A Harrow-ing Home
Ghighi led his oxin Venni by its reigns, stomping through the untrodden grass of the harrow outlands, making his way back to the beaten path. To his left, the horizon sported the shadows of a quaint and cozy rural village, populated mostly by uridae ranchers and prospecting foragers looking to find a temporary rest stop before they made their way to the outlands to explore, search for treasure, or just to see if they could survive.
Ghighi would not be going there yet. For now, he was simply passing by.
The path stretched on and on, so long that Venni and Ghighi had to stop to rest at multiple odd places obviously not meant to be rested on, like a pile of precarious and sharp rocks, and nearby a patch of suspiciously magically tall grass with weird noises coming from within. Ghighi might have been an adventurer, but he wasn't the type to stick his nose in where it didn't belong. It was just a fact of life this close to the harrow that something magical and deadly was probably lurking behind every corner. Residents without the power to push back just have to live on regardless.
Eventually, the dirt path showed signs of cobblestone. Venni squawked tired complaints at Ghighi until the oxin finally agreed to fly them the rest of the way to the city. Venni stumbled over to the grass, and kept going until they couldn't feel any errant stones under their feet. Only then did the oxin crouch and let Ghighi onto their back. With the rider seated, Venni flapped into the air and soared up high over the outskirts of the city.
If the village was a stepping stone to the much more dangerous Harrow Outlands, the city was a tourist destination for those not equipped for an actual adventure, but still wanted some spineless bragging rights of having gone there. Venni soared above food stalls and sideshows, looking for the right shopfront as some tourists pointed up at the two and snapped pictures. Venni paid them no mind, they wouldn't have to deal with this unwanted attention for long. Ghighi had a specific destination in mind, and the faster they got there the faster they could leave.
Venni alighted on a rooftop nearby a backroads pawn shop. This wasn't the storefront that tourists could access, this was for adventurers to sell their wares and secretly replenish the kitschy curio shops.
It was also a place where steeds had a specific stable and it was rude and poor form for one to be sitting on a roof. Ghighi had to spend an additional ten minutes to convince Venni to go to the ground just long enough for them to sell the wares and fly off with the money. Venni very reluctantly and very sullenly stomped into the stable and lashed their tail back and forth. Ghighi un-clipped the saddlebags and hauled it into the store by himself.
Venni didn't have to wait for too long, because soon enough Ghighi returned with a lighter and much more jingly saddlebag. He fitted it onto Venni's back and hauled himself up onto the saddle, not made much easier by Venni's excited stomping and whinnying. But eventually, Ghighi and the money were both secure and Venni could take a running start into the sky once again.
The journey out of town was much quicker than the journey into it, mostly because Venni was finally flying the two where they needed to go again. They left the second round of gawkers in the dust and climbed higher into the sky. It was an easy ascent this time, the weight was just about gone and the destination was one place that Venni actually wanted to be in.
The grasslands flew by below them in blurs of green rolling hills and rainbow patches of wildflowers. The closer to town they got, the more herds of livestock grazed beneath them. Most were unfazed by odd creatures flying overhead, unless their rancher gave a signal that they needed to come back to shelter. But this time, the rancher gave a friendly wave, which Venni mentally pinched Ghighi about until he turned around and returned the gesture.
They had finally returned to the village they called home. It was relatively calm, at least in comparison to the tourist trap. There were the occasional nutcase explorers or brutish knuckleheads throwing their weight around in some pathetically misguided attempt to wow the jaded farmers, but in most cases the people here treated each other like neighbors.
Venni didn't need to be directed, they alighted in front of a familiar barn door that Venni pushed open with their beak. The moment it was open Venni flopped onto a blanket thrown over a pile of hay, Ghighi and saddle still on their back.
Ghighi dismounted again, this time taking the full saddle off his beleagured steed. Venni had done their part, but Ghighi's journey still had one final destination.
With the bag of money tossed over one shoulder, Ghighi strolled casually across the road to where he lived. Its proximity to the stable made it a cheap place to live, especially creatures burdened with a sense of smell. Ghighi had no such weaknesses, and thrived in the least popular rental room in the town. In fact, he enjoyed the solitude so much that he was about to finally about to make that solitude complete.
Ghighi walked into the house, past his landlord to his room, opened the loose floorboard where he kept his money, hauled it all up, then stomped right back up to his landlord and dumped all the money on the startled dephex's desk.
"I think this should be more than enough to cover the costs of the land." Ghighi said, smiling smugly. "Buy yourself somewhere pretty, ok?"
As it turned out, buying land had a lot more steps than exchanging money. Ghighi and his soon-to-be-previous landlord spent what was left of the day in the town lawyer's office filing paperwork. Then there would be the postal time to send the filed papers out to be checked, so technically Ghighi was still with landlord for the rest of the week, but the dephex was ecstatically making plans to move out to set up shop in the tourist town for a much more lucrative gig.
The moment the landlord was gone, Ghighi could finally do what he always wanted in the first place: get his pets and steed out of the stables and into the house. A houndling needed no sleep or food, so Ghighi devoted his time to feeding and giving spaces to rest for the creatures that did.
Venni seemed to be glad to frolick in the fenced-off back porch and backyard, and much more appreciated a bed with a proper mattress to sleep on. Album much more enjoyed washing off in the sink instead of the stale trough water, though they had to compete with Spike, who also wanted to stand under the faucet and bask. Weeps was searching every nook and cranny for new hiding spaces, and Ghighi had to keep running to find them all so he could be sure the slippery little lizard hadnt gotten itself stuck.
It was hard work, but it was worth it to make this plave properly into a home.