Friendship and Fear.

Trent opened his eyes to an unforgiving orange light, shining as though aimed directly into his eyes. He put his arm in the way of the glare and rolled over to the side, unwilling to endure such discomforts as the setting sun's rays on top of everything else that had occurred. He'd much rather lay in the shade as he was, in the surrounding patch of soft, cool grass. He sighed with relief and put his arm back down on the ground. It was quiet; the humidity was a bit much for Trent, but he'd get over it with time. He figured that it was going to get colder soon enough, so he may as well enjoy the warmer weather while he could. Conveniently as he thought this, a migrating bird happened to pass him by with a fading twitter, rushing towards the south in preparation for the same weather that Trent was so looking forward to. Silently he wished the bird luck in his journey for survival, and then returned to his empty-minded state of rest. This is nice… he thought.

And then something occurred to Trent that hadn't before.

Why am I on the ground? Actually, why was I just sleeping? Why is it afternoon when it was just night? Or was it night? I can't remember… I can't remember anything, actually. He remained still, lying in the shade of a nearby grove. Trent was puzzled. Jiece and I left the academy, came to the crossroads, went to Erott, started to work as street performers, and… I have no idea what happened after that. It was as though there was a wall in between Trent's conscious thought and his memory, denying him access to the past day. Again and again he walked through the streets, found the corner near the bridge, turned around and then lost the image. That's really weird, I-

Snap.

Trent's eyes shot open as he quickly rose to defend himself against whatever had snapped the twig he'd just heard. A young man had emerged from the forest's edge, not but five feet from the slumbering fighter. He looked a bit unnerved by Trent's battle-ready position and dropped the bundle of sticks that he was carrying at his feet, raising his hands slowly. Trent had a slight suspicion that he'd seen this person somewhere before, trying to remember as they both stood in silence. The man wasn't particularly tall, or conspicuously dressed; he wore brown pants with a simple white shirt and a dark brown coat over it all. Trent figured him to be quite average in appearance in almost every aspect. The only unique qualities of the man were plastered onto his head: his hair, bleach-white and thin, and his eyes, a hypnotic blend of- Wait…

The man put his hands down and relaxed. "It's probably coming back to you right about now." He said, reaching down to pick up his kindling and otherwise ignoring Trent. The fighter struggled with the rampaging strings of thought within his mind for a few seconds, trying to piece together some sort of recollection of the newcomer. After about twenty seconds, it was all made clear.

"Bennett?"

"Bingo."

Bennett walked right past Trent, following his beeline for the small circle of rocks a few yards behind him that was intended to be campfire site. "I'll explain. Whenever someone looks into my eyes, they fall under a spell that I've had put on them. It makes it so that if I'm not within someone's line of sight for an extended period of time, that person will forget all about me and any events that occurred in my presence. It's quite a useful defense mechanism when you're running away from the authorities. When see my eyes again, though, it all comes back, and eventually you'll build up an immunity to the effect altogether."

"Well I guess that explains whatever just happened… but why are you here now?" Trent followed Bennett to the stone circle and sat down a yard or so away from him. "And how did we get here?"

Bennett sat in front of Trent and began to explain. "Uh... let's see… well, I hit the crowd with a couple of blinder grenades, and then took on Leo's appearance again. I turned right around to you two, told you who I was, and flung you both over my shoulders, running straight through the gates after that. We were stopped about four times by guards, but then they saw who I was disguised as and backed off pretty quickly… and as for right now, we're about two miles or so outside of Erott, on the edge of the Hythan Forest." Trent looked as though he were about to interject, but Bennett stopped him quickly with a raised hand. "And don't worry, I went back and got you guys' horse and chocobo, they're only a short walk into the forest away. Actually, I just got back from feeding them when you stopped me."

With a sigh of relief, any shred of tenseness that remained in Trent faded. "So since you took us all the way out here… I assume we're safe?"

"We're safe."

"Well why don't I remember any of that, then?"

"I've found that people have a much more difficult time remembering things if they see my eyes when I'm disguised as someone else… I'm not sure why, but that's just how it is."

"Sounds like that could be a curse more than a gift."

