Chapter 20: Touched by a Shadow

Not all days could be so dramatic. The next day it rained.

It would be terrible for Sitis’ cuts to get wet before they had a real chance to close, so even he accepted another day of rest. Unfortunately, this meant instead of being able to wander around, they were stuck in their respective tents.

Perhaps this was for the best.

Aureum and Lacuna had no major problems. They chatted and dozed. Aureum was still in pain herself, and Lacuna pulled out a book to read. The sound of rain was comforting in the background.

It could be imagined that Mendax’s and Sitis’ time together was tense, but Aureum and Lacuna heard nothing. The day ended without ceremony.

It was funny to see Sitis and Mendax the next morning.

“Mendax.”

“Sitis.”

This exchange was the extent of their words to each other. And this was forced by the presence of breakfast.

“Has it been rough rooming with Sitis?”

Aureum’s words directed at Mendax caused him to stiffen. She had an easy view of his back, as she was about to clear her wooden plate and he had just sat down to eat. Otherwise, she might not have noticed.

“Hah!”

His delayed response was easy to spot.

“Might be if we were talkin’.”

“Isn’t that worse?”

“Nah. We both decided the other is a fool. There’s no need to go on and on about it.”

Aureum waited for him to go on. But Mendax quickly finished and left. Where before he followed her uninvited, now he avoided her.

Did something happen?

She wasn’t going to chase him down to answer idle curiosity.

In the mud and the light drizzle of the next day, they finally continued on in the hopes the rain would stop. Sitis wasn’t fully healed, so progress was slow.

Due to the streams forming in the road, they ended up forming a line. Mendax led, Sitis behind him, Lacuna after, and Aureum was last. This was the result of Aureum not wanting to get ahead of Lacuna, and Lacuna finding it impossible to pass by Sitis while he was injured.

It wasn’t like Lacuna could catch him if he slipped. She was taller than Aureum, but not that much taller. Aureum couldn’t see the sense in it, but Lacuna didn’t act according to Aureum’s judgment.

The hours of stepping collected and became a day of travel. A day of terse conversation, as the weather wasn’t conducive for long dialogues.

Rain is quite pretty to watch. It is a melody to listen to, but having your wet cloak drug through mud is another matter. It made it that much heavier and dirty. Not to mention the eventual labor of washing it. Being soaked through made even a light breeze cause a shiver.

After a day of watching Lacuna’s careful attendance in such weather for someone who rejected her confessions, it was no surprise that Aureum had questions. Despite her not wanting to get too involved in Lacuna’s business. It was like many of the itches Aureum collected that day, except this one was too easy to act on.

“Why?” Aureum said, during one of their breaks.

“Why what?” Lacuna said.

Aureum regretted bringing it up even as she spoke.

“Why does it have to be him?”

This feeling didn’t stop her, of course.

“Well, I like him?”

“Then find somebody else you like. I’m certain there are a lot of people out there.”

Lacuna looked down at her hands.

“Yeah, I guess I should stop bothering him.”

Aureum felt like a vein was going to burst.

How is it I can come across the same nonsense no matter how I breach the topic?

“It’s not about him. I’m asking about you. You should stop pining for him but for your sake. Not anybody else’s.”

“That’s not… I don’t think I can do that. I can't just ignore him.”

“Why not? I don’t spend time thinking about what everybody else thinks of me. Why should you?”

Lacuna sat there as if she was about to speak but saying nothing for a long beat. Lacuna decided not to bring up how her emotions couldn’t change overnight. Even if she was hurt. Aureum evidently had a different experience.

“But relationships don’t work that way,” Lacuna said. “Without consideration, you end up cutting any thread that ties you together with your own hands.”

Instead, Lacuna tried to make the conversation about relationships in general, instead of her specific feelings.

“So what?” Aureum said. “You don’t have a relationship. It’s not gonna happen even if you want to. So you should just do what you want.”

“But what I want…”

Lacuna trailed off.

Aureum knew she had taken a few wrong turns in this conversation, even if the specifics evaded her. She sighed.

I’m just trying to help.

“Look, I know you think you want to be in a relationship with him. And he does seem pretty great if I squint. But even if he magically changes his mind, do you think his habit of deciding things for you would change?”

