Chapitre 267: Chapter 267
Layali watched the blue haired human eat without much in the way of manners, he cut the meat, he stuffed it in his mouth, he chewed, he swallowed, and that was that. Then afterward, he licked his fingers clean. "What, you said you were hungry, right?" He asked as if she were dense, and the vague revulsion at his shoddy manners transformed into dismay.
"You fed me earlier… Lord Unglaus." She answered, but he shook his head.
"No, that wasn't enough, besides, it's a long way and if you want to come with me then you need to be strong enough to make it. Go on, tear off a strip from the spit." Brain answered with a dismissive wave and lay back again.
Layali looked at the smoked fish, 'It could be a trick.' She briefly wondered and watched him drift off to sleep in the middle of the day. Her belly rumbled, the little angry knot in her underfed stomach shoved away her other fears and doubts, driving her to tear off a chunk from the fish and shove the cooked white meat into her mouth.
There was an explosion of flavor on her tongue that was far, far removed from the crude gruel and scraps she'd lived on for most of her life, and she fumbled with the fish meat to tear away more, and more, and more, shoving it with almost violent aggression into her mouth where she sucked the juices out before mashing the meat to a pulp, chewing it, and swallowing it down her throat.
She pulled and pulled at the skewered meat, her eye no longer really seeing the source, only her juice coated fingers whenever her hands darted out to tear more away. "Sho good… shoo….goooood." She mumbled, her jaw ached still, and she had a vague sense that she might have swallowed one of her teeth.
But the things Lord Unglaus gave to her kept the fiery agony from rising, replacing it with a dull and constant ache, allowing her to at least eat.
So eat she did, darting hands out faster than a frog's tongue, each bite she said to herself, "Jush won moar…"
Until her hand came out and found only a wooden stick, slick with fishy juices and the tattered clinging remnants of what should have been two meals at least.
Her eye widened with the existential horror of realizing what she'd done. 'I ate all the food…' That dread at having consumed it all, hours before she felt sure… 'I'd have fallen apart. But… What can he do to me that hasn't been done? And he's going somewhere, if he kills me it'll be quick, and at least I won't die hungry… there's nothing left to hold onto so… who cares?' She asked herself and lay to rest wrapped up in the far oversized cloak he'd given to her.
She squeezed her eye as tightly shut as she could, and listened to him promptly fall completely asleep. She frowned a little bit, groaned, and yanked the cloak over her head. Layali was immediately shrouded in darkness, the feel of her breath on the cloth came back to her, along with the faintly fishy smell of her last meal. She crinkled her nose a little and turned her head to the side.
Despite her protests to herself that she didn't care what he did when he woke and found the remainder of the meal gone, there was a knot in her gut that had nothing to do with food and would not go away. 'I don't care. I don't care. I don't care. He'll probably just kill you, that's what you wanted anyway, dummy. Like he said, at least I won't die on an empty stomach.' She then quietly cried herself to sleep, with his thick cloak catching every salty tear.
She woke up when she felt a blunt poking at her shoulder. "Hey, you're alive, right? Are you dead?" The poke happened a few more times, it wasn't rough, but it rocked her back and forth. "If you're dead I'll need that cloak back."
Layali's single eye fluttered open and she drew the cloak off her head, "I'm… I'm not dead."
"Good, then let's get going, the sun is going down." He leveled the sheathed katana toward the orange glow of the setting sun, he then reached for a small pack and began stowing items that shouldn't have fit within it.
"You've got a magic item? Can it… hold anything, everything?" Layali's eye fixated on the unassuming little brown pack and the pouch on his side.
"Not you, I can't do living things, and no," he said as he tossed the bedroll in, "not everything. These are small items I won at a tournament in Demalbion. They are magic, they cut weight and store more than their size. They're hardly legendary. But it's good for a wanderer like me." He tossed a few remaining odds and ends within, and then started walking toward the road.
"Are you strong enough for a light jog, at least?" Brain asked and looked the girl up and down, "How is that herb sitting with you, is there a lot of pain?"
"You're- You're not going to ask about the fish?" Layali asked when he tossed the spit into the pouch where it disappeared.
"I assume you ate it." Brain answered with a thick, sarcastic look and raised a blue eyebrow, "I always thought elves were supposed to be pretty smart. Did you just leave it out for a wild animal or something?"
Layali's heart skipped a beat with his dismissive tone. "No! Yes! I mean… yes, I ate it, but… aren't you mad, master Unglaus? You told me to have some and I ate it all! Aren't you going to hit me or something?!"
Brain shrugged. "Nah, it's just a fish, what do I want an old fish for? We'll catch another when it's time to rest again, I'll catch it, you cook it, sound fair?" He asked, and she felt her jaw fall open and winced at the pain.
'Is he… serious?' She wondered, it felt that way, but he frowned a little when she winced.
He reached into the pouch at his side and drew out the smaller pouch that contained some of the herb. "Here." He said and tossed it to her, "Use another pinch, we're almost a day from the nearest little town, or maybe village, no… more of a town, and I'd like to get there by sunrise."
Layali failed to catch the pouch, it hit her belly and fell into the grass, and as slow as if she were walking against water, she stepped toward it and crouched down. Her single eye never left the blue haired swordsman as she gingerly reached out, took the pouch, removed a little of the bitter herb and placed it into her mouth. She resecured it, tossed it back, and after a few minutes he said, "Now?"
