Unclean

Oh man, it's happening again. Every night for the last 2 weeks. Every night, the same. Yuri's moaning in his sleep, muttering quietly in tongues, talking in circles to himself, twitching underneath the twisted, sweat-drenched blanket. So far no one else has noticed, at least no one's said anything yet. And every night Karol watches. Until he can figure out what's bothering his friend he will continue his sentry duty. He won't say anything to the others until he's sure. He will do nothi-

But wait. Something different. Yuri has stopped talking mid-ramble, and suddenly sits up on his bed roll. Karol watches with bated breath from his heap of frayed blankets in the corner, as Yuri gets up and shifts nervously on his feet and starts to pace the cool earth. He pauses, and then slinks out of the tent that has been their home for the last month. Karol waits a second or two, and then tip-toes after Yuri into the night.

Yuri stands with his back to Karol holding his hands up to the moonlight. His hands are shaking. Karol creeps round the other side of the camp fire - only a few embers left now - so that he can get a better view. Yuri's eyes are open, but it is clear that no one is home. He's still asleep. His eyes are flickering madly from one hand to the other, and then he suddenly clutches his left wrist with his right hand and brings it very close to his face.

"Yet here's a spot!" He scrutinises the nails, turns the hand over again and again and again. He twists his fingers together, rubbing his hands furiously, and pulling them apart.

"Out, damned spot! Out I say!" With this anguished outburst, he flings the offending hands away from him, but being attached to his arms, they can only go so far. Karol watches horrified as Yuri starts to scratch and chew on his poor abused fingers. At this point it doesn't look like he has drawn blood, though in the moonlight Karol does notice they are stained a pretty weird colour.

"Will these hands never be clean?!"

Karol is now frantically weighing up the pros and cons of waking up a sleepwalker – he's sure he heard somewhere it can do pretty crazy things to your head - but then Yuri is already acting pretty crazy… His thoughts are interrupted by the sight of a pink head as it emerges from the flap in the tent. Karol waves frantically to Estelle and motions her to be silent. She looks over at Yuri and tiptoes out to join Karol.

"What's… he… doing?" She whispers, even more concern in her voice than usual.

"I dunno... I'm worried Estelle. Do you think we've been living rough for too long?"

"Maybe… We're all really tired, but none of US are behaving like this... Maybe it's all the fighting? Yuri has seen an awful lot more bloodshed than most people."

"Oh man…" This is worse than he thought. Yuri has finally lost the plot. What will this mean for the Guild? They are already broker than broke as it is… Ever since the Adephagos life had changed for everyone in the world, and no clients could afford to pay them… And what with Ba'ul, Judith, and Rita being summoned unexpectedly to Myorzo, and the Fiertia being out of action for urgent repairs, everything had been that much more difficult….He buries his head in his hands.

"Curse you old man! If only I could turn back the clock…"

Huh?! What on earth is Yuri talking about now?

"Damn farmers… only trying to help… now look at me!"

Farmers….help…the strange colour on Yuri's hands… the penny drops. He looks at Estelle. She doesn't understand yet, so he points to the large wooden crate beside the tent. The crate that they have been carting around with them like a millstone for the last few weeks. The crate that was their "reward" for their last job as a guild. The job they took out of sheer desperation, money was so low they'd had no choice, even though it was so demeaning, and man, the smell hadn't come out of his hair for days…

Karol shakes his head to dispel the memory of that horrible experience, and looks over at the battered old tent again. Man, they didn't even have money for proper accommodation – that's why they'd been reduced to sleeping outside the city's walls for so long, while they traipsed around the inns and bars of Dahngrest so they could pick up any odd jobs that happened to come by… they hadn't quite been reduced to begging. Yet.

Estelle follows his gaze back to the tent and the crate. Realisation dawns on her face, and she looks back to Karol who nods in confirmation. The crate! The crate that for the last few weeks has held hundreds – no, thousands - of carrots.

Carrots… those damn carrots.

