Opening my eyes, I needed like ten seconds to understand where I was. I sat up and saw Evelyn coming out of the washing room.
"Oh sorry, did I wake you up?" She asked concerned. I shook my head, smiling, too tired to answer. "Ray's already out to work and Allan should stand up around now, he doesn't have work on Thursdays." She said, while putting eggs and herbs in a bowl and mixing it. "So, how did you sleep?"
"Very good, actually." I answered happily.
Then Allan stepped down the stairs and I had to try my best to not giggle. His hair was a mess and his glasses slanted on his nose. He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand and gave me a knowing look.
"Good morning." I said, smiling.
"Mhmm." He grumbled and stretched his back which cracked loudly. I went to sit next to Allan at the table.
"You guys went outside yesterday night, didn't you?" Evelyn said, eyeing us suspiciously. I didn't know how, but Evelyn seemed to have a sixth sense for detecting our secret meetings.
Allan and I threw a glance at each other but I quickly looked away, trying to hide the smile creeping on my face.
"...Maybe we did." Allan smirked and Gods, his raspy voice send shivers down my spine.
"It's almost like back then...you two always had these concealed grins on your faces the morning after you had went to god knows where."
We ate the omelettes in silence until Evelyn said her goodbyes and went off to work. I went to the bathroom to brush my teeth and make my hair look acceptable. When I was ready, Allan met me at the door.
"Would you want to go on a walk with me? Evelyn put a list with several herbs she needs together for me to get." He asked.
"Yeah, sure." I answered, as if I had anything better to do.
And so, we took a bag and a knife to collect the plants and made our way towards the bright green fields outside the walls of Angel Valley. As we were slandering through the tall grass, collecting mallow, chamomile, sage and mint, we weren't really talking about anything even though we were speaking the entire time. Our conversations were about little nothings, mostly us, remembering events from our childhood and youth together.
At some point, I didn't have any stories in mind anymore so, Allan asked, what he had probably didn't want to just put out like that.
"Can you tell me about Las Mortis and your life after you left?"
I let the question hover between us before answering it. "Well...where do I start? After I left, my first goal was to get as far away as possible. After probably about a week of riding and sleeping on trees, I found a small, abandoned shack at the end of a forest, where I stayed for about three months. During that time, I often visited a city nearby, which had a gambling business. Yeah and that's where I discovered my talent for card games. I don't really know, the cards just seem to speak to me, you know?" We had now reached the forest and started to look for lady's mantle, wild strawberry and woodruff. "Well and at some point, I was hated by all visitors, so that everyone made extremely high bets when playing against me. And that's how I ended up winning lots of money and the property of Las Mortis. I build up an empire." I paused and waited for Allan to say something.
"That's impressing. But...how were you feeling? Were you proud of yourself to be away from us?" Of course, he had to ask the question that would hit right to the point where it hurt.
"To be honest...I hated every second of it. I hated not having friends, only alliances; I hated the days full of writhing in self-pity; ...I hated missing you all. But I was an addict of my own depression, so I didn't do anything to change my situation." I sighed deeply, trying to stop the tears that were forming in my eyes.
