Wow, it's been a long time ;w; I'm sorry!

I've just not had the time to write much the past few months because of exams prep and actual exams TwT

Hopefully I'll have a little more time now... so long as I manage to sort out this story plan in my head.

Also, apologies if I overuse certain phrases or words! Feel free to point them out to me so I can watch out in the future xD


Chapter Eleven

Sigh.

It was, perhaps, Zarbara's twenty-fourth sigh of the morning. She didn't have the energy to concentrate on what Camellia was saying. Besides, she'd been talking for way too long already. Perched on the seats of the stone fountain, the elementalist swung her legs nonchalantly, dipping a finger into the crystal-clear water.

Everything that night had happened all too quickly. There hadn't been enough time to react to any of the unfolding situations – and they had unfolded completely out of control. In fact, it wouldn't be wrong to assume they had been playing into those assassins' hands all along, like strung puppets in a scripted performance. The sense of frustration over their helplessness still hung heavily over them. Camellia had spent most of the morning trying to explain something, but nobody had really listened.

Hunter had left the inn lodgings before the break of dawn that morning, coming back a few hours later. But upon hearing Camellia talking about her situation, he grew agitated again over her stumbling and too-carefully chosen words, and stormed off once more in silence. Even at this moment in time, he was probably grumbling on the riverbank of Crystal Stream, preferring to wait for his anger to sizzle out and subside than to stay in the bustling Calderock Village. Noisy places tended to test his patience. If he had stayed here, he may have thrown an unsightly tantrum.

Zarbara watched Camellia's comical, exaggerated gestures as she fumbled over her own story. For some reason, the elementalist had thought it was a good idea to take the alchemist with her. But now, it didn't seem like that was the best choice of action. She may be small and cute, but behind her innocent-looking eyes, there lurked something a bit darker. It wasn't malice, as was the case with the assassins, but something more secretive. A dangerous secret she couldn't tell anyone?

Sighing again, Zarbara closed her vivid eyes to the grey world and began to zone out a little. She only jerked back to reality when a painful coldness had crept a bit too far up her arm and her hand was completely numb, submerged in what was formerly a mass of water. Now, it had frozen completely. Ahh, this had happened before, hadn't it? The only difference was that this time, there was nobody to laugh.

As guessed, Hunter was indeed sulking by Crystal Stream. The sky had darkened a little as grey clouds had rolled into view. A slight wind picked up, sweeping along the grass, forcing them to bend and bow in its wake. The priest was slouching against a large tree, glaring at nothing in particular from under a mess of brown hair, amber eyes seething with irritation and anger.

He pulled one of his knees up to his chin and, without changing position, reached down with one hand to pat the ground until he found a rough stone which fit into his palm. Taking it, he motioned as if weighing it, before furrowing his brow and threw it as hard as possible into the distance. There was a satisfying plonk as the stone fell into the stream's waters. Finding this to be somewhat helpful in relieving his stress, Hunter repeated it over and over, until all nearby pebbles and stones had been exhausted and were lying lost at the bottom of the river.

'Lost' was probably an exaggeration when applied to mere pebbles. It made it seem like losing a person was the same as losing pebbles to a stream. But in reality, losing a living person was much too different. Everybody always warns how you only realise how important something is after you lose it. In fact, you can only understand that by experiencing the loss yourself. Warnings and caution are futile.

Perhaps the days would continue on like this now. They had suddenly been forced off the original path they had been walking and were now set to travel along a different one. How long would it take before they met at crossroads with the elf again? Rather, would they ever meet again?

Surrounded by thoughts he'd prefer to ignore, Hunter shook his head clear of them and grumbled to himself once more, reaching for more stones to throw into the stream in order to hear that satisfying plonk as the pebbles fell and drowned. He disliked not being in control of the flow of events around him, especially if they affected him personally. He hated this feeling of helplessness against that thing called Fate. Why did so many things have to happen? Why did happiness always have to be smothered with sadness and loss after? It was stupid. This world was stupid. Everything was stupid and dumb. That was the only answer to the priest's frustrated questions.

After a handful of slowly passing days, one thought occurred. Between Zarbara, Lennart and Hunter, the thought had revealed itself different times, but it wasn't long before they all finally realised - there wasn't much that could be done anymore. The truth was plain as day: Rhaella had left with the twin assassins by her own free will. For now, she had effectively disappeared, since none of the remaining adventurers had any idea where she might be. They also had no idea why she had left like that. Sure, some had ideas or "maybe"s, but none of them knew the exact reason. There were questions left unanswered, and that was perhaps why it hurt. Rather than a pain that could be buried, it was annoyingly consistent, like a slowly tightening tourniquet. No matter what they did or whatever anyone said, the wound still stayed. The presence of Camellia didn't help either.

With her, the absence of the archer was somewhat more prominent than it would have been had there been nobody to replace her. The small girl with her oversized glasses was awfully talkative, despite almost never having anything of importance to say. When she spoke seriously in answer to questions, she stammered and laughed out of nervousness.

