Briana shrugged one shoulder and gave him that half-smile he was becoming so familiar with. “On one hand,Ifeel like mountain goats are very distinctive. On the other, people don’t see a lot of goats, mountain or otherwise, and it’s kind of impossible that amountaingoat would be wandering around the fairgrounds, right? And every once in a while I have Dahlia put a halter on me and walk me around so people have this vague idea that there’s a big tame white goatsomewherearound here.”
“That is…” Laurie blinked at her sort of enviously. “That’s kind of diabolical. I wish I could do that!”
Briana grinned. “Yeah, no, people definitely recognize grizzly bears when they see them. I don’t think putting you on a leash would help.”
Laurie half-laughed. “Probably not. My mom used to keep me on one of those kiddy-leash things when I was little, but that’s different.”
“Did you know those are basically the modern equivalent of apron strings? Mothers used to tie their kids to their apron strings to keep them from running off or getting into the fire in the same way we use those halters now.”
“Dude. I did not know that. That’s cool. I just knew about the phrase, which…” Laurie trailed off, blinking again. “Oh. Yeah, I mean, it’s not a complimentary phrase, is it? But that puts it in a whole different light. Like the ritualistic placement of the Aztec obsidian knives.”
It was Briana’s turn to blink. “The…what?”
Laurie brightened. This entire conversation seemed to be going well, and now he had a tidbit to keep it going. “So apparently in Aztec homes, the obsidian knives were kept on the overhead ceiling rafters. The story is that archaeologists thought this was some kind of ritualistic placement because the obsidian was precious to the Aztecs, so it was kept up high where it would be closer to the sun. Except then some mothers came in and went ‘oh, yeah, they kept the super sharp knives up there where the kids couldn’t reach them, good idea,’ and blew the archaeologists’ minds. I don’t know if it’s true, but it’s a good story.”
Briana gave a quick, quiet laugh. “Yeah, it is. I didn’t know that. I hope it’s true.”
“Me too. So you went around the whole Faire as a goat?” It wasn’t that Laurie was trying to draw out the conversation. He just thought that maybe she’dlikehim a little more if they actually talked.
So he was totally trying to draw out the conversation. Ideally until the rain stopped, because he was tired of talking to Jon.
“Yeah. Everybody’s pretty dismal, but more than that, I’m a little worried about the ground. I’m staying up on the mountain?—”
“Inthisweather?” Laurie asked, truly horrified.
“I did move my camp down from the ridge,” Briana said after a moment. “Even I don’tliketo climb a rock face in the rain. But yeah, I camp out in the summer as much as I can. Anyway, there’s a lot of movement in the scree over where I’m camping, so I went up to see if things looked more stable up above the fairgrounds, and they kind of don’t.”
“When you say ‘went up…?’”
Briana pointed an idle finger toward the mountain that abutted the fairgrounds. One of several, really, but the fairgrounds were literallyonthe very lowest, slightest slope ofthis particular mountain, which probably used to have another name but was generally called Faire Peak now. Laurie, feeling slightly as if he wasn’t understanding, said, “You went upthatmountain inthisweathertoday?”
We could go up that mountain,his bear said, sounding offended.
I don’t know if we could! It’s not very climbable!
Now Briana was back to eyeing him, which was just as effective from her human form as her goat shape. “You’re not telling me I need to be more careful, are you?” she asked in a tone so light that even Laurie’s bear understood it was dangerous.
“No!” Laurie even thought he meant it. “More like I just don’t understand how!”
Briana relaxed a little and stretched one leg out, pointing and flexing her foot as if she could show him, through her sturdy leather boots, how her shifter form’s feet worked. “Very stretchy between the toes, almost rubbery. Good for clinging. And I can jump a long damn way. And that’s just as a human.”
She said it in such a deadpan tone that for a few seconds Laurie fully believed her. Then the joke caught up to him and he burst out laughing. “Oh my God. You actually had me there for a second.”
Briana gave him an unexpectedly bright, wide grin in return. “That was the idea. Thatishow goats stay on mountainsides like they do, though. Clever little hooves. Anyway, the point was, the scree up there is really loose, too. What earth is holding it in place is completely saturated, and in a lot of places it’s just rock on top of rock anyway. If the rain doesn’t stop I’m not sure it’ll be safe to have the Faire open over the weekend. I’m not sure it’ll be safe if the raindoesstop. But I can’t figure out how to tell anybody that.”
She stood up and shook herself like the rain still clung to her, although she had dried off with her shift. “There are rangers and highway patrol keeping an eye out for potential landslides, I know that, but they can’t get as close to it as I can, and I can’t tell them howIgot that close. I thought maybe…you Torbens have a lot of pull around the Faire…”
Disappointment crashed through Laurie. “Oh. That’s why you came to the tavern.”
Briana pressed her lips together and glanced away as if she might feel guilty. “It is, yeah.” She didn’t offer an apology, which made it worse and better: at least she wasn’t offering false hope, or something. She had come over for a reason. An important reason, not a ‘find out if Laurie maybe isn’t so bad,’ kind of reason.
“Yeah,” he said, knowing he sounded strained now. That sucked, after feeling the whole conversation had actually gone rather well. “Yeah, the family knows some shifters in the patrols. We can let them know they need to take a close look at Faire Peak for safety reasons, and they’ll figure out a way to make it plausible for the true humans. Thanks for the heads-up.”
“Yeah, you’re welcome, and…thanks. I’ll see you later, I guess.” Briana tucked her hands into the pockets of her blacksmith’s breeches, and walked out into the rain, leaving Laurie behind.
Chapter 9
Rain drizzled down Briana’s spine, and she, melodramatically, felt like she deserved it somehow.
