When Last Night Didn't End

3.4

I turned away from the conversation as Revery placated Seline and encouraged her to sit on the same log as us, ignoring the pointed glare Seline was giving me. Consider it payback for "accidentally" giving me stale and cold tea the day before. And for "accidentally" stealing one of my knives, forcing me to use my sword to cut up fruits before Cavya and the others got back from their hunt. That still earned me a good laugh from Mirani and Yaora whenever it came up in a conversation.

Of course, "accidentally" devouring the cakes—small, pink blobs made of stuff akin to glutinous rice flour—wasn't my first offense. I might or might not have consumed all of the hot water we use for washing ourselves right before Seline's turn and "accidentally" filled the bucket with the cold kind from the river. The strangled "Gae-sae-ggi!" ringing from the makeshift chambers had never sounded so good in my ears, even if I was the one being alluded to.

I didn't even recall how we started the back and forth. She might have "accidentally" stepped on my foot and I didn't stop myself from "accidentally" hitting her with a bundled up dishrag I was passing to Heather. Honestly, it's a blur now.

Served her right for barging into my life like that. Our first real conversation since we found ourselves in Solarlume still rang in my ears. The things she accused me of—stealing her life from her, ruining her life, and making her miserable—were unfounded. I didn't steal her life from her, I didn't ruin her life like how she ruined mine, and I couldn't imagine making her miserable when all I focused on all these years was to make sure she's happy.

If there was one thing she said that contained a hint of truth, the reason we ended up in this uncleanable mess we were in was because I pressed a button without waiting for her input. Then again, even if I waited for her and clicked it, would we not have entered the game? No. We'd still be here and she would just find another thing to blame me for.

Acknowledge that we're both stuck in this place, Seline had said to me in that dim corridor. Are you going to do anything about that?

Well, I was. The goal was to find enough info on how to get out of this world. Unlike her who had nothing going on in her life other than making sure she's at the top of the game development world, I had to go back to my mother and my brother who's barely past one. If I was going to do anything about that, it's to go home as immediately as possible. She's welcome to join if she wants to. I'd help her go back as well.

Then again, she's not really my responsibility. She stopped being one the moment I scrawled my signature on the bottom of The Page. As far as I was concerned, she could do whatever she wanted in her life. That's what she wanted in the first place, right?

Now, our silent tirades against each other might have stopped, it's still an unbearable cloud hanging both our heads. As both of our parties traversed the dense forest five prinks from the outpost, I had to force myself to stare ahead and avoid looking back to check if Seline was still plotting her ill-timed revenge on me.

Cavya's gloved hand snapped up. We all halted in our steps, watching as his whiskers twitched and his ears turned this way and that. He's sensing for danger. Not even a minute later, he brought his hand down and turned to us, keeping his back to Nazran and Revery who made up the front.

"I sense a strong trace of nether from the other side of the clearing," Cavya said, his other gloved hand resting over the pommel of his rapier. "We'll camp here tonight and proceed in the morning. I'm not going to risk us by going through the forest in the dark. Mirani, cast a barrier spell."

Mirani gave him a rigid salute. "On it, Cav."

Cavya didn't need to turn to us to say his line, "The rest of you, set up camp". At this point of the journey, we knew what to do the moment he declared we're going to rest at a specific place. I closed my eyes and summoned everything we needed. Yaora was doing the same beside me. As the only ones (minus Seline who insisted on keeping quiet about her ability) who could conjure space, we were tasked to store all of the camping equipment.