There's nothing wrong with carrots really, Karol thinks to himself, but I guess when you're forced to eat them for every single meal, day in, day out – for weeks! Well that would be enough to make even the sanest person a little bit nuts. And Yuri, being their main cook, has had to scrub, peel, chop, slice, mash, sauté, steam, curry, blend what must be thousands of them. No wonder his hands looked orange in the moonlight…

To be fair, Yuri's stubbornness is partly to blame. "You can't throw good food out. Not when money's so tight." "Most of the folks in the Lower Quarter would give their right arm for so much fresh produce." Shaming and guilt-tripping the rest of the group into moody silence in the face of yet another plate of carrots. He'd tried everything to use them up – even a truly disgusting experimental carrot sorbet. Karol felt himself heave a little at the memory. If anything, that one had drained instead of adding TP…

And now here was Yuri, wringing his orange hands and muttering like a madman in the moonlight. They have to do something. Enough with the rabbit food….

Dawn comes. Yuri rouses himself sluggishly from his bed roll, stumbles out of the tent and heads over to the campfire to throw some more kindling on it. Crouched down by the fire he stares into the glowing embers as they spark and crackle, and gradually grow into flames. After a few contemplative moments, he sighs and get wearily to his feet.

"Better get started on breakfast for everyone," he mumbles bitterly, and then, "Up an' at 'em! How does everyone like their carrots?" he calls out with mock cheer as he stomps over to the god-forsaken crate.

"Scrambled? Sunny side up?" He flicks his long black hair away from his tired eyes. "Or maybe just boi-"

He stops suddenly in his tracks. "What the hell?"

It's gone. The crate is gone. His rubs his eyes in disbelief and looks again. Nope, he's not dreaming, it's definitely gone. He looks around in dumb confusion. Where the crate should be, there's a large square shaped outline impressed in the dirt, and one lonely carrot lying forlornly in the dust. He crouches down to pick it up, turns it this way and that, and then notices the tracks. There are two narrow furrows in the ground leading away from where the crate should be.

"Guys…?" he calls out croakily. The shock seems to have robbed him of his voice. He clears his throat and tries again.

"Guys…? We may have a small problem…."

No answer.

"Umm… guys? Hey, where is everyone…?"

"Mornin' sunshine," yawns Raven as he emerges from the tent. He rubs his eyes sleepily and starts padding over in Yuri's direction.

"Sooo… what's on the menu today Wonder Chef? Carrots Benedict? Carrots rancheros? Devilled carrots? Oooh, maybe we could go all French and have some Carrotte à l'orange? Whaddya say?"

Yuri attempts to interrupt him but Raven just keeps right on talking. No change there then.

"Heck, I'm starvin', just toss me a coupl'a raw ones for now, and that'll keep me going while you're makin' up your mind. There's a good kid."

"Raven!" Yuri yells now, impatient to make himself heard.

"What?!"

"No carrots" he replies, firmly.

"Whaddya mean no carrots Yuri? Now I know you're sick of 'em - we all are - but I hate to break it to ya sonny boy, but there ain't nothin' else BUT carrots..."

"Raven – there are NO carrots! They're gone! Look!"

Yuri points to where the crate used to be. Raven's jaw drops open in surprise.

"Well I'll be damned… They really are gone…"

"Yeah… and it looks like whoever took them went in that direction. Towards Dahngrest..."

His voice trails off for a moment, then reality suddenly hits, and Yuri turns back to Raven with a look of wild panic in his eyes.

"Raven, that was ALL the food we had left in the world! We have NO Gald! We could actually starve here!"

Raven bends down, traces his fingers in the dusty tracks, then follows the path with his eyes as he stands again and sighs.

"Well… I guess that means you an' I are a-goin' on a good ol' fashioned carrot hunt then".

He looks back to Yuri. He is already drawing his sword, checking the sharpness of the blade with his stained fingers. He sheathes it with a determined movement, and looks up at Raven with a dark look in his eyes. A look Raven has only seen a handful of times before. Uh oh.

They only get a few hundred yards down the road before they see a couple of figures heading towards them in the distance, from the opposite direction, coming from Dahngrest.

