Isabel woke up as the light passed between the poorly place planks and landed on her eyelids. She wasn’t sure when did she fell asleep, but she sat next to the table and her head rested on it.
Her memories were a little hazy, but she remembered that Loren was supposed to bring her bedroll back from the forest which obliviously didn’t happen. It was too early for her to panic about thinks and what is more important, the table still had some food on it. Faint ideas about a viable diet that could slow done her progress on ‘body building’ clung in her head, but they could wait after the most important meal in the day, breakfast. Cheese pieces, dried meat or even stale bread. It didn’t matter for the zombie Isabel, she ate what she reached.
After a few handfuls of hunger-pain painkillers, her brain finally turned on and its commands rushed in. Find Loren or die cursed. Isabel's eyes widened, out of reflex she grabbed a shorter sausage chain and ran outside.
The sudden brightness was blinding. Isabel covered her eyes and hastily looked around in panic. Her vision was still blurry, she still felt dizzy, but she had to find Loren. So, she did the only reasonable action that one can do in a bandit camp.
“LOREN!” Isabel shouted.
She called for her a few times as she took a few steps in the yard.
*Crack*
The yard was mostly blood-soaked mud and dirt. She saw no bodies around, yet she stepped on something hard. Rocks.
Isabel's face went pale when she saw the broken stone hand on the ground. She knew whom it belonged to. It was a dreadful moment, tears gathered in her eyes and fall on the limb as she picked it up with shaking hands.
“Loren…” She mumbled and hugged the hand tightly.
“Isabel.” She still could hear as Loren called for her, from beyond.
“Isabel!” Loren’s voice echoed in her mind.
“Loren!” She shouted for her friend for the last time. “I never forget you.”
“Isabel, for fuck sake. Turn around!”
She turned her head toward the source of the faint sound. In the distance on the other side of the meadow, she saw Loren waving her hand and walking toward her.
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It was hard to believe. She stood before her with intact limbs and with a cocky smile on her face.
“So, your arm.”
“It grew back.”
“Just like that.”
“Yep.”
Isabel broke the silence with a sigh. It seemed that there were more to this world then first meets the eye.
“Alright, then. But where have you been, I waited all night for you.”
“Fall into a crypt, couldn’t climb out. I had all the time at hand, so I follow a passage underground, blind. But once I was out I had to wait till sunrise. Oh, and there was a dart trap as well.” She spoke of such events like they were a day-by-day occurrence around here. It would have been harder to believe her story, but after she saw Loren’s hand, it just couldn’t leave an impression in her anymore.
“Fine by me, miss casual. Since you are fine, I need your help.” Isabel waited, but Loren didn’t answer. For Isabel’s surprise, she was listening. “I want to load a cart with as much food as possible with vegetables first. After that everything else.”
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“Why, to stuff yourself on the way? No way. You are on a di…” She couldn’t finish it and Isabel sized the opportunity she created.
“Yes, but not on yours. Not anymore. I’ve read once in a beauty magazine that food with high fibre can help to keep one’s shape. Combining that with a light workout and with the sparing, I should be fine, fit and well fed.”
Loren just shrugged and follow Isabel’s lead. She wasn’t sure what these fibre filled foods were. She only knew one plant but that wasn’t food, it was for making clothes.
The cart slowly filled up. Two crates of veggies that’s all they found. If it were properly rationed it could last up to two weeks even with Isabel’s appetite. But they didn’t stop, once one food group was out another one followed. Dried meat, smoked fish, cheese, bags of grain and fruits, they even stocked the lard at the end. The bandits were too well prepared on food in Loren’s opinion.
The cart was only half full when Isabel started to bring out more stuff from the houses. Wool filled bags, kitchen tools, an empty cauldron. As the list went on the more absurd it became. Loren excused herself and went for the weapons they left in the forest.
It didn’t make sense for her. But as she went through what she saw, she got the picture. Low level and untrained bandits with a few higher level one, five carts, lots of food in big variety alongside with spare clothes, wool, tools and so on. The last piece of the puzzle was the witch who also happened to be the only female in the camp.
Loren gave it one last thought as she entered the camp with the bundled weapons, but she settled on not telling Isabel that the bandits they killed might have been local villagers before the witch and her party. After Isabel’s breakdown, it was for the better to keep her away from anything even remotely unsettling for a while.
Isabel leaned to the loaded cart and watch Loren as she returned with their last packet. Once it was on the cart they could finally depart.
“Anything else?” Asked Isabel as Loren put down the swords.
Loren just shook her head while she observed the cargo. “You know that we have to leave this behind if it comes to fleeing?”
“Most likely, but let’s worry about it then.”
Overconfident and takes serious matters lightly. It was a bad combination already, but it only made it worse that it reminded Loren of her past. “Loren?” That cursed mansion that sealed her fate. She felt the urge to find out who set her up. “Loren?” Her grips tightened as she saw herself gutting that rat.
“Loren!” Isabel shouted at her as Loren continued staring at Isabel’s middle.
“It wobbles.” She said.
“What?” Isabel looked down. Even over her chests, she saw the out sticking belly. “Oh… Yeah.” She grabbed a handful of that dough mass, it was already too big to just suck it in. That it she thought, she was out of shape.
“It’s not just food anymore.” Loren’s words hurt her, yet she only stated a fact.
Sigh. “Shall we depart?”
“It would be the best.” Loren glared at the full cart and smiled. “But you going to pull this. It will be a good ‘Light’ workout for you.”
“I was planning to.”
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The sun was low when the two reached the end of the mountain passage, the last cliffs bid farewell to them and the world opened before their eyes as they stood on the side of the mountain.
Trees, as far as the eyes could *yawn* see. The gentle summer breeze waved the foliage. The road they followed disappeared at the foot of a mountain, but its way was clear it headed toward the azure coloured lake at the edge of the horizon.
But despite all the beauty that nature could offer, they stood no chance against the ancient tree in the far away. A tree that loomed over the clouds and reached toward the stars.
“Well, could have been worse.” Loren put her hands at her hip. “Never been this far in the south, but at least we knew where we are heading.”
“Let me guess. Big tree?”
“Yeah. The home of elves, faired, dryads and beast folks like you... Mostly, they are more beasty, but you got the picture.”
“And we are going there because?”
“Big tree and mother of nature who course you. Do you need more? But jokes aside, over there you can ask Dahlia for a challenge to remove your course and I also can ask for guidance for myself.”
“Guidance?” Isabel asked, and Loren just realized her mistake. Isabel must not know what the mad god was holding for her and the others.
“Um… I am kinda a religious type. But enough talk, we should reach the first trees and set up a camp for the night. We have a long journey ahe…”
The crunch of a vegetable caught Loren’s attention as Isabel started her new diet, maybe with a little too much delight. She nibbled on a single carrot, satisfied. If Isabel assumptions were right, her diet would halt the curse’s effect on her and yet she could eat freely.
Walking side by her gave Loren a good view on the growing girl’s frame as the first signs of overly wellbeing left their undeniable burdens on her. She only could hope that Isabel’s mumbo-jumbo about these fibres where at least a little true or soon enough she will have to roll her towards the Forbidden Forest.