She let him lead her forward obediently. There was a sword near them, so he grabbed it from the pool of blood where its dead owner laid in.
"Brian!"
One bandit came towards them, bringing down his small axe. He heard Libby scream. He raised the sword and tensed his arm, and by a miracle, managed to fend off the first strike.
'Stay calm, Brian. Follow the flow.'
He managed to pierce the bandit in the throat by luck, but another strike came towards him from another bandit. He blocked the first attack and pushed the sword in the direction where the bandit pounced towards him. It was a lucky break again; the throat of the bandit touched the blade and he fell to the ground, choking.
Brian pulled Libitina with him towards the woods. Two bandits saw them and came after them after finishing off a man. Brian recognised him as the cook who would give them titbits to eat after every meal.
"Hah!" the strength of a young boy lacks against two grown men, and soon he felt a sharp pain. Then again, and again. The rain blinded his eyes, and flooded his lungs. The sounds around his ears distorted.
Budump-budump.
He felt his heart beat loudly in his ears, louder than he had ever heard it. Was he going to die?
He felt a something small clutch his arm and pulled him into a run. They stumbled. Someone was beside him, swinging a sword wildly, but he could also hear her cries. They were clear, and rang in tandem to his heart beats.
"Brian, stop…"
Budump-budump.
"We have to run, you're bleeding…"
Budump-budump.
"Don't die on me, idiot!"
'Don't cry, Libby. Don't cry.'
He did not have a clear recollection of what happened after that, but he remembered fuzzy images of Libby dragging him with her. The brushes against the leaves, and the sinking mud beneath his feet, combined into desperate images of struggles in his head. Then, he felt the two of them enter a dark shelter, where they stopped moving and stayed silent.
'Libby. Where are we?'
He felt her hand tightened around his for a moment.
"Stay alive, Brian," he heard.
They had never let go of each other. But this time, she slipped her hand out of his before he could grasp her, and for the first time, he recognise the cold beat of the rain on his body.
"You told me to stay alive," Brian huffed, "But they still found me. Just unlucky I guess. I was stabbed two more times, then left for dead. They looted, but didn't seem interested in anything much. Apparently, I was half-dead for three days before they found me."
"Who came for you?"
"Master Odin came for us," Brian answered, his eyes bright. "He came for us! He came…but when I woke up, I realised I was alive, but I was the only survivor in the entire group."
They let the silence lull the conversation as they rested their minds.
"…Did you hear about Enzak?" Libitina asked softly.
���I did…I woke up under Master Odin's care, and I heard about the incident. The whole town is gone. What is to be done? What happened to my sister? But it's already been a f-few months since the incident, and I-I couldn't do anything at all…Damn it. Damn this whole thing."
Libitina's eyes tightened as she bit her lips.
"Briar?"
"Gone. I never got to see her."
"…I see."
Brian sobbed subtly as he tried to control his breathing, pressing his fist against his mouth as he rocked back and forth silently. Libitina felt a coldness consume her insides, and she let a few tears fall down her face.
But he would never know, could never know, that she was crying for both the same and different reason from him.
How did things happen this way? How could things happen this way? Her heart was overwhelmed with pain. Every breath she took was testament to her sin.
"I-I'm so sorry, Brian…" She sounded weak. She didn't have the right to sound weak now.
"You tried to save my life, Libby. No one could have prevented that. Sis was just unlucky. She just was there, and I left her to die."
"No, you don't understand," Libitina said calmly. "You have to know. I am sorry."
Libitina did not know when, but the vines tying Brian had slowly slackened, and she suddenly found herself in Brian's embrace.
"No!" She broke. All at once, the guilt of being a murderer that she had struggled to erase from her memory, the heavy weight of sin of killing her benefactor and the lie of a person she had become surged within her.
"Stay. Stay and don't go off anymore," he begged with sincerity.
"Let go of me, please, let me go…"
"…"
"Please…"
Her voice slowly trailed off into the night, and soon she could only hear the quiet sobs and teardrops landing on her hair, and finally, she let herself lean into the figure to smother her tears.