Oh My, I Messed Up the Story - Chapter 140

Abby hadn’t realized she had grown comfortable with this humorless stone statue. It must be because Blaise was her only friend in this world. Out of everyone here, she had spent the most time with him.

She did feel safe around him and trusted him implicitly—she had let him into her tent at night simply to keep her company and he was holding up his end of the bargain. There was no reason not to trust him after everything she had seen of his character.

He was a man of honor, which made him a good person in her book. Even if he didn’t know how to laugh.

When Abby had asked him about his hobbies a while back he had been confused. Were hobbies not a thing in this world? She had reworded it to ask him what he liked to do in his free time and he said when he wasn’t getting in extra training he was reading.

This guy would get along with Katie just fine. There had been entire years of her life where she had done nothing but read random Wikipedia articles and nonfiction books when she wasn’t at school.

But even bookworms still usually had a sense of humor. Goodness knows Katie did; her sense of humor was a bit more over the top than most people Abby knew.

She had the idea that she was going to get Blaise to laugh even if it took the rest of the trip to the mountains. No matter what, she would figure out what made this stoic man tick. With that thought and the comforting presence of another person nearby in case she got scared again, she drifted off to sleep.

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Day 1 of her little experiment was an utter failure. Abby tried telling every joke she knew after editing them for content that would make sense in this world. Blaise didn’t so much as crack a smile.

Day 2 was no better. She tried being a bit goofy and clumsy but he only looked concerned for her well-being every time she tripped.

By the end of Day 3 she was about ready to give up. This man didn’t have a single funny bone in his entire body. She didn’t think he even knew how to laugh. All those hilarious stories she used to tell him about her life back home and he had simply nodded.

Abby wandered off a ways into the woods to do her business when they stopped briefly on the side of the road. On the way back she ran into the most adorable little brown kitten with extra pointy ears.

The last time she had seen a cat was back on Florian’s farm so like any animal lover, she cooed at it and beckoned for it to come. “Psst psst! Here kitty kitty kitty!”

It was unsure at first but eventually she got it to come over by offering a bit of jerky she had been saving from dinner. It warmed right up to her after that, licking her fingers and sniffing around hoping for more.

Abby wanted to show it to Blaise so she scooped it up and walked it back to the wagon. It made no protest and kept sniffing her trying to find more jerky.

The kitten was sitting on her shoulder batting at her braid by the time she made it back. Nobody noticed anything was amiss until they had already been on the road for a few minutes because they were too preoccupied with making sure nothing got left behind.

“What is that on your shoulder?” Wilem asked, aghast.

Abby didn’t see what the big deal was. “A friendly kitten I found in the forest. Isn’t it cute? I only wanted to show it to you guys but it refused to let me put it down.”

“Miss! You have to toss it out of the wagon right now! That’s a baby lynx!”

She tilted her head in confusion. Was a lynx like a manx? Those were regular old house cats with a little stub of a tail, just like this one had. Her friend had one when she was younger.

The traders all began whispering to each other and Wilem spoke again with genuine fear in his voice. “Lynxes are the terror of these woods! They grow to be the size of goats and have wickedly sharp claws. They kill livestock and are generally considered dangerous!”

Abby glanced over at the tiny ball of fluff on her shoulder that was still interested in her braid. There was no way. This little thing was going to be the size of a goat?

Wild cat or not, there was no way she was going to throw something so cute overboard. It would get hurt! She nonchalantly continued to let it chew on her hair as the wagon moved onward.

“Huh,” she deadpanned. “What do you know.”

A snort sounded from next to her and Abby swiveled her head in alarm. Sure enough, Blaise was laughing. Actually laughing! He doubled over unable to control himself and didn’t stop for a solid five minutes.

She was baffled. What exactly was so funny about this?

He grinned up at her when he finally got a hold of himself. “Forgive me, your reaction was—” And he was gone again.

What about her reaction? Why was he cackling like he had witnessed the most hilarious thing on earth? She hadn’t done anything worth laughing at this hard! All she did was befriend a wild cat.

Videos about people adopting exotic animals showed up on social media all the time in her world. This wasn’t that weird. It totally looked like a normal cat. She wasn’t as stupid as the lady she read about in an article on Facebook who put up “Found Cat” posters for an opossum.

Abby pouted. Of course Blaise would be the kind of person who would only laugh at her when she wasn’t trying to be funny at all.