Chapter 2 – Friends Stay Together
Heroes and villains aren't supposed to mix, you know.
"Karu, are you absolutely sure we aren't lost?"
Dry leaves crunched underfoot. A faint breeze rustled the leaves of the forest.
"For the last time Sil, I'm dead certain, okay? If there's one thing I'm good at, it's navigation."
A trail of footprints. Gold, silver and obsidian glinted in the dappled light.
"Guys, don't squabble. Kiki, you keeping up alright?"
Fleeting birdsong. The scurrying of small animals.
"I'm fine, Jan. You don't always have to be the responsible one, you know?"
A vast forest that charged up to the very edge of a sheer cliff, and a ragtag band of four children.
Karu, the leader and navigator, grinned at the others, dark eyes flashing as he pointed forwards. "We're almost there, okay guys? Almost there!"
The other three looked at each other.
Sil was thinking about how the ditzy blond had said that two hours ago, and was also likely to lead them off the edge of a cliff. Kiki, his twin sister, was having a melodramatic internal monologue about tragic child ghosts while wearing an utterly deadpan expression. As the eldest of the group, Jan was making a very earnest effort to figure out where on earth they actually were and why the forest they were in had a distinct sense of wrongness to it.
They followed Karu anyway, because the kid's charm was off the charts and it was very, very hard to say no to those puppy eyes.
An hour later, Karu found himself restrained by Jan and Kiki, with Sil ranting extremely irritably at him. The rant, while long-winded and peppered with creative ways to not swear, essentially boiled down to: "This is an intervention, you suck at navigating, please stop before we all die in these woods and become creepy child ghosts."
Karu blinked at him in surprise. "Sil, don't be mean. My navigation is perfect, we should have been out of these woods hours ago."
Unfortunately, this only compounded Sil's pent-up frustration. "Karu, I don't give a Moby-Dick about that! I'm hungry and I want fast food, not the stuff we've packed, something really spicy! I'm sick of these woods that all look the same, and the stupid birds, and the bugs, and I want to just get the fu-"
"Oh right!" Jan's sudden exclamation cut Sil's shouting short. "That's what's wrong with this forest!"
Sil gave him a flat look as Jan started moving around in excitement.
"That thing you just said about the forest looking all the same. It's been bugging me a lot but I didn't realise it until you pointed it out!"
Kiki froze, realisation and horror crossing her face. "Guys..."
The other three turned to her.
"Guys, I think we've wandered into a Lost Place."
The four looked at each other, biting their lips.
Lost Places were small areas of land where one's sense of direction became uncontrollably warped. Spherical in shape, migratory and increasingly common, the phenomenon was one that led many astray in journeys through confined areas such as forests, where the warping of the air was hard to notice until it was too late.
Sil cursed under his breath. Getting out of a Lost Place was no mean feat.
An hour later, the four finally emerged from beneath the canopy of the trees. Waves crashed against the cliff dropping straight into the ocean. The wind whistled past a rocky outcrop reaching far over the sea.
"It was lucky we were close to the ocean," said Karu, breathing in deeply. They had managed to escape the Lost Place through following the sound of the waves. "And look!" He pointed towards the horizon. "We're just in time for our ride!"
The ship swayed lazily on the waves. A few seagulls clung to the mast, occasionally relieving themselves on unsuspecting passengers. Shira sat in the crow's nest, watching the birds with an eagle eye. Her hand gripped her tools tightly as she inched closer to the gull, slowly adjusted herself into position... and started to sketch the devil-bird. She mumbled under her breath about seagull death glares and the differences between aggressive ones that hunched their body, ready to strike at a moment's notice, and the friendlier ones that looked around curiously, necks outstretched.
Her moment was shattered when her companion, a short woman wearing an ornate hooded cape, suddenly took a deep breath and yelled out:
"Land ahead, Captain! Looks like a long cape!"
The seagulls scattered. Shira looked irritably at the girl, who shrugged.
"I have to tell the Captain if I see anything, you know. Earning our fare and all that."
"Ugh, I know." It didn't change the fact that a particularly fearsome-looking devil-bird was now in the sky somewhere, and not standing on the mast.
"You're an artist?" asked the woman, tilting her head. Her hood shifted, revealing blindingly bright platinum blonde hair. "Aren't you headed to the Hunter Exam? I'll admit you have some talent in drawing, but what use would such a skill be in the Exam?"
