Tama

  I looked up at Talia across the large desk from me. She looked pale, and was tapping her pencil repeatedly on the table, almost in a metronome.

  “So.. you're saying an army of possibly hundreds of thousands of undead made up of skeleton, zombies, skeleton mages, and Earth knows what else is coming in less then a week, and you ran ahead of your party at Saki’s direction to give me the warning?”

  Despite her voice being calm, it sounded like there was a tremor in it. That tremor sounded familiar, a flashback of my mother telling me everything would be okay right before she… I stopped that line of thinking and took a deep breath before nodding.

  “And, Tera, David, Saki and yourself found the goblin’s, only to realize they were an even bigger force of and I quote ‘Nya, there are like millions’ she said as she raised an eyebrow.

  I blushed slightly, I didn’t remember the exact number Saki had told me, but it was apparently a really big number. A million is a big number right? so I said millions with an s! that way it shows there were lots!

  She seemed to nod at that as she looked back down at the paper in front of her for a moment before continuing. “Just to be clear, you mentioned you were friends with the goblin chief, Grok was his name? and Saki became their war advisor, and is going to be leading this massive goblin army, led by this ‘Grok’ against the undead army?”

  I nodded back and here and smiled “Grok is silly, but super strong, honorable, and brave! He is a good goblin!”

  “Right…” Talia said as she looked through her notes once more as if trying to figure out where the joke was.

  After a long moment she took a deep breath before continuing. “Then you met your childhood best friend, a boar named ‘Jiggle’ who was in the goblin camp hanging out because and I once again quote ‘he likes to visit them sometimes’”.

  I nodded and added “Jiggle truly is amazing, he is so cute and cuddly! and his belly jiggles a lot!” My tail wagged as I remembered Jiggle. I couldn’t wait to see him again, Saki said we had to leave him with the goblins until war time because he was too unpredictable or something. I felt bad, but Saki knew best!

  “Hmm…” Talia made a thinking sound Saki sometimes made before continuing once again “So, After you Saki, David, and Tera, but and I quote ‘not Jiggle, cause Saki said he was too’” She frowned as she looked at the word before shaking her head ‘unpredictable’. After the four of you left ahead to scout and reach us hopefully before the goblin army. You and Saki trained by you and, for the life of me Tama, I once again quote ‘beating her to near death with wolves, goblins, and a stick.’”

  I nodded vigorously and said “Saki has gotten much better at fighting now!”

  Talia’s eye twitched, but she nodded and spoke “Then a few days into your trek you ran into the undead army, at which point Saki came up with a plan that involved and I want to be very clear here Tama ‘Launching Tama into the massive army using a large shooty-thing’.”

  “Yup!” I said as I giggled at the memory before adding “OH, Nya, the mage skelly left this black thing on me!” I held up my arm showing the black mark that was fighting my healing water, it had reached my elbow.

  “Holy mother of Earth Tama! That's an undead curse mark, why didn’t you have the church heal you before reporting! I know this is urgent but that is dangerous!”

  I shrugged “Saki said it was important to tell you, Tama figured she would find a way to remove it later.”

  Talia’s eye twitched more noticeably this time as she took a deep breath.

  “Then since we are almost done, I'll finish, then we are getting you to a church healer!” She said as she stared at the pulsing black blob that covered my arm from my wrist to my elbow.

  “She looked back down to her notes after a moment and said 'After that, you ‘killed lots of bigger than normal undead’ one of which I assume gave you that curse?” Before I could answer she held up a hand. “Then you followed the directions from the floating labels in the sky that told you where to go to get here?”

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  “Of course! Tama is very good at following labels in the sky!” I said excitedly.

  Talia looked like she had just aged a year sitting there. Her face looked tired, her eyes looked tired, her very mood seemed somber.

  “I see..” Talia said finally, trailing off as she once again went through her notes before looking back up at me “And these undead will be here in a couple days? Can you be any more specific? Are we talking two, three, a week?”

