The girl from earlier and Forte both walk in, the girl is singing nightmare. Her sea green eyes are shocking and seemed paralyzing, she's wearing a Malkuth outfit, her straight orange blonde hair to her shoulders, she motioned me to follow and I hopped on top of Liger and ran with them.
We ran into a small forest and I saw a few monsters, I spoke to them briefly about us needing help and let them lead us to the nearest port through a forested and not noticeable path. I thanked them as we got on a boat and walked to coral castle in 15 days on the run. We got as much supplies as we could briefly before the word got out.
"So what do we do?" the girl asked unsure. She turned to talk to me, notices we still don't know each other and she bowed down, her dress waved and staggered at the motion. "My name is Hymn."
"Arietta the wild, call me Arietta." We all sit down, I clench my stuffed animal. She notices the necklace and smiles at me with a faint blush.
"Stop acting tough and proper, everyone knows you're dif-
"Forte!" Hymn warns and gives me an innocent smile. Forte sighs like she's done this a million times and she's scolded him a million times.
"Hymn is my childhood friend, we split shortly when I went to Daath. She babysat me basically until I turned 19. We met up a few days before we ran from the others with you." He laughs and lays down. "Oh yeah, I'm 20, she's 38. Sounds weird right? But it was nice for someone to take care of me after my parents died." He elbowed Hymn and gave her a thanks. We all smiled, Hymn slightly blushed in embarrassment. "I was a family friend, not like I had a choice. I-it was fun though." She laughs she turns to her regular smiley, happy personality. "You've grown so much, I'm surprised you're already attracting women." Now it's our turn to be embarrassed.
"You mean men." Forte says unharmed.
"It's that a problem, too?" I ask him. He blushes at his horrible comeback.
Suddenly there was a noise behind us, immediately we stand up, Hymn Stands up and prepares a fonic arte.
Then it turns out to be Florian, he followed us here, everyone stops and lets down when I march up to him. The idiot…
"Florian! What are you doing here?! Shouldn't you be in Daath?" Crossing my arms and waiting for an answer. "I wanted to go with you, I'm not let out of Daath without someone else's permission so I'm in trouble anyways." He talks so casually and acts like this is nothing for him; I raise an eyebrow. "I guess having someone good at Daathic fonic artes might help someday. Plus you are my friend…" Both Forte and Hymn perk up. "The more the merrier." He smiles and shakes my hand, he walks over to the two. They both awkwardly shake hands.
"I came over here because I'm usually locked up in the church. The day I spent with you was the most fun I had in years, I've got to admit. Anise is usually bombarded with paperwork or having to go around and everyone else just gives me books to read. I don't like reading all day." He scratches the back of his head and kicks a rock nearby him.
"I heard you left Daath and followed you here, same ships and everything. I thought I could help you guys. You all don't seem to be criminals, just people trying to help Arietta. And maybe a few things you don't want to admit."
We all avert eye contact but Florian.
"I'm one of the replicas of Fon master Ion, I was thrown away because I wasn't as strong as him and found by grand maestro mohs; used by him. And just a few weeks ago I was left in the church without anyone to talk to. This is my only chance to do something risky a-and actually interesting for once." A smile tugs on his face. He's practically jumping up and down in place.
"S-so I won't let you all down." He confidently. "I've brought somethings that might be useful." He takes out the bag that was concealed behind him. Hymn is impressed, she's gawking at Florian. "F-Florian! No need to care for us!"
"I'm surprised you fellows didn't notice me right behind you when you were buying food!" He giggles and opens the bag. It's filled with milk, eggs, rice, and any other cheap food. He takes out some miracle gels. All of our eyes widen.
"I spent a lot on these."
We all settle down afterwards and start a small campfire. Hymn is practicing her fonic hymns on a tree. Everyone else is relaxing around the fire.
"You can sing very well Hymn, Like Tear." Florian says lazily eyes closing.
"I used to sing at a bar in Grand Chokmah. I was the main entertainment in there." She sings random songs after knocking down the tree on accident.
"Is that how you met emperor Peony?" Forte asks with a sly smirk. Hymn blushes heavily.
"He's a womanizer! I bet I'm just a one-time girlfriend, like Nephry." She covers her face in her hands, trying to cover the red on her face.
