"Rin are you sure about this?" Arri asked for the fourth time.
Rin ignored him and continued to tear up the last few pages and fed them to the flames, the light illuminated by the fire caressing her face as she watched the last bits of her journal slowly turn to ash. She spotted a dry, disfigured stick a few inches away from her, picked it up, and used it to poke at the flames, making it cackle.
Arri sighed, deep and heavy as his shoulders relaxed, giving up as he joined Rin to poke at the flames. "Do you think anyone's realized that you're gone?" He suddenly asked her.
Arri always asked this question every time he decided to help her sneak out. They didn't go too far though. The five-hundred-year old Caster Edalian castle was one hundred kilometers away from the mainland, Edgewater, and was surrounded by a thick forest full of trees, wildlife, pastures and the like; so it was pretty much cut off from society. The forest was used most times to practice hunting. Rin and Arri were located just some feet away outside the castle walls but they were still surrounded by a lot of trees. Even if people knew they were there it would still be hard to pinpoint their exact location.
Rin looked up from the fire to meet his eyes, her stare, ice-cold and a smirk playing on her lips. "Does it matter?"
"Of course it doesn't." Arri did his special grin which made Rin smile shyly. Arri won this round, she thought. He always knew how to lighten her mood. Arri on the other hand, used the opportunity to ask her what was really on his mind.
"So you're not going to regret burning up Gin?" He looked at the fire instead because he knew Rin was already staring bullets at him for bringing the book up again.
"Stop calling it that. It's not human." She continued to poke at the flames. Arri could already see she was getting antsy but still pressed on.
"You could almost swear it was, once upon a time. What went wrong? I wonder." He taunted.
Rin snorted and threw the stick into the fire with intentional force, making the flames blaze arrogantly, her 'certified bitch' face coming into view amidst the flames. "Look, I was young back then. Now, I just think it's dumb keeping a stupid journal. I decided to move on." She answered.
"But you stopped writing in it like five years ago. It's been laying on your shelf since then. Why did you decide to burn it up now?" Arri prodded.
"Arri, please can we change the topic?" Rin asked, irritation lacing her words.
"Alright! Alright!" He knew he couldn't go on anymore at this point. "I got one. Should I go ahead?"
"Shoot." She relaxed now.
"You and Kiv, anything going on?" Arri asked smugly, looking Rin in the eye.
Rin's face fell. She just about had it with Arri at this point, but she answered the question.
"There's nothing. Why would you think there is?"
"Every time I arrive in the morning; I always see you guys together at the training grounds. And I notice how he looks at you." Arri said matter-of-factly.
"Oh please. It's the norm for both of us; we train together before you arrive and he gives me really good tips when it comes to parrying. And besides, he's like six years older than me." Rin stated, trying to be as clear as possible.
"So? What if he is older?" Arri countered.
Rin's shoulders dropped and a huge sigh escaped her lips. "Goodness, Arri."
Arri nodded to himself, a pleasing smirk planted on his face. He was enjoying this. To him, it would always be fun teasing Rin.
"What about the part on how he looks at you?"
"All in your head." Rin answered him quickly.
"If you say so!"
"What about you?" Rin asked him.
"What about me?" He looked confused.
Rin released her crossed legs and pulled them up to her chest, a hand placed gently on her cheek.
"Anyone you're interested in?" She asked.
"None."
Rin was shocked at how fast he answered that. Then Arri looked up and tried to actually think about it for a second.
"Hmm. . .the only person that comes to mind is Tia from the brothel." He mumbled to himself.
"Tia from the what!?"
"Nothing!" He said quickly.
Better to keep that one a secret, he thought.
Arri stood up swiftly and dusted himself off. "I need to take a piss." He started to walk off into the woods.
"Don't be long!" Rin called out to him as he disappeared into the trees.
. . .
Arri whistled an infamous tune as he went about his business. He thought about how clueless his best friend, Rin, was concerning Kiv Elam, the Emerald General. Anyone in the castle could see he was into her; even the queen got the gist a long time ago, way before Arri did.
The girl is just too slow, he mumbled.
He thought of how much Rin had changed ever since he met her. Evolving from a snooty stuck-up brat to an A-grade, certified emo-bitch. The things she cared about so much before mean nothing to her now. She either accepts certain things without putting up an argument or she's punching some random soldier in the face for cat-calling the servants or kitchen attendants in the castle. Arri thinks Rin feels out of reach or just very unpredictable sometimes. He feels the reason is the castle; the castle, being the only world Rin has ever known is making her lose it, slowly and painfully. Sneaking out was the solution he came up with to make her feel better, but it felt like Rin was getting tired of it already; he had to think of something else to keep her sane.