"Yessir." She said and drawing up his cloak, she began to walk.
The cloak was so large it dragged along the ground, and Layali struggled to hold it up, following behind Brain for several minutes before he turned and noticed her struggle. "What are you doing, girl?" He asked, and she glared from her one good eye for a half second before lowering it to his feet.
"Trying not to get your cloak dirty, sir." She answered, while burying the thought she feared to voice, 'So you don't take it away from me.'
"It's just a cloak, and the river is right there." He pointed it out as if it were obvious, which it was. "If it gets dirty, it gets washed, so who cares, not me? And enough of this master and sir nonsense, I'm not a lord or a king or an emperor… Just call me by my name. Brain. I'm a commoner and a wandering swordsman, that's all."
Layali relaxed her hold on the bunched up fabric that was starting to hurt her hands to grip so tightly and let the fabric fall to drape on the road. "When we get to town, I'll pay for a healer, and we'll see about getting a horse under you, this will be way too long of a trip at your pace."
The offhand way he said it all continued to grate upon and dismay her to such a degree that she couldn't truly meet his eyes, not even while she only had the one to use.
All she did was nod and follow him, and for some time there was only silence.
"It's boring to travel with someone and say nothing the whole time, huh?" He asked, it was a rhetorical question, but Layali felt the need to answer anyway.
"I never traveled until Master Cerebrate bought me. I never liked anything he had to say… so it's fine either way… Brain." She replied to the swordsman, and in return, he was quiet.
Layali couldn't quite pin down the feeling she got from him just at that moment after her answer, but when he said nothing, she chose to elaborate. "But you did feed me so… if you want to?" She shrugged inside the cloak.
It was growing darker by the minute, but he seemed to brighten up a little bit, "So… what can I ask that won't trouble you?"
"I don't know, so… how long have you been a wanderer?" Layali asked, at that point, she did have a genuine curiosity, from the little he'd said it sounded like some time at least.
"I don't really know. I've been doing it for so long that time just runs together." Brain answered her and scratched his head, he looked up at the stars that began to wink down at them from the sky and added, "I think I was about twelve when I left home."
"Wait, really?" Layali felt a twinge of doubt, but he nodded.
"It's a funny story, actually." He turned and held out his sword. "I stole this. I was about twelve, and a merchant passed through my village with a bodyguard, the guard left it unguarded, and me being… well… me, I took it."
"And you ran off?" She guessed, only for his mouth to open and laughter to come out.
"Oh by the gods, no! I got caught. I'm a terrible thief, I guess. But the guard had a sense of humor, a mean one, and said," Brain cleared his throat and took on a menacing voice to say, 'Little boy likes to play with swords, these are men's tools, you want it, boy, you show me you can use it.' then he smacked me with the back of his hand and knocked me into the dirt."
Layali tried to picture this large, broad shouldered human being smacked around, and failed.
"He took up another sword and told me to defend myself as a man, or die as a thief, he was a big, round oaf, with a nasty brown beard and beady, mean looking eyes, and unlike most guards, he had plate armor, meanwhile there I was, village boy with nothing but his stolen sword. I didn't even want to take it. I just wanted to borrow it and whack some tree limbs and pretend to be one of the thirteen heroes."
The laughter was gone from Brain's face, "I think he just liked killing, and I was the first excuse he had in a good while, the noise attracted people, and the next thing I knew it was a trial by combat… I'll spare you the details, but it turns out, I lived." Brain's face began to return to life.
"So you won." She said, and he rolled his eyes.
"Do I look undead to you…?" He trailed off.
"Layali." She answered, deadpan.
"I don't have much use for remembering names." He said as if he were apologizing, but not apologizing. "I'm not with people long enough for it to matter." He added.
Brain cleared his throat and finally answered, "So yeah, I won. It turns out I had a talent, the merchant hired me on the spot in place of the dead man, I sold off the guard's stuff to pay for a few incidentals, and left home the next day. I never went back. I was lucky too, because most of the village got drafted for a war and not many came home, or so I heard. I've been wandering and refining my talent ever since."
"So you've never lost a fight?" Layali asked, and Brain snorted.
"Just once. Against the Royal Head Warrior of Re-Estize, Gazef Stronoff." Brain answered, "He barely edged out a victory, and I've wanted a rematch ever since. Sadly, that'll never happen, he died in the revolution that established the Kingdom of Carne."
"Was he… a friend?" Layali asked and stepped a little closer to his back.
"No, not really, just a rival to overcome on the journey to the peak." Brain replied and added, "But I admit, we shared the same contented expression when we were fighting… rivals sometimes clash almost like old friends, we share common ground, the same struggles. Sometimes the man you kill might be closer than a brother, if only you were shoulder to shoulder instead of face to face."
"That's sad." Layali answered, "Killing someone like that… like killing one's family?"
"It's what the gods gave us, to fight, to kill, till we're all dead or strong enough to survive." Brain answered with fatalistic indifference.
They fell quiet for a while, neither having the will to converse again until the low wooden walls of a town came into view, lit up by the handful of torches moving along on their steady patrols.
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