Hey everybody. So, I ended up writing the first half of this chapter while I was stuck in an airport for seven hours because my flight was canceled. Yeah, so that wasn't very fun, but hey, at least I had something to doing while I was waiting. Part of the reason while I was actually able to get this chapter out not super late.
Chapter 30 - Of Mountains and Molehills
The sky itself was actually bright enough for the two brothers to see before the sun even came into view above the mountaintops. The two made sure to take a loop around Bosky, careful not to be seen by anyone who could have by some chance been out during the night. By the time they could see the sun, they'd managed to make their way into the outskirts of a jungle like area before finally stopping.
The two quickly collapsed down in a small clearing. They'd been walking for several hours now without very much sleep, although it still felt much better than the rest of their journey had been. Now that their injuries were mostly healed, the two day rest with the merchant carts had managed to greatly rejuvenate the two.
Neither boy had ever been in an area quite like this before. The air felt all sticky, and there were so many plants all over the place.
Keane absentmindedly ran his hand alone the grass, not used to the feeling after having been in the desert for so long. How long had it been now? Three weeks? A month? He couldn't remember, hadn't actually been keeping count in the first place.
"It's like the courtyard," he mumbled under his breath, Straton nodding slightly in agreement. The younger boy turned his attention to the mountains afterwards, their peeks just visible through the treetops.
"How are we going to get across them?" he asked, intentionally straying away from any mentions of their former home. It probably wouldn't be for the best to start thinking about that right now.
Keane was looking up at the mountaintops as well, a small frown on his face as he tried to think of an answer to his question. Really, he just didn't know. He hadn't thought it was the best idea to try to cross the mountains in the first place, but Straton still seemed insistent on the idea. He did have to admit that if they did manage to get across, they would be much safer in Astaria then having to hide in the outskirts of the country.
"I don't really know…" he mumbled, scanning the scenery with squinted eyes. The sun glaring in the sky was making it a bit hard to see, but he managed to point to what he was almost positive was the tallest peak in the area.
"That's Moss Mountain, right?" he asked. Straton stared on the direction he'd been pointing for a moment before nodding a bit hesitantly.
"I think so, it definitely looks tall enough," the blond said. Keane quickly turned his head away from the view now, blinking at the spots left in his eyes from staring in the direction of the sun.
"Let's not cross there," he said bluntly. Straton stared at him for a moment before quickly nodding in agreement. There was no doubt in his mind that they would end up dead at the bottom of some cliff if they tried to get across an area like that.
"Definitely," he answered. The two brothers quickly decided to get some sleep before starting forward again. Sure, they doubted that they'd have many people coming through the area that they needed to avoid by traveling at night, but it was more so the fact that the two were simply exhausted.
Keane had to admit that it felt much better sleeping on grass than hard and gritty rocks and sand. The blankets that they had, well, taken helped quite a bit as well.
It still left a bit of a sour taste in both boy's mouths, but they managed to push the thoughts from their minds quickly enough. They were just trying to survive, after all. There hadn't been any other choice.
By the time Straton woke up the sun was high in the sky. Looking over at the redhead, he was still fast asleep, and the younger boy quickly decided to let him stay that way for a while. Sure, they only had a limited amount of supplies, so it wasn't really that they could take their time, but it would be nice not having to rush so much. A lot of the panic that had driven them before was starting to fade, with the chances of then running into anyone who might figure out who or what they are growing less and less.
Standing up, the blond boy stretched a bit, walking over towards the end of the clearing towards the mountains. They'd already decided that it would be best to try to steer as clear as they could from most of the sharpest peaks, maybe even attempt to go more around one of the colossal piles of rocks and trees instead of straight over it.
Straton was just starting to take a few steps into the brush when he heard Keane push himself to his feet behind him. The blond immediately turned around, smiling softly at the clearly still very tired boy.
"Hey Strat, what ya doing?" he asked, just barely able to stifle a yawn afterwards.
"Just looking around, I thought I'd let you sleep for a bit more," Straton said, watching as Keane nodded. The redhead slowly started to become more aware of his surroundings, turning his attention towards the mountains once again. He could look at them now without the sun getting in his eyes, which only made them appear even more intimidating.
"We should probably try to get across them as fast as possible to make sure our supplies stretch," Keane said. Straton nodded, already starting to look around the edge of the clearing now for an area that looked like it could be better used as a path.
