Haahhhhh….Soooohhh…Haaahhhh
Taking a deep breath, I attempted to calm my thumping heart down. I had experienced multiple shocks, emotionally and physically, within a short period of time, so it wasn’t surprising that my heart had been set racing. Ahh, the smell of fur is nice.
“You done talking with your girl?”
Looking up, I discovered the two had come back down already, landing slightly clumsily with their hands holding the fish. The fish had dried overnight, becoming flaky and brittle. I would have thought they would co-operate to drop the fish from one person to the next, but I guess that was being too optimistic. Though last night’s sleep should’ve helped us recover a bit, I guess our brains were still not working to their optimal level.
“You talking to me or the fox? I was led to believe that this fox is a boy.” The princess replied with a shrug, walking over with the fish.
“So what do we do with these?”
“Yeah, they’re starting to smell icky.” Icky? Is that what she thought her patients smelt like back in the slums? Ahhh wait, she must have gotten used to treating the townsmen in the period before our escape. Well, like always, let’s just ignore Shiara when she’s being unhelpful…
“Roast them. Do either of you know how to start a fire?”
“Uh I can with magic...-“
“-Without magic?”
“..uhhh…really never needed to as I always had magic to… do… it…NEVER MIND ME!” She turned her head away out of embarrassment. I had an urge to laugh at her pitiful face. It was cute how her voice softened and face reddened as she realised how redundant her speech had been. This is what happens when you depend on magic too heavily. Mana is not almighty. Shiara seemingly having learnt from Sarra, just gave a curt shake of the head. Well she probably only learnt how to start fires off embers using newspaper as kindling, so wasn’t too confident starting one out in the wild.
“Ok, well Sarra, pass me your dagger, and keep a watch of our surroundings. Tell me if you see anything move. Shiara, bring over some of the branches that we brought down before.” Having finished directing the two, I sifted the ground for some dead dry leaves. We needed some with little water in them, so that they would catch fire easily when hit by a spark. Brittle leaves that would crumble would work, but it would be better if they only made up a minority, or else the fire wouldn’t burn for long.
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Creating a small pile of dry leaves, I pulled out the dagger we had previously stolen, and along with the dagger Sarratina handed over, I started smashing the two blades together.
…
A while later, a spark had finally flown off the blades catching onto the tinder. A small flame burst to life as I gently blew against it. Shiara had finished bringing over enough foliage long ago, and was waiting for the fire beside me. I could feel her staring into me, and when I took a quick peak out of the corner of my eyes, she was staring at me as if contemplating something. Sometimes I wonder what goes on inside her head. Sarra similarly had come over and sat down. Worried at first, I realised upon rethinking that Suticat would most likely warn us of dangers long before we could see them. Rubbing my tired, hands, I quickly used them to cover the small orange flame lest a sudden wind blew it out- not that there was any wind; the air was stagnant around here. Blowing another gentle breath, the fire finally increased to a stable size as I started to throw on some small twigs Shiara had collected.
Sarra had helpfully skewered all the fish with a branch. Grabbing a stick each, we sat around the fire facing each other, fish hanging over the open flames, a thin smoky grey trail floating upwards. Sometime unnoticed by me, Suticat had sneakily crawled onto my lap, his front furry limbs resting on them. We stared at the flickering flames, as if entranced, silently waiting for our Flying-Piranhas to finish roasting.
“Hey, I know that we are in pretty dire straits right now and that we are all tired, but I think we should talk a bit more about ourselves. It will help us co-operate better going on, and even if we ignore all that, even if you two don’t consider me your friend, I still do. So I’ll tell you two more about myself, and then I want you two tell me more about yourselves. You don’t have to say anything that you are uncomfortable sharing like your past. Just what your likes and dislikes are, how you see yourself, what you’re good and bad at. Anything you want to say.” I couldn’t help but yet again notice her natural inborn charisma as a leader. Sarra was truly a princess.
“Anyways, I am the first born princess of Fei, Princess Sarratina El’ La Tronte. My father is the king of Fei, and my mother is the queen Fei. I have a younger brother who should be turning nine this year. To me, he’s a really obedient younger brother, but I heard from the maids he listens to no one apart from mother and me. Apparently father got so pissed off at his attitude of ignoring his tutors that he had him grounded for a week. However, even though my younger brother messes around quite often, he does work hard in sword training and doesn’t do anything too bad- well if he really did, father might actually disown him. I don’t spend much time with father, but mother is often sickly ever since giving birth to brother and spends lots of time sleeping in bed. She likes watching me and my brother and likes sitting on the porch in the garden.”
“Anyways, that’s enough about my family. Knowing you two, I’m going to end up talking the most and because I don’t want to bore you two to death, how about I stop here for a bit and one of you two tell me a bit about yourselves.” Damn Sarra, that was sneaky! …and was she implying that she would tell us more about herself depending on how much we told her? Now that I think about it, we haven’t even been told when or why she was attacked and caught. Surely it was not by a random coincidence that the attack was planned for when it happened; they were clearly targeting her.
While these thought flashed through my brain, I made eye contact with Shiara. We stared at each other, a silent contest of wills for who would go next. You go do it. You go do it. You go do it!
Shiara talk first or I will make sure you step on something unpleasant. I started screaming threats of pranks I would pull in my head if she didn’t talk first. Information is an important commodity, worth it’s weight in gold. Finally Shiara glanced away, seemingly backing off.
*1
“Fine. I’ll go first. You weren’t with us previously Sarra, so I will also talk about my skills and abilities. It is something worth sharing for this journey.” Shiara threw an evil look. Why was that…-Oh no! Shiara you meanie!
“…hehe.” I heard that quiet chuckle Sarra!