"Hey! Yuri!" one of them shouts, and Yuri recognises Karol's voice. Karol? What's he been doing over in Dahngrest this early in the morning? He blinks and realises that the taller, more elegant figure must be Estellise. Karol is running towards him, and as he gets nearer Yuri notices something odd. Karol is not quite running, he seems to be, well, kind of… skipping? Yep, that boy is actually skipping, and there is an actual grin on his face. Man, he must not know about the carrots, thinks Yuri, it's gonna suck breaking it to him, that they now have no Gald AND no food either. But Karol keeps on skipping joyously over to Yuri and Raven, and Estelle is now running too. And she's laughing. What the hell is going on? Why are they so happy?

"Yuri!" Karol shouts breathlessly, "We… have…news!"

"Just what the heck are you two kids so happy about?" asks Raven with a confused look on his face.

"The carrots -" Karol pauses to catch his breath, his hands on his knees.

Without warning Yuri grabs him under the arms, like a child, and lifts him up to his own eye level.

"Do you know who took the carrots Karol?!" He has a crazy, haunted look in his eyes, and Raven has to step in to prise Karol away from their friend, and sets him back down on the floor, just as Estelle comes running up to join them.

"The carrots?! What happened to the carrots?!" He practically screams the question. He's infuriated by the big happy smiles on their faces. Why does no one seem to understand how much trouble they are in right now?

Estelle grins up at him as she helps Karol back up to his feet and wipes the dust off his back.

"That's just it Yuri. There are no more carrots," she smiles, "And there won't be for a long time."

Yuri is crushed. His legs seem to crumble and fold beneath him, and he collapses in a heap on the dusty ground and puts his head in his hands. He just can't do it anymore. He can't keep pretending to be strong, to be cheerful, to always have the answers, to always have a plan to get them out of trouble. This is it. They've officially hit an all-time low.

He closes his eyes and tries to breathe, to think, to focus.

"But what we DO have is this." Estelle laughs, and when he opens his eyes again she's holding something in front of his face. He blinks hard, he's fighting back tears, and the hot morning sun is blinding him so he can't really see what she's showing him. He reaches out to take it….

"What the…? Is that… Is that what I think it is?" he stutters, and looks up at her.

"But, but….where did you get it?" He takes the cool coin from her hand, closes his fingers around it, presses it to his lips, and bites it - yuck, definitely gald - and closes his eyes in relief.

"And that's only part of it!" Estelle is still gushing. "He gave us 1000G as a down-payment, and when he saw how much we had to sell he gave us 9,000G more! It's all locked up in a private safe at the inn for us."

Yuri's mind is a complete mess, but he can still just about do the math. 10,000G? 10,000G! That's more money than they have seen since the Adephagos. That will help set them up again. They're saved!

"Wait a minute. You're saying someone actually BOUGHT those carrots off us?"

"That's right!" Karol laughs as he offers a hand to help heave Yuri back to his feet. "And if you want, you never have to eat another carrot again!"

That's it, he can't hold it back anymore. He looks down at his orange hands, and then back up at Karol, at Estelle, at Raven and he finally lets go. Hot, salty tears of joy and relief stream down his face.

"Thank you guys. Thank you."

Later that evening as they are settling down into their comfy beds at the inn, Raven already snoring away like a buzz-saw, bellies full to bursting of pork noodles, steak sandwiches, fish stew, and the creamiest, most delicious cake they have ever tasted, Yuri yawns and is about to wish everyone good night, when a thought occurs to him. He'd been so concerned with starvation he hadn't even thought to ask before.

"Karol?"

"Yeah Yuri?"

"Who the heck wanted to buy all those goddamn carrots?"

"Ahhh…Ummm…" he pauses nervously, and clears his throat. "Don't worry about it Yuri. Just some contact I know from back when I was in the Hunting Blades. Something about bait for some weird type of monster he's been tracking out West."

A carrot-eating monster? Yuri has just enough time to think to himself that he's never heard of such a stupid thing in his life, but exhaustion takes over, he yawns again and gently drifts off into the deepest, soundest sleep he has had in well over a month.

For a few moments Karol watches Yuri, finally sleeping peacefully, a well-deserved rest. He glances over at Estelle, who's looking over in his direction and nods knowingly. He settles back down under his covers, and thinks about the deal they made with that weird guy in the Guild HQ, and smiles to himself. Out of all the people they have met in this crazy world, all the strong, fearsome, and powerful people they have come to know on their travels – who'd have thought it would be the Bunny Guild who would save the day.