It was a week's worth of traveling by horseback to Ariz's castle, and a week and a half to Xarin's. Since we had an extra horse, we gave it to Ratos to ride. We decided to leave tomorrow after breakfast so we could spend the day gathering supplies. It had been well over three hours since we had first seen Ratos at lunch, so the tavern was pretty much cleared out when we made our way downstairs. We left the tavern to get food, blankets, and other various necessities we would need on the road.

Rayult had left his bow and quiver of arrows back at Castle Myricana's barracks, so he went to the armorer to get more arrows and a bow. Ratos needed new boots, so he went to see the clothier. I decided to go get our swords and have the smith sharpen them. The swords weren't very dull to begin with, so it only took a few minutes. I paid the smith and returned to the tavern to drop off the swords. After that was finished, I had nothing else to do, so I decided to walk around town for a while.

As I wandered the dusty streets, I came across the jail. I paused to look at the wall that was filled with wanted posters. The majority of the wanted criminals had the cliché outlaw look; ruffled hair, stubbly cheeks, missing teeth, crooked noses, etc.. Only a handful of them looked somewhat normal. There were only two women on the wall. I looked at one of them. She was wanted for thievery and murder. As I looked at her picture, I thought she looked like she wasn't the sort of person to murder anyone. I studied the other woman's picture and froze.

It was me. I didn't have time to look at my crimes because just then a nearby human recognized me.

"Hey!" he said, "Tha's the wanted lady in the picture!" I said nothing and ran. When he pursued me, I pulled some air out of his lungs using my powers. I didn't kill him, but it was just enough to leave him doubled over, gasping for air. I saw the armorer up ahead and ran inside. Rayult was inspecting a bow and stopped when he saw me.

"Ray, we gotta go. I'll explain later." Rayult paid the store owner for the bow and arrows and followed me to the tavern. We ran up the stairs and grabbed our belongings. There was no reason to drag Ratos into this, so I left a note telling him about the poster and that we had to leave.

We bolted down the stairs and outside to the stables. The horses were eating and unsaddled. The stable hand stopped us.

"Yer a wanted criminal. I'm not lettin' ye go anywhere." Rayult just smiled and the hay beneath the boy's feet burst into flames. The stable hand shrieked and ran away.

We ran into the tack room and grabbed our saddles and bridles. We quickly saddled two of the horses and mounted. Rayult led the way out of the stables and into the street. There was a man standing in the way of the gate that led out of the town. It was the man who identified me. I charged toward him and stunned him again by pulling a small portion of the air out of his lungs. We rode by him unhindered.

Rayult and I spent the rest of the day running away from the town. We frequently looked behind us for any signs of pursuit, but no one followed us. It was starting to get dark, so we decided to look for a safe spot to stay for the night. We eventually found a clearing a little ways of the path that was protected on all sides by thorn bushes. There was only one small path that led inside. It was obvious that many people had spent the night here. A fire pit had already been dug and there were patches of dead grass where people had slept.

We tied the horses to a low-hanging branch, and went to get firewood. Since Ratos was supposed to visit the butcher before we were supposed to leave the next morning, we had no meat, leaving us to fend for ourselves. I volunteered to hunt for meat while Rayult started the fire.

It didn't take me long to find a hole full of rabbits. We only needed two but I knew that hunting wouldn't always be this easy, so I decided to kill all four. I felt bad doing it, but I had no other means of killing them but by suffocation. I pulled the rabbits out of their hole and carried them back to camp.

Rayult took two of the rabbits and skinned them while I tied the other two together and strung them from a tree so they wouldn't draw animals. While Rayult was working, I unsaddled the horses so they could cool off. I grabbed a brush from a saddle bag and began to brush the dust of their hides.

I had only watched someone brush a horse once before. It's one thing to watch someone do it and do it for yourself. I was doing something wrong. I knew you had to go with the hair, not against it, but the dirt still stayed where it was on the horse's flank.

Suddenly, Rayult was behind me. He placed his hand over mine and showed me how to brush it correctly. I had been doing long strokes when I needed to do short, sweeping motions. That worked much better.

I looked at him and smiled. "Thanks," I said.

"No problem," he said and returned to preparing dinner.

I worked on the horses until they were practically spotless. I inspected my work, satisfied. Brushing the horses left my hands dirty, so I washed the dirt off using the water from a canteen.

I couldn't find much else to do, so I sat in the sun and ate my supper. Rayult came to sit next to me.

"So," he said, "what happened that we had to leave town in such a hurry?"

"I didn't know what to do while I waited for you and Ratos to finish your errands, so I went for a walk around town. I passed by the jail and there was a wanted sign for my arrest. I would have come to find you in less of a hurry, but someone recognized me." I stopped to chew, then continued, "I just want to know who did this? I've never met any humans, so it would have had to have been an elf. It just doesn't make any sense."

Rayult ate in silence for a minute. Then said, "Well, this complicates things."