Hreysti was a lot quieter on the way back to camp, only sniffling up snot and not saying a word as he walked. It was better, but it still made Dyo feel twinges of guilt and sympathy, though now he wasn’t touching him. Hreysti had asked him to after he let himself let the last of his tears out on Dyo’s shoulder.

The three came back to meet a small cookfire growing tended to by Agrippa, and a slowly rising Ercole.

“And the sleeping pharaoh finally awakens,” Shani muttered, “How did his lordship find his completely peaceful sleep?”

Ercole groaned, “I missed something big, didn’t I?”

“You could say that. You have a remarkable new talent for sleeping through traumatic events.”

He glared at her before glancing at Dyo and Hreysti with a sudden dawning of understanding.

“I’m uh- Sorry for that…”

Shani let out a dry chuckle, “A rare bit of humility from a noble? That’s made my morning better.”

He sighed, “I thought I’d already proven myself to not be too pompous.”

“And a bit more whoreish.”

“You know, if it wasn’t for the fact that you’re a commoner, I think you’d get along with my father.”

A loud groan emanated from Agrippa before Shani could continue, “Please stop bickering, it’s not good for any of us right now…”

“I suppose so…” Ercole muttered. He pulled himself up from his sleeping roll and walked over to Dyo and Hreysti, his expression a little more serious. “I trust you, remember that Hreysti. I wouldn’t be travelling with you otherwise.”

Dyo thought he could hear an almost silent, “thank you,” he muttered from Hreysti’s lips, though he didn’t make eye contact with either of them. Instead, he was looking down with his eyes unfocused. Ashamed.

“And you don’t have to hide those pretty eyes from me or Dyo. We both appreciate them.”

Dyo felt a pang what he could only assume to be jealousy strike him, though he wasn’t sure why. He was just talking about a friend’s eyes after all…

He just pushed it to the back of his head. It was a little silly to think of that and right now he needed to eat. And so did Hreysti…

Dyo looked over to him. Hreysti was certainly looking a little more sickly than usual, with his face looking slightly slimmer than usual. It was a clear sign that he needed to eat but there wasn’t any way he was going to drink anything without a fight.

His eyes drifted over to one of the wineskins. He could maybe put a few drops in there, enough to satiate him for a day or so; enough time for him to maybe take some without having to deceive him.

“Dyo.”

He snapped out of his thoughts to be met with Hreysti’s sad gaze.

“You’re going to try and put some blood in there, aren’t you?”

“The-“

“The wine skin. You were going to cut yourself and try to give it to me.”

“You’re hungry! I can tell! You haven’t drunk anything for a few days and we said you’d drink some of m-“

“That was before. I don’t think I can stand to even taste it now for a while and I’m fine-“

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A piece of wood thudded to the ground as Agrippa slammed it to the ground, “Hreysti! You are not fine!” They yelled, eyes ablaze, “You look hungry and none of us are going to have you stave on us! It’s all right to ask for our help and you’re not taking our blood, we’re giving it to you and we want you to have it. Just have some.”

“I don’t think I can drink it…”

“But you can try, please. Dyo, do you want to give him it?”

Dyo nodded and started to take off his doublet, “I can give you some in the wine, or you can have my shoulder.”

Hreysti swallowed hard, eyeing Dyo’s tanned skin as he bared his shoulder. Hreysti looked at it, and the wine flask, his body tensing and settling in cycles as Dyo saw an internal battle play out till he finally settled.

“Can- Can I have some from your shoulder?”

A small smile set in on Dyo’s face, “Please do.”

He crept forward, almost like a dog cautiously approaching a treat laid on the floor. He reached forward, grasping onto Dyo’s shoulder, seeming to savour the touch, before slowly and gently biting in.

The pain in Dyo’s shoulder was instant and sharp as usual, but it was dampened by watching his friend recover so quickly. He raised his hand, tentatively placing it on Hreysti’s back. They didn’t pull back when he placed it but instead kept feeding, taking a good, long drink.

Then Hreysti pulled away, wiping his mouth and reaching out to wipe the blood from Dyo’s shoulder, “I’m sorry I took so-“

“It’s fine. Did you… Enjoy it?”

He looked away, staying silent for a moment before answering, “I did…”

Dyo’s little smile grew a little larger, “I’m glad.”

But the moment was cut short by Agrippa coughing. “Dyo, the food’s cooking so uh- Maybe you should clean up… Both of you.”

“Right…”

Breakfast was the usual flavoured porridge they’d been eating for a few days now. It wasn’t much, but it was something Dyo had been used to eating all his life. Ercole on the other hand was filled with a veiled and slight displeasure, twirling his spoon in his hand as he looked to take his mind off of the bland gruel.

“So, what was it that you all saw, as I assume you must have seen something in your sleep to cause all… This.”

“It was a fae,” Agrippa answered, “and they said something about ley lines being here.”

He looked around, glancing over at the bubbling pool of water, and the vibrant flowers, and nodded. “That fits…” He muttered, “Was there anything else?”

“They showed us a meeting of the gods-“

Ercole nearly spat out a mouthful of porridge, “How is it that you three have gotten into two run-ins with the gods themselves!? Regular humans would be hailed a prophet or a saint for one!”

Hreysti scoffed, “You were there for one of them too.”

“But not for a full meeting of them! Who was there, what did they say!?”

Agrippa cleared their throat, “There were five of them. Caeru, Ishtart, Yaawha, Calsynaicus, and Ƿó… They were playing some sort of game with cards and were just casually talking but…” They looked over to Hreysti, the two’s eyes meeting for a moment before they turned back to Ercole. “You can guess where it went when Ƿó came in.”

“Did you also have a dream Ercole?” Dyo asked.

They all looked at him. He’d remembered the other person in the water in the dream ever so faintly. But that white hair was striking.

“I don’t remember it clearly,” Ercole said slowly, “I remember seeing something but it’s all just... escaped me now, like leaves down a stream that I could not tell you where it went. I do remember falling at one point, but that’s all I can remember.”

So, it might have been you then… But why were you there…

“Either way,” Ercole continued, “We should probably get going if we’re in a fae’s grove. I don’t like our chances with one if they decide we’re a nuisance to them. Luckily the crossing won’t be much further.”

“You’ve mentioned that before, what sort of crossing is it?”

“A fairly quiet one, I know that much. It’s within a day’s travel of here if my notes are correct and on the other side should be a Republic waystation. Then we can continue a little way onwards to the border city of Paduro where we should all be able to have a very well-deserved bath.”

Shani sniffed, “And what about guards? I doubt they’d leave a bridge across a large river to an opposing kingdom without anyone to watch it.”

“They might have a few people on it, but chances are that they’d just be a few watchmen. It wouldn’t be anything we could bluff, or if it came to it, fight our way past.”

Agrippa raised a hand, “Wait, so there might be guards there and we might have to kill them!? I thought you said earlier that it’d all be fine if we made it this far?”

“Well, we will be! Just it might, might get a little messy if the guards there decide to you know, make it a little more complicated. Which won’t happen if we all act normally.”

“And if the Inquisition hasn’t sent any messages to the border guards.”

“And they probably won’t have given that we haven’t been chased at all for our entire journey so far! We’re just an inconvenient bit of history to them now. It wouldn’t make sense to draw more attention to it and waste resources on some rats running off to pagan lands that are out of their way anyway. So, once we’re all finished with this… Food we can get going!”