His pants were still uncomfortably wet, and he lagged behind a bit to avoid offending Aino. Despite the threat of the wildlands and the terror that lurked behind them, she seemed like she was taking a leisurely jaunt across the plains instead of escaping a twisted society recently fallen to rebellion and savagery.

Just a few days ago, after seeing his sister torn apart, he had woken up to find that Aino had dragged him through the sewers to escape the burning city of Beldam. She had managed to bring a pack of supplies including water bags and lighters for each of them, an extra few guns, a lot of ammo, her throwing club, and a couple knives between them. He stunk. She stunk. Their supplies stunk. They both ended up washing in a pond nearby and cleaning out their packs, though everything still had a slight lingering aroma of waste.

He remembered her cold, amber eyes staring at him when woke up, his head still foggy from being hit with something hard, like a club.

"Let's go," she had said, wiping a bit of shit out of her hair. He had wanted to protest, to go back and see if his mom or dad was still alive, to look on in horror as the city collapsed, to go back to sleep, to die. Instead, he grimly followed her, the last person in the world he expected to abandon her post while everything went to shit.

"There is a river to the east," she said, turning her face towards the sun. He grunted a bit, pulling himself out of his memories.

She led him deeper into the forest, changing their direction. He was glad to be entering the cool forest again.

The trees were new to him. He had never felt a tree or seen a tree. Sure, he had heard about them from the other soldiers who had made rounds outside the city, but everything was new outside the walls of Beldam. The wind blew through the trees, rustling leaves. He shivered at the noise. It was a new sound. Birds were new, too.

The first time he heard them, he wondered if there was an enemy nearby. Aino was unperturbed at the sound, but his anxiety entered every muscle until a small bird flitted in front of them, blinking and cocking its head. It whistled at them and flew off. His newfound freedom came with a wealth of new experiences.

His ears perked as he heard something else new. Over Aino’s shoulder, he saw the river. It was a wonderful sound.

Sunlight filtered through the trees that grew along the river, creating a star like pattern on the waters. The water shimmered and shined with its movement. He wanted to run into the river, to see what it was like. He had never seen this much water before. He stopped with Aino, waiting for her direction, craning his neck around to see if there were any enemies or dangers nearby.

She glanced around, hand resting on her club. Then she glanced at him.

“Let’s rest.” She set down her pack and began refilling her water canteen. Keeping his excitement contained, he set down his weapons and began to strip his armor. He took off his pants and underwear, dipping them in the water. He shivered at how cold the water was.

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He glanced at Aino. She was stripping her clothes off, too, soaking them in the water and undoing her braid. He averted his eyes and focused on his own pee-soaked pants.

After scrubbing his clothes as best as he could, he lay them on a rock nearby in the sun to dry. Hesitantly, he stepped his feet into the water.

It felt nice on his sore feet, so he waded out a bit more to waist level. He let the water flow through his fingers, feeling the coolness run by. The pressure of the water felt nice at his back, and he sunk himself neck deep, aware that he did not want to go further in because he did not want to drown.

For him, this was as close to bliss as he had ever come.

"Eien! Get out!" Aino barked. He stood up in the water just as she threw her club at a creature just behind him. A sickening thud was followed by an eerie silence. Eien waded as quickly as he could towards Aino, keeping an eye on the motionless creature behind him.

As he pulled himself out of the river, the creature started to stir. Horrified, he watched the creature rise up slowly on its large haunches. Its hair was slick with water, laying flat and patchy against bluish, ghastly skin. Three horns protruded from its head, spiraling in three directions, like towers of twisted steel. Its long, black claws scratched at the ground, four on each limb. Its face was like that of a goat with bloated eyelids; they started to open.

Aino kicked it in the face.

Eien unfroze. He grabbed his rifle and aimed for the thing's creepy, malicious eye.

Aino was beating it on the head with her throwing club. He lowered his weapon. The creature was already dead.

And she was still going.

Bluish, purple blood soaked the ground across the river. Each sickening crunch of the club was followed by a slick squelch as she pulled the club out of the gore. She grunted every time she hit it, her loose, damp hair flying everywhere, white skin and underwear coated with the monster’s ichor.

Feeling awkward, he took a drink from his water bag. The creature's head was a mishmash of bone, brain, and blood.

Uncomfortable, he called out to her, "What the fuck, An? It's dead already! What the hell are you trying to do?"

She paused, smearing blue blood and sweat on her forehead with her forearm. Her posture straightened as she turned her cold, still face towards him. Eien remembered the sobriquet whispered behind her back: the Stone-faced Queen of Death. Sometimes it was shortened to SQOD, which was less flattering and minimized the terror she instilled with her ambivalent demeanor and expressionless bitch-face.

“Exercise," she called back, sounding a bit like a monster herself. Then she went back to it. Eien sighed and sat himself down by the edge of the river, trying to ignore the morbid sight across the river.

Oh, it is a bird. He watched as it flitted from the branch of a tree to the edge of the river. It chirped, took a few quick drinks, and then shat before it flew away. His enchantment with the bird was somewhat dampened by reality. He lay back on the rock near his clothes. He closed his eyes for a bit, listening to the squelchy music of Aino's butchery.

"Hey, Aino!" Eien shouted, "What was that thing, anyway? It looks like a mutant goat cat." She was slowing down at this point, panting heavily and hitting weakly. She huffed and stretched upwards with a deep groan. Then, grabbing one of the spiralized horns that got knocked loose, she waded through the river, leaving a trail of blue blood sweeping away with the weak currents.

"A water chimera." He waited for more. She merely sat near him and watched upstream.

"What does it do? Where did it come from?"

"It tears apart people with its claws and sucks out their entrails. It comes from the water," she said. Eien rubbed his hands through his hair.

"We should not eat it," she added. He rolled his eyes a bit, remembering the troll in his bag.

After some more silence as they sat together, they packed up and left the shining river, the dead chimera, and the forest, venturing out into the tall grass of the prairie.