Craig awoke just as sunrise began to peak through the mountain range. As it was getting deeper into fall, he knew it wasn't exactly early. Tweek was still asleep, softly breathing as he clutched Craig's cape tightly. He looked very peaceful, but at the same time Craig was anxious to get going.
He wasn't entirely sure the logic behind him wanting to reach elven territory so quickly. Besides the dangerousness and steepness of the snowy mountain ridge, the mountains were pretty nice. Peaceful, even. It was easy to not think about Clyde or what he planned to do.
He also dreaded meeting the elves. Afterall, they were the ones who slaughtered his village, his family. He wasn't entirely sure how he would handle it.
Yet at the same time, he wanted to get going. Perhaps it was that he wanted to quickly get it over with. Like quickly pulling out a painful splinter.
"Tweek," he gently shook his shoulder. Tweek shifted in his sleep slightly and slowly opened his bright blue eyes.
"Morning," he blinked tiredly, "Is everything okay?"
"Yeah, just wanna get going early. Hoping to reach elven territory today."
"Right," Tweek replied with a slight yawn. He sat up and stretched his shoulders. Craig looked at him closely.
"Your body paint is wearing off."
Tweek straightened up and looked to his chest. The lines that crossed his torso were faded, with some parts actively chipping away.
"I ran out," he frowned, "I could always make more back in my forest, but here...I can't."
"I don't mind." He always thought he looked a lot better without.
"I do," Tweek furrowed his brows.
"What does it mean, anyway?" Craig asked, ignoring his irritated tone, "Do all of you have it?"
"Basically, yes," Tweek's frown faded, "They mean different things. Specific families, status, those sorts of things."
"And your snakey lines mean?"
"It...It doesn't matter," Tweek furrowed his brows again, looking away.
"Alright," Craig shrugged. He was mainly being polite in asking, anyway. He reached for one of the fish they had cooked and set aside for breakfast and took a bite. It was cold and crunchy, but tasted alright. Tweek hesitantly reached for one as well.
"I'm going to miss these mountains," Tweek pondered as he nibbled at his fish.
"They are nice...from here."
"Barbarians...we're not originally from Lost Forest, you know," Tweek sighed, "As much as it is now home and all we know...it really doesn't suit us much."
"I always thought the craziness of that forest was why you were barbarians."
"No!" Tweek put down his fish, "Many of us were nomads, but others had more permanent settlements with farms and bathhouses not unlike you. We were everywhere in Zaron, but tended to live in more open spaces, especially on mountains and clifflands-"
"I did know you guys liked cliffs."
"-We tended to like open spaces, which were far more conducive for battle and training. We had horses and rejected magic as a weak fallback that took away from brute training and honor. Not in a 'kill all the magic users' like Kupa, but we viewed physical battle and ability as the most important."
"I'm guessing a similar situation as with the gnomes? People decided to force you into a single area? Probably the Wizard?"
"Yes," Tweek sighed, "Though not just Kupa."
"You seemed to defend the forest a lot back when we were there."
"Because it is home now," he replied, "And I don't hate it. Most of us don't. We adapted well. It's just...being here, I can see just why my ancestors preferred this sort of terrain."
"Zaron is a pretty messed up place, I guess."
"I think there's good in it too, though," Tweek said looking down.
"You're nothing like the barbarian stereotypes, you know. And don't pull a 'we're not a hivemind.'"
"I guess I should admit...Although we're not like your stereotypes, I guess I am sort of odd for my kind."
"That's okay," Craig said standing up, "So am I."
Tweek smiled, placing his hands on his knees and standing up. "Let's get going."
They began walking through the valleys of the mountains. It was very peaceful, so he tried to take it in knowing that very soon things would be changing. There wasn't much wildlife outside of the fish in the rivers, but the birds chirped and the cool breeze wasn't totally oppressively cold yet.
"As wintery as it seemed up on top of the mountains, it's still not that deep into autumn," Craig noted. The trees were all evergreen, so it was hard to gauge without the changing color of leaves.
"I see," Tweek replied.
"With all the magic shit, do you really have seasons?" Craig asked.
"Somewhat. Not as extreme, but we get light snow sometimes."
"I wonder if the elven forest is similar."
"I think their magic keeps extreme temperatures and weather patterns out...but they still have them, yes."
"Interesting."
Tweek was silent for a moment before speaking once more. "You know...when we first met you blew off any information like that I tried to give you. Now you seem to have more of an interest."
Craig was thrown off, unable to respond. He guessed that was true. He did initially blow off Tweek any time he tried to mention anything about himself or his people.
