"Do you want me to come with you," Allen asked as he gathered dry wood that was scattered around them.
"No," Lily responded as she ripped up the letter and closed the bag. "You can show me the way to the river though." Her face was hidden in the dark as her tears faded away. The reminder of Irene's misty void crept on her like the light from the flames of the small campfire that Allen made.
Allen sat in front of the fire and closed his eyes as he fell asleep. Lily opened the bag again, wiped the tears off her face, and then grabbed a piece of bread, cheese, and a link of sausage. "Allen, stop meditating."
Allen opened both of his eyes and looked at Lily who sat across from him. "What is it?"
"How do you cook this," she placed the bread and cheese back in the bag and unwrapped the link of sausage. She placed it on the floor on top of the wrapping.
"Have you never cooked before?"
"No, the maids do that for me."
Allen sighed as he got up and looked for another dry stick. "Are you some kind of master?"
"No, I don't own anyone."
"So why do you have maids?"
"I don't know," Lily grew silent as Allen found a dry stick. He hopped over to Lily and sat next to her as he picked up the sausage. "It's pretty simple. You just stick it on like this," He poked the dry stick horizontally through the middle of the sausage. "Then you hold it over the fire, and twist and turn it so all sides get cooked." He held the sausage over the flames as Lily looked at his actions amazed.
"Where'd you learn how to do that?"
"When I was about 12 or so. My master kicked me out of the cabins and house. He wanted me to kill all the bugs that showed up to harm our crops. But no one was allowed to give me food or they would have gotten a beating. So on my first day I sorta remembered what my best friend, Sylver, taught me.
"You could have simplified the story."
"But who else is going to tell my tale when I die," Allen chuckled. "I read that from a book once, the sentence I just said, I uhh quoted it. It's one of my favorite books."
"Who is Sylver," Lily interjects cutting Allen off.
"Oh, her. She's a slave just like me. She's the only person to tell me my eyes were kind of cool, still freaky of course. She's the same age as me so everyone lumped the two of us together."
"Ouu, do you like her? Is she the one for you."
"She's my best friend, of course I like her. What do you mean by one for me."
"Like," Lily hesitated, "relationship. Love."
"I don't know, do you love this Irene person?"
"Okay, now that is a different kind of love."
"Different? She wrote it at the bottom of the letter right, maybe she has the same feelings as you. She might think you're the one for her," Allen playfully said.
"She's my sister," Lily yelled as she punched Allen in the arm. It was not very effective. "I haven't seen her in years, I wonder if she's the same person as she was 8 years ago."
Allen took the sausage away from over the fire, he took a look at it before putting it back over the flames. "Most people don't change. Sylver killed someone and didn't change. So I doubt she-"
"Woah, woah ,woah. K-killed someone?" Allen nodded, "Why are you best friends with a murderer?"
"Huh? I told you, it's becuase she called my eyes cool."
Lily froze, as thoughts sporadically ran throughout her mind. 'This boy is too dangerous. His moral standings are too iffy. I should probably leave with Irene, but what would that say about me as a person. Someone who runs away at the face of danger? I vowed to help every and anyone I can. Free as many slaves as possible.'
"Ah, Lily look. The meat is done." Allen brought the meat away from the fire, he blew on it cooling it down a bit, he then placed it on the wrapping on the floor.
He got up and went back at his original position.
"Do you want anything to eat?"
"No," Allen sat down and closed his eyes again.
Lily cocked her head at Allen, "Is that how he plans on sleeping?"
"Yup, now go on and eat. We'll be fine."
Lily went on to eat the sausage, the piece of bread and some slices of cheese. All while she became increasingly paranoid about just sleeping in the forest. She had no bedding, pillow, or soft mattress. On top of that she had heard about the dangers of the forest, at any time she could have gotten ambushed or worse. As Allen fell asleep she struggled to even close her eyes outside of blinking.
She would look in every direction possible, as she heard howls and snickering from within the trees and beyond. For an hour she would hear the ambience of the forest. An ambience of which would sound quiet according to Allen and most peasants. On occassion the snickering would get louder than the other sounds of the forest. Eventually the snickering would turn into full on laughter, at which Lily would finally explode, jumping up from her sitting position and looking toward the direction of the laugh. "Who goes there!"
Suddenly a tall woman wearing black robes appeared in front of her, the light from the flames immediately showed flowing purple hair with a witch's cap over it. The hat was so big that it covered a majority of her mature face. "Ire-" The tall woman quickly covered Lily's mouth with her hand, as she used her unused hand to signal her to stay quiet. "Someone's sleeping," she whispered as she looked down at Lily.
Lily hesistated to look up, but when she did she saw the misty purple void that she remembered from years ago. Yet somehow it felt deeper and more endless than before.
"There's been a change of plans sis. I can't tell you much since the coven is watching right now. Be careful with that boy you're with, he's killed the dragonborn. Once you emancipate him, he'll be free for us to go after. Therefore we're ensuring you make it all the way to the Truman Farm, so you can rest easy. My partner can't stop laughing at you panicking, so please just go to bed. I'm going to remove my hand from your mouth. I want you to silently nod your head, if you understand everything I just told you." Lily nodded her head, leading to Irene taking her hand off her mouth. She backed up and took a good look at Lily, "You've grown up fine."
"You-"
*BLIP*
Irene was gone, just as fast as she came in. Lily sat back down, and curled up into a ball next to the fire. She grabbed the bag and hugged it like a teddy bear. As Lily began to overthink into the next morning, a cold sweat emerged from her. "What exactly does the coven plan to do with Allen? If what Irene said all those years ago is true then... What's the point of emancipating him if he won't truly be free."