"So, what next?", I whispered to Lubbock who pretended I had said nothing.

After breakfast, we were just sitting silently as Claire sipped on his warm tea that both of us had refused. He said it was something that kept him awake all day so he carried it with him wherever he went.

"How long do you think it would take us to get there, Mer?", Lubbock casually imposed us on him.

"Hmm, well it could vary depending on the route we end up on. I'd say about a day. But that is just my conjecture. We could be wandering here for a full week should things go south", Claire didn't realize how we were suddenly his travel partners.

"Ah, that would be a problem!", Lubbock exclaimed as if it was our problem.

"Perhaps so", saying Claire got up, "In any case, we should get moving."

I was dying inside as we dragged ourselves through the barren desert till noon. Lubbock's excitement that didn't dull even a bit throughout was only getting on my nerves. On the contrary, Claire felt uplifted seeing his enthusiasm.

I was just wondering how long that painful day was supposed to last when our deliverers finally showed up.

Some shoddy bunch of 'desert lifters'. A band of outlaws. They were the most harmless band of outlaws if I ever saw one.

"Oi, hand over whatever you have!", one of them roared.

Why would they expect people in the middle of nowhere to have anything worthwhile? Especially so deep in the desert.

Claire, being an unsuspecting fancy man, got down on his knees, surrendering his luggage without further ado. Lubbock and I were still grasping the situation.

Those thieves didn't even have a good weapon. It looked to me like they'd jumped right out of stone age.

"You're troubling us", I stepped up, deciding to put things to an end soon.

"Huh?! The hell'd you say, brat?!"

They were exactly the kind of people that were all bark and no bite. Before I could make them eat dirt, Lubbock stopped me. He grabbed me and peered into my eyes.

"We mustn't show our potential in front of Mer", he said, telepathically. We were good at reading each other's thoughts by looking at the ridiculous expressions we were wearing.

"Lubbock", I replied, telepathically, "You're enjoying this, aren't you?"

"No", replied Lubbock with a straight face, as he held out his hands to be tied up.

"You expect me to believe that?!", as much as I hated to, I had no choice but to follow his lead.

Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

Soon, we were tied up by the foolish looking band of outlaws. They took us to their base, which was way too close to the city, as I later found out. Lubbock sure looked excited to be kept in a cage or tortured or enslaved and sold. I guess people who've been strong all their lives, kind of want to experience those weak-people things. Even if I told him it was no fun, he wouldn't take it. So I went along with him. Claire was scared out of his mind. He was barely keeping it together.

He even told those outlaws that he was a professor at Norn and he would pay them as much as they wanted if they let him go. It was one thing with us, but I couldn't understand why Claire wasn't using magic. Maybe he assumed those guys were stronger than him and putting up a fight might get him killed. In fact, that's probably exactly what he thought. Anyways, those outlaws didn't know what Norn was and so they captured him without listening to anything.

Anyways, we were locked up in a cage. It was the shoddiest cage if I ever saw one. I was scared we might break it if we leaned against it too much.

"Hey, hey, why do you look so bored, Seraph?", Lubbock poked me with his sparkling eyes. He couldn't even sit still because of all the excitement.

My dead pan face was apparently an issue for him. I was so about to lose my patience with him when the outlaws came around. Their base was so bad, I began to think my hidden base in the forest when I was a kid was at least ten times better.

"We should take them to the boss", one of the brutes without a centimeter of brain proposed.

"Nah, the boss might get angry with us."

"Heh?! Why?!"

"Well, we done nabbed us some fools but they don't even have any money on 'em."

In fact, Claire's bag was chock full of valuable artifacts. Good for him though, they didn't know much about anything.

"Really?!", one of them was unnecessarily loud. He was a big lug too. A total oaf.

"Of course! Boss'll be annoyed. Maybe we'll get thrown out..."

"Eh?! I don't wanna get thrown out!"

"Right?! So we shouldn't go to the boss about this!"

"Ahh, you have a point. But what do we do with them then?"

We'll never know why they captured us in the first place.

"I think they'll execute us next", was what Lubbock was thinking. Claire seemed to have withdrawn into a corner. Lubbock wasn't even watching him anymore.

"Ah! That's right!", the other one exclaimed, "We should take them to boss's husband!"

"Perfect, big bro! We should do that! Boss's husband is such an understanding guy. He's really nice!", the oaf seemed to agree.

At least, we were moving forward, I thought, before looking over at Lubbock, whose eyes were open wide and glimmering.

"Their boss has a husband", is what the excited look on his face was screaming.

I don't know why he didn't entertain the possibility that their boss might be a woman, considering our boss was a woman too. But Lubbock simply couldn't see how that would work. He seemed to have an idea that thugs like that could only have a macho man for a boss. You put a husband next to a macho man like that and things are sure to take a turn. That must be why he had such a reaction to this new piece of information.

Just as they'd settled on what to do with us, a breaking sound caught the attention of everyone. Claire had been sitting against the cage and now had broken through.

"Ah, big bro! He broke the cage!", as if it needed to be stated.

"Well, I suppose we have our work cut out for us after we hand them to boss's husband."

Without delay we were taken to the husband. And who should it be but the most unpredictable man in all of Mercae.

"Ah, boy!", he exclaimed, with an air of aloofness as usual, as he chowed down on a snake on a stick.

Lubbock was almost jumping out of his pants because of all the surprises.

"He was one of them all this time!", is what his eyes screamed as he looked between me and the husband.

What a strange climax, I thought, and yet utterly ineffective to me. My dead pan look didn't change one bit. If anything, it was deader than before.

"Man oh man, boy! Didn't think I'd see ya all the way out here", he said, taking another bite of his snack, "You look pathetic, boy! I'd share this snake with you if it didn't taste like an absolute rock."

"Really kind of you, Sight. Chuffed to see you too", I answered mechanically.