  I frowned as I tried to remember what Saki had said, then smiled “Saki said the undead should reach Drestor in..” I frowned as I once again tried to remember the day Saki had told me. “um…” My ears flattened along with my brows and my tail stopped wagging.

  Talia sighed heavily and said “I am going to assume that means we have very little if no time.” She stood suddenly and grabbed up the notes. Then she looked down at me with a serious expression “Fuyuki Tamaneko”

  I winced at the use of my full name as she continued. “As a full fledged adventurer, and the Third Person Tempest. Do you attest that everything you have said here today is true and honest?”

  I nodded fiercely “Nya! as far as Tama knows, all she has said is true!”

  Talia seemed to wince at that, maybe hoping I would say it was a joke. But instead she looked down at the papers again and slowly looked back up to me. “Then we better start preparing for an undead siege, Tama.”

  I nodded and stood up as well “Tama will not fail, we will kill all the undead!” defiance clear in my voice.

  Talia smirked at me then grabbed my right arm, making a point to avoid my cursed left one and spoke. “No, first we are going to the church healers and getting that curse removed!”

  I tried to pull, but her arm, like before, was hard as iron. The next three hours of my life was spent walking down the accursed slow hallway, being dragged through the guild hall, out into the street, where we walked super duper slow all the way to some large building with a picture of a brick wall of mud on it.

  She dragged me inside the building as I clawed at her hand and tried everything I could to break free. But it was no use, and after agonizing hours of waiting for a healer to come see us, she finally managed to walk over from the pedestal to us and heal my arm.

  Her healing was different then mine, it had like a dark brown glow and it made the curse go away instantly.

  I still felt it didn’t require the days of suffering I had to go through! Why was everything so slow!?

  After Talia tortured me for what felt like an eternity she turned to me and said “See Tama, it wasn’t that bad. Twenty minutes in and out, the whole affair was less than half an hour.”

  I glared at her and she rolled her eyes “I swear Tama, you act like such a precocious child sometimes.”

  My ears twitched, and I looked over to the town walls. Worry flooded me as I wondered if Saki was okay. Oh, and David… and probably Tera too…

  I brushed away the thoughts and tried to focus back on Talia, she hadn’t let go of my wrist, and I was now being dragged horrifically elsewhere.

  An eternity later, we entered some building with lots of uniformed men around it. Talia brought us to a large muscular man with a weird piece of hair on his face.

  The two of them talked, Talia told him about everything that happened, I begged him to help me get free, but he wouldn’t listen! He patted my head and gave me something sweet to chew on. It tasted super good. He called it candy!

  The big man asked Talia whose kid I was. I snapped at him “Nya, Tama is the world's greatest ninja!”

  He smiled down at me and patted my head, it felt good. “I’m sure you are Tama, you are the best ninja you can be!” He said and winked at me.

  Talia sighed heavily and said “She isn’t playing Richard, she really is probably the best ninja in the world. She was able to stand up to me for just under a minute in real combat. At least, under her sensei.”

  I winced at her words, The memory of sensei’s undead body causing a tear to fall from my eye.

  Richard looked at Talia, then me, then back at Talia before blinking in surprise “Seriously? he said, "She's just a little girl?”

  “Tama is 18 givings olds, Tama is not a little girl!” I said indignantly as I looked for more of that candy stuff.

  The man looked at Talia with a look I didn’t understand. He raised one of his eyebrows and moved his lips to the side. It looked similar to what Saki did when she looked at me.

  “I’m serious, she really is. I wish I were joking but this childish Nekojin is Reginald’s adopted daughter and prodigy. The girl is a menace with speed and precision, even if she acts like she just got out of diapers.” Talia said, shaking her head at Richard.

  “Tama doesn’t know what diapers are but she is definitely out of them!” I snapped at them both with my free hand and. I once again tried to free myself from Talia’s grasp to no avail. It appears I would be trapped for much longer.