeah, well, let me worry about that,” I told her. “I’m the only one who gets to decide whether you’re worth my time, alright?”

“So long as you allow me to decide for myself whether what you have planned is a match to my taste. I’ve cornered the market on hasty self-criticism, you see, and I won’t have you stomping all over my territory.”

I smiled. I couldn’t help it. Her attempt at cheering me up was… cheesy, and kinda crappy considering it made me worry about her, instead, but… She was trying. She was always trying. Maybe that’s part of what I liked about her. The fact that she was always trying to be the best person she could be, even while talking about how shitty that person was. Which was infuriating, honestly, but also weirdly endearing. Focus, Abby, focus!

I shook my head to clear my thoughts. “Come on, let’s get going.”

~~~

Author's Notes

Short chapter is short, I know, but to be honest it used to be even shorter... Originally, I only described the bandits in passing, you see, because I was rushing towards the finish line which was Abigail and Devilla's date. I wanted the date itself to be its own chapter, though, so it ended up as a purely transitional chapter... Then later, I went back and changed it so that we could at least see Dyona, Grell and the others talking a bit. I mean, what's the point of even introducing them on the road if we're not going to spend any time with them on the road, right?

In the end, I'm left with a chapter that's still a bit shorter than I'd like, but otherwise accomplishes its job. Next chapter's hopefully long enough to make up for it, too, what with it being over twice the length. It features the entirety of Abigail and Devilla's date, so look forward to it! (Of course, if you're impatient, you can read it right now on Patreon for as little as $1!)

Many thanks to FallingLeaf for editing!