"This way, Videre." Laris walks in front of me, towards a certain tent identical to the others. "Somehow", he begins to say, his index finger scratching his cheek. "You don't sound like Tukare."
"..."
"Um, is there something on my face?" Laris squirms.
"...You don't look alike", I say after a while.
"What", he thinks for a while, "who—me and Letitia? That's a first. I'm used people saying that we really look alike." He enters a tent and I follow.
Laris and Letitia may be twins, but the air about them is different. Looks-wise, Letitia has long curly red hair while Laris has short straight braided hair with long bangs that cover one eye.
"There aren't many tents available at the moment. I hope you don't mind sharing a tent with me for the time being. Ah! Of course, there are others as well—four of us in total."
I turn around and am about leave the tent when Laris grabs my wrist.
"Wait! I know it might upset you but we have a few rules here—the male and female genders have separate sleeping chambers. Even Letitia and I adhere to them, even though we're twins."
I squint at the hand grasping my wrist. He lets go quickly after following my gaze. One second longer and I would've sliced his whole hand off with a shadow blade. He seems to have noticed too as there is a cold sweat dripping down the side of his face, his other hand consciously rubbing his wrist.
"In—In any case, can I trouble you to stay here?"
"...What are you planning by keeping me here?" Why are you preventing me from seeing my sister? Is she really not there? Or are you hiding her like you did the first time?!
"Nothing, nothing", Laris waves both his hands, trying to appease my rigidness as if he heard my hidden implications under one question. "But I don't think you'll believe me even if I say that will you", Laris sighs, defeated.
He takes a seat in his bed, gesturing at another empty bed adjacent to his. I don't take his offer; rather, I lean on a table on one side of the tent, which is the farthest from him, while I scan the contents inside.
There are four beds in total, two large table with one having many chairs, and many books, maps, parchment, ink, clothes, sacks, weapons, potions, and more, strewn all over the place. Yet I don't see his other roommates.
"I didn't get the chance to say this earlier but", he pauses to bow his head a little. "Thank you very much, for saving Letitia."
"..."
He raises his head to take a peek at me. "Haha, I really wish I can hear what you're thinking right now."
"..."
"..Haha, um..."
"..."
"Laris, we—", Theo barges into the awkwardly silent atmosphere so suddenly that it frightened Laris into standing. After a while, Theo asks, "Did I interrupt something?"
"No—no, of course not! Do you need something?" He successfully shifts the topic to another one, going out the room to discuss a few things with Theo, but not before reminding me, "I would've liked to introduce you today to Lady Amani, the Encantado who resides at Barred Forest, but I heard that the lady has guests that arrived a few days ago, so if you don't mind, I'd introduce you tomorrow instead. Also, dinner will be in a few hours. You'd have to go grab a seat at a campfire. Tukare never misses dinner so I'm guessing she'll be back at least for dinner. You can stay here until then."
I watch him head out after Theo.
"You're really letting him stay in our tent?" With my sharp hearing, I hear Theo whisper with a disbelieving tone.
I hear Laris sigh, "You, can I trust you to avoid conflict with Videre? You want him to get up and leave for a second time?"
Sounding guilty, Theo starts refuting in a low voice until they're no longer in audible range.
For some time, I stand there scanning over the whole interior of the tent, before I head over to the map that had several marks over it. I'm not sure if they're too foolishly trusting others, or are so sure of themselves that I, the stranger, won't plan anything against them by using the information just vulnerably lying in the open here.
"Laris, are you here? Oh?"
"..." How timely.
A man suddenly barges in the tent. There isn't much space in the tent to begin with, and thus, he saw me in just one glance. I thought he'd retreat like the others, but unexpectedly, he came closer instead.
"Oh! Hello~ Do you remember me?"
I study at his face. He does seem familiar.
"We've met before, at the camp—you know, when you got rescued?" He keeps trying to jog my memory.
"Oh", I answer weakly, thinking that he won't stop unless I do. I miscalculated.
His face brightens, before pointing at his face. "Yeah, I was there! Girtro~ My name's Girtro. We may have started off the wrong the foot but, ah, it's still a pleasure to meet you again for the first time~"
Again for the first time?
I shot him a glance, puzzled but not showing it on my face.
He looks like he realizes his blunder as well, as he explains, "Oh, uh. You see, I'm from the Djinn race. I've dreamt of you once before after our first encounter. I knew that we'll meet here someday so I convinced our pack's Alpha to continue with making our Barred Forest our main stronghold." He sits down on a bed familiarly, organizing a few belongings to make space. "Why don't you sit down?" Girtro pats the bed. "Don't you want to know who you'll be meeting soon?"
My eyebrows furrow at his serious look, in contrast to his earlier playfulness, but still, I don't move.
