Back at the cart, the body of Rennish was abuzz with activity. They fussed over him as they worried about his sudden drop from the cart. His pulse was fading and his body was getting stiff. Thirty minutes had passed since he fell off the cart and Erust and Ashra were becoming increasingly more worried.
"Rennish! Rennish!" Ashra screamed and shook his shoulders. Her desperation was starting to show as time wore on.
Just as Erust was starting to accept the loss of his friend Rennish gasped.
They both jumped back slightly as the sound escaped from him. It didn't take long for them to regain their senses and come rushing to his side. Ashra pulled his head up into her arms and cried. Erust looked him over for any other signs of injuries.
"What happened?" Erust prodded as Rennish finally got his eyes to focus on the world.
Rennish looked at the lights and waited as the bright lights changed from blurs into solid shapes and sounds. The world came together and slowly worked its way into focus.
He coughed several times before he got his voice back. "I don't know what happened." He lied as best he could. "I was eating and the world turned black. How long was I out?"
Ashra let his head go and used her hands to move his head around looking at his eyes. When she saw that he was looking around normally she nodded and then helped him sit up on his own. Erust smiled at her as she did this. Erust had never seen her this caring for anyone outside of small kids.
Rennish smiled at Ashra as he got himself upright and got his mind working again. He hated lying to them when he knew what happened. He wanted to tell them but as he looked at Erust he couldn't help but shake the fact that this wasn't Ed.
He remembered back when they escaped from The Oracle and all the pieces were slowly falling into place. He was slowly seeing all the pieces of what the divines had told him. He had to keep a straight face. Honestly, he realized that he been thinking of him as a whole different person for a while now and he hoped that this would make it easier to not slip up. He had a goal to keep the three of them busy and that needed to be his main focus.
"I'm fine, I promise." Rennish smiled and put his hands up. "Let me get my wits about me, okay?"
Erust and Ashra looked at him and nodded. "Yeah, yeah, if you say your fine then," Erust said with a smile.
The fuss over him tipping over slowly died down. So they got everything cleaned up. Noone felt like eating after what had happened. It wasn't long before they got the cart packed back up and started moving again.
A quiet fugue fell across all three of them. Ashra would occasionally look at Rennish in case he happened to fall out of the cart again. Internally she was afraid that something worse was wrong with him. Erust was driving the cart and humming to himself to pass the time. He was worried about Rennish, but he couldn't put his finger on why.
The day ended quietly and calmly. Thankfully no one else fell out of the cart and disrupted their day. They camped on a clearing between towns. The nearest town should be one more day's traveling time to get to.
After the tents were pitched and the fire was built they settled into their routines of getting ready for the evening. Dinner went quietly as everyone ate. The excitement was still overshadowing the day.
After the meal finished Rennish played a stringed instrument quietly. Erust sat by Ashra. He grabbed clumps of dirt and practiced changing them into small objects. Rennish remembered how Ed would do this on the back of the cart while they moved between towns. He wouldn't have been bothered but this but today had put him on edge.
In his mind, that was something Ed did, and now that he knew what he knew he couldn't understand why it upset him.
Erust looked up and saw Rennish staring at him. "Something wrong?"
Rennish shook his head and smiled. He braced himself to lie again. "I was thinking, I haven't seen you do that since after we left the border and headed to the glass capital."
Erust looked at the small glass ball he had made without thinking. He searched back in his memories and tried to remember if what Rennish said was true. He started laughing, quietly at first before becoming louder.
Ashra and Rennish looked at him like he was losing his mind. "Yeah, I guess I didn't realize it had been so long. I wonder if I can start making pets again."
Ashra looked at them both. "I don't get what's funny."
"I have all these... cloudy spots." Erust looked at her. Rennish winced, he looked away briefly before he turned his face back towards them.
"Does it worry you?" Ashra looked at him with worry.
"Sometimes, I mean I don't even know about some of these spots until one of you says something."
Rennish smiled and got up from his spot. He was having a hard time with this. "You are doing a good job of dealing with it. I know it's weird but I am sure you will find a way to deal with it."
Rennish walked over to the edge of the light from the fire and looked out into the darkness. He looked at the stars and wondered when the last time the gods had looked up at the stars as a human was. He wondered what they felt when they looked at them before they became gods. What was their last thought before they lost their mortality? He had never wondered about them as regular humans until now. He had never considered that maybe some of them were tired of being divines.
Behind him, the conversation had changed as the two kept talking. Rennish stared out at the stars before turning around.
"We need to do more miracles." He interrupted them as they were talking.
They both stopped and looked at him with surprise. "Say what?" Erust said with surprise on his face.
Rennish turned around and looked back out the stars. "I mean I was thinking about this, we are here and headed north. And that's a good plan. But let's find the really small towns. You know we need to get our name out there."
"I think our name is out there." Ashra let her displeasure show in her voice.
"Yeah it is, but I mean, think about it. We know we are looking for something. And belief is a huge thing." Rennish took a deep breath and ran through as many ideas as he could. This conversation was a spur of the moment thing and he was totally unprepared. "When I saw Erust making little things again it made me remember. We started this to get the name out. The more miracles he does the stronger he becomes again. He might be nearly back where he was before he was attacked."
Erust and Ashra looked at each other. They both thought about what he was saying. To Erust it made good sense. He hadn't paid attention to what he was doing until Rennish pointed it out.
"Okay, so what's the plan then?" Erust looked at him intently.
"I don't know," he admitted. "That's why I brought it. Do I look like the kind of guy with plans?"
Ashra laughed at him. "Yeah, you're not a planner. You are a doer kind of guy. Okay, so why don't we think this one through."
They all nodded to each other. Internally Rennish sighed in relief. He was so worried they would balk at the idea. He looked at Erust and although he knew that this wasn't Ed, he knew that Ed was still alive somewhere out there in the world. He wanted to go see Ed but he didn't know if that would change anything. And deep down inside, was Erust any different than the old Ed? That was something he would have to figure out with time.