"So," I said to Leonie as we walked, "You going to say which of those boys had a crush on you?"

Leonie frowned at me. It probably wasn't a great idea to antagonize her, but by this time, after several rounds of questioning on both sides, it had quickly become apparent that she wasn't very interested in talking about anything but her excitement to follow in Captain Jeralt's footsteps, and none of her questions were jogging any of my memories, so I decided to troll a bit.

"Neither of them," Leonie said indignantly. "Don't be ridiculous."

"If you say so," I said knowingly. Leonie turned an annoyed eye on me.

"What do you mean?" she demanded.

"Both of them were looking at you like betrayed dogs," I pointed out. "They're heartbroken that they'll never see you again."

Leonie frowned. "No they aren't," she said. "We've been friends since we were too young to hunt. They don't look at me that way."

"Oh," I sighed. "Oh, my sweet summer chicken. You may be a good hunter, but you're blind."

"You couldn't possibly know what they were thinking just by seeing them there!" Leonie protested. I snorted.

"Uh-huh. They were looking at you like 'Leonie... I will never love again. How could you leave me?'"

"Don't be ridiculous," she scoffed. "That's silly. We're friends. They're both skilled hunters. I'm sure they would be leaving too if they had the money. They'd make good mercenaries."

I chuckled. She turned on me, her annoyance now channeled into a counter-offensive. "I wouldn't laugh," she said. "Who knows if you have a wife and children somewhere that you can't be bothered to remember. How are they going to take care of themselves with you gone? If you were a breadwinner."

This stopped my laughter. Not the insult; Leonie had a sharp tongue and applied it liberally, that much was already plain. No; the idea that I might have a wife somewhere hadn't yet occurred to me. Could that be true? It didn't seem likely, but that was an impression. What if there was a wife and child somewhere waiting for me to return? What would they be doing without me? Which way would I even have to go to get back to them? Had I left them for help or something?

"Gosh," I said, subdued, "I hadn't thought of that."

"Exactly," Leonie huffed, indifferent to my abrupt emotional shift. "Clean up your own house before trying to clean others. That's what I always..."

A twig snapped. Both of us twisted and all at once, and there, not ten paces behind us, was a man, large, and wearing a shirt of thick hide. An axe jumped up and down in his hand as he let it drop into his palm. He smiled, a big, unfriendly expression.

"Oh, I'm sorry," he sneered. "Are we interrupting?"

We? A moment later, he was flanked by two other men, each wielding axes of their own. A fourth man with a spear appeared to their left (my right), and together, they leaned against the trees that we had yet to exit ourselves. I twisted and checked our flanks; clear. Good. We could escape at least.

"And who the hell are you supposed to be?" Leonie said. She had already drawn her bow, and an arrow was fit to the string. That was good, or it could be, but to back it up, all I had was a walking stick that I had cut myself the previous day off of a low hanging tree, green and supple, but not too heavy or great for fighting, at least in my estimation. I gripped it tightly as I growled inside; Leonie was playing a dangerous game.

"Well," the bandit said, sauntering a bit closer. "We're what you might call the keepers of this forest. And we're interested in, ah, keeping this forest clear of loiterers and squatters. So, we're going to be asking a bit of a toll from you to get along."

Leonie laughed out loud. "You really think we're going to pay you? I don't think so. Here's our deal." She drew her bow back. "You're going to drop your weapons and clear out of here. How's that sound?"

The bandit chuckled. "Miss, you can't shoot all four of us. And every arrow that hits is going to make me angry, and that's not what you want, is it?"

"Actually, I don't mind it," Leonie said. While they talked like this, I watched the others; they were moving out in a semi-circle, making up for not encircling us to start with. I started to back away and grabbed Leonie by the shoulder to pull her back with me. She complied reluctantly.

"Oh, come," the leader said. "Give up and give us some money, and we'll let you and your boyfriend off easy. Just a handful of gold for the protection of this forest, that's all we ask. There are ruffians about." This drew a laugh from his compatriots.

