{-Llewel-}
The little bell above them rang and Enreru immediately looked up to greet them. Once that was done, she gave a more natural gesture for them to come a bit closer.
“I was wondering when you’d come by, dears!” Though, as they got closer, she was already messing with something behind the counter. “Kaerio came over with this a couple of minutes ago. If you’d been here just a smidge sooner, you might’ve been able to see him. But I think he was busy with other players. Or maybe Iris wanted him for something—he didn’t stay nearly as long as he usually does.”
“We’re the ones with something to give you,” Llewel pointed out hesitantly. He didn’t know why he was surprised. “Since we’re doing a quest for Ucadra.”
Casrane let out a bit of nervous laughter and stepped closer to the counter. “She’s talking about my thing. It’s not something that the rest of you have to worry about…”
Tinath was quick to dully point out, “I’m pretty sure it is and we all know it.”
“You haven’t told them about this yet?” Enreru’s tone dropped and her smile faded, but the almost amusing part—in a sad way—was how she seemed to be expecting it. “You’re with them for a reason, Casrane. What’s the difference between this and going on your own if you’re not talking to them?”
“There’s a safety in numbers,” was the half-answer none of them truly believed. “There’ll be a time for all of that stuff later. Can we just get this started so we can keep going? You know that this isn’t exactly something we can spend a lot of time on. The sooner we can get this all done, the sooner we can pretend like things can go back to normal.”
“You know I don’t like hearing that kind of tone from someone as young as you.”
“Then I think that’s something you should bring up to Dad. All I’m trying to do is make sure that no one else has to get hurt, or involved in something they shouldn’t be a part of.”
Enreru sighed. “I suppose the most I can do, in that case, is to hope all of you stay safe. I’m not going to be convincing you of anything.” She reached behind the counter, grabbed whatever Casrane needed, then looked at the other five. “Do you have Ucadra’s item with you? I’ll go ahead and take what I need from it now.”
Zetai nodded and walked up to give her the box.
Reynneak, after a moment in silence, offered, “It sounded like he might’ve been busy, but we can try to find Kaerio while we’re here, too. Kyirius City is close enough that we could spend a little more time here and still get there by the end of the day.”
“I doubt it would be that hard to track him down,” Tinath agreed. “At least then you could say hello while you’re here.”
“Yeah…” Myr smiled, a bit, at the thought of it. “Maybe if he’s busy with something we could help out a little…”
“I think I’m going to stay at the inn, though,” Casrane said, a casual air barely masking the nervous edge to it. “I’d rather rest a little before heading to Kyirius. Besides, it… might not be the same, if I’m there with you when you see him.”
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“Then I’ll stay at the inn, too,” Llewel decided confidently. “I don’t want to leave you alone. People here are probably just as willing to try something with you as they are with us—especially if Nankohm’s offered them something.”
Myr’s smile faded again. “But that means I’m the only one that’ll be seeing Kaerio…”
“If you want to go, then don’t let us stop you,” he said in the most reassuring tone he could muster. “He’d be glad to hear how we’ve been doing, even if he only sees one of us. The players will be with you, too—you’ll be together in case you run into any issues.”
Casrane nodded. “We’ll be right at the inn when you come back. Don’t worry about us.”
Llewel wondered, for a moment, if she realized what his offer had been made for. But then she glanced at him and he was fairly certain she understood—and realized there was no way of getting out of it. Well, at least not while maintaining the vague sense of ambiguity she had been.
Myr considered it for a moment but, ultimately, nodded. “If it takes any more than an hour, we’re probably just going to head back to the inn, too. We still need to get to Kyirius today.”
…
It was almost laughably casual. They walked to the inn together without saying a word. Casrane left, for a moment, to get them both a glass of water. Then they sat across from each other, silent, with his eyes focused on hers, and hers paying attention to only the cup in front of her.
“You don’t have to worry,” she said eventually. “All you have to do is trust me.”
“If I knew all I had to do was trust you, then this wouldn’t be a problem. But I don’t think I can do that—not after everything else.”
She looked calm—any outsider would probably say that she was—but he knew better than to think that was all it was. “I’ll tell you eventually, but it’s not the right time.”
“Yeah, you’ll tell us eventually. Just like you were ever going to tell us what was happening before—when you gave the bare minimum answer just to keep us from asking questions. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but you’ve made promises you knew you couldn’t keep. I can’t tell who was the dumber one—you, for thinking it would work forever, or us, for actually believing what you said.”
She hesitated. “I hadn’t realized you knew that part. I thought no one else would mention it… not a lot of other people even know about that level of the details…”
“You realize that Tinath’s with us, right? That other person you used to know, that also had to have told you how stupid this was. She told us the stuff you hadn’t.”
“It didn’t matter.”
“Technically, you’re right. That’s, at least, not the only reason we’re all here right now. But what if it had? Then we’d know nothing, without anyone to tell us. We’d only have the void promises you made to us. The half-lie you told wouldn’t have held up at that point, and I think you knew that.” He sighed. “If I knew that things were going to be as simple as ‘let’s hope for the best, and we’ll worry about the worst later,’ then I wouldn’t bother. But we need to think beyond whatever the most hopeful outcome is. We can’t rely on the fact that we’re going to get to the point where this all makes sense in the end. We need something, so then there isn’t a bigger gap when we realize we’ll never know.”
“I’ll… think about it, how about that? But I promise—and I can guarantee this one—that nothing’s going to happen between now and when I’ll tell you. For better or worse, we’re seeing the end of this through together. There weren’t any other options the moment I decided to stay with you.”