Three days passed with little excitement, which was fantastic in Colt's opinion. It had gotten to a point where nothing excited him more than trekking through the forest with no excitement. This was likely due to the fact that the excitement, whatever it happened to be, nearly always wanted him dead. So with a near-death counter of 0 over the past few days, he and Shelly had been able to actually make some progress on their journey.
They'd been walking along the path in Gold Forest all day everyday with hardly any stops. Shelly never complained about the walk or getting tired, probably because she knew that Colt was doing the same trek while carrying a million-pound barrel along with him. And since Shelly wasn't requesting any breaks, there was no way that Colt would say he needed one. So they kept on walking, only ever stopping once and awhile to check the map and make sure they were still on track.
And they were on track, all right. They'd covered some good distance recently, so Colt estimated they'd arrive at the Authority base in only a few more days of traveling. The journey was beginning to come to an end, he could feel. Soon they'd be at the base and he'd be getting the information he needed. Then he could leave Goldtown behind and go off on his own. He would be able to make progress on his voyage to find the lost captain without having a captain to boss him around or a crew to consult with. It'd be him all on his own, just how he wanted. At least, that's what he thought he wanted.
For now, though, it was still a two-man process. Shelly had stayed with him the entire time, so there was no chance that she'd leave now that they were this close. But Colt didn't really mind, not as much as he used to. They had mostly kept to themselves the past few days. They would strategize their plans for the journey together, but that was mostly it. While they were walking they kept in their own heads. There was practically no small talk and definitely no deep conversations happening. Maybe that was for the best, though. Maybe they understood each other, and the fact that they both had very different paths. They just happened to need to get to the same place, for reasons that were unknown to the other. They had a common goal, and were both becoming increasingly aware that the common goal was about to be reached. And then they'd go their separate ways. And that would be that.
Colt was so lost in his own thoughts that he didn't even notice when Shelly stopped walking. He carried on for a moment more before realizing she was gone and turning back. She'd stopped in her tracks with a faraway look on her face.
"What's wrong?" Colt asked.
He walked back over to her, wondering if she'd heard something strange. He trusted her sense of hearing by now much more than he did his own, so if she heard something he believed it. Maybe their days of peaceful strolling through Gold Forest were coming to an end.
"I heard a soft rumbling noise," she said.
Colt frowned. "Do you..."
"Shh!" she interrupted. "There it is again."
Then realization dawned on him. He waved it off and continued walking. "Oh, don't worry about that," he said. "It's not a threat. To you, anyway."
Shelly jogged to catch up with him, a look of confusion across her face. "What do you mean?"
"That soft rumbling noise," Colt said, "was my stomach. The only danger is me becoming too hungry."
"Oh." Shelly looked relieved at this. Their good luck continued. "I suppose we should eat something."
"Yeah, that might do the trick," Colt agreed.
Shelly folded up the map and stowed it away in her pants pocket. Then she reached into her satchel and pulled out their latest meal. She tossed some bread and a flask of water to Colt, then retrieved the same for herself.
"Ah," Colt said, "just what I was craving."
He placed down the fish barrel and they sat down, leaning against a tree as they ate. Their midday meal usually didn't take more than a couple minutes. They filled their stomachs, gave their legs a quick rest, and then were back on the path to continue their trek.
As they ate, Shelly peered down into the satchel and frowned a little. "We don't have much left."
"We don't need much left," Colt replied between bites. "We'll be there soon enough."
"Yeah, but..." she hesitated before continuing, "what about your return journey."
Colt looked down at the ground a moment as he chewed, considering his answer. He knew she was asking this out of genuine concern rather than trying to pry into his plans, but there was still only so much he could tell her.
Finally he said, "I don't expect to have a return journey."
His eyes didn't waver up from the ground but he still knew she was staring at him. Eventually she looked away. Colt knew she wanted nothing more than to ask further questions, but she simply nodded.
