{-Llewel-}

He remembered all sorts of fragments from their time with her; the dance they shared, some pieces of what had happened before, their meeting… but none of them would explain a lot. He’d hoped that, somewhere, he could remember what the others were so hesitant to share with them. Or, at least, there was something to make him certain whether they were making a mistake or not.

Tinath was sort of in the lead, though she wasn’t really with the rest of them to begin with. Mostly she weaved through the trees in Kyirius, still not bothered when her hawk would fly around every now and again. Surprisingly she didn’t join it, though Llewel wondered if it meant that she was aware of the twins’ feelings towards her. There was, really, no other reason why she would bother to stay with them as it grew ever clearer she wasn’t truly interested in their company.

“When things got too quiet while we traveled, Casrane would play games with us,” Myr remarked. She had a small smile, one that undoubtedly would’ve been much better if all the pieces could be remembered. “She’d ask what we’d rather do for… something. I guess just to get to know us…”

“Well, I’ve got one for you.” Zetai, for the most part, pretended like much of the earlier discussion hadn’t existed at all. Yet still, they all knew somewhere that it was going to come back up eventually; they just knew that now wasn’t the time to mention it. “Would you rather fight a hundred chicken-sized dragons or ten dragon-sized chickens?”

“Well, dragons don’t exist,” Llewel said matter-of-factly, “so there won’t be any dragons to fight.”

Zetai smirked. “Alright, wise guy. For the sake of the argument, dragons are totally real and do all the things that the stories say they do.”

Llewel shrugged. “Chickens, then, I suppose. There’s still a good chance that you’ll be able to kill them.”

“Until you realize that chickens are monsters,” Reynneak mumbled. “I don’t care if dragons are hard to kill, they’re probably a lot better than chickens…”

“When I last saw a chicken, it was nice and fluffy,” Myr mused. “It even let me pet it after I fed it. They don’t seem too bad…”

Zetai laughed and playfully hit Reynneak’s soldier. “This guy has an irrational fear of chickens. According to his mom, when he was three, all the hens they were raising at the time chased him around. I wish I’d been there…”

“In a weird, messed up way, I’m glad I moved while I was in high school so I didn’t have to deal with several more of you,” he sighed.

“What about you, Tinath?” Zetai prompted. “You’re the only one that hasn’t said anything in a while.”

“Seems like you have your own thing going on,” Tinath muttered blankly.

“I think you’d find we’re a lot more willing to let someone else in if they take the initiative,” Zetai responded. “It’s only going to be as difficult as you make it.”

“I’m not going to play slumber party games,” Tinath said. “It makes you all seem like a bunch of kids.”

“What would you rather do, then?” Myr asked. “There’s got to be something that we can all participate in to help us get to know each other.”

“Or we can all focus on what’s important,” Tinath remarked. “We’re not getting anywhere any faster by talking. We’re looking together to find our friends, not to make new ones.”

“Who says there can’t be a combination of both?”

Tinath stopped when she stood beneath a break in all the trees. “You know what? I’ll meet you at the next campsite. Maybe it would do us all some good to split up a bit, too. All we know is that they’re in Kyirius, but it’s still a big place.” Then she followed her hawk’s lead in taking to the sky. It wasn’t long before she disappeared over the trees.

“She quickly lost whatever friendliness she had when we met her,” Zetai grumbled. “We’re helping her here. Is it really so much to ask that we know more about the person that we’re going to be traveling with?”

“It doesn’t really seem like we’re going to be doing a lot of traveling together,” Reynneak pointed out. “She’ll probably keep heading off to the next camp.”

Llewel couldn’t help but put in a thought of his own. “At this rate, what are we doing together that we can’t do on our own? She says she knows something, but so far we haven’t really figured out anything…” He’d really hoped that she would’ve been able to do something; that, somehow, they could’ve had this whole thing figured out much sooner. As much as he didn’t want to, he was beginning to wonder how much she truly knew to start… and whether she knew more or less than she let on.

Still, though, they shook off the conversation for a lighter one. Tinath, just as she’d said, was at the camp when they got there. It didn’t look like she’d expected them to come so soon, however, cooing her hawk and getting embarrassed when she saw them.

They all choose to ignore it in favor of something else.

“We’re pretty close to Kyirius City now,” Zetai remarked. She had the map open and made sure that they were all in a position to see it. “We’ll head there and check in with Relenri. Whether she has some information about Casrane for us or not, we’ll stay there the night and then make sure we have everything to last us a couple of quests.”

“You’ve got the innkeeper to tell you if she hears anything about Casrane?” Tinath asked with an all too unsettling level of curiosity. She was trying to get some other kind of information out of them.

Zetai, though, was smarter than to say what she wanted. “It’s not that big of a deal.”

Everyone else mumbled their agreements that there really was nothing else to be considered. It really wasn’t, but the major reasons for it were best left between them.

Eventually, Zetai, Reynneak, and—after a couple of minutes—Tinath all went on to discuss the rest of their plans. They were explaining the quests they’d intended on doing, proving that, still, Casrane wasn’t their sole reason for going further. Tinath didn’t really seem to be interested in any of it, though followed along to interject her opinion every now and again.

Llewel had considered joining them before he noticed his sister’s expression. He knew that look anywhere. “Another headache..?”

“I was waiting until we got to camp to tell you…” Myr mumbled with a nod.

He went through his things to find it. What he found was not only surprising but brought enough of a reaction out of him that the others realized it, too.

Or, rather, what he didn’t find.

“It’s not here,” he muttered. “I’m sure it was here earlier…”

“Maybe you used all of it already?” Reynneak suggested. He and Zetai had both become aware of it some time earlier, though usually they weren’t involved in anything else relating to it.

Llewel shook his head. “I made sure we had more than enough. I would’ve noticed if we were running out of it.”

“We fought plenty of monsters on our way here,” Zetai offered. “I think some of those ghosts can steal stuff from your Inventory if they hit you. You could’ve lost it.”

“I would’ve seen that.”

Tinath stayed quiet for a little while before saying, “So, am I allowed to ask what you’re all talking about?”

“Myr gets headaches occasionally,” Llewel sighed. “And somehow I lost the one thing that helps with them.”

“It’s not that big of a deal…” Myr muttered, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder.

“Except we figured out they don’t go away on their own and they only get worse.”

No one else seemed to be as concerned as he was about this. Reynneak simply asked, “How hard is it to get more? It can't be too long or too hard if you’ve always been able to get some of it, right?”

“I always came to Duuzlo when we started getting low and he always handled everything else. I also told him beforehand and, even then, it took him a while to make it. I don’t know what he needs or if he keeps any on-hand until we tell him about it…”

“Well, first thing’s first,” Zetai decided after a moment, “we’ve got to get to Kyirius City. Reynneak and I can fast travel back to Nafrius and talk to Duuzlo for you; just tell us everything we need to know before we leave and we’ll make sure he has everything he needs. That way, you’ll be able to wait out in the city for us and we’ll be right back to our adventure once this is all settled.”

Llewel nodded. “Thank you.”