12. Chapter 12

Chapter twelve

C orvu spends a little longer than half an hour teaching me how to keep a grip on my sword, but I end up with more bruises than when I fell off that cart last week. I've been here for so long already. It means I've missed a few shifts at work, so surely someone has noticed I'm missing by now. It's not that I expect anyone to come looking for me; I just don't want to be forgotten. Maybe I should have tried harder to make more friends. I'd hate to think I'd go completely unnoticed. I do have a good friend—we grew up at the orphanage together. She was adopted, but we never lost touch. She calls me once a month and visits every few months or so. She lives in New Jersey, so the subway ride can be a little long. I miss her.

It's night, and even though we don't have to worry about Skellys anymore, I'm still uneasy about sleeping in the middle of a forest. It's not as cold as it was a couple of nights ago, which is a relief, but I can't sit as close to the fire as I'd like without getting a mouthful of smoke. Gecko finds a spot next to a crevice, giving us an advantage should anyone try to approach us from that side. He's dead asleep on top of the boulder we built the fire next to. It has been a long day, especially with our interrupted sleep the night before.

"Hey," Corvu somewhat whispers, coming over to sit down next to me against the fallen tree stump. In his hand he holds a canteen, which he passes to me. I smile and accept it, but after taking a sip I realize it's not water, but grapey? It's very sweet.

"What is this?" I ask him,

"Do you not have wine in your world?" He questions, raising a curious brow.

"Oh," I respond, a little surprised, I wasn't expecting him to carry around wine.

"Sophii gave me a couple of these, she picked the grapes and Gharp did the rest."

"That's really cool." I smile, taking another small sip.

"‘Cool'?"

"Yeah, that's our slang for saying something is really awesome or amazing." He nods, a hint of a smile sitting on his lips. Taking the canteen from me he takes a sip as well. I normally don't like sharing food and drink because of germs, but in this world dying from sharing a canteen of wine was not my highest concern. "So, you said that even you had a reason to want to use the amulet, do you mind if I ask what it is your searching for?"

He scoffs, "Even if I did mind, you'd ask anyway." He hands the canteen back to me once again to take a drink, "I'm looking for someone."

"Who are you looking for?"

"My parents. I don't really know what happened to them." The sentence alone made me feel so much sadness, but there were so many questions that stemmed from it,

"What do you last remember?" I ask.

"Honestly? Not much. I used to live in the village we're approaching, before the village itself got burnt down. That's when I moved in with my Aunt and Uncle. I assume they died in the fire, everyone did, but they were...different. If there's any chance they had survived I'd like to know."

"Were your parents Tricksters too? "

"Oh no. Um," He pulled at the grass beside him as he thought of a way to finish his sentence, ", my mother was a Witch."

"Really?" I was starting to understand him a little better. That's why he think's the witch's amulet is something that can help find his parents. "So she wasn't a Trickster?"

"No. The reason for a Trickster to be born is a mystery unto itself. No one knows why we're suddenly born the way we are, the only indication is that some part of our heritage is Elf related."

"Wait, so your sister?"

"Is just a human. That's why she moved to the Capital, so that she can experience new things and still be safe."

"What about your father?"

"Half-Elf. My grandfather was an elf. I guess a piece of that passed on to me but nothing to my sister."

"Do you and your sister not talk much?" He sighs as he takes another drink.

"Honestly I struggle to remember what she looks like sometimes. It's been nearly four years."

"How old is she?"

"She should be twenty by now."

"Ah I remember what it was like to be twenty. "

He gives me a curious look,"How old are you?"

"I'm twenty one." I snicker. "And you?"

"I'm twenty four."

"Ah, so not as much a spring chicken as I am." This time he laughs, I mean really laughs at me.

Between breaths he manages to say, "The things that come out of your mouth. I sometimes wonder if you're speaking another language." I laugh as well, although I'm not really sure why. I didn't think I had that much to drink yet, but I was certainly starting to feel it. It could be presumed that the alcoholic concentration in this drink is higher than the ones in my world. Leave it to a completely different realm to figure out how to make alcohol.