"A curse for anybody looking for me, maybe." Bennett and Trent both laughed at this for a bit before Trent continued his interrogation.

"Now my main question: why are you here?"

"Come again?"

"Like… I guess what I'm asking is why did you save us? You could've blinded the crowd and then made your escape into the city easily; you didn't have to take me and Jiece at all."

Bennett was quiet for a few seconds and then unfurled his body onto the ground, throwing his hands behind his head. "Well, let's put it this way: I'd been staying in Erott for as long as I possibly could, doing whatever I could to clean it up. I thought that I'd had some kind of impact all these years, but I guess that Leo guy made me realize just how little all my efforts had yielded. Not only was he kind enough to point that out, but just his presence at all let me see that the situation was only getting worse for me… I've been chased by a guy like him before; the kind of guy who'll never stop hunting you until you're behind bars or dead. The first one was bad enough, but Leo's a great hero on top of that. That's just an indication that my time left in Erott was short. And so I figured that I might as well come along with you two since I don't have anywhere else to go."

"That's rough, man… I'm sorry you got run out of your home like that because of us."

"Nah, don't worry about it. I needed to get over the delusion that I was making a difference anyway… so I owe you."

"Heh, don't mention it then." They laughed again, this time in a slightly less awkward atmosphere. Bennett didn't seem like all that bad of a guy to Trent; in fact, he looked like he might be a really nice guy. Trent smiled inwardly at the latest of the odd twists that his life had entailed in the past few days, and then was suddenly hit by another. "Where's Jiece?"

'.'.'

"They're at the Hythan Forest now, milord. Just at the edge of it, closest to Erott."

'.'.'

Jiece had been laid down to rest in the same woodland clearing as Dio and Trent's horse. It was sizable enough, surrounded quite snugly by a thick growth of pine trees all around. There was a fireplace here too, but it looked like the bard had been far too lazy to attempt to start a fire. He was perfectly fine with the light and warmth supplied by the afternoon sun, finding its more natural feeling to be a compliment to his predicament. He was nursing a sprained ankle when Trent and Bennett finally got to the clearing. "Took you long enough to wake up, ya lazy-"

"Shut up, we hadn't slept for almost a full day. I was bushed." Trent punched Jiece's shoulder playfully as he passed him to his horse. Bennett leaned against a nearby tree as soon as he'd entered, and smirked.

"You're not exactly one to talk, Jiece. You were sleep-talking the whole time I was carrying you. Something about a girl's hair reminding you of a warm, safe place?"

Blood rushed into every nook and cranny of Jiece's facial features, turning him a bright shade of red in seconds. "I-I, uh… I... that's personal! It's a poem…"

"-For a very special lady of his." Trent finished the statement, rummaging through a nearby sack labeled "feed". Jiece coughed, awkwardly wanting to avoid the subject when it came up around a stranger like Bennett. He decided the change the subject and opened his mouth to speak, only to have Trent add "with knives" to his previous comment, followed by "and bombs."

"Thanks, Trent… you make me sound like a lunatic, but thanks."

"No problem."

'.'.'

"I see that we have a couple of scouts patrolling the area… tell them to find the targets and await the order to strike."

'.'.'

After a while, the three had gotten settled in to their new accommodations near the fire; now that enough were awake to keep a lookout rotation going, they were able to bring the animals and the injured bard out of the woods and into the clear night. Up until just minutes ago, the conversation had focused mainly around where to go from here. The group had decided to rely on Bennett's mastery of staying under the radar for the rest of the trip, not wanting to risk another assault by Leo or any other kind of law enforcement. Bennett wasn't necessarily against this, but didn't like the idea of having to employ his tactics wherever they went on the grounds that it would bring their pace of travel to that of a "turtle's morning jog" (or at least that's how Trent put it).

Regardless, the trio would move to the nearest port town, Akria, in hopes of finding airship transport to the settlement town near Gunyon Gorge, a popular tourist attraction of the area that would provide not only a short transit to Gagazet on foot, but the cover necessary to maintain a brisk traveling pace. Roughly thirty miles from Gunyon was their destination: the Orunitia Estate. Once there, everything would be smooth sailing.

