Ekubar sat right next to Rehenna on the wagon, making sure to keep her close. She didn’t seem to have the same sense of caution as he did, but she stayed silent. Just in case, his hand was never far away from his daggers.
It was silent for quite a long time, until Gabriel decided to break it, "So... are you two a thing?'
Ray turned from where she sat right next to Gabriel in order to face them, "Oh, that's a question that has been on my mind too."
Rehenna tilted her head, her brows furrowing in confusion, "I do not understand. What is a 'thing'?"
Grinning, Ekubar leaned in closer to her and held a strand of her midnight hair softly, “They’re asking if we’re a couple, my dear.”
She made no reaction, and instead gently pushed his hand away, “I’m very sorry to disappoint, but we most certainly are not.”
As if he was betrayed, Ekubar placed his hand upon his heart and gasped, “After all we’ve been through… after all I’ve done, you do not think of me as nothing more than a friend?!”
Ray laughed from her spot and focused on the toad, “Both of you are so entertaining. Tell me, what is your past?”
Ekubar raised a brow, “Curious, are we?”
“Just thought that we should get to know each other, that’s all.”
“As beautiful as you are, witch, there are just some things we need to keep private from strangers.” Eku faced Rehenna, closing his eyes with a smile, “Isn’t that right, Rehenna?”
Rehenna was not listening. She was too absorbed into focusing her other senses into feeling her surroundings. The sound of the tree's leaves dancing along with the wind, the whistle of a breeze passing by, all of the bird's singing, the wheels of the wagon over the ground, and so much more.
Gabriel held the reigns of the horse, and tapped his foot, "Rehenna seems too long. Can I just call you Rhea?"
At the sound of the name, something inside of Eku swirled uncomfortably, as if begging him to come to his senses. Why? Rhea… it sounded familiar to him, so familiar that it made him frown. From where did that name come from? It was nagging somewhere at the back of his mind as if he already knew the answer to the question.
He ignored what he was feeling, and put on a fake smile, "Is the name Rehenna too hard for your little brain to remember?"
"You know, you can at least try to be nice... you and Cronus sound exactly the same." Gabriel grumbled.
After that conversation, the whole ride was spent in silence. No one said a word to each other, and it was very uncomfortable for the other party. Rehenna and Ekubar were quite fine with the silence.
Rehenna breathed in slowly, just a little longer. All she had to do was wait, and soon she will be able to see Jui again.
“Look! It’s the town.” Ray yelled, pointing at the wooden gates. It was still some ways off.
Rehenna shivered right next to Ekubar. Halfway through their journey, it had started snowing. The first snow after Autumn. Was it early? She wouldn’t know, after all, she had no calendar with her. It was too cold for comfort.
“Hold on…” Ekubar held her close, trying to share each other’s body heat. “Close your eyes.” At her nod, he leaned in to give her a kiss on the cheek. His arms were circled around her body, and he rested his forehead against hers.
Rehenna felt Ekubar’s power flow through with warmth, making her sigh in relief. The power lingered around before it became one with her own. Soon, the heat disappeared once again.
“Uhhh…” Gabriel looked behind them awkwardly ay their sudden share of affection, “I thought that you guys weren’t a couple…” he cleared his throat and shook his head, telling himself to concentrate on the road.
Ekubar sighed, “Sadly, that is still true.”
“Then, uhhh, why did you guys… I dunno, um, look so, how do you say— close?”
"It's something that an imbecile like you can't understand."
"W-what, why is everyone always picking on me?"
Ray rolled her eyes, “Gabriel, we’re so close to the town right now. Can we stop your needless squabble?” the witch’s eyes flickered over to the two Liya, her eyes narrowing.
Even though she was able to keep her composure, Ray was shocked. During their exchange, she noticed something. Ray’s eyes flashed yellow, strange markings appearing around her iris, and there it was. Inside of Rehenna was a faint mix of her power with Jui's... and something else.
Ray smiled, yes indeed, she was curious, but this was all she needed to know. She transferred to be close to them and sat down. Of course, Ray noticed how Ekubar’s hand twitched, most likely towards those daggers he always kept on his person. He still didn’t trust them.
The witch braced herself as a strong wind of snow passed by, making her wince at its force. Nonetheless, she was still able to stay where she was.
“Are you not cold with what you’re wearing?” asked Ekubar with a raised brow as he scanned her clothing. It was nothing more than a floral dress that left her shoulders and arms bare, other than that, she wore boots. He himself was freezing.
“I can’t feel the cold.” It was true.
"As expected of a witch..." Ekubar pulled Rehenna closer until she was practically snug in between his arms. He did it to give both of them warmth.
Ray sucked her teeth at the sound of that word. Witch… it always bothered her so much. Her eyes transformed into their strange form to look at both Ekubar and Rehenna. Ekubar was holding onto Rehenna like his life depended on it, and had his face buried in her hair. He wouldn’t notice her.
Her eyes widen at a fraction of what she saw. How in the world was he able to hold such power inside of him? He couldn’t… no... they can’t possibly be human.
With a sigh, Ray prevented herself from venturing further. Yes, curiosity was leading her, but she had work to do. Ray stood up and grabbed Rehenna, pulling her harshly towards her.
“What are you—!” that was Ekubar.
Ray barely registered Rehenna’s surprised yelp before she waved a hand over her eyes, as she whispered an ancient incantation. Her spell caused the Princess to fall unconscious.