"Any bright ideas?" Leonie hissed at me.

"Sure," I said. "When they attack us, we run away."

This idea was so preposterous that Leonie took her concentration off of the bandit for the briefest of moments and turned to me, aghast. "Run away?" she parroted in shock.

In that instant, the leader lunged. Leonie reacted instantly, releasing her arrow. He hadn't expected so quick a response, and the arrow hit him in the shoulder. He cried out. An instant later, the other three were moving.

They were too close. I didn't have time to think. The first to strike was the spear guy. He thrust his spear at me, hoping to skewer me. I reacted fast, faster than I had thought I could. The moment his spear was in reach, I parried with my stick. He was wide open: I struck fast with two swift jabs from the base of the walking stick. The first slammed into the man's groin. The second went to his eye. He dropped his spear and fell back, doubled over in pain.

I turned to where Leonie had been. I saw one of the axemen a few feet away, doubled in pain and clutching an arrow that stuck out of his knee. It seemed that Leonie had gotten one shot off before being tackled. 

To one side, where she had been, the last fellow had grabbed her with one beefy hand gripped onto her arm. She had dropped her bow, and the other hand was free to try and struggle, but it was little use. The man was twice her size, and held her easily. Only her violent struggling was keeping him from pounding the top of her skull with his axe, which even now was raised over his head.

Again, I acted quickly. Simultaneously, I retrieved the dropped spear and began to charge, stick in one hand, spear in the other. I closed the short distance nearly instantly, and as the man turned to see me, I thrust the spear into his side. His rib cage caught it, probably saving his life. He roared and, releasing Leonie, aimed a wild swing at me, but I blocked it with my stick. I pulled back and delivered a heavy blow to his head. Then a second thrust into his neck. He gagged and staggered back, a spear still hanging from his side.

That instant, I turned and found Leonie, free, gathering her arrows. I grabbed her arm. "Come on!" I yelled. "Let's go!"

"I'm not done!" she cried as I pulled her along. Fortunately, I was bigger than she was, so I managed to keep her moving through sheer momentum.

"There could be more of them. Don't be stupid!" I yelled, angrily. A moment later, we heard cries echoing the wounded sounding somewhere else in the forest. Apparently, this or my logic won her over, as she stopped resisting. A moment later, we were sprinting away, the bellowing cries of the injured bandits echoing after us as we tore through the undergrowth. A few minutes later, and we were free.

***

The journey was silent for some time thereafter. Leonie, annoyed but still coming down from the undoubted adrenaline high of the clash, was uncharacteristically subdued, to the point where my suggestion at the end of the day to find an inn wasn't met with too much resistance. When I had managed to convince an innkeeper to provide room and board in exchange for a night off of cleaning (a prospect he took to more easily than I had feared), we sat down, a beer for each of us, and it was then that Leonie voiced her thoughts.

"'Run away?'" she demanded. "What in the Goddess's name..."

I took a sip from my beer. "Look," I said. "You're not thinking like a mercenary."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Leonie snapped. "If we let them walk away, they'd have held up someone else! What were we supposed to do, let them get away with it?"

I sipped my beer again calmly. "That's exactly what I'm talking about," I said.

"Are you saying I'm wrong?"

"No. I'm saying that a mercenary wouldn't decide to clean up bandits without getting paid."

Leonie opened her mouth and then closed it. I smiled thinly at her. "Exactly," I said. "Mercenaries can be heroic, but they've got to keep an eye on the bottom line, too. A job fighting against enemies is an occupational hazard; a job fighting against enemies that you aren't getting paid for is foolishness." I nodded to her backpack sitting nearby. "I assume you've got your tuition for the Academy in there too, right? In gold? It sure looks heavy." It sagged below the rest of her equipment. "What would have happened if that had gone sideways back there? Even if you lived, you'd have had to go on a big extended outing to retrieve that fat stack of gold pieces. Either that or return to Sauin in defeat."