"You really want to cross the mountains? You seemed pretty against it back when we were with those other +anima," the younger boy asked. Keane hesitated slightly as he thought the question over. They'd nearly died a lot more times than he would have liked just trying to get to here. How in the world would they be able to go the rest of the way?
Of course, he doubted that they would have even been able to get here. And besides, what would have been the point of coming all this way if they didn't at least try?
"Yeah, there's no point in quitting now, we've already come this far," he said at last. Straton smiled softly and nodded in agreement.
"Okay then, do you want to start going?" he asked, and Keane nodded as well. The two quickly started picking up their meager attempt at a camp and started in the general direction of the mountains.
Keane couldn't help but hiss slightly when twigs and plants scratched at his legs and arms. Maybe this wasn't exactly like the courtyard had been. He could see Straton wincing whenever he was scraped up slightly as well, but neither boy said anything, trying their best to just ignore the stinging caused.
These little cuts and such were basically nothing. If they couldn't deal with that, then there was no way they'd survive all the way to Astaria.
There would have been no way they could have even gotten this far, but they were here, so obviously they could.
Eventually they found themselves in a slightly clearer area, not that the trees weren't any less dense. It didn't scratch at them as much anymore though, which was the good thing.
"So, how will we know once we're on the mountains?" Keane asked as they walked. Maybe if they were lucky it would happen gradually and they wouldn't actually notice much of a difference from this jungle area. Straton simply shrugged, swatting at a few bugs flying around his face before answering.
"I don't know, but I'm sure it'll be clear once we get there," he said.
It wasn't long before the area around the two boys began to change slightly. The ground became a bit steeper, and large rocks were beginning to litter the area. Looking upwards at the mountains, they almost looked like a giant wall up against the sky. It was definitely more than a little intimidating, and for a moment Keane began to wonder just how good of an idea this really was.
"Hey Keane, look at this tree," Straton called over to him, knocking the older boy out of his train of thought. For a second the redhead couldn't figure out why Straton would be interested in a tree of all things, but then he looked up at it's branches.
"Whoa, that's weird," Keane said, staring at what he assumed were the tree's leaves, although they didn't really look like any leaves he'd ever seen before. They were almost like green needles, bunches of them coming off of the ends of branches. Straton nodded in agreement, looking around to see that several more of the same type of tree were up ahead.
"I think they're called pine trees," the blond guessed. Keane stared at the tree for another moment before nodding and starting forward, Straton quickly following after him.
"Yeah, pretty sure I've heard of them before, but I've never seen one," he said back. Glancing at the growing number of pine trees around them, the redhead guessed that they were starting to get farther and farther into the mountains. If all they had to deal with was strange trees with pointy leaves then he would be very happy indeed.
The two stopped to eat and rest a few hours later. The ground was turning more and more rocky, and all of the trees had since switched over to being those weird pine kinds. The boys sat on the rocks so that they wouldn't have to sit on the ground, which was covered in fallen needles and strange brown cones that had also come from the trees.
"Things have actually been going pretty well so far," Keane said in between small bites of food. Straton nodded, glancing towards the east afterwards.
"Yeah, let's just hope nothing really bad happens during the second half of the day either," he said. When the two brothers started moving again, they couldn't help but be surprised that nothing bad did happen for the rest of the day. They ended up going what Keane could only hope was a decent ways into the mountain before finally stopping for the night. Laying on the needles was a bit scratchy and itchy, but it wasn't completely uncomfortable.
When they woke up the next morning, the two once again ate a bit of their food before going forward into the mountain forest. The pine trees started to thin out a bit, although they were far from completely vanishing. Large rocks began to take up a lot of the space though, and even ended up blocking their path a few times, causing the boys to either have to go around or carefully climb over them.
Despite this, the second day was almost as uneventful as the first. By the time Keane and Straton had decided to stop for the night, neither of them had mentioned their recent seemingly good luck. It was almost as if the second they brought attention to it then something would swoop in and cause everything to go into disarray again.
When they woke up on their third day of travel in the mountain, the redhead couldn't help but think that even though they had tried not to jinx themselves it didn't seem to work. Huge, dark clouds were just visible on the edge of the sky, filling his mind with worry.
"You don't think those will come over here, do you?" he asked, pointing towards the dark horizon. Straton frowned as he watched the clouds. Rainstorms were not something either boy was used to in the slightest. It almost never rained in Stella, and when it did they would always be ushered inside almost immediately by a guard.
