246 Vol. 4 pt. 49 Patch 9.0 (1/2)

Now that Fenrir and Serra are done playing with one another, they finally get around to finding the stables and meeting Oleander and Corwin there.

Fenrir isn't the only one with messy hair.

Both Oleander and Corwin look sweaty and messy, and their clothes are much more messed up than Fenrir's and Serra's are.

The two boyfriends notice that Serra and Fenrir look messy, too.

Oleander and Serra lock eyes and give each other a thumbs-up.

”Anyways,” Fenrir says, interrupting them before they get a chance to begin. ”Hey,” he says to the only stable worker that he can see. ”I was told we'd get to borrow a few horses.”

”Oh,” the worker replies, ”that's you guys? Yeah, the king told me,” he explains. ”It's those four over there.” He points to a group of four horses that already have saddles and ropes tied to them. ”You guys riding them back, right?”

”Uh… I didn't actually think about how we'd get them from here,” Fenrir admits.

Their building site is on the other side of the river, and they don't have a bridge built yet. Furthermore, Fenrir doesn't think that they'd be able to fit four horses on The Shoebill all at once without some major chaos. If they get spooked at all during the voyage south back to the others, then there might be some serious problems.

”Uhhh, I have no idea,” Fenrir says. ”Do you have any suggestion? Sorry to ask, but we're building on the other side of this river down south some more, so we'd have to either take them by boat or somehow build a bridge really fast.”

”Don't worry about it,” the man replies, ”and yeah. We've got these like… 'trailer' boats. Use them to transport stuff between here and Spike Isle mainly. Can load the horses up in them, and then we've just got to hook them up to your boat. Though, I'd recommend building a bridge pretty soon anyways. Would make life a heckuva lot easier for you all down there if you want to do some trade with us up here.”

”That sounds good enough to me, and yeah – you're right. We'll try to prioritize that.”

”You got yourselves an engineer or anything? If you're talking about the river I think you're talking about, you're going to need a big bridge. There's a boy in town here that could help you out.”

Fenrir chuckles and says, ”Actually, we've got our own version of him. A short girl obsessed with engineering and crazy ideas, and then we've got a guy with some architecture experience to help out.”

”Really? Sounds like you've got a sweet deal going on. Introduce those two up here sometime and the king might have some work for them. Might even be willing to treat it as a deal. Get some help from them in exchange for materials or something.”

”You guys seem like you're pretty set up here. I mean, you've already got these walls and those breakers out in the water.”

”Yeah, but this was all kinda just thrown together.”

”What about that boy? Didn't he help?”

”He came after the town was already set up, and… I don't think anybody trusts him to actually fix problems. We tried letting him do it a couple of times before, and each time ended up… yeah.”

”Then – then why'd you recommend him to me?”

”Honestly man, my mouth is faster than my thoughts. My bad.”

Fenrir shrugs. ”Fair enough. Anyways, think you could help us get everything loaded up?”

”Yeah, sure, no prob.”

With the reigns of the four horses in hand, they go down to the harbor where The Shoebill is docked.

The small boat that they load the horses onto is more like large box on top of a small rowbot with a flat front. With a bit of maneuvering, they get the small boat lined right up behind The Shoebill, and then they use a combination of hooks and ropes to get the boat hooked up to The Shoebill.

Those horses within the ”trailer” boat aren't too happy whenever the boat rocks underneath them, causing them to get antsy and stomp around a bit, but they don't have anywhere to go and Fenrir has no way of making their boat not rock. As fun as it would be to control water and prevent waves from being a thing, he can't.

”By the way,” the stable worker says as everybody but Fenrir steps onto The Shoebill, ”you got any idea for what to name the place you're making?”

Fenrir freezes. He… hadn't thought about it all yet. ”I… honestly have no idea,” he admits. ”The crew is named The Soaring Wolves, and we've got The Shoebill, but… yeah, I'm not that good at naming things, honestly. I have a pet dog made out of rock that I've named Rock.”

”I see what you mean. Well, good luck! I can't offer any help with that since I'm horrible at names, too.”

Fenrir shrugs and holds out his hand to offer a shake. ”Thanks for helping us get the horses loaded up. Got a name, by the way?”

The man shakes Fenrir's hand and answers, ”Yup. Bromeister the 9001xXx – the second x is capitalized, but everybody just calls me 'Horse Guy.'”

”W-wait… is – is that your actual name?”