Curtis POV
I woke up on the floor of the small roadside shrine we were staying at. Myles had already gotten up and started making food, judging by the smell of cooked meat coming from behind the doors.
It's been a few days since we decided to stay here for a while, since the nearby towns will probably be filled with knights from both of our families. We needed to be very cautious these last few days because of that, and I'm already tired from being on the edge all the time, I wish we could find a place to stay where our families won't find us.
"You're up?" Myles said, opening the front door to the shrine, holding two bowls filled with cooked meat.
"How did you get this?" I asked, since we've mostly been eating bread and other non-cooked foods.
He handed me a bowl, "The market."
"Wha- That's dangerous, you know! You could get caught!" I hit him on the shoulder.
"I know, I know. But most of the knights are in the nearby towns, I only saw two while I was out, but don't worry, they didn't see me." he smiled.
I sighed and ate. The meat was extra delicious, I'm guessing because it's because I haven't had it in at least a month.
Days passed pretty fast after that. We waited a while more until we finally went to the village again, thankfully, we didn't run into a knights, but we still wore hoods just in case.
But on a particularly normal day, when me and Myles were looking at groceries for this week, when suddenly from some distance away, I heard a voice say, "Hey, have you seen two guys recently? One had green hair and the other has red."
I grabbed Myles' arm in preparation to run away, but when I glanced over my shoulder, I didn't see my families nor Myles' knights, but a familiar blonde figure. It was Ceil.
Right at that moment, Ceil turned around to face me. We stared at each other for a while before Allan, who was next to him, yelled, "Curtis! Myles! What a coincid-" His sentence were interrupted by Myles placing a hand over rhos mouth.
"Shhhh. We can't talk here, come with us." He said. It was then I noticed the other people behind the two. It was Violet and a guy I had never seen before. He had long-ish dark hair and looked very bored being here.
I didn't mention anything, and so we lead the group back to the shrine.
"Wow, this is pretty old, but well preserved." Allen exclaimed.
"Yeah, we were lucky, we almost got caught before we found this shrine." I sighed.
"So. What are you doing here?" Myles asked, suspicious of their sudden visit, especially with the other two people in the shrine. I knew who Violet was, obviously. I had mixed feelings about her presence here... But that was mostly feelings of worry for Ceil, and he seemed ok with having her there, so I let it go.
"Ok so... we actually came here to request your help in the fight with The Demon King." Ceil said.
Me and Myles were stunned. What?
"What do you mean by that?" Myles asked.
"Ah, don't worry, we're not asking you to fight him, we recently just heard that you have something that could benefit us." The mysterious man said.
"Hm? What could we have that could help?" I asked.
"Has a sketch old man sold you some jewellery lately?" He asked.
I stared at him for a second, bewildered. I lifted up my hand, letting my sleeve fall down to reveal the bracelet i bought from that old man a while ago.
The mysterious boys eyes widened, and he came striding over to take my wrist and inspect the bracelet.
"Yes. This is the one." He said. "But.. where's the other one?"
Just then, Myles came over grabbing the arm that was gripping my wrist and squeezed. "With me."
The mysterious guy let go of my wrist with a hiss of pain and annoyingly stared at Myles.
"Ok. Let me explain." Allen spoke up.
"That old man is an acquaintance of William over here, and he was in charge of taking care of something called "Priestess stones", you probably know of them, well, those two stones on your bracelets is the stone that we are looking for."
It took me a few minutes to piece together what Allan had just said. "Ok, how would these stones help?"
I had heard if Priestess stones before. It was a brief subject in one of my magic classes, they said that these were extremely rare, and the only ones in the world are usually old ones, since they rarely appear nowadays.
"See, these stones can extremely weaken anyone dark magic user, to the point of almost having no access to most of their magic." William explained.
By the time William had finished speaking, I had already taken off the bracelet. And so had Myles, following my lead.
Myles placed the other bracelet in my hand. I stretched it out and gave it to Allen.
"You guys don't have to pursued me. I was already feeling a little guilty leaving you guys right when things took a turn for the worst, so although we might not be much help, have it." I smiled.
Allen looked at the necklaces in his palm and gave me a very small, but noticeable, warm smile. "Thank you so much."
After another while of talking the group decided to leave.
Right as Allen and Ceil were about to walk out of the door, William and Violet already out of the shrine, Allen turned around.
"I heard.... About your situation..... I'm sorry it had to resort to this..... and that we weren't of much help. If you want, we will shelter you at the palace." He spoke solemnly.
I smiled. "Don't worry, we're fine. It gets tough since we are constantly hiding, but... I've begun to like this kind of simple lifestyle." I glanced and smiled at Myles, who smiled back when he noticed my stare.
Ceil and Allen turned to each other and chuckled. "Well, if that's what you guys want, we'll try to help out as much as we can." And so they left.
We went back to our routine, remembering that we had to finish shopping. After we got back, we went straight to cooking. I was helping Myles with the vegetables when I spoke up.
"I feel kind of sad."
"About what?" Myles asked.
"I was kind of fond of those bracelets..." I chuckled solemnly. "But what can you do... the Kingdom has to be saved somehow....."
"Haha. Honestly, when you first showed them to me, I thought they were a bit tacky." Myles laughed.
"Wha- how could you!"
"They were pieces of stone on a string! It wasn't exactly the most special looking!" Myles tried to defend himself.
"Ugh. I'm so disappointed in you. You don't have any taste in jewellery."
"Well, next time you want to get something matching, make sure it's a pair of pretty rings."
It took me a while to fully comprehend that, but when I did, my face went completely red.
"You-"
Laughter filled the once abandoned shrine. The world was colourful, my heart was bubbly. I wish for this to continue forever. I will sh for him to be by my side forever.