GAHHHHH! I only have one upload this week because I'm buried in work this week, and last week. It turns out I was TOTALLY FUCKING WRONG about when my exams were. Only my spanish one was last week (I failed the shit out of it, and had to retake it), so... the others are this week. I have Friday off though, so I'll work harder. ;n;

On an unrelated note, has anyone else heard of Heartache 101? It's rad as fuck.

"Alice, make sure you don't get separated from the rest okay? And. . ." Erinn had Alice sitting on a stool, listening to a long lecture on what not to do while they were out on their journey to find Brigadoom. Patty was shaking her head, feeling sorry for the poor girl.

"Miss Erinn, your worries are unnecessary. Marine will be watching out for her, so can we please leave now? We have a long ways to go to get to Zere." Iris sighed. Alice's face beamed at Iris like she was the only light in a tunnel of darkness.

"...I suppose you're right." Erinn looked down at Alice, who was itching to leave. "...Fine. Go on."

Alice cheered, and launched herself onto Erinn, spinning them around continuously. "Yay~ Love you, Erinn~!"

After that, Alice jumped over to where Marine and the others were, and climbed up onto Marine's shoulder.

"Let's go~" Marine shudders, feeling Erinn's harsh glare as they leave.

Erinn is really scary.

As they got further north of Loch Storn, they came across a cornfield. Alice found extreme delight in rolling around in the stalks. It made it difficult for Marine to keep track of her, but you just had to follow the blood trails and dead monster bodies. Eventually, Alice had to stop rolling around, because there was an elevation change. She, however, didn't know that, and rolled right into the dirt wall, letting out a loud 'OOMPH!'.

When the others finally caught up with her, she hadn't moved at all. They were slightly surprised to see the girl covered in blood, but, by the smell of it, it was just monster blood.

"Ugh! You smell terrible, Alice." Marine crinkled her nose, picking her up. Alice raised both her eyebrows, and tilted her head, making some blood drip onto Marine's hand.

"Really? I thought I smelled fine...Is it really that bad?" Alice saw Sheila nod her head really quickly, with her nose plugged. "Aww. Well, I guess I can just bathe in the inn, or something... Zere should have an inn, if I remember correctly..." She mumbled, not noticing the weird looks she was getting. Alice dusted herself off, and they continued walking.

Iris tried to make small (yet prying) talk as they walked the short remaining distance to Zere. "Have you been to Zere before, Miss Alice?"

"Nope."

"...Then how do you know they have an inn?" Sheila tilted her head, eager to learn about her new friend.

"What?... Oh! I heard about it from the adults in my village. They travel a lot. It's a tradition of sorts." Alice spoke quick, short sentences as she slashed through a few more boppin' badgers.

"What about your parents, kid? Do they travel too?" Marine grabbed the back of Alice's dress, holding her up in the air to prevent Alice from fighting anymore monsters. Alice flailed her arms and legs, trying to escape.

Alice paused in her flailing to think over the question, and shook her head. "Nope, I don't have parents."

Marine felt a pang of guilt for even bringing it up, even if it wasn't meant to be like that. "Oh, uh... sorry."

"Don't be, I never met them. Good riddance!" Marine thought for sure that she heard a snarl, but it was probably just her own. "Oh, hey! There's Zere's front gates! Let's go~"

Alice kicked her flailing into high-gear, and managed to escape Marine's grip, ripped through the dirt into the village.

The three remaining girls nonchalantly continued walking, but Marine started running the moment they heard screaming about a blood child. She scooped up Alice, and jogged to the inn. Iris and Sheila idled behind to apologize and explain/lie to the bystanders what was going on.

Marine viciously scrubbed Alice's hair, trying to get out all the dried blood that was now clinging to her skin. Alice had puffed out her cheeks when Marine was cleaning her face, and Marine had to keep in her "aww's". Getting it off the skin was the easy part, even though Alice squirmed quite a bit. Getting it out of her hair was proving to be much more difficult; it was like the blood had fused with her hair!

"Sheesh, how many monsters did you kill?! There's just no end!" Marine groaned, working her way through yet another layer of dried blood. At least it seemed to be the final layer. "Well, at least you don't smell like shit anymore..."

"Am I done yet~? I'm sooo tired!" Alice whined, splashing the dirty bath water for the tenth time.

"Almost. Let me just clean the underside of your hair..." Marine lifted up Alice's messy, short hair, and saw that somehow, blood had also gotten on her neck. Crinkling her nose at the sight, Marine focused her energy on scrubbing Alice's neck. Alice jerked around alot for that, bursting into a laughing fit.

Her neck's ticklish, huh? I'm going to remember that. Marine snorted, scrubbing harder to get back at Alice for wasting her time. Eventually, Marine broke through the final layer of blood, but was stunned at what she saw.

There, tattooed to the back of Alice's neck, were two tiny black wings. That wasn't what surprised Marine. No, not at all. What surprised her, was that, for some reason, it gave Marine an extreme feeling of foreboding.