"It's not my fault," I exclaim, smiling, ", you have so many weird creatures and customs. This is nothing like New York."

"Tell me about New York, then, what's special about it? Pretend I'm stuck in your world and you have to explain things to me for once." That felt like a challenge I could get behind.

Day Nine

I can hear a lot of chirping, and I'm a lot warmer than I thought I'd be. I slightly open my eyes and I realize I've fallen asleep alongside Corvu, well, mostly on him. What do I do? Do I move? If I wake him up he'll know I fell asleep on him and that will just make everything really awkward. I close my eyes again when I feel him stir. I guess it's too late to move away before he notices. Even though I couldn't feel it a moment ago, when he shifts I can feel that his arm is wrapped around behind me and is sitting on my waist. Yeah, this was awkward. I don't move and keep my eyes closed as he slightly leans up. That's when I feel something on my face. It somewhat feels like he's moving hair out of my face. My heart feels really funny. Maybe I'm hungover.

There's a short scream. We both jerk awake fully and sit up, splitting away from each other as we do so. That scream was Gecko. I rush to stand and run over toward the crevice.

"Gecko?"

"I'm okay!" He shouts, coming into view. "I think I rolled the wrong way." Looking to my side I can see how close the boulder he was sleeping on was to the edge. He was lucky it wasn't any steeper but he seemed fine. Corvu approaches to my right. He's looking at me strangely.

"What?" I ask.

"Nothing. I'll get him out." Corvu picks up one of the blankets that was originally wrapped around the weapons and leans it down into the crevice. Gecko grabs it to pull himself up along the wall and he is back up with us in no time. I look him over a couple of times to make sure he really was okay. He doesn't appear to have any major cuts or scrapes. He was lucky.

"Sorry I woke you." Gecko says, going over to his backpack to search for something. I look over at Corvu who seems to want to say something. Perhaps I should be the first to speak to make him feel better.

"Corvu-"

"We should get going." He states, disappointment spread across his face as he walked away from me to start packing our gear. I'm not sure what happened exactly, but it probably wasn't the best idea to push it anyway. After all, I'd eventually go home, and when I do, it means Corvu and all of this will basically have been one long dream.

That's right, when I leave I won't ever see Gecko or Corvu again.

Corvu still helped me learn how to fight that day, and the day after that. Two days later we passed the village Corvu mentioned he grew up in. The land itself was still dry, as if the fire had only recently been put out. Corvu didn't want to stay longer than we had to, so we continued the journey onward.

On the fifth day of travelling I managed to successfully last two minutes in a sword fight with Corvu before being knocked down, which I considered an accomplishment. He hasn't quite been the same since that morning Gecko fell down the crevice. He won't talk much and he keeps quite a distance, even deciding to sleep up higher in the trees was a better option to him. It made me feel a little deflated but I had to assume he understood that I would end up leaving by the time this all came to pass, so there was no point getting closer to each other.

I spent most of our riding time chatting with Gecko. I had no idea previously he actually had twelve other brothers and sisters. Their family gatherings must be a really big event. Gecko knew something was up between Corvu and I. He kept trying to trick us into being alone together, like asking me and Corvu at different times to help him fill up the canteen in a nearby stream so we'd end up there together. I appreciated his effort, even though I didn't really understand why he was doing it. If anything I thought his distaste for Corvu outweighed everything else. I wanted nothing more than to be on the same page with Corvu again, but for each moment I thought we were getting back to normal something would happen to him and he'd turn away from me again. I know I shouldn't be upset about it, but it hurt a little.

The day after we finally managed to reach the next main village, and although it was nothing big or special, it felt great to be amongst a crowd again. The village was modest but the homes were built on top of each other in a cluster of brick and mud. It was also surprising how long it took me to realize almost everyone in the village was an Elf, but it did explain why Corvu refused to put his hood down. The only thing that was left to do was find somewhere to sleep for the night that wasn't the forest floor. However unlike Corvu and Gecko, I had an additional agenda for the evening.