"Oh really, he surely didn't seem to think that when I spoke to him about you. He was all "Hymn is beautiful!" "Hymn is perfect" "Hymn is one smoking hot sexy-
"OKAY FORTE!" We all laugh when she turns around to not show her face to us.
"Plus, I think you have a good chance with him, you seem like you have enough money to please him. All short dress and million gald magic rod-
She throws my stuffed doll at him. Liger raises an ear at the action.
"If your mother was here, you'd be dead!"
"My mom's not here and if she was she'd be laughing her ass off that I made a 38 year old blush like no tomorrow."
"Oh shush."
"I bet you'd like it if Emperor Peony was the one with the million gald magic rod-
"Forte, I'm going to kick your ass!" Hymn walks over to him, tugging her sleeves up to her shoulders.
We all ended up laughing until we all felt tired, it was nice to finally relax and be away from death, even if it is in an abandoned castle. I got my doll back after Hymn came over to me, apologizing like mad.
"No need to apologize, Forte is a pain to everyone."
"H-hey!"
She pats Liger on the head.
She sits by me and we watch the stars together, everyone's asleep and Ligers laying on her lap. She's acting like he's the lightest thing in the world.
"I'm definitely not a fan of girly, cutesy things, but thing is pretty badass."
He melts in her touch, almost like she's experienced in handling monsters.
Everyone else was asleep, so we began to speak in whispers. "Forte gave you his necklace, huh?"
"… Yeah, he was yelling at Jade the necromancer. He got taken out of the library by guards."
"Oh Jade, that idiot… He acts like he's all mysterious and tough. I can see right through him thanks to Peony, but he could barely make through town without getting weird looks, he has no sense of style. You should really see him without his military uniform on… It's horrible…" He seemed insanely grossed out by the end of the sentence.
I laughed and she suddenly got antsy. Not in a normal way, more in a protective way.
"That necklace means everything to Forte, it was his mother's. His parents died in Akzeriuth." She softened in a sad way.
"He must care about you a lot." She holds my hand and gives it a squeeze.
"I kind of saved his life." She had a blank look on her face before bursting out laughing, then remembering that there are people asleep and quiets down. Florian stirs a little before settling down when Liger comes over and sleeps next to him.
"Who hasn't saved his life? He's so careless and idiotic sometimes no one has to wonder why he's always going to the hospital with injuries." We both laugh. She gets serious again.
"I should tell you something…" She turns to look at me after looking at the sleeping Forte, Florian, and Liger all cuddled up.
"I have children and a husband I'm searching for." I look at her, unsure what to think but gladly soaking up the knowledge.
"I married a man named Travis when I was 18. We were young and careless back then, we didn't know what we were getting into. I ended up having children with him, 3 handsome boys and a beautiful daughter.
Their names were Aiden, Lui, Casey, and Viola. Aiden and Viola had my orange hair, Casey and Lui were twins and looks exactly like their father." She smiles lightly. Stops and continues.
"They all had my eyes, but they looked so cute my little babies…"
She tears up and looks down at the diming fire. "He wanted to divorce me, but it was considered taboo in Malkuth. So he left one day while I was working, took the children and all of the gald we had together. I spent 16 years trying to find them but couldn't so I went back to Grand Chokmah. I met Peony and we started a relationship, I told him about it and I said it wouldn't work until I find my babies.
He understood and helped me more than he ever should have. He found my daughter, she was found abandoned on by travelers back when I started looking. But she was 18, I missed out so much of her life. When I met her I looked at her for so long, she looked just like me, and she had her father's freckles, his big eyebrows and thin body.
We just stared in disbelief before crying in each other's arms. "
"I-I want to bring her along with us, to be there when we adventure with each other. Maybe find my husband." She hugs me tightly, I sit there trying to absorb the information before hugging her back. "Where is she?"
Hymn gasps and smiles, tears rolling down her cheeks.
"Keterberg…"
"Her parents are mountain climbers, they have visited everywhere, anywhere in the world. All they want is her to her to be happy. They want her to explore the world but she loves Keterberg with all her heart, they were worried she wouldn't go out of Keterberg so they told me to bring her along since they knew I go wander around with people like Forte. They also thought it would be a good way to help us bond."