"I don't know, I hope not," he mumbled. Reluctantly Keane nodded, slinging the bag that held the rest of their food over his shoulder and tearing his eyes away from the ominous clouds.
"Well, we should try to get as far as we can today incase we do have to stop because of rain," he said. Sure, he had no idea what they would do if it did rain, they couldn't just stand in it. The two hadn't built anything with a sort of roof ever either, so he doubt even if they tried, it wouldn't be the best thing to keep any rain out.
When the two stopped to take a break about three hours later, the rain had so far managed to hold off. The clouds were obviously closer though, not doing anything to ease the boys minds.
"Hey…" Straton started quietly, beginning to look around the two as they ate. They had about two more meals left before they would run out, so they really needed to start looking for other ways to find food on their own.
"Yeah?" Keane asked, turning his attention from the rainstorm once again.
"Does it feel like something's watching us to you?" he asked. The redhead almost immediately frowned, transforming his ears to listen for anything that might be stalking them. Except for a bit of rustling from what he guessed was probably small animals trying to get ready for the rain and wind getting a bit harder, he didn't hear anything.
"It's the rainstorm. It's following us," he said, only half jokingly. The blond boy frowned, but reluctantly nodded. He probably was just a little freaked out by the huge, grey clouds seeming to take up more and more of the sky every minute.
The two started moving again after a few moments. It ended up being less than an hour later when the dark clouds finally did end up reaching them, almost immediately drenching the two boys. Straton held the old bag that Basim had given him over his head in order to try to block some of the water, while Keane used one of their blankets.
Neither was very effective in the least, and the redhead cursed slightly under his breath as he looked for somewhere, anywhere, where they could get out of the rain.
"There!" he could barely hear Straton yell over the sound of the water pounding both him and the ground and trees surrounding them. Turning towards the younger boy, he saw he was pointing at some sort of cave in the side of a rock face several feet away from them. Without saying anything, the two immediately started running as fast as they could to the covered area.
The second they were out of the rain the two collapsed to the dirt ground. Keane threw the soaked blanket to the side, starting to wring his hair out afterwards. Straton set his bag down only slightly more gently, running a hand through his own hair afterwards. Drawing his knees up to his chest, the blond sighed, thankful to be out of the rain but still freezing. Being cold was definitely not something either boy was used to either.
"Glad we found this," Straton mumbled, and Keane nodded in agreement.
"Yeah, I guess our luck hasn't run out completely yet," he said back. The redhead didn't bother to see if their other blanket still inside the bag would be dry. The entire sack was soaked all the way though, putting either of them on would probably just make things worse. Instead, he just pushed himself over to the wall of the cave, running his hands up and down his arms in an attempt to generate some heat.
"We have luck?" Straton asked, actually causing the older boy to laugh slightly.
"Good question. I guess not really," he said. Closing his eyes, Keane figured it would be okay to sleep for just a little while. They were out of the rain now, although cold gusts of wind still worked their way inside of the cave. They managed to get far enough away from the entrance where any of the water couldn't actually hit them.
His clothes were freezing wet and sticking to him, but he didn't have anything to change into. Each gust of wind only made it worse, but for some reason the redhead found himself caring less and less. He was just really tired now. Maybe his clothes would be a bit dryer by the time he woke up…
Straton watched as Keane slowly started drifting off to sleep. A strange sense of panic started to bubble inside of his stomach, but for the life of him the blond couldn't figure out why. It was something… something about sleeping while cold. Or was it not sleeping? Sure, it was really cold, but it wasn't like their was ice or anything. He'd probably be fine, and either way, for some reason Straton wasn't able to bring himself to speak and wake him up.
He really wished he could change out of his clothes, but his arms and legs didn't feel like working anymore. He was really tired too. Maybe… maybe Keane had the right idea going to sleep. He doubted it would hurt them, especially if it was only for an hour or two. Just enough to get their strength back and the storm to pass.
And the mountain arc has finally arrived. Like I said, I wrote the first part of this chapter while stuck in an airport, and I wrote the second half after going up a freaking mountain. I was in a car though, unlike poor Keane and Straton, I had it easy.
I do hope you all liked the chapter though. Just when it seems they might be getting a bit of a lucky break things start to go wrong once again. Well, as always thanks for reading and please review.