Alphine was sitting outside the ruined house, waiting for Alvar and Lilith to grab their things. His bored eye’s wandered around the place from dusty wooden window frames to rough stone walls to a thing that looked like a small spider web albeit slightly red in color, suddenly a shadow covered the web before a foot crushed it, the human quickly lifted his head to see Lilith walking up to him.

“Sup kid,” he said lifting his hand as a kind of greeting gesture. The pink-haired girl stared at him “…I’m older than you” she said tonelessly, pointing a finger at the boy. “Oh shit…I forgot.” he thought to himself, trying to excuse what he just stated, he opened his mouth and said “Hey, how would you know if you’re older than me if you don’t know my age?” the messy haired child said with one hand pointing at the gravedigger in front of him.

The dead look that Lilith wore seamlessly transitioned into a dumbfounded look that could only be picked up as “….look at yourself.”

Alphine closed his eyes before reciting the thing he was taught from a young age while waving his hand in a way that looked like he was shoeing away the comments “You should never judge a book by its cover.” he smiled to himself, thinking back to his childhood times, the times where his biggest issue was if he looked cool to his peers.

“Well…If the cover looks like an escaped prisoner…” The pink-haired girl was about to say before being cut short by the red-eyed boy “Well I don’t read books so, checkmate!” the human pointed smiling smugly with his arms crossed. Lilith chuckle-sighed before going to sit down a few steps away from the pale-skinned boy beside her. After a few minutes of deafening silence, Alvar emerged out of the door of the ruins.

Both the pink-haired girl and the human boy waved to the dark-haired elf. “What took you so long?” questioned Alphine, the elf scratched the back of his head with an awkward smile painted on his face “Yeah so I had to find the slab and fire starter things, so it kinda took a while to find the slab because I forgot where I left it…” he said with a chuckle, “Right I get ya, let’s get going.” the human boy smiled before standing up, looking back at the pink-haired girl and his friend.

The blue-skinned elf nodded, and the trio started making their way to the forest, after a few minutes of walking through the ruins of the town they finally made it to the mouth of the forest. The dirt road on which they walked, started to crumble away into the ground as they went further down the woods. The already dark shadows cast by the various flora of the forest began to blend into the area as nighttime began to creep up.

Once they reached the area it was nearly pitch black the only light being very faint, from an orangey-yellow sticky liquid-like substance that poured out of tiny holes in a medium-sized tree, Alphine’s interest was piqued when he saw them, he stopped in his tracks before shouting to Alvar and Lilith “Yo, do you guys know what that glowing liquid is?” he asked causing the other two who were a bit ahead of the red-eyed boy to look at the tree.

“To be honest…I don’t know, I’ve never heard about this type of tree.” Alvar said, bending his back towards the tree while rubbing his chin “It smells really metallic.” he announced. Upon hearing this from the pointy-eared humanoid, the gravedigger girl almost instantly realized what the thing they were looking at was “…it’s a bleeding trunk” she stated before continuing “They’re created when ember-moths bite away at the wood, creating small holes in which they lay eggs.” she pointing at the liquid pouring out of the holes “That orangey liquid is made when the acid that the bugs create to digest the food for their young mixes with the log…the smell the stuff gives off is similar to blood.” she explained.

“I guess that book was a hint that she’s interested in plants and nature…” the boy thought to himself. After another few minutes, they reached their destination, a small flat area which was surrounded by trees. The elf was starting up the fire while the human boy and the pink-haired gravedigger were walking around the place searching for something to eat.

“You think there’s anything to eat…” the messy-haired boy looked down to his stomach, “Do you mind…stomach cramps?” she asked shifting through a pile of lime green flowers, “Yep, very much actually after a recent tea-related incident!” he thought to himself before nodding, she scratched her head before walking over to a bush with small cream-colored berries “how about poison?” Alphine looked at her blankly, after a few minutes of looking at various plants that from how Lilith described them, sounded like essentials for an any% death speedrun, luckily they found some safe to eat fungi on a mossy rock.

Once the two came back from their hunt for food they saw Alvar adding some sticks to the fire, he waved to them, “How’s the food situation going search?” he asked, “It was a bit harder since Alphine didn’t want stomach cramps…” Lilith said while walking over to the fire and handing the tall-humanoid the mushrooms “uhh- I see.” he replied, awkwardly chuckling. The red-eye boy sat down beside the flame with his arm on his knee.

The dark-haired elf started to cook the mushrooms on the stone slab. Once the food was finished the trio began to eat the mushrooms, they were alright, Lilith described them as “Very savory and slightly earthy.”

The meal was gone almost as quickly as it was made, the fire was extinguished. The pink-haired girl went to so sleep while the two slaves were looking up at the black sky, both also trying to fall asleep.