Parasitic Peony

Chapter Four

It had been two days since they'd stopped to pick up Honey. Moxie had returned the wyrm to its home dimension and summoned an island tortoise to replace it. Island tortoises were enormously useful when travelling great distances: they provided both easily-controllable transportation with little fuel needed, and an easy source of water, as many of them were large enough to have springs or even lakes on their backs, but they had been illegal in Orchard Land since the sugarcane wars, but there were no governments in the No-Man's Lands, and therefore, no laws. The good part of this arrangement was that Plum didn't need to conjure anything huge for forty hours straight, so he was full of energy.

The bad part of this arrangement was also that Plum didn't need to conjure anything huge for forty hours straight, so he was full of energy.

He and Honey got along swimmingly, which Moxie thought would have been a good thing until it actually happened. It turned out her ex-wife had a really, really loud, obnoxious laugh. Had that always been true? She felt like that was something she should have remembered. She'd offered one of her guns to Plum to conjure up a replica of and taught him to shoot. Useful, Moxie supposed, but annoying.

They were presently practising aim by shooting desertbirds out of the sky, which would be perfectly fine, if they weren't constantly landing on Moxie's head.

"If I have to pull one more dead bird out of my hair, I swear to fuck, I will turn this giant tortoise around and there will be no gun-slinging, gloomwilt-monster-banishing quest for ANYBODY!" she snarled after the seventeenth time.

"Literally nobody but you wants to be here anyway, so like, go ahead." Plum said with a shrug. "Neither of us cares about impressing their mermaid hate/lover this much, I just work for you and she's got nothing better then you."

"It's true, I don't."

"This isn't about Phosphora! This is about...like, honour and respect and shit?"

A moment of silence. A bang. Moxie fished an eighteenth bird out of her hair, stalked over to Plum, and hurled him over the side of the tortoise. She turned on a snickering Honey, glaring and snarling.

"Don't think for one second I won't shove this desertbird down your throat, mother of my daughter or not."

"I'm holding two guns and there's a pocket knife in my boot. I'd love to see you try."

When Plum managed to drag himself all the way back up the tortoise's leg, Moxie had wrestled one gun away from Honey and was using it to threaten her if she didn't stop harassing the local fauna and Moxie's own livelihood. The tortoise was probably beginning to tire of the noise, in all honesty.

Plum walked over to the tent they'd set up and cracked open a bottle of wine.

They arrived in Garbage Land gradually. Most borders between designated kingdoms and No-Man's Lands were clear-cut with walls or fences, but ever since Princess Caromine had been forced to seize the throne, the fences had gradually crumbled and disintegrated, much like most of the kingdom's structures. Not much was left but trash and ruins, and the fumes from so much waste baking in the sun were notoriously toxic enough to warrant gasmasks at all times.

At first, they started seeing tiny huts in the sand made from discarded shutters, rusting barrels, and other debris. They didn't see anyone, so their residents must have been indoors. Soon after, they began to come across similarly built shops and outposts.

Finally, they reached the capital city gates, desecrated and crumbling stone, looking onto a vast wasteland. Plum conjured a set of gasmasks for the trio. "Good?"

"Good." Moxie nodded. "I just want to thank you both for coming with me. The danger stars here. Honey?"

"I know what to do."