1.7 Dark and Cold: At the Verge of Death

“Oooi, wake up.” A very soft and gentle, yet cold voice danced its way against my eardrums.

I opened my eyes and saw a girl wearing an eye patch leaning over my face.
Only half awake—without thinking—I said, “A pirate?”
Her facial expression didn’t change in the slightest. “I am no pirate. However, I suppose I understand where the assumption came from,” she said as she touched the eye patch.
I rubbed my eyes, delighted my body with a divinely stretch, pushed myself up and took off running as fast as my body allowed me to go.

She’s no Royal Guard, I thought, I should be able to escape.

When I turned over my shoulder, she wasn’t there anymore.

“Why are we in such a hurry, if I may ask?”

I swung my head sideways and saw her keeping up with my pace. This speed was as much as I could give, but to her it seemed the conversational jog kind of pace. And only now did it click that she said “we”.

“We?” I asked her, desperately trying to win ground by extending my legs further with each stride.
“Mhm, they shall not catch us here any time soon.”

I unconsciously slowed down a little, “What do you mean they won’t catch us?”

Isn’t she one of “them” anyway?

“Mhm. Whatever brigade of the capital that is looking for you.”

I slowed down even more. How does she know they’re looking for me?

“Lest we calm down, we will not have the energy to make it southward, so let us take it easy,” she suggested.

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Wait, southward? And why are you following me?” I did a feint behind her and started running to her right.

“I am not following you. I am merely here to aid you southward.” She was quick to copy my steps. “Once I am told to return, I will head back to East-Twynne.”

So she’s from the East, huh…

“Then, whose orders are you following?”

“I am afraid that I am not allowed to give away that information.”

My sprint faded into a light jogging pace. “Why would the person that sent you think I’d trust you?”
The both of us came to halt, standing eye to eye. I, on guard and backing off. She, on the other hand, looked unfazed and kept closing in.

“I promise by Julia's grace that I will cordially, honest-to-goodness, aid you southward.” She held her hand to her heart as she bowed.

A promise by Julia, the goddess of veracity’s grace is the highest form of promise you could make here on either side of Twynne’s soil. Not only her words, but the way she spoke them convinced me that she, as she has been saying, has no ill intentions. Though that does not answer to why anyone would send aid in the first place. Especially a girl from the East.

“Alright,” I dropped my guard and stretched out my hand. “I will place my trust in you. Though may the day come you break it, I will not hesitate to call on Julia.”

She shook my hand. “Do not lower your guard so easily.”

“…Eh?”

“I will be wary of you as well. The only reason I trust you, is because I trust the person who sent me here.” She turned her head towards the walls of Maganmur. “Say, is it not time for us to have breakfast?”

Her freezingly cold hand slipped out of mine.

“Break… fast…” I suddenly felt my entire stomach turning over. Only now I realised I hadn’t eaten since the day I escaped. My throat felt as dry as a dessert as well. My vision darkened and I felt my feet losing touch with the ground.

* * *

“Oooi, wake up.” A soft and gentle, yet cold voice entered my ears.

When I opened my eyes and saw a girl with an eyepatch leaning over my face. It took everything I had to not let my impulsive thoughts get the better of me and say “a pirate?” out loud again.

The memories of just now quickly reformed in my brain as I remembered who she was and why I was currently laying down on the grass. Though this specific grass is not the same as before.
She was kneeling beside me, raised my upper body off the ground with one hand and pushed the other one in front of my face. “Please, open wide.”

“A-aaah?”

I saw droplets of the bluest water forming in front of the palm of her hand—this can’t be… She blasted water magic right through my throat.

I leaned forward as I heavily coughed. “Are you trying to kill me?” I said in between coughs. Once the coughing was done, I did feel refreshed. “I hate to admit, but that actually helped…”
Her being a water-based magic user meant more than likely that she is a master of mending. Whoever sent her must want me to stay alive then.

My stomach decided to play the sound of a horn on its own. The cramps were getting unbearable. “Let’s look for something to eat.”

“No need to look around. I have already gathered berries when you were passed out. Open wide,” she said again.

As she was feeding me, she mumbled “I hope these are not poisonous,” underneath her breath. In all honesty, I was too hungry to care.

When I was feeling high in spirits again, she got up and asked me to take a look. With a stick she was holding, she drew a circle in the sturdy dirt. “Capital.”

“Uh-huh,” I nodded.

She drew a cross a little below the circle. “The two of us.”

I nodded again.

Then she poked the stick into the dirt creating small dots all over the place, sometimes drawing small circles next to them. As she was doing that she said, “Forest, forest, town, forest.” Until she drew a big cross to all she had drawn. “Dangerous.”

“Uh…huh?”

“We ought to be careful not to leave too much traces. Therefore it is best not to visit any towns.”
She had a fair point, but I didn’t really feel like camping out in the wild forever. Let’s hope it doesn’t rain.

She drew a new, long line from our cross away from the capital; southward. “Mylne town. It is deserted, not far away from the South Port and it is unlikely that we will be caught staying there for the time being.”

I nodded again. “Alrighty then, off to Mylne it is.”

I’ve never been so far south in my life before. I can’t wait to see the towns and what the people there are like. With this sense of optimism, the two of us set out on a hike that lasted until the setting sun called all to rest.

“Let us set up a bonfire,” she suggested once we were deep into the forest—one with trees significantly taller than the ones in the Fryzwald forest.

Setting up a fire is indeed the best course of action. For one, it’ll keep us warm and as a bonus it scares away most monsters.

“Alright, I’ll gather the material,” I proudly proclaimed. It’s one of the few things that puts me to use.

“Materials? Why would you trouble yourself with finding materials if you could just cast a spell instead?”

I thought I was over this a long time ago, but I still felt somewhat ashamed to say it out loud. “I have no magic stamina, so I can’t cast spells.”

“Hm? Then what about your—”

Suddenly, a loud creaking noise silenced out any other sound.

“What was that just now?” I asked.

Through the shadows of the trees, through which I can’t see anything but darkness, anything but—

—red eyes. Red eyes that in this area can only belong to sleuth bears.

My knees were shaking, and not only my knees, my entire body trembled in fear when one of them crawled its way out of the woods. They’re the worst type of bear to come by. Even though the forest is as dark as the night, they don’t need their eyes to sniff out their prey. On top of that, those things are, just like the trees in this forest, abnormally large. Two houses stacked on top of one another would not reach its head.

“Run!” I yelled out. “I’ll figure out a way to deal with it.”
I held my hands out high, my blades followed suit. I turned my head and saw her, still with no expression on her face, stare at the monster.

“Run! Just run already!”

She let out a sigh, the first time I had seen her expression stray away somewhat from neutrality. Yeah, barely noticeable, but her slightly furrowed eyebrows made her look frustrated.
I couldn’t grasp what she was thinking, why she wasn’t running, nor why I gazed away from the bear so long that it had the chance to charge up to me.

I couldn’t get out of its path. Why is such a massive thing so fast anyway? I asked the gods. My crossed arms weren’t holding the blades up to protect myself, nor her; my crossed arms were the acceptance of defeat.

With no more than a single slash from its enormous claw, it shattered my blades into prisms fading to nothingness.