"You can duplicate my senses if you want. That way, you can tell if I'm lying, and be able to read my intentions, yes?"
I immediately tense a bit at that, facing him much more alertly. He puts up both his hands.
"Calm down, calm down. Seriously~ Both you and Tukare really do have the same reaction! It's adorable, if I wasn't going to get chopped to pieces." He chuckles. "We're not coveting your power or something so weird like that! Here, why don't you try me?" He opens his eyes much wider than normal that if the wind blew, I'm sure it would dry them into stinging.
I stare at his unflinching countenance. After giving it some thought, I give in to his request. There really is no reason for him to lie to me. If he has any ulterior motives, then naturally, they will be exposed later on. If he's willing to have me tap into his emotions, then either he has a lot of experience with this, or he wants to earn my trust.
I'm just not understanding why.
I walk closer to him, but remain standing. Girtro's face eases up anyways, obviously compromising with me. He immediately stats to chatter.
"I heard that you already met with Tukare? So, how did it go? I was too busy checking our inventory to have gone with the other team", he regretfully says the last sentence as he asks the others in a gossipy tone. "What are doing standing like that—sit down!"
Getting tired of looking up at me, he pulls my coat and makes me sit down beside him. He flashes me a smile so bright and cheerful that it actually evaporates my shadow into wimpy smokes, and melts my shadow blades into dull lumps black cotton.
"I bet she ran away, right? She ran away, didn't she? Ahaha! You know, when Tukare found out that you were gone—man, that was scary~!"
"...What do you mean?" I am utterly confused.
"Oh! That's right, you didn't know!"
Girtro retold me the story of how Tukare had come to their camp and what had happened right after I left. Having my sister so near that time! I didn't know, but if I had known, I wouldn't have easily left like that!
Wasn't everything just a big misunderstanding?!
The feeling of depression creeps in; if I had known, I would've stayed with Tukare. If I had known, I wouldn't have left the camp and met Evelyn. I wouldn't have ceaselessly wandered...
But if I had known...I wouldn't have met Obrecht.
I shut out the small voice trying to talk in my mind.
"Ah, don't be so gloomy", Girtro says, patting my back. "The person you want to meet you'll meet soon enough. Come on, let's go get you some food! A good dinner would cheer you up~" He stands up in a fighting position. "Did you know? Food is so powerful! It is one of the greatest source of peace and warmness~ Ah~" He wipes his drool. "This is no good! I better catch us some food before we miss out on the good ones!" He forgets about me, dashing out the tent before I could inquire who I am going to meet soon.
I waver only for a long time in front of the entrance. When I do come out, the sky is already readily painted violet, prepared for the oncoming of dusk.
"You're so slow! Here—" Girtro grabs my coat sleeve with one hand while the other was holding a tray of food for two people.
The people who are lining up for the meal and those who were collectively seated around the nearer campfires went stiff at the sight of Girtro dragging me along. The scent of food has spread everywhere. It has been quite some time since I've eaten a hot meal.
Unconsciously, my stomach grumbles.
"What the—ahaha!" Girtro laughs merrily at the sound of my stomach's protests. "Take a seat, roomie~" Girtro plops down at a chopped tree stool, ignoring the stunned people sitting around the particular campfire he chose. Coincidentally, Theo, Laris and a few others are also seated around us; obviously in the middle of an important conversation cut shot by our arrival.
I take the empty seat to Girtro's right. He hands me a medium-sized bowl.
"Thank you for the food~" He digs in, unaffected by mood.
"...Thank you for the food", I mimic and then start to eat as well. The food isn't much, but it warms the stomach either way. I bite the wooden spoon, missing chopsticks for some inexplicable reason.
"Videre", Laris starts to say but the rest of his words gets choked up, as he begins to wake up from a trance. Although he did invite me to come out for dinner, he must've never expected a scene of me being willingly dragged around by Girtro.
"I know that we're being thrifty with the food and all, but—" Girtro sighs regretfully, " Ah, I what I wouldn't give for a rich taste of roast duck." He manages to squeeze a tear at the corner of one eye as he stares heartbrokenly at his bowl of quickly diminishing food.
He then looks at me and woefully asks, "Say Videre, if I imagine the taste of roast duck and pretend what I'm eating is roast duck, will I be able to taste roast duck?"
"..." Aren't you just torturing yourself?
"Videre, say ah~" A coquettish female voice says. I turn to my right and see a spoon lifted near my face. I open my mouth without any resistance and eat, looking at the smiling face of Tukare.
I wasn't aware that my sister had mood swings like this.
When I look back, everyone is shocked silly, much more than when Girtro was dragging me along. Heck, even Girtro is so surprised that the spoon he was holding had long fallen down into his bowl.