Idunnir gave Caius time to process the revelation she had dropped in his lap. Which was good, because he needed the time to really think through the implications. Things made significantly more sense given that bit of context.

  Eventually he got his thoughts in order. Somewhat. "We need to explore the town, whatever else we do. I'd like to talk about this more later, after I've had time to really think about this."

  She agreed that would be as good a plan as any. Then Caius had to avert his eyes because she started to strip unselfconsciously. While he'd dressed her in her own underclothes after that bath, he hadn't quite been up to the task of redoing the long strip of cloth she wrapped around her chest.

  In an era before modern support garments, that was probably the best method available. Fortunately she was practiced enough at the whole routine to finish before Caius died of embarrassment. Back in her own clothes, she put her armor back on.

  "Water's clean, so I assume you want to wash before we get started." Idunnir said, more than asked, as she opened the door to have a look around. Of course, that brought in a wave of stench that had the armored woman recoiling like a blow to the face.

  This whole morning was absolutely bizarre to Caius. Everything was going so... smoothly. He had people in his life, people he had known for years, that weren't this easy to get along with. It was suspicious.

  His natural tendency to both overthink and assume the worst proceeded to take that suspicion and run with it. Provably, Idunnir possessed a gift for reading people. She could no doubt figure out which of his buttons to push to get whatever she wanted.

  Caius made the conscious decision not to care about that, and went about getting cleaned up for the day. Of course the water level in the bath had been appropriate for Idunnir, and not him. He probably weighed twice what she did. Quite a bit of water splashed onto the floor as he went about washing.

  When he was done, he checked that nothing important had gotten soaked. His eye caught his cloak, the magic one. It was still lying where Idunnir had left it, and a corner was now soaked by one of his splashes.

  That shouldn't have happened. Said cloak was waterproof, he'd tested it himself and taken advantage of the fact more than once. But when he examined it more closely he found that it had indeed lost whatever property he'd given it.

  Strange. That was probably why Idunnir had been wrapped up in a second cloak when he woke, it had stopped being a perfect insulator at some point during the night. He filed the information away as a point of interest. Figuring out this power of his was on his to-do list, but kept being pushed down said list by a parade of new and exciting crises to deal with.

  Like exploring a potentially zombie-infested town. What had his life become?

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  He left the self-cleaning tub full of water where it was and headed out to greet the day. Idunnir wasn't nearby, she was across the bridge and looking around. Probably upwind, too. He joined her, enjoying the fact that he didn't have to carry anything for a change. And moving around was starting to work some of the discomfort out of his muscles.

  Leading the way through the town, Idunnir moved differently than the day before. Neither the hyperactive energy the tea gave her nor the grim stride of the morning before. Caius assumed this was closer to her natural state. Alert and controlled.

  Fortunately or unfortunately, the village was absolutely deserted. His guess would be that it was abandoned rather than anything more unfortunate. He based this conclusion on the fact that he didn't see any carts or wagons, which refugees would definitely have taken with them. Not even a wheelbarrow was in evidence anywhere.

  Idunnir suggested they check out the fort next. Which was how Caius learned that the village had a fort.

  Turns out the village was one of those ancient motte and bailey things. The uphill side of the village had a big built-up mound with a small fort on top of it. Which helped explain how the ground was so level here, they had leveled it out and piled the dirt into a defensive structure.

  Made sense, it was a classic design for a reason. Wall around the town to keep out annoyances and in case of actual threats everyone could pile into the fort.

  Someone actually hailed them as they approached the fort. Which startled Caius unpleasantly.

  "Farrads, who goes there?" It sounded like a boy, and a very excited one. Then another voice rang out with "By the waves, it's Idunnir! Get that gate open!"

  Opening the gate took several tries. Apparently the bar that kept it closed had frozen into place. But Caius took it as a good sign when a few people laughed at the problem instead of cursing. It showed that morale was good.

  Indeed, he didn't see any hollow cheeks or furtive glances when they did get the gate open. But there were sad faces all around when they realized he wasn't Marcus. The man must have been well-liked.

  All the attention made Caius freeze up like a deer in headlights. He hated crowds. Idunnir, bless her, took over most of the introductions and talking. The fort held about thirty people, including a woman named Frida who was in charge.

  She got everyone organized and sat down with Caius and Idunnir for what was essentially a debrief. Idunnir told the story very briefly, identifying Caius as Touched and just saying that she and Marcus had picked him up along the way. Then Caius was called upon to speak. He settled for agreeing fully with her version, only adding where they had left their things and explaining his ability as "I can make things better at their job, but how long it lasts varies."

  Frida kept talking to Idunnir for a while after. It made sense to Caius, despite being vouched for he was an unknown variable here. He concluded the best way to help his cause was to be useful, so he let himself be led around to make Requests of some things.

  Notable was the gate bar, which he managed to convince to stop getting stuck all the time. Apparently it was a frequent issue, but the carpenter wasn't one of the people who had remained behind so fixing it would be complicated.

  He did a few more Requests. The chimney in the fort wasn't built quite right and let a bit more smoke into the room than was desirable. Considering that it was a structure, he was surprised that he could make a Request at all. It was by far the biggest thing he had tried so far.

  Everyone was more than happy to have him around after those two and the latrine he talked into not stinking. He would have to repeat that one with the tanner's house as thanks, later. Though the man and his wife didn't seem too upset at the intrusion.