TBATE | Lingering Flames

Renewed Faces

ARTHUR LEYWIN

"Are we there yet?" It was recently brought to my attention of the existence of creatures with a stubbornness that far surpasses my own. I was awestruck, the woman's pestering and presence was grinding on my nerves. 

On my nerves. I was supposed to be a beacon of stability and hope, standing strong in the wake of any waves of hardship. But something about this woman was particularly annoying. It wasn't in the way she talked or the occasional clumsy step, it was something less, something so minute and concealed I couldn't pinpoint it. 

I guess she just caught me at a bad time.

"Hey! C'mon kid, just tell me where we're going." She would sometimes raise her voice without warning, either not understanding the purpose of moving stealthily in a hostile forest or simply not caring. "If you tell, I promise to give you a reward." Her voice had a slight seductive tone to it, and without turning around, I could tell she was slightly swaying her hips.

"I already told you, I'm looking for my grandmother and it'll take a while as she's a bit of a recluse." Without moving my mouth, I used sound magic to relay my answer to our right, making her head jerk in that direction. "And if you want to seduce someone, may I suggest a quick shower? I, for one, am not all that into the whole torture kink."

While all of her wounds were closed and her bruises now looked less severe, she was still covered in dirt, with patches of grass and twigs in her hair or through her clothes. She was missing a shoe, her elegant gloves now fingerless, and her nicely tied hair was left loose and wild. 

"Can you just stop it with your cryptic old man talk? For goodness sakes, you don't seem to be older than five and here I am busting my ass trying to look out for you! Be grateful dammit!" She says as her short fuse only burns shorter.

"Your senses are pretty sharp. Most other people would have locked on to the voice and followed it until they starved to death." It was a genuine compliment. From faking voices with sound magic to conjuring mirrors of ice to throw off her vision, she was adamant in tailing me and never fell for my tricks for more that a few seconds. 

"You son of a-" She was cut off by her grunts of pain, tripping over a suspiciously smooth, well placed earthen bump that made the woman fall face first into the ground, barely reacting in time to catch her fall. 

Unrelated to me in any way, I envied the hardy lump of dirt in its ability to consistently do things my simple words could never hope to achieve.

For a few minutes, I enjoy a peaceful silence, embracing the warmth of the sun's rays weaving through leaves and foliage and illuminating my surroundings in a gentle orange hue. The lack of wind played into the quiet, the sound of busy leaves replaced by the occasional scraping of wood or lone howl. 

My "elder sister" was still behind me, dusting dirt off her knees and keeping her thoughts to herself. Her quiet mouth was welcome, if not a bit unsettling from her shift in mood. 

She walks up to me and places a hand on my shoulder as she takes a deep breath. Turning me around to face her before clearing her throat she says "Hello there little boy, my name is Trista Newflower, what's yours?"

With a kind smile on her face, she holds out her hand with her palms up, asking me to take it. This was it, this was everything I ever wanted. If I refuse her hand here she'll most likely leave me to myself and we'll go our separate ways. Though if I took her hand, it'd be an invitation to follow me, possibly having more success in getting answers out of me after showing me this new found respect. 

Of course, there was the chance she would follow me regardless of my decision seeing as she has no way of navigating the Elshire forest herself. 

I withdrew a coin from the pocket in my shorts, giving it a quick flip up into the air before catching it in my hands. I turn away from her, peeking into the cusps of my hands to ensure she couldn't take a peek.