A/N;; Hey! It's been a while since I've written anything, so I decided to start on something new. I've been playing Ni no Kuni for a while now and I figured, why not write a fanfic? This one will eventually be kind of focused on Swaine x Esther, but this chapter will be mostly describing the situation Oliver, Esther, Swaine, and Drippy are in at the moment.

This story will basically be a big side plot set around the time that they were looking for Captain Kublai, and kind of a "What if this happened…?" type of thing. Maybe I'm not making any sense at all… but I think you'll understand what I'm talking about once we get further into the story. xD

By the way, if you happen to be waiting for my other stories, I'm working on them now. New chapters should be here shortly [at least I hope so].

There may be things that I don't remember correctly from this part in the game. Please tell me if I did something wrong so I can fix it.

On to the story!

The past few weeks could have undoubtedly been the worst few weeks of Esther's young life. Well, besides the time that she had been cursed by Shadar and become brokenhearted, of course.

Esther, Oliver, Drippy, and Swaine had been traveling all across the world for weeks… relentlessly searching and searching for something they may never even find, and Esther had had enough. At first, she had been eager to get going on their journey to find the King of the Sky Pirates, but she had realized rather quickly that trying to find a secret hideout in the wide world that they were traveling through was just like trying to find a needle in a haystack. There was no way they would find it as quickly as Esther had imagined. It could take months, or even longer than that. It could take years. The length of the journey wasn't even the worst part, far from it in fact. The worst part was the fact that all three of them were 100% out of mana. Not a single drop left. To top it all off, they weren't exactly in what you would call a "safe zone"….

Esther sighed and shook the negative thoughts from her head, forcing herself to look on the bright side. Well, they weren't dead yet. She thought that was worth mentioning.

The four of them had decided to stay and rest in a nearby cave, deep in Autumnia, for the night. They all knew it probably wasn't the best idea ever, but it wasn't like they had much of a choice. The nearest inn was too far away, and they were all too tired.

Esther let out a long, frustrated sigh. The cave was cold and uncomfortable. How was she expected to get any rest at all? Rummaging through her bags, she searched for anything that was more suitable for sleeping on than the hard, cold ground. Smiling, she found just the thing, a thick blanket. It may not completely protect her from the uncomfortable cave floor, but it was certainly better than nothing.

After cheerfully spreading it on the ground, she smiled and wrapped it around herself. It really did keep most of the discomfort away. The others had caught onto the idea and gotten themselves settled in their own blankets… all except Swaine. He was lying on the cave floor with a blank look on his face, which was quite odd. Usually, he would be complaining by now. Something was definitely different about him… he was just staring off into space like the world around him was nonexistent. Now that she thought about it, Esther hadn't had even a single argument with him for a couple of days. Now that was really weird. He seemed really troubled… kind of like he was hiding something….

Maybe it was nothing. Maybe Esther was just overthinking it… but he did look worried, and he was acting strange.

Esther decided not to think too hard about the thief. He's probably fine anyway. she thought, Maybe the good-for-nothing stole something and he feels guilty for once.

The past few weeks had been chaotic to say in the least. Esther was completely worn out.

Monsters had been coming after them left and right. At first, the battles had been so simple… no problem for their powerful familiars. Things started turning bad once Oliver ran out of mana and all of the coffee was used up. Everyone was relying on Esther for healing, and she wasn't too high on mana either. Not only that, but basically the only ones doing any damage to the monsters were Swaine and his familiars. Oliver really wasn't able to do much because of his lack of mana, but he still fought alongside Swaine. Of course, Esther was far too busy healing her comrades to battle the monsters with them, as much as she had wanted to.

Luckily, they had all made it out of the continuous battles in one piece. Esther didn't know how long that would last, though.

Drippy had agreed to use Tidy Tears whenever he could, if they were in danger, but even the Lord High Lord of the Fairies ran out of mana sometimes.

In the last battle they had suffered through, all of them had lost their mana completely, and they were forced to flee. They had gotten lucky and made it out the first time they had tried. Once they were out, Drippy had used Tidy Tears and healed them up before they went to find shelter. He warned them that his mana needed to recharge for a while before he could use it again, so they made sure to steer clear of wandering beasts that may cross their path.

Esther yawned, sleep was beginning to claim her. She ceased her thoughts for the night, figuring she could complain about the past few weeks in the morning. Her eyes slowly shut and the girl fell into a deep sleep.

A/N;; Yeah, I know it was short and probably not that interesting, but I promise this is going to be good, I just had to describe their situation before I did anything else. So, in the next chapter we'll get to the interesting stuff :D

Thank you for reading! I hope it wasn't too boring!