"Okay, I get it," Leonie snapped. I sipped my beer, content that she had gotten the point. "But that's not what Captain Jeralt would have done."

"I can't speak to the Captain's priorities," I said carefully.

"I can," Leonie pressed. "He told me. My father realized exactly what you're saying, that a mercenary has to look out for the bottom line. He asked the Captain why he was teaching us to fight for ourselves instead of selling his protection. Captain Jeralt said that it was the right thing to do, and that he had more than enough to look after himself. He said that we clearly needed the help more than he needed the money. And I don't care how much you remember, I care a lot about the people around here. I grew up with them."

"Fair," I conceded, but she wasn't done.

"And I don't think you have the right to make the call here. You're clearly some big-shot noble, not a commoner like me. You've clearly never had to live with bandits knocking at your door in the winter asking for your stored food. You ask me, the Captain would have rooted them out and cut down the whole band, pay be damned. I'm going to be like him."

"What was it you were saying about magic?" I asked. "That you had to learn some in order to be combat ready? How much magic do you know?"

"Hey! Magic texts are expensive!" Leonie protested.

"Irrelevant," I said. "Bottom line is, neither of us is ready for that kind of a fight. Captain Jeralt might have fought it, but he has his own epitaph. You called him the Blade Breaker. I don't have an epitaph. Heck, I don't have a name. You don't have an epitaph either. If they'd thought we would fight, they would have surrounded us and then your bow would have been next to useless. And you heard that there were more of them out there, right? Eventually, even if we played our cards just right, one of them would have had a bow and would have gotten lucky. There was no winning that fight; better to save our skins and fight another day."

She eyed me for a long moment silently. "Okay, fine, but there's no way you thought all that in the moment," she noted at length.

"No," I admitted. "But I also don't want to get killed. I'm no coward, but I only woke up in this world two days ago, as far as I know. I've become very fond of living for the short amount of time that I can remember doing it, and I'd rather not stop in a fight we have little chance of winning."

"You did fight," Leonie said. "And you beat those two. Without killing them."

"You didn't kill either of the men you shot either," I pointed out. "Unlike me, you probably could have without too much trouble. I had a stick; you had a bow."

"We could have stayed to finish the job," Leonie grumbled. "They almost certainly deserved it. How many innocent people do you think they've robbed? Or even killed? We should have finished the job. We'd have been doing Fodlan a favor."

I frowned; oddly, her words reminded me of something. How did it go? "Deserve death? I dare say they do. Many that live deserve death. And many that die deserve life... can you give that to them?"

Leonie raised her eyebrows. "So... you're a philosopher," she stated flatly.

"Hardly. That one was in my memory somewhere."

"So, you're memory is starting to come back?" Leonie asked, pleased.

"I don't think so," I sighed. "Look; fundamentally, I think you're right. I think that, if we were stronger, we should have probably gone and fought every single bandit out there and rooted them out and taken no reward for it. In a perfect world, I would have been right there beside you the whole way. But even if we didn't have our own skins and your village's hopes and dreams to mind, that would only be a temporary respite. There would be more bandits; there are always more bandits. Two people can't stamp out the lot of them by themselves." I drank more of my beer. "But, if we get waylaid again sometime later, when we both have a little more weapons, I'll stand with you to the bitter end. How's that sound?"

Leonie eyed me for a long moment. Then, unexpectedly, she smiled. "All right," she said. "I'll forgive it. But only because you probably saved my life there." She raised her mug. "To thinking more like a mercenary," she said.

I joined the toast, pleased that she seemed to have forgiven me. "To thinking like a mercenary," I said. "May we get what we want and get what we need, but never get what we deserve."

"Captain Jeralt used to say something like that," Leonie laughed. I shrugged.

"Well, who knows? Maybe I picked up the phrase from him." Predictably, Leonie's next toast was to the Captain, but I joined happily to it. The beer had put me in fine spirits, especially with Leonie now in finer spirits herself. Although I had a sneaking suspicion that she would drink me under the table if I let her; I'd have to be careful.