“Help! My friend’s been severely injured!” The armed men exchanged bewildered looks with one another. Then they nodded to each other.

“Take him over here!” one of them said, walking towards, and pointing at, one of the tents. I followed him in and he gestured over to a mat in the centre of the room. “Set him down.” I did as he said and another two men came into the tent, one of them carrying a box. They went over to Dennis and they opened up the box, revealing different compartments containing various tools and jars.

“You can wait outside,” one of them said to me. I left the tent and stood outside. Tasha came over to me and silently held my hand. After a few moments of silence, I finally realized just how much danger I put everyone in. I glanced around at the various armed men, feeling partially relieved that they didn’t turn out to be hostile. I also started to think about everything else that happened today before hitting myself in the head. Tasha looked at me with shock.

“Are you okay?” she asked, looking at me with concern.

“Yes,” I lied. I knew I had to deal with everything sooner or later, but I greatly preferred doing it later. The armed men milled about the campsite, some of them watching us warily. Then, a woman came out of one of the tents. She spotted us in an instant and walked over to us. She had long, black hair, and unlike the men, wore rather fine traveling clothes. They were dyed a dark green. I’m sure there were also a variety of other little details about her clothing, but I noted none of them. I was a lot more focused on her face. Her black hair fell over to her right side, and partially covered up her right eye as well as her cheek. In the dark, the one eye I could see clearly seemed to shine with a piercing, silver light. When she arrived at our location, she gave a beautiful smile.

“Hello,” she spoke, with a silky voice, “I am Destiny.” She offered a hand. I blanked for a second.

“Uh…hi. My name is Braith.” I shook her hand numbly.

“My, what a unique name. I do not believe I have ever heard one quite like it before.”

“Y-yeah. I get that a lot.” I then realized that I had still yet to let go of her hand. I quickly released my grip. “I’m sorry about that.”

“Oh, don’t worry. I don’t mind it.” I blushed. Literally. “And may I ask who she is?” I looked to my side, a little bit confused, before seeing a pouting Tasha.

“Ah! Uh, right! This is Tasha.” I hesitated before continuing. “My daughter.” I never paid much attention during previous introductions, but I was strangely keen to see Destiny's reaction. She just beamed at me with another one of her beautiful smiles.

“Oh, is that so? Well, she is an absolutely lovely-looking little girl. You must be so proud.” Damn straight, I thought, my other concerns momentarily pushed off to the side. “So, what brings you to our little camp?” That question took me a few seconds to process. My face returned to a look of utter depression. Then, before I had a chance to answer, the men from inside the medical tent came out. They came up to me and all but one of them had a stone-faced expression. The last one had a face that made the results obvious.

“Most unfortunately, we could not save your friend.” I swallowed a bit. Reflecting back on the day, I began regretting my decisions and wondering what I could have done instead to prevent even just one death. But, remembering the last time I started along this sort of downward spiral, I tried to stop myself by just saying anything.

“I see. I thought it didn’t look too bad, but…” well, what do I know, I’m not a doctor.

“Well, the wound itself wasn’t too serious. Honestly, if it was only just that, we could have saved him.” I looked at the man quizzically. “We took a closer look at the wound and found traces of poison. Not particularly fast-acting, but it numbs the senses and eventually causes death in a couple of hours.”

“A couple of hours?” I asked, thinking back on how long it took to reach this camp.

“It was already too late by the time you arrived.” I just stared back with my mouth agape. “Sorry,” he added unnecessarily.

“My most sincere condolences, Braith.” Destiny’s voice somehow had the effect of washing away some of my depression. I still didn’t feel good, not at all, but I did feel better for some reason.

“Thank you, Destiny. I…I just…I don’t know.” Really, I had no idea what I was trying to say. Some line that perfectly encapsulates my anguish? Some kind of line to indicate I can move on? Some line that subtly, but strongly shows how I think about her and her dazzling beauty? Wait, what?

“You look like your entire day has been rough, Braith,” Destiny said, cutting into my elongated silence. “Please, rest here for the night. I know the rest of us won’t mind, right?” She glanced around the camp and every man who met her gaze strongly nodded.

“Of course, you must be feeling awful right now. Please, we have some open space in one of our tents, you must stay here for the night!” one of the men insisted. Destiny glanced back at me with a smile and I immediately found myself strongly nodding as well.

“You’re right. Thank you.”

One of the men guided Tasha and I to one of the tents. We removed our luggage and I lay down on a mat, staring blankly at the tent’s ceiling. After a few moments, I felt a sharp nudge in the side. I turned over, and saw Tasha, crouched down on all fours. The tent was dimly lit by a mix of moonlight coming through the opening flap and a lantern sitting at the other end. Despite the shadows, she looked very visibly upset.

