What Heroes Don't Think About

5. children earnest at their play, Part I

It was a new day, a new mission. Didi was in search of food for Dominic, and books for herself. Though Dominic claimed he was fine and more hungry than traumatized, Kaylessa insisted on subjecting him to the same kindness Didi had been subjected to after her head injury. He was forbidden to get out of bed or eat anything but bread and soup. Didi had been deemed "back to normal," which meant she'd had to wake up early in the morning to help serve breakfast and wash the clean the vacant rooms, but she was free to spend the afternoon roaming the town.

It was a new experience to have coins in her pocket that she could spend on anything she wanted. As a child, she'd never gone without anything she needed, but she'd never been permitted anything her mother would have found frivolous. She'd had access to some toys, bought for the children of their mother's followers (who were actually permitted to be children even though many of them were nearly double Didi's chronological age) but never had the chance to select one for herself. And books? There had been a library in her home, but it had been curated by her mother. Didi used to have, hidden under her bed, an entire wagonload "popular literature" – romances, children's fiction, modern tales of adventurers – but she'd only been able to obtain them because she snuck into the dungeons when they were occupied by an unfortunate wandering chapbook merchant (who had seen too much, and was soon after ritualistically killed) and pilfered his stock. When her mother found out about the books a year later, they, too, were sacrificed to the sea.

If only Red Larch had a real bookstore. She'd never been inside one before; she'd only looked through a window once, in another town they'd come through when they were still on the road. The bookseller had seen the longing on her dirty face and chased her away. Didi imagined it would be the pinnacle of freedom to be able to walk into a bookstore with money and select one of her own accord.

They'd made the decision about what to do with their loot the night before, after Didi had snuck out to retrieve it from where it had been stowed. They would save most of it, in case they needed it later. Maybe someday they'd be able to afford a weapon that could help them rescue their siblings back home, or hire a mage powerful enough to kill their mother. That would be way down the line, of course - but was why it was so important to start saving now.

The other decision was that the money, and all evidence of their exploits, would be concealed from Kaylessa. Their cover story was that Dominic had gone out at night searching for the wanted criminals, got lost, and wasn't able to find his way back until he was able to ride partway with a party heading to Waterdeep. If Kaylessa knew they'd looted money from bandits she would want them to do the "honest thing" and turn it in to the constable. That wasn't going to happen. It wasn't like money could be identified as belonging to any particular person - it was finders-keepers, as far as Didi was concerned.

However, they did agree to turn in the other valuable objects they'd found - jewelry, armor, and even some magical things. These objects could be identified by their owners, and they might have sentimental value. She imagined that, for example, one of the stolen rings might have been the engagement ring of a woman whose fiancé died the day before they were supposed to be married, or that the metal helmet might have belonged to a knight and then passed on to his squire who was secretly in love with him but never told and then the knight married a princess and left the squire behind to travel alone. It wouldn't be right to keep something like that. On top of that, the items would serve as proof that they had killed the bandits, enabling them to collect the bounty.

Once they had the stolen money and bounty, they would allow themselves to spend a little bit on useful or pleasurable things.

-

Her first stop had been the town market, but there had only been one merchant there, Grond the half-orc pickle salesman. Apparently, the market was designated open three times a tenday, but Grond was so passionate about pickles he kept his booth open even when no one other merchants were around, but he preferred it when other merchants were around, because a blanket salesman always set up shop across from Grond and Grond liked looking at blankets. At least, that was Didi thought he was saying, but he had a very strong Red Larch accent, which would have been difficult to understand even his words had made sense. Grond did mention that the best place to buy fried chicken was Mandhyver's Poultry, which Didi decided to visit on her way back.