"Yeah. I'm planning to stay awhile too."
Colt wanted to tell her that he wasn't planning to stay awhile at all, but that would invite more questions. So he nodded too, and that ended the discussion. He tossed his crumbs into the forest for the benefit of the fastest creature and stood up. He gave the flask back to Shelly and braced himself before picking up the extraordinarily heavy fish barrel for the hundredth time. He knew he was getting better at it, but that didn't mean he liked it. He really just wanted to leave the darn thing behind for the animals, but he'd made a promise. He'd come this far, so what was a couple more days of carrying the thing?
Torture. That's what it was.
"Alright, here we go," Colt grunted, and off they went.
The day went on and Colt and Shelly kept walking. Their streak continued as they managed not to run into any trouble, but now Colt was beginning to become bored. It had been so long since something had happened, and as nice as it was, all the endless walking was starting to really get to his head. He'd almost tripped over some roots several times because the walking had become so automatic for him that he'd stopped even looking where he was going.
Now he wondered if the lack of something trying to kill him would bore him enough to actually kill him. Thinking about it, it sounded pretty outlandish. But after days straight of just walking through a forest, who knew what could happen. Maybe he'd literally die of boredom. Or walking. Either way, both those sounded like they'd be incredibly lame to put on a tombstone. So he hoped some bad guy with a cool-sounding name would do him a solid and murder him out before that happened.
Or better yet, he hoped that they would eventually actually reach the authoritarian base. Which option he chose would depend on how much more walking the latter included.
Colt brushed aside some branches as he made his way along the path. They were definitely going much more uphill now than they had been at the start. The path was getting more steeper by the day. This made it harder to walk along but also meant that they were getting closer to their destination.
Eventually they came upon a pond in the middle of the path. This was pretty interesting, as there weren't usually too many obstacles directly on the path like this.
"Is it on the map," Colt asked, staring down into the pond.
Shelly checked the map. She had to bring her head close in and squint, but finally she raised her head back up and nodded. "It's very small, but there is a tiny dot in the middle of the path around where we are."
"Hmm," Colt nodded. "Good landmark, I guess."
They went around the pond and got back on the path, resuming their walk as normal. This was the most interesting thing that had happened in days, which was both good and bad. They didn't get too far past the pond, though, before the next interesting thing happened.
Colt began to hear a light screeching noise that sounded far away in the forest somewhere. He didn't think much of it at first. If Shelly—the expert on all things auditory—didn't think it was that strange then Colt wasn't going to point it out. It began to get louder, however, and Colt felt that they were coming closer and closer to the source of the noise.
"Do you hear that?" he asked finally, when the screeching had begun to get loud.
"Yeah," Shelly replied, "just sounds like a bird."
They continued to get closer, and the screeching sound began to sound more and more like crying.
"Sounds like it's hurt," Colt pointed out.
"Squawk!" said the bird.
"Maybe," Shelly said. "Well, I hope it's okay. It's a dangerous forest."
"Yeah," Colt muttered, "sure is."
And with that he took a sharp left and went off-path into the maze of trees.
"Hey, wait!" Shelly called after him.
Colt slowed down some so that she could catch up a little, but he didn't stop. He followed the bird's cries down further into the forest.
"Look, there's nothing we can do for it," Shelly said.
"Maybe not," Colt said, "but I'm going to try. You can go back to the path if you like and wait."
"Oh no," replied Shelly. "We're not doing that again. I'm coming."
With Shelly right on his tail, Colt finally emerged into a small opening with two birds near the trunk of a tree. The smaller of the two birds was the one crying with such a blaring voice. The bigger must have been the mother, as she snapped to attention upon the arrival of Colt. They were both very large birds, with bald and furless heads.
Colt put his hands up and walked forward slowly. "I'm not going to hurt you," he assured the mother. "Or your child. I just want to help, is all, and see if I can shut him up for you."