Shira's eye twitched. The woman had a point, but the question made her hand curl involuntarily into a fist anyway. Biting back bitter comebacks, Shira mumbled: "You don't know what they're going to test. And it isn't exactly the only skill I have." Blood was rushing to her head, and a violent urge to just do something and prove the woman wrong was overwhelming. A seagull fluttered down and perched itself on the very end of the yardarm and before she herself realised what she was doing, Shira had flipped one of her throwing knives out of its sheath and flung it gull-ward in one fluid movement.
It missed the bird by a mile. The thing stood there and preened its feathers, not even acknowledging that it had just had a near-death experience.
The woman snorted ungracefully, grabbing onto the edge of the crow's nest for support. Shira pouted inwardly as she grabbed at the reels taken from fishing rods that were attached to her legs, and wound up the one attached to the knife she had thrown. The woman was still laughing by the time she had fully reeled her knife back in. She eventually calmed down, and offered a hand.
"I'm Cerise." A small giggle escaped her mouth. "...Knife to meet you."
Shira stared at Cerise incredulously, but couldn't stop the corners of her lips curling up. "Nice to meet you too," she replied, taking her hand and shaking it. "The name's Shira. Maybe don't draw conclusions so fast next time?"
She was about to add in more puns when she noticed her companion's expression change from amused to suddenly horrified. Following her line of sight, Shira saw that land was much closer now, and there was a huge outcrop reaching out over the ocean from the cape, four figures standing on the very tip.
"Sorry Shira, we can talk later." Cerise adjusted her hood, covering her face and hair. "I'm feeling a bit seasick. Sways a fair bit up here. I'll send a replacement."
With that, she hurried down the ropes. Shira stared after her, wondering what had made Cerise react so badly.
Meanwhile, on top of the tip of the outcrop, a four-way argument was starting to heat up.
"Are you serious? That's the plan?" shouted Jan, looking furious. "Absolutely not! That's way too dangerous!"
Kiki looked annoyed. "Jan, it's the only way to get onto the ship, because the entire coastline around here is sheer cliffs! I told you this!"
"I'm really hungry," Sil complained, a pained expression shadowing his face. "Can we please eat something?"
"Shut up Sil!" Karu looked like he was desperately holding something back... "I. Need. To. Peeeeeee!" ...which he was.
"You can pee anywhere! Where am I gonna get the food I deserve?"
"All I'm saying is, this plan is utterly unsafe-"
"Just cause you're a paranoid scaredy-cat-"
"Can we eat-"
"GUYS, I NEED TO PEE SO BAD-"
"NOBODY IS ALLOWED TO GO FORWARD WITH THIS PLA- oof."
There was a second of silence as the argument stopped, but the quietness was broken near instantly by the sound of Jan, Sil and Karu screaming as they fell ocean-ward, having been tackled off the outcrop by Kiki. As they fell, they saw that their destination was not the ocean, but a ship that was no longer on the horizon and was in fact, directly below them. Sil recovered the fastest - he hooked his arms through Jan and Karu's shirts and stabbed his fingernails through the canvas of the sail. Kiki, who had maintained her balance, had landed on the yardarm, surprising Shira. Itoko, who had been climbing up to the crow's nest to replace Cerise, slipped from surprise and nearly fell. Vertical rips tore into the canvas as Sil slid down slowly, then all three of them were hurled off the sail as it suddenly heaved in the wind.
"Are you guys okay?" called Kiki, balancing precariously over the yardarm and into the crow's nest.
"I hate you SO MUCH!" yelled back Sil, picking canvas threads out from beneath his nails.
Kiki laughed. "I'll take that as a yes, okay?" she said, climbing down from the crow's nest, a nimbus of long silver hair floating around her.
Shira stared after her in a faint daze, until Itoko tapped her shoulder.
"Are you okay?" asked the cat-like girl, mildly amused.
Shira turned around, looking positively dumbstruck.
"I-Itoko?"
Itoko sighed, grabbed Shira's shaking shoulders, and shook them slightly.
"Yes Shira, it's me."
"W-was th-th-that..." she trailed off slightly, looking down towards the deck.
"T-t-today, junior," said Itoko flatly, gesturing at Shira to spit it out already. She didn't expect Shira to suddenly grab her excitedly and shout, fairly loudly:
"Itoko, I-I think that girl was an angel!"
Yooo look what changed a LOT from the original haha