Trent threw an apple core into the fire and let his back fall to the ground. He was tired, despite having slept for the better half of a solid day. It seemed as though his exhaustion wasn't entirely a physical matter… his mind ached. Only now, in the silence of the campfire-lit night, did he begin to ask himself the questions that he'd either ignored or left unanswered. The thoughts floated around in his head like bees in a field of flowers, occasionally leaping out to make itself known, and then darting back underneath the obscuring canopy. Why am I doing this? Why did I leave behind my friends and home, expecting there to be no consequences? Why am I not worried about that Kourd guy? Or the spire as a whole? What… what am I doing?

'.'.'

"The scouts have reported a confirmed sighting and await your order, milord."

'.'.'

It was dark, comfortable, and peaceful. The mixed temperature of the cold night air and the warmth of the fire was of a perfect degree. The idea of sleep crept slowly into the minds of Trent and Jiece, it being Bennett's first shift of lookout duty, though it was by no means unwelcome. A silent breeze passed over them, seemingly taking their preoccupied thoughts with it. Their eyelids begged to closed, and they were strongly inclined to give in to the temptation. Even Trent's myriad of mind-plaguing troubles weren't enough to stand up to the promise of a calming slumber as his thoughts became less frequent, less eloquent, and eventually dissipated completely. It was going to be a good rest.

'.'.'

"Proceed."

'.'.'

"Get up." Trent and Jiece were knocked out of their euphoric sleep into a semiconscious state by Bennett, who was currently and had been the very image of vigilance in keeping an eye out for trouble. "Wake up, damn it. Something's here."

Those were a pair of words that Trent loathed. Separate they were fine, but together they only meant danger. As if electrified by Bennett's utterance of the words, Trent suddenly became wide awake, rising up as quickly but quietly as he could manage. Jiece followed suit. "What-"

"Sh." Bennett pressed a finger to his lips to demand silence from the other two, an order that was immediately obeyed. It was as quiet as it had been throughout the entire evening; not a sound could be heard aside from the occasional rustling of the leaves in the nearby forest. Aside from the lack of sound, there was hardly anything to see through the darkness aside from the small space illuminated by the nearly-dead fire, which brought to life only the outlines of the three travelers that had set it up mere hours ago. There was something though, this was for sure. Something was watching them, they could all tell as they stared into the darkness of the forest's edge. It made not a sound, and showed not so much as hair, but it was there; its presence was there.

Inside, Trent felt his head ache. It was as though a strange, alien pressure had taken over the atmosphere of the campsite. He felt as though was being pulled away from the ground that he was standing on, like he was becoming distant from his surroundings somehow. The feeling grew in intensity until he felt that he was, quite literally, alone. It took several double-takes around the campfire for him to reassure himself that he was still in the company of allies, but somehow he just couldn't shake the feeling that he was being singled out, alone, exposed, and defenseless, by this onlooker. It wasn't a good sign, to say the least.

They waited in agonizing stillness for minutes that seemed like hours, with the fire growing weaker and the night growing colder all the while. Eventually the fire went out completely, leaving the three in a true void of the senses aside from touch; they could still feel the icy chill of the night. Or was it the night? None could recall the night air being so cold before they were alerted to this presence. And yet, it still seemed like nothing was wrong to the untrained eye. One would have to spend this time in the shoes of the trio to comprehend just how wretched and miserable this absence of light, sound, and movement was.

Very slowly, Bennett reached for his pack and strapped it across his back. He motioned for the others to do the same, with great care. Trent and Jiece both backed up, still facing the forest, towards their respective mounts and took the reins. They all began to walk off on Bennett's queue, never taking their gaze off of the forest's edge as they went. The pace was so painfully slow to Trent that his heart rate could nearly match a hummingbird's. All he wanted was to get out of this place, to get out of this aura of loneliness. After they'd covered a significant distance, Trent could've sworn he'd heard someone say "I love you."

Why he heard this, he didn't know. What it meant, he didn't know. Who said it, he didn't know. But Trent Cedric had never felt a fear so intense in all of his life.