"I mean that in a good way," Tweek added after Craig didn't respond.
"I guess," Craig shrugged looking down as he continued walking.
"You guess?" Tweek raised an eyebrow as he looked over to him.
Something about this conversation grew incredibly uncomfortable to Craig, hitting him in the bottom of his stomach. Was it the fact that Tweek was calling him out on being less rude towards him? Was it that he had changed, from not caring to finding it mildly interesting? Was it that his opinion of Tweek had changed so much? He really didn't know, but as someone who was bad at serious emotions he'd rather not think about it than try and figure it out.
"I didn't mean to put you on the spot," Tweek insisted quickly, sensing the mood from Craig's mannerisms, "I just-"
"It's fine," Craig cut him off, "I guess...sorry for being such a dick early on. I didn't know you."
Tweek's eyes widened, surprised by that response. "I-It's fine," he insisted, "I wasn't exactly very nice all the time either. Or understanding."
Craig didn't know how to respond to that. Tweek merely flashed a slight smile and they continued walking. Craig tried to clear his mind, but he couldn't.
It was odd how much his opinions on Tweek changed. Sure, when he first met Clyde he thought he was kind of embarrassing and useless, but from the beginning he deep down wanted to have someone to get along with in his village, even if he didn't want to admit it to himself at the time. But with Tweek...with Tweek he wanted nothing more than to get rid of him. He was a nuisance, talked too much, overly naggy…
Perhaps he was still those things. He did complicate the mission. He did want to talk way more than Craig did. He did still nag him and get offended over little things Craig meant nothing by. Yet at the same time, they didn't really bother him as much. Whenever he droned on too long, Craig would often find himself absentmindedly listening as opposed to wanting to scoop his ears out. When he said something wrong, he'd find himself apologizing as opposed to throwing it back on him.
Craig looked over to him. Maybe he got used to him. Craig knew for sure that he meant well and didn't have a bad bone in his body. There was a sweetness to him that once you picked up on was pretty hard to hate, even from someone without any sweetness like Craig.
Perhaps he was lonely. Of course, he didn't want to admit that. He liked to think of himself as someone who didn't need anyone. It fit with the thief lifestyle, anyway. Clyde was the exception, not the rule.
He already knew that was a lie for years now, though. He knew he wanted human connections with people. He just lacked the ability and focused all his efforts towards one person for so long that he didn't even know where to start. When others like Bebe or Red actually tried, he'd push them away out of fear. He had been physically involved with a few people over the years in very short term situations, but he never allowed any of it to get personal or emotional. Clyde would laugh that he was afraid of falling in love. Craig had shoved him, saying that he merely wasn't interested in that. He didn't need anyone like that.
But perhaps he did. Maybe he didn't need to fall in love per se, but perhaps he did need more than one friendship in his life. Especially on a long journey like this away from even Clyde. Tweek had been someone who had helped him through it and offered him companionship.
He really did like Tweek. A lot.
And yet Tweek was probably the one person he was going to hurt the most.
"Hey," Tweek stopped in his tracks, putting an arm out in front of Craig.
"Hm?"
"Look," he gestured out in front of them. They were rather high up, but in front of them was an incredibly open view of the mountain landscape. However, far off towards the horizon, there was a long and wide river. On the other side of it was flat, with a forest of many trees. Not a coniferous forest of evergreen trees like were sparsely throughout the mountain. Rather, a temperate forest with brightly colored autumn leaves of every shade of orange, yellow, and red.
"That must be it," Craig responded, "Still far, but I think we can easily reach it before sundown."
"Right," Tweek nodded nervously.
"Let's go then," Craig started again. Tweek quickly let out a grunt of agreement and quickly rushed to follow his pace.
As Craig had said, it was still relatively far. Of course, knowing that he was going to approach elven territory got his mind off of Tweek quite a bit. Of course, logistically speaking, how they would deal with everything once they were there. However, the closer he got the more he was concerned about how he would emotionally deal with it. Afterall, they were the ones who killed his family. He was pretty hard to phase, but how would he handle dealing with possibly seeing the ones who sent the flaming arrows that flew down that fateful day.
"Craig?" Tweek interrupted his thoughts.
"Huh?" Craig blinked, shaking his head.
"Are you alright?" he asked, "You seem troubled."
"I-I'm alright."
"Worried?"
"No, of course not," Craig frowned.
"It's normal to be worried."
"I'm not-"
"That's what you told me when we left the Lost Forest."