On the few occasions that they had no choice but to fight as a party of four, the mess was worse than expected. During the first attempt, communication was all over the place. The alchemist was clumsy in her actions and made a few too many mistakes, resulting in Zarbara suffering burns and frostbites from Camellia's elemental based skills. These took a full day to heal, with Hunter using what medic abilities had occasionally to speed up the process. Though no allies had suffered injury during their second attempt, it was so arguable just as bad as the first, with communication and actions even more hesitant than before. Their third (and last) attempt saw a little improvement, but still terrible, ending with the target easily escaping.

Their team dynamics had changed so drastically that eventually Hunter refused to be a part in their battles from then on. In truth there were two other reasons that the priest had. One of them was simply that he disliked how Camellia also possessed healing abilities. He thought it was a stupidly childish reason, but undeniably true. His other reason was that it felt strange to not have the archer to support and to keep an eye on. She was the most vulnerable member of the party back when they fought together. Having to focus on aiming accurately, the elf had little spare concentration to watch her own back. If she had to mind her own safety, then the compromise would be to aim less carefully. As a group, they had made the decision to allow the elf to focus solely on having her arrows hit her target, designating the priest, who was usually less preoccupied, to keep the archer out of harm's way. But with the academic, who did not require much attention herself, there was no longer anybody to watch over, and Hunter found he had too much spare time during their battles. Theoretically, he could pitch in with more frequent spell casts, but that required close communication to ensure the uncontrollable lightning did not hurt his own teammates, and currently, communication did not exist for this haphazard group. The priest hated how useless he now felt in their battles, so made the decision to quit altogether. Since he didn't give any real reasons to the elementalist and the swordsman, the two were perplexed as to why he came to that decision, but nonetheless respected his wishes.

For Zarbara herself, she too felt as if there change was too sudden and different. Unbeknownst to her, she had a similar dislike to Hunter in that she felt somewhat less important or special with the alchemist around, who was also able to harness the powers of fire and ice. She regretted picking up the lost Camellia that night, and felt partially responsible for Rhaella's disappearance. If only she'd ignored the alchemist. If only she hadn't called out. There had been no chance for the shorty to have noticed her anyway. If only she'd noticed Rhaella's body language. If only she hadn't laughed. All those "if only"s took a heavy toll on the sorceress, but she never said a word to the others. She didn't want to cause any more trouble than she had done already. She knew that those feelings of regret would not go away easily, so she vowed to herself that she would do everything in her power to get the archer back. Well, she'd have to find Rhaella first, but there probably wasn't much point in thinking so in depth. After all, she wasn't good with the theoretical side of things. Actions not words, right?

As for Lennart, he didn't like to see the bad in people. He'd resolved to do his best to always see the best in others. He wanted to believe in Camellia, despite having the majority of the instincts in him saying a blatant no. He didn't want to doubt her. She must have her own reasons for doing what she did, and so she must also have her reasons for not disclosing, well, her reasons.

Perhaps it was this way of thinking, which affected his personality and had, over the years, changed him into someone others were happy and willing to confide in. And that was also possibly why he was the first person that Camellia decided to finally talk to about her situation – about what she knew had happened and most importantly, what was going to happen…

"Uhm, you see…" began the alchemist, swinging her legs as she repositioned herself on the café chair, which had become increasingly uncomfortable over time. Her small, gloved hands fiddled around with the mug of water in front of her.

The swordsman waited patiently for the girl to get over her "uhm"s and "ah"s, which took a while longer than expected. He watched as she pushed her round glasses up her nose and as her eyes darted around out of nervousness. Due to her anxiety, it wasn't surprising that she didn't notice that Hunter and Zarbara were actually sitting on the table behind her. They had come of their own accord, so Lennart felt a little less guilty than if he had told them to listen in himself. He could see he impatient priest's finger tapping on the wooden table and did his best to hold in his burst of laughter, though a flicker of a smile probably escaped onto his features. If it had, the academic didn't notice that either.

"Ah, sorry about th-this… I get nervous… talking to people," the girl said as if she had been forced to say it.

"It's okay," laughed the swordsman, "Take your time."

"W-well, the… the thing is… you may not believe me… b-but I, uhm," she trailed off.

Lennart heard Hunter click his tongue, agitated, and saw Zarbara shoot him a scornful look before hitting him on the head. Again, he did his best to keep his expression unchanged, whilst he held back his laugh.

Camellia glanced up from her mug, blinked and quickly averted her gaze again. She took a deep and painfully audible breath to steady herself before finally blurting out, "I'm from the future!"

This time, it was Lennart's turn to blink and stare. Hunter was also staring, amber eyes wide with surprise and disbelief. Leaning forwards on the table, Zarbara too was silently slack-jawed, mouth open impossibly wide, as if she would shout out any second.

Shaking his head quickly, Lennart tugged at a loose strand of his blond hair. He laughed out loud this time, but it was racked with nervousness. When he next opened his eyes, he found himself face to face with a determined-looking Camellia. It wouldn't have been an exaggeration to say that her face was set in stone with desperate determination. Her eyes sparked and her jaw tensed for a slight moment. She then took another deep breath and announced, with no other context and not even a warning, "We have to do something."

Before any of the three adventurers could even open their mouths to ask what it was they were supposed to do, Camellia explained herself in the briefest way anyone could in such a situation.

"We have to do something before Rhaella… before she dies."