“W-what? What is it, Tasha?”

“I’ve been trying to call out to you for the last ten times and you just ignored me.” Really, that doesn’t sound like me? My expression showed my thoughts and Tasha nudged me again.

“Ow! Stop that!”

“I’ll stop when you start acting like yourself again.” I sighed at her comment.

“Listen, Tasha, I know you want me to get back to being myself, and believe me, so do I. I- I just need time. A lot has happened today.” Tasha could still be immature at times, well, a lot of the time, but I was hoping that she could understand the terrible day we’ve both had. I guess Tasha is just made of stronger stuff than me because her face showed no sign of relenting.

“Dad, you don’t get it! You don’t even realize you aren’t acting like yourself!” She got up and took a few steps away. “Do you even understand what I’m saying here?” For some reason, that struck a nerve with me. I stood up too and advanced a couple steps over to her.

“Tasha, I perfectly understand what you are saying. You are saying I am not acting like myself and that’s true.” I felt the volume of my voice quickly rising. “Heck, I don’t know if I can ever be exactly like myself again. Just today alone, I’ve walked over several corpses and listened to the dying words of three men, one of them asking for revenge, another cursing me, and the other thanking me before dying in my arms. I also killed a man, and received the powers of some guardian spirit as a reward for that! Does that sound like a normal rate of progression to you?!” It would have been no surprise to me if everyone in the camp heard that last line.

For just a second, Tasha looked hurt. I was a bit harsh, but maybe I finally got through to her? Then, she instantly wore an even angrier expression than earlier. I actually stumbled a bit as she walked right past me to exit the tent.

“T-Tasha? W-where are you going? Come back here!”

“I’m going for a walk, dad. I need some air,” she said coldly, without turning back. I wanted to chase after, but I suddenly had no idea what to say anymore. I also didn’t much feel like tolerating the gazes of the people outside. I slowly slumped back down onto the map and hit myself in the head. It’s not Tasha’s fault. Well, not entirely. I mean, no, no, it’s not her fault. I hit myself in the head again just as Destiny stepped inside. I gazed at her blankly before putting on an awkward smile.

“Oh, hey. Um, what brings you here?” I asked, clearly knowing why.

“Well, after hearing all of that from outside, I was wondering how you were feeling now.” She came in closer and wore a concerned look that seemed to go straight to my heart.

“Oh, yeah, it’s just…I’ve been acting like an idiot. I feel that, only just now have I realized that the things I’ve set out to do are way bigger than I could imagine.”

“What kind of things are those?” Normally, I would never tell anyone about Tasha’s situation. Actually, wait, I thought, why would I change my mind now?

“Oh, I’m sorry. I can’t really say,” I said, for some reason hating myself a bit for keeping the secret.

“Oh, no, I’m the one who should apologize,” she said, waving her hands in the air, “I didn’t mean to pry.” Her reaction almost made me change my mind. “Anyways, it is still quite plain to see you’ve had somewhat of an argument with your daughter. I hope it is nothing too serious.”

“She’s just worried. Too worried. She needs to understand that some things just take time.”

“Well, patience is quite the rare virtue for children.” I smiled a bit.

“Yeah, you can say that again.”

“Oh, looks like you’re already starting to cheer up. It can’t have been that serious, then?” I stood back up and puffed out my chest.

“Yeah, it was just a misunderstanding. I better go and talk to her again right away.” I walked over to the exit just as Destiny called back to me.

“Oh, wait just a little bit.” I turned back around. Destiny came up right next to me and casually grabbed one of my hands with both of hers.

“Girls are really quite fickle, you know. Of course, they always want to think they’re right, but if you go along with them too quickly after disagreeing with them so strongly, they’re not going to think it’s genuine. I suggest letting her cool down a bit longer. That way, when you finally talk with her again, she’ll believe that you spent long and hard thinking about it.” At that moment, if someone were to tell me if Destiny wasn’t the smartest woman in the world, I’d call them a dirty liar.

“Of course! Right, I was just about to make another mistake, wasn’t I?” I asked rhetorically with a laugh. “Right, right, I should just wait here for her to come back when she is good and ready.” Destiny squeezed my hand just a bit tighter and leaned in closer.

“Well, not quite.” She was close enough for me to feel her breath on my neck. I instinctively swallowed and felt a few beads of sweat break out on my forehead. “If you’re still here when she comes back, she might also think that you didn’t spend any time thinking about how you were wrong at all.” She looked at me very knowingly.

