Ferris motioned for Ciara to stay outside. There were many horrible sights that both sisters had grown uncomfortably accustomed to; however, the eldest saw no point in throwing away what little innocence her sibling had left. The depressing fate of the home's final resident wasn't anything Ciara needed to see.
As for herself, she could only grimace at the bitter familiarity of it all. It was easy for her to piece together what happened because it was a scene that had played out in Mollendale the year prior. Farmers whose livelihoods had depended on their torched fields. Freemen who put every spare coin into their business only to have them reduced to charred rubble. Serfs so badly burned that they would never work again even if their lord gave them any support. People whose entire means of survival had literally gone up in smoke. Families left without home or inheritance, only debts and a harsh winter to come.
But what was lost was mostly material, be glad you're alive! Oh, how those words had sickened her. When they were used too loosely, their meaning changed from comfort to dismissal. It became the excuse of criminals or those too removed from the pain to feel it, and any fool who said such deserved to have everything—their means of living, their creations, their memorials, their shelter, and their safety—taken from them in turn. As if being spared from the fires, losing everything except your own life, was some great mercy!
What Ferris would've done for her own inheritance, so that she might've saved Ciara and herself from the streets. Instead, she too had lost it all to the flames before she could even begin to fight for it. Nothing from their old life, neither belongings nor family, remained.
As the people of Mollendale picked up the pieces of their ruined town, all they could do was cling to hope that any goodwill might be thrown their way. Some, just like the lost soul dangling before them now, didn't even have that. Even their peace of mind was robbed from them.
Castellar moved first. A longbow reminiscent of a pair of collarbones manifested in his hands. Keeping a hard expression, he fired a single shot into the rafters. A rope was cut. The heavy weight attached to it fell to the earth with an unceremonious thud.
"Help me take care of this," he told her in a low, steady voice, "Your sister can go ahead and set up camp."
Uncharacteristically quiet, Ferris nodded. Perhaps he simply didn't want a pair of blank eyes watching over them as they slept… Nevertheless, she could appreciate how solemnly he went about their ugly task and that he made a point to keep Ciara out of it. After ordering the young girl to stay back a moment longer, the two adolescents each took a limb and dragged the unfortunate stranger away.
Since they didn't know if they had fully evaded Avalbanshee's group, they couldn't risk a small fire let alone one large enough to burn a body. It would have to be buried. Using a worn shovel from the storehouse, they managed to dig a shallow grave beneath the shadows of the building.
The silence that hung between them all the while was more awkward than sober. It occurred to Ferris that Castellar seemed oddly used to handling remains. She knew that, unlike her own kind, his turned to dust when they died. The concepts of leaving behind a solid body or burying it after the person passed had to be foreign to most Monsters. He gave her a sidelong glance, as if he thought something similar about her, but said nothing.
The last light of day dipped below the horizon just as they finished up. However, even though the three youths turned in early, each of them laid awake for hours into the night. It wasn't until exhaustion overcame their unease that they got any sleep.
Morning came all too soon. The trio needed to move out at dawn to put as much distance between their pursuers and themselves as possible. Where they planned to run to next, Ferris didn't know. The only indicator of their direction was the face of the mountain ahead of them.
Ciara grew tired early on. They hadn't eaten well since the previous morning and the nonstop journey was beginning to take its toll on her. Really, it was a miracle she'd lasted that long without complaint. Although Ferris wasn't feeling much better herself, she still lifted her sister onto her back when they crossed some particularly rough terrain. Castellar walked ahead of them, aggravatingly quick, but not to the point where they couldn't keep up. Fortunately for him, he didn't say much even though they lagged behind.
"Ferris, I'm hungry…" Ciara meekly whispered in her ear.
"Can you reach my belt?" She had some dried fruit leftover.
She paused for a moment as Ciara hunched around to tug at the small pouch at her waste. The snack didn't tide her over for long. They marched for the entire day, stopping only after the sky had turned a shade of gold. By that point, they were both famished and the mountain barely looked any closer.
The trio parked under a rocky overhang surrounded by boulders and trees. Ferris' entire body groaned and she may as well have melted into the dirt wall when she sat down. Castellar wordlessly handled their set-up for the night, apparently no more tired than when they'd first started. Surely, he had to be, but the fact that he didn't show it at all annoyed her.
Even knowing how petty the feeling was, she pursed her lips, "Do we even have a destination anymore?"
"I'm still taking you to the guild."
"You know what I mean," she leaned forward, "Where are we supposed to go next? What's the plan?"
He didn't answer her immediately, pulling out their two thin bedrolls and tossing one at her. She caught it in both hands and kept staring at him sourly. Just when she began to assume that he no longer had a plan at all, he said, "We have two choices: We can try to go deeper into the Monster Kingdom—as we intended—or we can climb around Mt. Ebott.
"If we move further in the kingdom, it should be easy to maintain our supplies and travel from town to town. We may even find aid. However, it's the most predictable course. Valda might've already prepared for that and have more people waiting in separate locations. Travelling through the mountain will help us stay hidden, but the way is more dangerous. Not just because of the terrain, but because we don't know who else might be hiding out here."
A likely threat vs. that of the unknown: She could see the problem. While Valda's allies already proved to be a hassle, robbers and runaways alike always lived between the Two Kingdoms' borders in secret. Neither option guaranteed safety, or that they wouldn't be tracked down eventually…
Ferris shrugged, dropping the bedroll beside her, "Flip a coin then."
