Now that we had passed our final planned point on this . . . journey, mission, or whatever you want to call it, we didn't have anything other definite route planned. Which of course left the question . . . where to next? We had all we needed to collect . . . I hope, but we didn't have a destination. Well, one that we knew, anyway. We probably did have somewhere we needed to go now, but we didn't know it. Which may, of course, be necessary to advance in any way.
But as for now, I just sat in front of our bonfire, playing with Lina's hair as she lay in my lap, and tried not to think about that. It could always be figured out in the morning. After breakfast, naturally. Some time when we were all well rested, fed, and with a much more stable mental state.
Oh my, who am I kidding? I will probably end up thinking about this for the entire rest of the evening. Then I would dream about it in one of my strange nonsensical dreams that I seem to be having all the time. The only use I could find for them was to give me information and clues very sporadically and to scare me out of my mind. I really didn't like that last usage, not even the idea of it. No one wants to be scared out of their minds in their sleep. Sleep was supposed to be resting time, dammit.
Not knowing your next goal is incredibly stressful. I always knew, in the past, where I had to go and what I had to do. Now, though, I only had a vague idea as to what my goal is and no clue as to where I go next and how to accomplish that goal. Not a very good place to be in at all. If the nervousness radiating off everyone else, I could infer that they probably didn't either. Oh, the joy.
"Food?" Kaylie inquires softly, offering me the bowl she is holding.
"Yes, thank you." I smile, her consideration making me happy.
After a while, I have found that Kaylie's quiet nervousness gets quite endearing. I don't enjoy the fact that she seems to be a permanently nervous wreck, but the way she acts is sweet all the same.
"Me too." Lina yawns, gesturing vaguely in a sort of come-hither motion which rather looks as if she is sleepily shooing off a fly.
I keep forgetting that everyone is really quite tired after a whole day of flying since I don't fly. Lucas's carries me the whole time. In fact, I should probably be the one cooking right now. Then again, I do believe that Kaylie would rather cook when she's tired than eat my burnt (and possibly poisonous) mess of a meal.
"Alright, coming right up." Kaylie obliges.
"Be nice." I elbow Lina.
"Please," Lina calls out after Kaylie.
I shake my head in amusement. Lina should really learn manners, especially since Kaylie is a Princess too and deserves quite a bit of respect. One should thank the cooks in the palace too, but Kaylie deserves even more respect. She did all this voluntarily.
Alicia helped make the meal too, just in a different way. She was the one who packed a bit of food from her home and caught some animals to kill and eat. I couldn't look the whole time she and Ryan were catching, killing, skinning, and cooking them. I fact, if I thought about it too much, I probably wouldn't eat the meat that was in the soup.
I also had absolutely no idea where the bowls and spoons came from. Someone must have packed them into their EC's, but I didn't know who. One moment I was wondering how we were going to eat the food that Kaylie had cooked, and the next she was handing out bowls of soup and spoons to eat the soup with. All I know is that it wasn't Lina or me that had them. I wouldn't even know what type of EC to look into for bowls and spoons. I couldn't see them as weaponry, they weren't edible, and they weren't exactly clothing either.
"Kaylie, you should come eat now too," I tell her.
"Once everyone else has some," She replies.
She was too sweet. Really. Way too kind-hearted. If she continues like this, I'm sure more than half of us would start taking advantage of her niceness, whether consciously or not. It was simply too easy to do. Kaylie was also neglecting herself by doing this. She constantly worried about others and forgot about herself.
The Alicia stands up. "Here, you sit down. I've already finished my bowlful. You go eat now, I'll serve everyone else."
Then again, there would also be people like Alicia who always thought of ways to overrule Kaylie's niceness and make sure that Kaylie looked after herself. That would probably be Kaylie's only way of ensuring that she didn't overwork herself of all the time. I really should have thought of doing that first, though, since I was the only one who was not incredibly tired.
I start to stand up. "Alicia, let me do that. You and everyone else here has been flying all day, I haven't."
She shakes her head at me. "I've finished eating, Rowena. You need to finish your meal. I've got this, don't worry."
"I can always finish later. It only going to take a little while until everyone's served. I can always finish my soup after."
Alicia hands a bowl to Isabella. "Exactly, it's only going to take a very short time, then I'm done. I'm not that tired and I can definitely serve soup, so you go sit down and finish your meal."
I give up trying to argue with her and go sit back down to finish my soup. Sure enough, Alicia finishes quite quickly and then fills one more bowl and walks over to where Kaylie is sitting leaning against a tree and hands the bowl to her. I watch absentmindedly as they interact. I can't hear them from over here as they are talking in low tones, but I can see as Kaylie breaks into a smile, obviously happy at something that Alicia has said.
Lina leans over to whisper in my ear. "They're cute together, aren't they?"
I turn my attentions to her. "What? Who?" I ask, confused at what she means.
"Alicia and Kaylie." She clarifies.
