Hunting Death- Unwanted Fourth
#20 of Hunting Death
Unwanted Fourth
It is almost a very strange thing, now, to be traveling for hours and yet at the same time have the entire time spent in almost complete silence. I have no real need to speak up at the moment, merely content enough to be on the move again and away from those crowds of people. Hashal clearly wants to talk to the extent I half wonder if he had the habit of just talking to himself all the time and holding entire conversations before I had arrived all those days ago. But Ceirla doesn't seem too inclined in letting us know too much about her at the moment beyond what all the bat offers her and he can't ask me anything pertinent to what I am without clueing in Ceirla as to what I am. But we all do still need sleep and end up setting up camp a bit off the road once nighttime hits. Hashal takes charge of getting the food ready, a task that would probably be almost impossible between the other two of us all things considered. Though I'm certainly glad that I'm not able to help much because the travel seems to be getting to me. Not sure hat it is about this stretch of the road but I've been feeling particularly tired and sluggish the past few hours, though it also might be hunger. At any rate I don't think much of it. After all this is the first time I've ever really set foot outside of my town for nearly this length of time. Though I haven't picked up any sign of magic being used to track us.
And yet, as we sit down to eat I can hear movement coming our way, as can Ceirla from the fact she also stands to attention and grabs her bow. I call out Anaelin as well, just to be safe, though I find it a bit odd how even the act of calling out my own weapon seems to be a bit sluggish. Knowing that it'll help to know what we're dealing with I take a deep breath and use a bit of magic to blow the wind towards us a bit. This little bit shouldn't affect things too much. And when I get a good whiff of who is approaching I put the scythe down and shout in their direction.
"How many times do I have to knock you out before you get the hint that I want nothing to do with you?"
"You got to give it to the idiot, he's certainly persistent," Hashal comments.
"Who's this?" Ceirla asks, not sure whether or not to lower her bow just yet.
"An elf that won't leave me alone despite the fact that I've made it perfectly clear I don't want him around me. You can put that bow down. He'll likely be no more a threat to you as Hashal would. I'm the one that's in danger."
"Why? Does he have a vendetta against you?" Ceirla asks and lowers her bow but doesn't quite yet remove the arrow.
"I would never harm you," Rophan complains, his arms up as he approaches the camp. "I told you that my destiny was to be found following you."
"No, you were told your destiny would be found following a Fae, which I am not. And further, even if it was me you're supposed to follow. If it's your destiny to kill me, that would still be following your destiny."
"How did you find us anyway?" Hashal asks.
"I'm not completely useless. I just have no magic. I'm pretty good when it comes to tracking things. Not that it was too hard to do so, anyway. There's only really one road out of town furthest from where you entered it. It won't branch out for another day or so. As such, all I had to do was follow the road myself and I'd be sure to be following you. Then it was a simple matter of trying to guess where you decided to camp out for the night and how far off the road. And fire smoke makes that easy."
"Okay then, you may stay," Ceirla states conclusively as she puts her bow down and heads back over to the fire.
"What?" I exclaim, not at all liking how my own opinion in the matter isn't even taken into consideration or even really addressed.
"He may stay. He won't be freeloading, mind. My condition for letting him travel with us is to act as a porter. The physical states of you and I make certain tasks exceedingly difficult. And I'd rather not have Hashal here have to do absolutely everything we can not. And so a second set of hands would be most appreciated I would imagine."
"But," I begin.
"The fact of the matter, Mige, is that he's followed you all this way, just to follow you in particular. I highly doubt that it'd be possible for us to come up with a way that could reasonably make him not able to follow us anyway. And frankly, I'd rather not have to constant check to see where he is. So as he'll follow us no matter what we do, and the notion of safety in numbers is still applicable, it is simply better he travel with us, rather than simply following us."
"I'm perfectly fine with this arrangement," Rophan bows slightly before heading further into the camp. "I fully intended on doing anything I could to serve the one I'm destined to follow. So this lets me do exactly that."
I'm about to complain more but then feel a bit of a dizzy spell and decide against it, "Fine, but if he tries to kill me it'll be on your head," I pout and then head back over to the fire, intending on seeing if perhaps a good night's rest is what I need to combat this dizziness.
"So why is it that you feel more threatened by an elf that looks like he can barely wield a sword far more than you are my other side?" Hashal asks me quietly as Rophan starts setting his things down and getting some food and drink for himself.
"Because you aren't one of mine," I state rather matter-of-factly. "Means that of anyone here, form or not, you are the only person I don't have to fear for my life, because I know for a fact that you have no role in whether or not I die. Anyway," I speak up a bit louder. "I'm going to go ahead and get some sleep. All this travel lately has gotten me a bit light-headed and I feel a good night's rest will help a bit with that. I'll keep a few spells cast so as to wake me should anything seem out of the ordinary, so don't worry about that."
I curl in a little ball and with a little cough go about trying to fall asleep. I actually end up falling asleep faster than I would have expected. I must have been drained a lot more than I had anticipated. Not like I'm sued to having to call out Anaelin that many times in one day though it hasn't really caused me any trouble in the past, thus why I have it in the necklace. During the night I don't really remember much of my dreams other than the fact that they were extremely strange. However, I am reminded of the circumstances of my death. In particular the set of emotions running through as this time it's a long, wide dagger or knife cuts into me. And the main thing about it is that the death is not something I saw coming. There is the sense of betrayal sadness at the events. Which I guess means so long as I am expecting Rophan to be betraying me, it will never be him that does the deed. It's sort of a strange thing to know that it'll have to be one I trust that could kill me, rather than one I can't trust.
I eventually wake up and the act of standing makes me a little light-headed, which is definitely a bad sign. I know it. But not wanting to give anyone an excuse to cause anyone unnecessary worry I try to hide it as best I can and go about getting some breakfast. I know that I don't die to disease, but I can't exactly explain why I know this won't kill me without revealing a bit too much about what I am. It's bad enough that Hashal knows. But thankfully I was able to still get a good night's sleep as we did not have anyone that had decided to try and pay us a visit. On top of that, Rophan was considerate enough to not end up crowding me too closely. As I wait for Hashal and Rophan to cook up some breakfast, I consider what this might mean. I'm definitely not at all well and I highly doubt that just being away from home this long has much to do with it. If anything, the symptoms reminds me of magic fatigue sickness. Ordinarily my kind is almost impervious to most diseases simply because of the magic content of our blood. However, when someone has pushed their magic to their limit then the diseases can get by really quickly. And since we don't know how to fight them off easily, we tend to get really sick, really quickly until our magic recovers. But that would make no sense. I haven't really been using all that much magic lately. Heck, I probably used far more magic binding Hashal the first night I've met him than just about any other point on this trip. There should be no possible way that my magic has drained to this extent. Perhaps a poison? Either way, on the extremely off-chance that it is from overusing my magic, I'll just have to use it sparingly for the next day or two, see if it clears up on its own. And unfortunately, that will simply also have to mean letting my passive use of magic to tell if anyone's closing in on us a rest. With another person here we should be relatively safe. And we do have Ceirla's bat to potentially keep us safe. And And if nothing else, with Hashal here and him not being one of mine, it's not like the next day or two with almost no magic will kill me.