[Ridge]
"How did you two meet?" Raforn asks me quietly. Kadeeth is ahead of the three of us, pulling the wagon by himself as punishment for his douchebag behavior earlier.
"Well, uh, mutual family... issues, I guess." I reply, biting into a rismint fruit from Caroley's bag. It's not ripe yet.
"Sooo, is he a psycho because of his family?" Raforn speculates.
I stare at the back of Kadeeth's head, his dark red hair is slick with sweat. I don't feel bad. I don't want to help him. I don't.
I physically shake my head, as if it can also dislodge my internal struggle, "He's no crazier than the rest of us." I defend him against my better judgment. Raforn makes a face that says 'uh huh, sureeeee', in the most sarcastic way possible.
"He almost murdered someone just for trying to scam you." He looks at me suspiciously, realization dawning on his sharp features, "He's only luny over you!" He whisper-shouts. I shove the remaining half of the rismint fruit in his open mouth.
"Shut up, man. Don't talk like you're perfect. Didn't you bring up underground arenas before like they were a bad thing?" His eyes widen and a light blush dusts the tops of his cheeks, "Then you turn around and bring us to the base of operations for one of the most notorious Noble run arenas in the Empire?"
He chews on the inside of his cheek, kicking a rock off the path, "Whatever." He mutters.
"Ridge, he has a point. Kadeeth has some real issues." Tellur speaks up lightly, "I mean, I've done some crazy shit during my life, especially in my prime years as a Knight. But I've never seen someone as unpredictable as him." I suddenly feel attacked. It's like they're trying to say I don't know him as well as I think I do. That I'm unaware of his true personality or something.
I'm not someone to be pitied though. I'm not some ignorant fool who's been running around oblivious to his friend's shitty actions this entire time. Maybe it's worse that I'm not. I can't claim deniability. Not even I thought he would do something as pointless and cruel as that shit he tried to pull off earlier though. That scares me.
That maybe I really don't know him as well as I think I do, or that he could be changing. Is he getting worse? Is that bad? Is there something I should do to stop it? Is there even anything I can do?
"You're no picnic either. I thought you were out of it for singing when you had a headache." I remind him, "But that didn't even come close to when you almost got fucking tranpled trying to buy more alcohol."
He doesn't get embarrassed at being called out like Raforn did, and he doesn't try to reason his way out with the first crazy thing that comes to mind like Kadeeth. He just looks at me. His eyes are sad.
Despite self labeling myself as NOT a pitiful fool a moment ago, somehow he's looking at me with pity. When we get to the meet up spot, I'll have to give everyone a talking to. We're out here to fight a war, we're not a group of boys on vacation together trying to find our life's purpose. There's no time to fool around, or murder civilians.