"Oh," Craig stopped. "I guess I did, didn't I?"
It was very late in the afternoon when the came upon the river. The sound of it rushing was somewhat of a relief-Craig had wondered if they weren't going to reach it by that day afterall. Still nervous about what would be on the other side, but relieved nonetheless. Tweek and him gave each other a single look and nodded, going forward.
The river was wide-which what was to be expected given both what they had been told and, of course, how it had been visible from so far away. Craig could swim pretty well, but what he hadn't really thought about was just how fast the current was.
Well, he had been warned. He just hadn't taken the warnings that seriously.
Tweek went forward to touch the edge of the river and immediately retracted his hand. "It's freezing," he told him.
"I thought you're good at cold," Craig smirked.
Tweek frowned. "Be serious about this."
Craig sighed and walked to the bank of the river. He took off one of his gloves and touched the water. It was, in fact, ice cold. Like Tweek, he quickly retracted his hand. He picked up a twig on the ground and threw it as far as he could to the middle of the river. It drifted away very quickly-a fast and dangerous current.
"Do you think we can swim in that?" Tweek asked.
"No," Craig frowned, "This river is all from the melted ice and snow from the mountain. Added that the temperature is getting colder and colder, if we didn't drown from the current we'd just freeze to death."
"I guess that's another reason they don't want people to make this journey when the temperature is cooling," Tweek sighed, sitting down on the shore in defeat, "Unless we want to wait until it's really winter and it freezes over."
"And I guess a bridge between two enemy lands aren't exactly something either side would want," Craig shrugged, plopping down next to him.
"There has to be a way," Tweek sighed, "I mean it's not like others don't cross it."
"Got any ideas?" Craig looked over to him.
"We could make a boat or raft?"
"Chopping down wood with what exactly?" Craig raised an eyebrow.
"I guess," Tweek sighed again, resting his hands on his chin.
"But I guess you're right," Craig put his hands on his knees and pushed himself up, "People do cross it all the time. I'm sure there's a place less wide or more shallow."
Tweek looked up. "Of course. It's not like we would stop here after everything," he smiled. Craig reached his hand out to help Tweek. He took it and stood up.
"Upstream or downstream?" Craig asked.
"I can climb up a tree and try to see if one side looks better," Tweek offered.
"Alright, just don't break your neck."
"Of course not," Tweek laughed, "I could climb trees in my sleep."
Of course he could, Craig mentally agreed. He remembered just how quickly and carelessly he was able to climb up the questionable ladder in the gnome tree.
With that, Tweek walked over to a particularly tall tree. He took off the strap around his torso that held the bow and arrows around his back and took it off to use it to wrap around the tree to pull himself up. As he got into position, he very quickly scaled the tree.
The sun was right in the direction of Tweek, so Craig had to put a hand up to look at him. It was quite impressive to Craig to see him scaling the tree with the beams of the late afternoon sun directly shining on him. Craig couldn't help but smile.
Tweek reached the high branches, (so high that it made it hard for Craig to still see him clearly,) and stood up on them for a moment, looking in both directions. After looking for a short time he positioned himself back and scaled back down the tree. When he was a few feet above the ground he jumped down and fixed his strap and arrows back around him.
"So?" Craig asked.
"I think I saw what looked like a bunch of rocks downstream," he announced, "Might be able to walk across it. Or have calmer water on the other side."
"So downstream it is."
The two walked down downstream banks of the river. Tweek reminded Craig that what he saw was from quite high so it was both far and unclear. Craig was too busy paying attention to how far they were going to be able to make sure they can go back to where they were on the path. He had stuck a large stick into the ground straight up where they first started so he would know and see on the opposite side of the bank once they crossed and went back upstream where the path was.
"Okay, so you really weren't kidding when you said it was far," Craig commented as he noticed the sky begin to turn orange from the beginning of sunset.
"Sorry," Tweek frowned.
"It's alright," Craig sighed, "Just hope we're almost there."
About ten minutes later, they were.
Tweek was right. There were in fact rocks going across the river.
What Tweek hadn't been able to tell from afar was that part of the "rocks" he saw were probably the white waters of the currents rushing very heavily off of them. Or just how far apart some of them are.
Tweek let out a disappointed groan. "Sorry, it looked-"
"We just gotta be careful, I guess," Craig cut him off, shrugging and walking towards the rushing currents of the river.
"We probably would have been better off trying to cross the cold water where it was calm."
"Nah," Craig shook his head, "A barbarian who can scale trees and a thief like myself can hope over these rocks."