This was a dangerous road for Aureum to start upon. It led to the fact that Aureum knew Sitis did want a relationship, and it was dyed in all of Aureum’s bias of the world.

What a clear and wide perspective Aureum didn’t have, with the lack of worldly experience her last future gave her. In some places, her worldly experiences were far too in-depth. In others, shallow as a mirror.

Still.

Aureum would hate to see Lacuna being dragged around by Sitis even as he tiptoed around his own feelings.

“I guess, I get your concern for me, but I—

“No! No buts! Stop thinking about me! Or Sitis. Don’t think about what we want. Just think about what you want! What you want!”

Lacuna gave an easy smile. The first one on anyone’s face Aureum had seen in days.

Mendax’s smile was more like the drawing of a blade. It didn’t bring relief to the viewer, so it didn’t count.

“I get that you care for me, Aureum. Thanks. No matter what happens, I’ll try to keep your words in mind.”

“That’s not… Fine. All right…”

Maybe they’re perfectly suited for each other. They don’t listen when people speak.

To be fair Sitis hadn’t done anything drastic since Lacuna had confessed. He hadn’t taken his words back, but Aureum was just grateful the few days since hadn’t taken a turn for worse.

It was nearly impossible since Lacuna was a part of the problem.

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Although Aureum could see her biting her lip at times, Lacuna did her best not to let her feelings affect everybody else. This was impossible, but the great strides she took cleared the air. It would have been easy for these days to have become unbearable. The only problem was that noticing this did affect Aureum. How could it not?

But Aureum didn’t know how to change Lacuna’s mind. Let alone her heart.

For now, the entire group was stuck in the mud. The only solution was heavy small steps added up to eventually go the distance.

Even Aureum couldn’t snap her fingers out of this. If by miracle the clouds did break open and the sunlight fell down, her arm was still in a sling.

She wasn’t flying anywhere.

The first day they had begun again it had drizzled. The next day it showered.

Aureum opened the tent to see Mendax and Sitis eyeing the sky around the edge of theirs.

They caught sight of her and both parties stared across at each other for a moment. It was the start of another day that nobody wanted.

“Do you two want to continue traveling?” Mendax said.

“I do, but Lacuna—

“I want us to continue,” Lacuna said.

She had come up behind Aureum while everyone took a moment to look at each other like lemmings.

“I think the faster we get to Fluentem, the better it will be for everyone’s health. The rain might continue even longer than today, after all.”

Everyone knew Lacuna meant Mendax’s health. But she had a point. As much as walking through the rain would strain him, if he continued to rest in wet conditions he danced with the chance of infection.

Which would be much worse.

So they pressed on.

It would have been nice if the clouds had opened up, the rain had stopped and the sunlight came down. It would have been nice, but instead, the rain came down in sheets for hours. It felt never-ending. The road became a long puddle they plodded through. It was pointless to try to avoid getting soaked, so they walked however they pleased.

The real worry Aureum had wasn’t for the possibility of anyone twisting their ankle or catching a cold. All she dreaded that day was how they were going to put up the tents.

The rain didn’t halt so she got the answer to her worries before her eyes. It was mundane.

Sitis chose the campsite carefully. A little sloped ground on a small hill near a tree line was it. Home wet home. Everywhere else was filled with puddles.

Mendax did the manual labor of putting the tent up with Lacuna as support. She was the extra set of arms for anything that had to be held up while Mendax tried to follow Sitis’ tedious directions. Everyone was desperately trying to keep the interior of the tent dry. Which made putting the tent up difficult.

Aureum kept watch as moral support. The benefits of her injury and lack of serious camping experience.

Despite many harsh words from Mendax one tent was put up in the rain without any physical harm to anyone. Instead of putting another one up, they used Mendax’s smaller tent, which had not gotten rained on, as a makeshift divider.

Aureum also took the liberty of running a breeze through the tent to dry it out even more. It was as comfortable as everyone could make it.

As the rain drummed down, sleep was deep for Aureum. She couldn’t be worried about the hot tent or the noises the others made.

———————————————————

She awoke to a hand on her shoulder. It was dark, but the sound of rain still pattered away.

“Aureum, can you help me find Lacuna?”