Arri finished and pulled up his breeches, whistling once again but stopped when he turned around to see a small figure standing at three feet with a grown man's face, a pair of horns sticking out of his head, an exposed torso and hairy goat legs standing five feet away from him.
A faun? He thought, getting excited at the sight of the creature.
The creature had the most shocked expression on its face. He was holding some fruits in his hands until he let it tumble to the ground when he saw Arri. He made a quick dash as he disappeared into the forest, leaving his fruits behind.
"Hey! Wait a second!" Arri called out, but the creature was long gone.
A faun, huh? Arri enthused. The last time he saw a faun was fifteen years ago, when he was a little kid. There was a time in Edale when fauns used to co-exist with the humans. The five great kingdoms; Edale, Manda, Raja, Mata and Kiyaar each had a mythical creature that co-existed with the humans of those kingdoms. Edale were the fauns and Centaurs, Manda were the Cyclops and dwarves, Raja were the Orcs and goblins, Mata were the high elves and hobbits and Kiyaar were the fairies. The fauns were rumored to be exiled from Edale; they had been going through discrimination in Edale for the past hundred years. Some of the civilians even used the fauns as extra live-stock/emergency food. The Centaurs weren't left out; they were seen quite often unlike the fauns, but they were used as a means of transportation and they worked a lot of jobs here and there for the civilians; they were treated way better than the fauns.
Edalians weren't very cheery or pleasant when it came to things they didn't understand; they try to dismiss a lot of things they see that may seem impossible to come by. The thought of magic, witches, sorcerers and warlocks didn't sit quite well with them. It wasn't very normal that they would think this way because in their history books their ancestors accepted all the things they reject now. Edalians aren't very friendly with the other kingdoms except Manda, the neighboring kingdom.
Arri placed his hands on his hips and took a look at the forest around him.
I wonder where the fauns are hiding, he thought to himself.
. . .
Rin stared off into the gradually weakening fire that Arri made. In it, she saw she and her mother playing chess in her bedroom and her mother stuffing cake in her face. The corners of her mouth turning up a bit at the memory of that. It was her mother's 30th birthday and Rin was only 5 years old then.
The fire finally went off. It was very chilly and Rin was starting to worry about Arri. How long does it take to take a piss?
The sound of a twig snapping somewhere deep into the forest made Rin whip around and study her surroundings for a while; she slowly got up from the ground and tried moving closer to the trees, since she was in one of many openings in the forest, surrounded by trees; then she heard whispering. She moved her right hand to her hip and slowly unsheathed her sword. It was a thin silver blade, with the royal crest imprinted on the gold grip. Rin had already considered getting a new one, since she had been using it for five years now. The whispers increased as she came closer to the trees. She lifted the sword up, intending to bring it down on the bush.
"Rin, you will not believe what I just saw!" Arri remarked, coming from the opposite side of where Rin was.
Alarmed, Rin turned to face him." Where on earth were you!? How far did you go?"
"I was only gone for like fifteen minutes." He answered.
"You can't be serious."
"I saw a faun." He said without wasting any time.
"I don't believe that ridiculous story about the Fauns." Rin said dismissively as she put her sword back in its sheath, forgetting about the whispering in the woods.
Arri's face fell. He couldn't blame her because she had never even met one before; not even a Centaur because they weren't allowed near the castle, so it was hard for her to believe him unless she had seen one herself.
Arri looked up to the sky. "Anyway, what were you looking for over there before I turned up?"
Rin's eyes widened as she instantly remembered the whispering in the woods. She got up and went over to the trees, unleashing her sword once again. Arri was confused as he sat and watched his friend, preparing to support her if anything came up.
A hand shut out from behind a tree. "It's just us your highness." A familiar voice said.
Two men came out from behind the tree. It was Brute and Krone.
"Well if it isn't Foss and Glenn." Brute said, his arms folded.
"I'm not her Foss. I'm not his Glenn." Rin and Arri said simultaneously. Foss and Glenn was a children's book about the romance between the princess of a faraway kingdom and a stable boy, popular amongst Edalians.
"Do I look like a stable boy to you?" Arri felt insulted.
"No, you look like a sty attendant." Brute answered him smugly.
Arri huffed and rolled his eyes at him. A sty attendant was the dirtiest job you could ever ask for in Edale, since pigs are very precious to Edalians; so they hire a sty attendant, whose job was to clean up the pig sty, bathe the pigs themselves and feed them. The pay was worth it but your dignity and honor would go down the drain.
"Forgive my partner's behavior." Krone came in and focused on Rin. "You have been summoned by your father." Krone paused as he took in Rin's expression, clouded with disbelief.
"He knows you're not in the castle."