I look back over at them. They seem really happy just talking together, and the colour was coming back into Kaylie's cheeks. Until now, I hadn't really realised that she was so pale. It was slightly worrying. She was working herself into the ground, looking after all of us. She was doing this to the extent that she forgot to look after herself.
"Well? Do you think so?" Lina cuts into my train of thought. "Cute or not?"
"Yeah, I guess so," I reply vaguely, wondering how everyone else was really holding up right now.
While some of us were trained for this kind of situation, the most of us were royals that are used to having a huge amount of faeries at our backs. Usually an entire army of them. While many of us had been extensively trained in physical and defensive training, this was more emotional stress than all or almost all of us were used to.
"So enthusiastic, I see." She sighs. "Oh well, I'll talk to you tomorrow when you've had a little more sleep." She snorts. "This is the most exercise you've done this whole trip, isn't it?"
"Probably." My answer was still vague, as I continued to just think.
I debated whether or not we should have taken more guards. It would have made many things easier and almost certainly would have made many of us feel much safer and more secure in this kind of environment and situation. Yes, an army of guards with an even number from all the kingdoms.
"Lina?"
"Yes?" She replied sleepily as she settled down after finishing her food.
"Should we go back?"
"Why would anyone do that now?" She sounds almost outraged. "We're this far along, and other than being attacked by a water-dragon-thingy, we've survived majorly unscathed. I would say that we should continue on this luck and not go back to water-land to get ourselves nearly killed again. We are also not going back to Erde to meet that family of crazies again. I say continue on. Aires is on the other side of the continent too . . . So that's out."
"But what about back home?"
She sits up and looks at me in shock. "You want to go home? You want to give up?"
"No, no, no. Nothing like that." I assure her and she lays back down.
"Oh, okay. Why did you want to go back, then?"
"I wanted to go back home and just collect some guards. Maybe even get everyone else to go back and get some too."
Lina looks up at the now-darkened sky, the fire throwing strange shadows across her face, and blows out a big breath. "You know, that idea is so terrible that I don't even know where to start."
"Why?" I ask, shocked. "I think that idea is absolutely fine. It would provide everyone with a sense of more security."
"It might, on some level, but we're all pretty strong. I think we can defend ourselves pretty well."
"Fine, maybe they won't actually do much in actively protecting us too much better, but the feeling of security is still there. Plus, they could help us and make us more comfortable generally. Then Lucas wouldn't be doing so much."
"Aw, are you worried about him?"
"Yes, of course. Between him and Kaylie, we're going to start losing members because they're overworking themselves. The thing is, most of us don't notice because we get taken care of by our staff around the clock."
"Okay, fine. Some of us need to lay back a little on the work and others need to start stepping it up. But do you really think getting guards is going to solve this problem? They're part of our military. If we wanted someone who would cook, clean, and organise our stuff for us, we would need maids and cooks. I don't think they would be of any help, and would probably just drag us down. Not to mention, having an army would require organisation and a much larger amount of resources." She dramatically gasped in a breath. "Does that make you see a little reason?"
"Okay fine." I gave in. "You have a point. But what about a few guards from all the kingdoms? Not enough for an army, but enough to provide night-watchers and a little more general security. My parents would be happy to give us some guards, I'm sure. I have no idea what we are about to get into."
"Exactly. You have no idea. It could be absolutely nothing. Nada. Then what? We just look even stupider. Plus, there's no point in sending everyone off to grab some guards for a mission that we don't even know will happen yet. Yes, Lamina and Rowan would quite happily give us an entire army, but think about everyone else. I'm pretty sure Alicia and doesn't want to ever return, Isabella and Corrin would be going to the complete opposite end of the continent, and Kaylie would return alone. Does that really sound like an amazing plan?"
"Fine, you win. I'll drop this idea." I admit utter defeat.
I have no idea where I was actually going with that idea, but I finally grasped the stupidity of it. It really made so sense in the first place. It wasn't thought through and clearly had many flaws that I should have seen but ignored instead. I would never openly admit that, though.
Having won the argument, Lina hummed contentedly and turned on her side to finally truly drift off. I lay down too. I should probably sleep before trying to think up any more disastrous ideas. It may help prevent them from even forming. I start to drift off quite quickly, proving just how tired I really was.
I awoke sometime later to discover Lucas picking me up from where I lay, close to the dying fire. Then gentle rocking when he started to walk slowly, helped me quickly fall asleep again. I yawned widely as sleep consumed me.
"Next time, Princess, try to fall asleep in your tent." He says as he gently lowers me onto a soft surface. "That way, I don't have to set up your tent and disrupt you by carrying it over to you."
How late is it? He must be so tired. Was the last thought that crossed my mind before I truly dropped off, comforted by Lucas's presence.
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Omg, I'm so sorry I've been away for so long. Probably more than a month. I am now going to try to post more but probably won't manage more than one a week because I have a bunch of projects due and after that, exams.
Thanks to anyone who stuck around until now, I know it's been a long time. I hope you enjoy this chapter.
-Julica❤