“Uh…yeah,” I stammered out, “Girls sure are complicated…” She smiled at me and sentences just stopped trying to form in my head. I put on a goofy smile and just nodded repeatedly.

“Right, so, let’s leave this tent for a bit, you know, so that she’ll think you went looking for her or that you got some air to think on things as well.”

“Sounds good,” I said, still nodding. She led me out of the tent and before I knew it, we were suddenly seated on a mat. In the distance, we could faintly see the light from the camp’s fire. I tried looking around a bit more but Destiny called out to me.

“Look up,” she said. I obeyed and found myself gazing up at the starry night sky. “Beautiful, don’t you think?” Well, not that most beautiful thing I’ve seen today.

“Yeah, it’s nice. It’s been a while since I’ve actually really looked up at the stars like this.” I heard Destiny shuffle a bit and when I looked over, I saw her lying down on the mat.

“It’s better if you lie down as well,” she said, patting down right next to me. I did as she suggested, and although the sky didn’t look any different, it did have a very different feel. This was mostly due to my fixation on the fact that Destiny was lying down right next to me.

“So, do you come out to watch the stars often?” I asked, still looking straight up at the sky.

“Oh, all the time. One of the best parts about traveling.”

“Is that so? I guess I’ve been missing out on a true traveling experience.” I let out a bit of a depressed sigh as I thought back on traveling with Dennis.

“Hey, come on now, you’ll move on,” she said encouragingly, as if reading my mind.

“You think so?” I asked, turning my head to face her, and almost regretting that decision. Her face was a lot closer to me than I expected and I almost gasped in surprise.

“Of course.” She smiled at my apparent embarrassment. “So, what do you plan to do next? Where are you planning to go?”

“Well, we were headed for the Nature Clan, but…”

“You don’t have any reason to go there anymore, right?” she guessed correctly. “I’m also supposing there wasn’t really a back-up plan?” My silence was my expression of agreement. She just beamed even more and gave a short laugh. “Hey, don’t be so down. Life is filled with all sorts of unexpected twists. You just need to look for new opportunities and make the best of them.”

“New opportunities? Like what?”

“Well,” she pursed her lips together as if unsure of whether or not to go on.

“Please.” She looked as if she were thinking about it a bit more before continuing.

“You could travel with us,” she suggested with an expression that seemed to convey her uncertainty.

“Oh, well, I don’t know about…”

“Oh, no, I’m really sorry. That was probably a really stupid suggestion.” Destiny’s embarrassed look made it even harder to try and think straight.

“No, no, it’s just that…well…”

“Well?” Well what? What was the problem? My traveling companion is gone now, and today was the biggest wake-up call imaginable for why one shouldn’t travel alone. Heck, they even have someone with medical knowledge. And most importantly of all, there was Destiny. Only an idiot would just go off on their own after receiving such an offer.

“You know what, there is nothing else. That sounds like a great idea, Destiny.” I still felt uneasy saying this. Why was that? “Oh, but would the rest be okay with that?” Ah, that must be it.

“Oh, of course they would. We are just a group of friendly adventurers who help out when it’s needed. Don’t worry, I’m sure they would love to have you on board.” Destiny’s assurances, although having a soothing effect on my soul, did little to ease my uncertainty. There was still something else. Destiny suddenly held one of my hands in hers. “I look forward to traveling with you.” My resistance had nearly broken down before I suddenly remembered.

“No, I can’t!” My refusal shocked her. I freed my hand and sat straight up. “I have somewhere I need to go. No matter what.” How could I have forgotten my promise with Tasha?

“W-wait!” Destiny cried out, also getting up. “Where do you need to go? We can go together.” Maybe, but that would probably require me to reveal Tasha’s secret. This was something I could not compromise on.

“No, I’m sorry Destiny, but that won’t do.” I stood up and gazed around, trying to see if I could spot Tasha in the dark, but it was futile. I shook my head and started walking back to the camp. As I neared the edge of the campsite, Destiny ran up to me and grabbed my arm.

“Come on, Braith, where are you going? I’m sure we can work it out together.” I turned around to face her and she gave me one of her beautiful smiles. It was still quite lovely, but something seemed different. I stared back at her quietly as she continued to smile at me, and that’s when I noticed the silver glint in her eye had faded. Well, that’s the only difference I could think of, but that probably just had to do with the moonlight or something. I brushed that thought aside and gently put one hand on one of her arms.

“I’m sorry, but no.” I started pulling away again. Instead of letting go of me, though, she pulled in even closer. Our faces were now right next to each other.

“Braith, stay, please,” she said, with a rather strange intonation. I just looked back at her with confusion. Then, she suddenly kissed me.