Taken aback by her blasé attitude at first, he gave her the most disgusted look she'd seen yet, "Has your constant courtship with death deprived you of all reason? Were you beaten so much over the head that whatever rendered you daft in your previous life carried into the next?"
She stretched her arms over her head, "Do you usually bring out a dictionary when your angry?"
Ferris stopped listening as he rambled on, picking up another sound in the distance: Running water. It seemed to be coming from just a short walk away. She perked up, rising to her feet once more. Also noticing the noise, Ciara did the same. The girls moved away from the overhang to peer through the trees.
"What are you doing?" Castellar heatedly demanded as he lost their attention.
It didn't sound strong or swift. It must've been a low, gently moving source of water, like a small creek. An area like this, with plenty of cover, on a warm evening…? The sisters gave each other a hopeful look and Ferris grinned, "I think we can find some food here."
As she stepped toward the woods, taking Ciara by the hand, the skeleton quickly stood to chase after them, "No! You could be spotted and we already have food!"
"Save it for later!"
Mollendale had a large pond and connected stream, so as rare as meat could be at times, its villagers always had a certain access to seafood. In the summer, children there hunted for one meal in-particular: Crayfish. The destruction of fields and rise in poverty over the past year meant that more was taken from the wilderness, limiting Ferris and Ciara's own bounty. Out here, this wasn't an opportunity the sisters would easily miss.
The creek was barely a minute's trek away from where they made camp. Ciara ran ahead as the elder sister yanked off her boots and rolled up her pant legs. The cool mountain water felt amazing, both it and the strong possibility of a good meal rejuvenating her.
Another pair of boots stomped after her, stopping on top of the large boulder about a meter from where she rested, "Get out."
She wasn't going to let the skeleton ruin this from them, "There's too much cover. Unless she's right on top of us, Avalbanshee won't spot us any better over here than she would over there."
"You're not risking our safety by cooking something now!"
"A day has passed. I think we're fine!"
"You don't know that."
Squatting alongside the faint current, Ciara had already found the first one. The young child carefully lifted a rock and snagged one of the dark, shelled creatures by its tail. A look of true happiness that Ferris hadn't seen in a long while twinkled in her eyes as she showed off the catch.
If Ferris had any doubts, that sight alone raised her resolve. She gave Castellar a smug glance, "If you don't want any, don't help then."
There was nothing he could do without getting physical. He might've used his magic to reel them back by their souls—and seemed tented to as he watched them—but eventually decided that the matter wasn't worth a fight. Fuming, he reclined against a large tree to keep watch.
Castellar remained that stubborn well after the girls had gathered an entire swarm of crayfish, using one of their cloaks as a net to haul them all back to the overhang. Ferris was quick to get the crustaceans to a boil before he could think of wrestling any of the cookware away from her. However, upon their return, he mostly seemed content with munching on more of their dried goods, watching their surroundings, and giving her the silent treatment.
That suited her just fine. She and Ciara waited patiently on opposite ends of their fire, taking out everything the needed in advance and then taking turns to continuously feed the flames. The pot was so full that they'd be well-fed for the night. Maybe there were even be leftovers.
She'd heard of something that nobles ate that was also made of crayfish, but it had expensive ingredients imported from other nations. It wasn't something she and Ciara would've even seen on their own table: The most her family could've ever done was make substitutions. Regular breadcrumbs were fine and, when they could afford them, the magic-based almsmonds could be turned into a milk with a generously sweet flavor. Vinegar was a common pairing, but she doubted they had any on them. Even if they currently had something to add to their own dish, she couldn't remember her mother's recipe…
Ferris was quiet, stewing over what to do just as long as the crustaceans in the pot. The girl was still for so long that, noticing her furrowed brows, Castellar eventually inched over to take a peek. She kept herself from reacting as he looked at the boiled meat, unwilling to admit any slight problem after coming this far.
She didn't have to. He exhaled deeply in a relenting sigh, turning away only to dig through his belongings and pull out a tightly-wrapped packet no bigger than his palm. Tugging its string loose, he revealed a spice that she'd never seen before.
He plucked out a crayfish, broke open its shell, and sprinkled it with the spice before either of the girls could stop him, murmuring, "Try this…"
Ferris sat up on her knees as she thought to grab his arm only to bite the inside of her lip instead. A range of emotions flooded her at once: She was upset that he stepped in and felt bullied, worried that he may have ruined the food, but was also hesitantly curious of the sharp smell that tickled her nose. It left her too stunned to speak and she forced herself back down, bundling her fists in her lap.
They'd worked too hard for those… And Ciara wouldn't eat if she didn't. Taking the lead before the skeleton could retract the offer, Ferris squeezed her half of the meat between her fingers, trying to figure out the smell for another second before taking a nibble.
It wasn't at all what she was used to. It had the same firmness, but the typically sweet flavor now had a kick to it. It was actually good—really good! She finished off what remained of the piece so quickly that she looked like a child that had been given candy for the first time. Her sister gave her a bewildered look before trying it herself, her face soon revealing that same experience.
A moment later, Ferris barked, "Ok, we'll share!"
"See if you can find some chives growing wild," Castellar had already grabbed the pan next, "And don't go far!"
The girls could've kicked up dust as they sprang away to hunt through the nearby foliage. The plant was so common and pair two were such skilled foragers that it didn't take long at all before they'd returned. However, by that time, they'd already missed the tiny grin that had—unbeknownst to even him—been on Castellar's face for all of half a second.