The mother didn't back down, getting into what looked like an attack position. Colt was careful not to make any sudden movements, walking slowly and softly over to the crying bird.
"Hey, Colt?" Shelly called from behind.
"Kinda busy," Colt replied as he started to reach his arm out toward the birds.
"Those are vultures," Shelly continued. "You might want to be careful."
"Copy that. Thanks for the great advice. I'll start being careful."
As Colt came closer, eventually the mother vulture drew back and stepped away a little. This gave Colt a clear path toward the child vulture. As he came up to it, he noticed the bird had gotten one of its talons tied around some sort of thick plant.
"Pass me your knife," Colt called back to Shelly.
"My knife?" she repeated. "You're not going to..."
"I won't hurt him," he said.
Shelly tossed her knife over and Colt retrieved it from the grass. The mother vulture began to hiss a little and Colt put his hands up again.
"Not going to hurt him," he repeated for the sake of the vulture. "I promise."
He brought the knife down and sawed the plant away until it fell loose from the child vulture's talon. The vulture's cries became softer and then faded out as it waved its freed foot around. Then it hopped over to the mother and they flew off together.
Colt turned back to Shelly and gestured to the silent air around them. "That's better, isn't it?"
He stood back up and walked over to where she was standing, offering the knife back. She took it, but didn't take her eyes off him. She was staring at him intently and curiously, like...
"What is it?" Colt asked, becoming a little uncomfortable.
"Nothing," she said, then, "You really have a thing for animals, huh?"
"I suppose, yes," Colt replied. "I generally like them."
"Hmm," Shelly said, obviously deep in thought. She got that look again, like there was something more she wanted to say. She hesitated, and this time she didn't stop herself.
"I'm sorry," she said finally.
That was something Colt hadn't expected. "What for?"
"I called you selfish earlier, and said that you only cared about yourself. But I was wrong," she looked into his eyes. "You saved me at the monkey den when you could've easily left without me. Then, as I called you selfish for it, you took down the Monkey Chief just to free the monkeys. And just now you went out of your way to save a random bird. A vulture, at that. None of that is self-centered. It's quite the opposite. I read you wrong, so I apologize for that."
Colt was a little taken aback by all of that, so it took him a moment before he responded. "Oh, well..." he paused for a moment. "Actually, I'd like to show you something."
He reached into the top of his tunic and pulled his pendant out to the front. It was a metal black bird that currently felt very hot due to the temperature in the forest.
"I remember that necklace," Shelly said, coming closer to peer at it. "I offered to sell it and call us even."
Colt was quite aware. That had been the reason he'd ducked it under his shirt in the first place.
"It was my only possession," he said. "Until I got my sword, that is. I've had it for as long as I can remember."
"Where'd you get it?" she asked.
"That's the thing," Colt said, running a finger over it. "I don't know. I think my father gave it to me. That's what I used to think, anyway. But now it's been so long that I really couldn't say."
Shelly just nodded.
"I guess I'm showing you this because you don't really know much about me, and there's not much I could say to tell you. So I'm showing you," Colt said. "This pendant is me. I don't know where it came from, why it's there, or what it means. Those are the same questions I ask about myself." He chuckled a little. "I don't even know why I still carry it around, to be honest. It's odd, isn't it, since I don't know how I got it in the first place. It means so much to me but I don't even know why."
Shelly shook her head and looked at him. "That's not odd," she said. "It makes perfect sense. Now I know why you didn't want to give it up to pay for my necklace. This one is infinitely more valuable. If I had known, I wouldn't have even asked you to do a thing like that."
"It's fine," Colt said, shaking his head. "You wouldn't have been able to take it from me anyway."
Shelly smiled a little. "Want to bet?"
"No I do not," Colt replied, slipping the pendant back beneath his shirt. "Now let's find that path again and get going. It'll be getting dark soon."
They managed to find the path again relatively quickly and got back to the endless cycle of walking. The final days of their journey had begun.