{{ warning: spoilers for episode 58 onwards }}
There’s no two ways about it: a carriage, even with the XL package, is small. It’s even smaller when you include all the essentials for long-term travel: storage for three sets of gear, a small set of cooking utensils, a shower that even the tiniest halfling has to bow his head to use, and even a place to bed down for the night- in theory.
The sleeping situation caused quite the kerfuffle at first- during the day, Randy and Raz’ul managed to stay outside, trading places as driver and steed while letting Yashee fix any last minute issues with her carpentry skills. But at night, with all three of them piled in at once, everybody was feeling packed in tight.
“I could set up a hammock?” Randy offered, lit up only by his Driftglobe. The cold light reflected strangely off his face, making him look hollow and ghoulish- or at least like he was about to tell a spooky campfire story.
“Nah, what if one of us gets up early and has to dodge a face full of halfling feet?” Raz’ul left out whether Randy would do this by accident or by ‘accident’, even though both are likely. “No, I’ll just turn into something small and take up less room.”
“But what if you turn into a bear or an octopus or something? Then we’d have even less space to work with, and you might get squished.” Yashee asked, arms crossed- more to conceal space rather than to show anger. They already had a close call where she almost knocked over Randy while he was sitting on the countertop, and even if he called it ‘surprise rogue training’, she still felt bad.
The three of them sat in silence, mulling over what to do next. Despite the cramped space, the cart felt empty with the loss of Sandy, and Zil, and the loss of experiences that they left behind in another time. Finally, Randy broke the silence.
“You doing okay in here, Yashee?” He asked, affectionately smacking her on the head with the Driftglobe. “I know you have a… thing about tight spaces.” She playfully batted the ball back to him like a cat. “Yeah, well… this is different.”
“Oh right! You built this from scratch, you probably know every square inch of it.” Raz’ul said, looking around him. “It’s hard to be scared of something you know that well, right?”
“Well, yeah, but that’s not what I meant.” Yashee rubbed her neck, clearly sheepish. “It’s just… I have you two here with me. I know we spend a lot of time together anyway, and we’re tight, but it hits different when we’re, you know… tight.”
She wrapped her arms around both of them, and pulled her boys in close to her. And despite how cramped everything felt before, both of them would have to admit that it did feel better in Yashee’s large arms.
Randy snuggled into her, practically purring in contentment. “This reminds me of that room in Basom. Real Basom, not the fake one.”
“What, with the one bed?” Raz’ul was slightly less enthralled, but still leaned into Yashee. “That was surprisingly comfortable.”
“Are you kidding me-“ Randy snorted. “That bed was lumpy as hell.”
“How would you know?” Yashee nudged him- or tried to, anyway. Randy just clung to her like a particularly territorial koala. “You were lying on me the whole time!”
“Maybe that’s why it was so lumpy…” Raz’ul reasoned, then looked over their shared space. “Wait a minute… why don’t we just lay down our bedrolls and just sleep here?”
“Are you sure we’ll have enough room?” Yashee asked, looking around. “We’d have to squish together.”
“I think that’s the point.” Randy yawned theatrically. “I think I’ll just sleep here while you guys set it up.”
“Randy?” Raz’ul carefully extracted himself to look over at the suddenly sleeping halfling. “Are you actually asleep, or are you faking so you don’t have to work?”
“Zzzzzz, too sleepy....”
“Randy, you can’t just keep saying ‘Z’ when you’re pretending to sleep!”
“Zzzzzzz I’m talking in my sleep, snore…”
Yashee couldn’t help but laugh, pulling both her boys in again. “Don’t worry about it, Raz’ul. We’ll be just fine.”
By: Alli B
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