"Where were you?" Ruby asked me while sitting next to the dim fire. It seemed she had relit it...
"Just securing my spot as a trainee. Isn't it way too early for you to be awake?" I asked her. She shook her head.
"I'm usually up this early to watch over the group while you go off and do whatever it is that you do. I take care of the fire and keep watch." She told me. So... that was why Ruby was always so tired, she kept watch while I went missing. I had no idea.
"That's kind of you, Ruby, but you don't have to worry about things like that," I reassured her. She was a lot more complicated than I thought, but that was because I barely knew anything about her.
"Ruby... I want to know more about you. What was life like for you before Ipa and I recruited you?" I asked her. I specifically remember her living life in Gaia, but I knew nothing else about her.
"Let's see... my father was a traveling merchant who went to big cities like this. He went to Dorrendale, Zyphilia, and even Yugon, but I never heard about his travels because he was always so busy. I would just think that I never had a father and it made it easier to deal with him being missing from my life." She explained. She curled herself up with one of the blankets we had on the wooden log by the fire and with a small stick poking through an opening, she played with the fire to keep it ignited, but not too bright.
"My mom sent me to Dorrendale to learn how to make trinkets. I wanted to become a merchant to get my Dad's attention and have him come back home to restock on things he could sell. I made a charm for him that increased his speed so he would want to use it... but he never returned home for it. I still wear it to this day." Ruby said, pulling up her sleeve to reveal an armband up past her elbow. It had a red gem in the middle and radiated some of the blue smoke around her arm.
"I was good with trinkets, but the man teaching me had to leave as well. That's when I decided to move back home and stay with my mom. It was a pretty simple life after that, just caring about the people around me in Gaia and hanging out with my friends as we browsed the lengths of the city, but it was all destroyed soon after, you know, by that Joro guy. He said he was going to Zyphilia next in search of a man named Anima. He came from Sieve, so I knew Joro was the bad guy and you must've been the good guy. I tried to leave Gaia to find you, but I couldn't escape from the rubble." She explained again. And this next part was the one I was most ashamed about since I was reincarnated here.
"Then you came by looking for Claire and the other friends you made. I don't blame you for that, but I wished you just turned around so you could've seen me. You gave me the motivation to push that rubble off of myself and recuperate before I headed over to Dorrendale again. I wanted to learn the trinket craft again, but once I saw you and that strange man walking back and forth between the cities, I knew that I wanted to be friends with you, as we had a common goal." She finished off her story and continued to move the fire around.
"I'll find your father. Now, he can look for your trinkets and my potions on the market, that increases our chances, right?" I asked her. Ruby nodded with a tearful smile and wiped them away with the blanket.
Ruby seemed a lot more resilient than I initially thought. I thought of her to be a weak person just because she knows support magic, but by staying up when I leave and her past, I could tell that I was wrong all along. I needed to stop looking at people like they were one-dimensional and understand that everybody has a purpose and a story.
Maybe this was a sign to learn more about Ipa and Ken... but, they were just so bland and I didn't really care.
Ruby was different because... well... I'm not even sure anymore. I just wanted to know about Ruby. Ipa and Ken didn't wake up early to take care of us. Sure, they were never asked to, but neither was Ruby. She was the group's morale and caretaker, she was special and she mattered to our composure. Without Ruby, we would be a group of emotionless men without any drive to do anything.
"When did you learn your support magic?" I asked Ruby, sitting down across from her on the opposite side of the bonfire.
"I didn't. I don't know any magic, really. I only know what I mimicked from you. I can be whatever you guys need me to be." Ruby explained.
"So, you're in the dark as well... so be it. After we're done here, I'll teach you to be an attack mage with air-element attacks." I told her.
"Why do you care? Why did you recruit me in the first place?" Ruby asked me again. What a stupid question... but when I thought about it, I didn't know. I should've thought about this before.
"Now that I think of it, you remind me of somebody else I used to know back on Earth. You seemed happy like them and well-composed, but I can't remember that person." I explained to her. I wasn't sure the name still, even when I thought about it. It was like my memory was blacked-out.
"I won't let you down, Anima. I won't let anybody down." Ruby said. This sounded like one of those death speeches right before the main cast in an anime gets thinner... no, she wasn't thinking about dying, was she?
"What's on your mind? What prompted you to use that tone? You don't seem quite like the Ruby I know." I told her.