It was Mendax. She couldn’t see a thing, but Lacuna wasn’t in the tent. She couldn’t feel her mana or hear her.

“What are you talking about?”

Aureum rubbed her eyes as she sat up. Sitis wasn’t there either.

“Nature probably called, and Sitis went with Lacuna ‘cause he’s trash…”

Saying that Aureum sank back down to sleep. Mendax put a hand on her shoulder again.

“Maybe so, but they’ve been gone a while. Something might have happened. I’m gonna go check on them.”

“What could you even see out there?”

“I’ve got sharp ears.”

“You’re going now?”

“I’ve already waited an hour for them to come back.”

Aureum surged back up into a seating position.

“I’m awake. Let’s go.”

Mendax didn’t reply fast enough.

“I’ve got a pretty sensitive touch for wind. It’s not going be perfect with all the water mixed in, but I have way better chances of finding them than you.”

“Alright, but get some shoes on at least.”

So with that, Aureum trudged out into the rain again. The last thing she wanted to do. Within moments she was soaked through again, as she had been all day.

There was a little bit of light from the moon. It was almost full, but the clouds caught more of the light than the ground did. At least it didn’t hurt anything.

She sent out her senses of the wind, but everything was blanketed by the raindrops. Her eyes opened as she gave up on pushing through it.

“Do you know which direction they might have went?”

Mendax shook his head.

“Not a clue.”

Great. Aureum headed straight from the tent into the tree line. If she needed to go, that's the first place she would head.

Mendax trailed behind her.

There wasn’t much for Aureum to say.

As they searched, Aureum began to wake up more. A feeling of something being off arose. But it might have just been searching in the cold rain in the middle of the night.

“They say anything to each other as they left?”

“I didn’t hear anything clearly, just heard their voices as they woke me up.”

He didn’t drift back to sleep?

But that was possible. They walked past a deep puddle. Aureum eyed it. Vague shapes danced in dark blue and black. Probably branches or shadows from the trees, but she kept imagining seeing Lacuna’s arm.

Stay calm. She probably just got into an argument with Sitis. About time. Actually, perhaps the timing could be better.

Aureum sensed Mendax’s hand reaching towards her.

“You don’t have to pull me back! I’m stepping away from the edge.”

Mendax froze. She kept going for a bit. When Aureum looked back, she saw that what she felt was true. He had stopped entirely.

She stepped towards him. Difficult to see anything clearly, he was closer to a dark shadow than a person.

“Something wrong?”

He still said nothing. But his expression changed. She couldn’t make it out.

As ugly as his skin was in the day, she would have appreciated being able to see it clearly right now. She had no idea what he was thinking.

Her throat tightened. For a second she wanted to do nothing but run back to the tent.

There wasn’t a specific reason. Just frayed nerves.

“I think I remember what they were saying now,” he said, as he stepped forward. “I think she was trying to help him with his cuts somehow.”

It came out of the blue, with no explanation for his silence.

“That sounds like her, but they should have worked it out inside the tent.”

Mendax shrugged as he stepped past her. He turned back.

“Let’s not have anyone fall into any puddles tonight,” he said.

Mendax led after that. The sharp fear of the moment faded as Aureum focused on finding Lacuna.

They circled the area of the tent, and Aureum caught the edge of something that might be their voices with her sense of wind.

“Do you hear anything?”

“No.”

“Then follow me.”

They came closer, and sure enough, there were two idiots in the rain. It took a moment for Aureum to be certain she looked at people, another to recognize them.

“What are they…?”

“I think she’s kissing him,” Aureum said.

“Oh.”

I don’t care anymore.

They looked on into the distance for a few moments more.

“Let’s just go.”

Once they were back in the tent, they huddled in their respective misery as they tried to dry off.

“What do you think about that, huh?” Aureum said.

“I think I have better things to think about,” Mendax said.

Aureum’s words were half to herself. She didn’t even know what she thought about it. But Mendax’s reply had come without hesitation. Like killing a mosquito.

“Jealous?” Aureum teased.

She tried to lighten the mood.

“Of some fool that doesn’t realize his own fortune?

No.”

Some words should not be taken at face value.

“We don’t know if it’s fortune yet,” Aureum said. “We’ll see what happens between them tomorrow. It could just be more nonsense.”