Tweek frowned. "If we fall in-"
"We won't. Just like you didn't fall off that tree and break your neck," Craig announced.
Tweek swallowed. "Alright."
Craig went first, standing on the first rock. It was flat, but it was wet. He cursed himself for, once again, not bringing rope. The next rock was somewhat larger and a few feet away. He hopped over to it. He looked back at Tweek, still standing at the river bank. After Craig nodded to him in assurance, Tweek stepped to the rock, nearly slipping.
"Be careful, it's kind of slippery," Craig warned him, reaching out an arm to try and steady him. The distance was unfortunately too far for Craig to reach, but Tweek steadied himself anyway.
"Now you tell me," he frowned. Craig rolled his eyes and continued.
Craig was pretty good at this. His shoes, despite all his walking for a long period of time still had a decent grip. He was always steady, jumping across rooftops and other dangerous, reckless things in his thieving days.
"You're too fast!" Tweek whined. Craig turned around. Tweek was quite a way behind him.
"C'mon then," Craig sighed, waiting for him where he stood. Tweek carefully and steadily hopped from rock to rock, taking much more precautions than Craig. He bit his lower lip in determination as he made each leap. "You got it," Craig assured him as he got closer. Craig reached out his arm.
Just as Tweek's fingertips brushed his they suddenly jerked away. It took a split second for Craig to realize that Tweek had slipped from his grasp.
As if he had lost all control of his movements and acted solely on instinct, with both hands he leaned forward for Tweek, reaching for him, trying to pull him up. Of course, not thinking it through, he didn't consider the small, slippery rock that he was standing on, and found as he leaned to far over his feet were slipping out from under him. Barely able to comprehend anything, the last thing he remembered was the ice cold water engulfing the both of them.
"Craig, stop climbing on those rocks!" his father scolded, "One of these days you're going to slip off and drown."
"I can swim," Craig furrowed his brows, not looking back at him. There was a reason why he always preferred coming to the stream without his parents.
"Not if you crack your head first," he scolded.
"I'm not gonna fall!" Craig responded even more defiantly.
"I'm serious Craig! Those rocks aren't stable and you're going to break your neck. If you don't get down right now, I'm taking you back to the village," he practically yelled, clearly getting more and more serious. Craig sighed and walked back towards the banks. As annoying as his father was acting, it wasn't worth getting him angry.
"Craig!"
"I'm coming!" Craig rolled his eyes.
"Craig, answer me!" the voice called out more frantically, "Are you alright?"
The voice didn't really sound like his father.
"Craig please wake up."
The voice sounded sad.
"Craig I-"
Craig opened his eyes and immediately regretted it. His vision turned red and there was and his head pounded in pain as he coughed up water.
"Craig!" the voice-Tweek cried out, wrapping his arms around him in a hug from where he laid on the banks of the river, "I was so worried!"
Oh right. He had just fallen into a river, hadn't he? Tweek must have pulled them both out. Still, the tight grip on him now when everything felt sore wasn't exactly helping.
"Tweek, that hurts."
"Oh sorry!" Tweek jumped, immediately loosening his grip. Craig did his best to sit up, rubbing his eyes before opening them once more. The world was still spinning, but it was more clear than before. They were sitting at the side of the river, the rushing rapids still raging on.
"You pulled us out?" Craig managed to ask.
"Yes," Tweek nodded, "You hit your head on a rock, but I managed to avoid everything and use them to pull us out." So that's why his head pounded. He felt around his skull. He didn't feel any blood or abrasions. It hurt, but he didn't feel particularly dizzy or nauseous, so he was going to hope he didn't have a concussion.
"I guess you saved me again. After I said we wouldn't fall in."
"Only because you were trying to save me," Tweek told him.
"I guess," Craig sighed. He stood up, a bit weak on his knees and still freezing from the frigid waters, but fine otherwise. "Let's get going."
"Why don't we sleep here? You just got hurt and it's already dusk."
"I'm fine."
"No," Tweek frowned, "We're staying here. I decided."
Craig blinked. "Excuse me?"
"You're still not well, all of our things are soaking wet, and it's already getting dark. We're going to stay right here."
Tweek had been pretty naggy and bossy in the past, but something about him putting his foot down like this surprised Craig. He wanted to argue and explain why they should keep going. How they're already at the elf side of the river, why would they just stop all the way out here? Why not at least find where the trail would start again? Yet for some reason, he found himself only letting out an exasperated sigh as he sat back down.
"Alright, but first thing tomorrow we're going, okay?"
"Okay," Tweek grinned.