Suddenly, pain hit her nerves when she felt a slash come in contact with her arm. She looked up and noticed Ekubar holding a dagger towards her, and Rehenna back in his arms. Ray hissed as she held her injured limb. She was sure that Ekubar meant to stab her, but thank goodness that didn’t happen.
Ekubar knelt down to check on Rehenna, not lowering his guard down a bit. "Rehenna..." he gritted his teeth and glared at her, "What did you do to her!?"
“What’s going on!?" Yelled Gabriel, who stopped the wagon in panic. “We’re all dying in the snow right now. Can we not fight!?” the storm was getting stronger by the minute.
“Urk…!” Well, the slash was really painful. Ray dug into her bag, and Ekubar, who thought she was about to get a weapon, lunged at her. “Cronus!” with a flash of light, the dagger was kicked out of Eku’s hands.
"I told you they were trouble!" yelled Cronus who was once again among them. "Do you want me to kill him?"
“Cronus!” yelled Ray.
“Yes, my lady?” answered her obedient familiar.
“Metaférete mágia mou...”
“Right away!” Cronus appeared in front of Ray, allowing her to tap the mirror upon his head once. His body was engulfed in translucent fire.
Ekubar didn’t know what was going on, but it didn’t look good at all. He picked up Rehenna to carry her bridal style, and jumped off of the wagon, flinching when his boots came in contact with the snow. With a grunt, he ran away towards the town as fast as he could.
Behind him, Cronus was fast approaching. When he was able to get close enough, Cronus tried to reach out to the both of them. Ekubar dodged it to the best of his abilities. It wasn’t easy considering he was carrying someone. His powers were already weakened enough.
Ekubar jumped away, creating as much distance as possible and faced the familiar. Something about that fire didn’t feel right. There was no way he was going to allow Cronus to touch him.
“What do you want from us!?” yelled Ekubar. Cronus made no sound, instead, narrowing his eyes and once again lunging for them. Never ever, trust a witch. Never.
This time, Ekubar was unable to dodge, having Rehenna to slow him down. The second the tip of Cronus’ finger made contact with his shoulder, half of the fire transferred into his own body. Ekubar gasped, expecting there to be pain, but instead, there was none.
Ekubar fell to his knees, a sudden pain flooding his mind. The frost bit into his legs, but the pain wasn’t able to compare to what was going on in his head. Even though he was feeling horrible, Ekubar was still able to notice Cronus going for Rehenna.
With whatever strength he had, Ekubar took his dagger and deflected Cronus’ touch. He was breathing heavily, but it didn’t stop him from saying, “Not… this time…!”.
“Tch!” Cronus glared at the both of them. He looked down at his hands, and bit his lip when he realized that they were fading away.
“Cronus!” yelled Ray who was back on the wagon with a shivering Gabriel, “Return!”
“But, my Lady, I still have time to—!”
“Return!” with a wave of her mirror, he was transported back to its reflective surface.
Ekubar laughed in relief, not wasting the opportunity to run away. He ignored both the pain in his head and the snow, making his way inside of the town.
Ray watched as Ekubar disappeared, too far to be within her sight. She looked on grimly and gripped the mirror’s handle tightly.
“My lady, I could’ve had her. If you had just given me more time, then I would’ve been able to transfer your spell.” Grumbled Cronus who was crossing his arms over the mirror’s world.
“No… any more time outside and you would vanish. It’s alright, Cronus. This is no problem, but I do have to adjust a few things… It just makes it harder, but it would still work.” Ray sat down gracefully onto the wagon and closed her eyes with a sigh. “Gabriel, take us into the town.”
Gabriel sighed and patted his horse to move forward. “I will never be able to get used to the weird things you guys do. Never.”
“Just keep moving, Gabriel.” Said Ray with a smile.
Inside of the town, Ekubar was desperate.
The snowstorm was getting stronger, and nobody was within sight. All of the town’s people had locked themselves in their homes for shelter. Where would he go? Rehenna was getting colder in his arms, and the longer he stayed outside the larger the chances of her dying.
Something rang inside of his head. Whatever spell that witch had cast upon him made a huge headache.
He looked down at the princess’s slumbering face, and whispered, “Rehenna…” a painful flash stung his mind, the name Rhea repeating constantly within his mind. He ignored the pain and tried to focus on giving as much power as he could in order to keep her warm.
“Mister? What are you doing here!?” with the storm’s winds, it was nearly impossible for Ekubar to hear those words. Ekubar turned to look behind him and saw a young boy who was dressed in rags, but he didn’t seem as if he was affected by the weather.
Maybe this boy could be of use to him. “I need help!” yelled Ekubar.
The boy jumped at his response, looking in between Eku and Rehenna in fear. For a moment, Eku was afraid that he would just abandon them both, but the boy ran towards them and said, “Follow me! I can get you guys to a healer! He would let you stay inside of his cabin.”
They struggled to make it through the storm, the little boy leading them through the mountains. Every second the stayed longer, the storm was getting stronger. It was worse for Ekubar since the boy was leading them up a mountain.
“Are you sure this is where he lives!?” He’ll be darned if this guy was also trying to kill them both.
The boy nodded and continued running upwards. “Yes!”
Ekubar had no choice but to follow the boy, after all, what other option did he have? Ekubar sucked in a sharp breath and moved forward. His arms were starting to tire, but just a little longer and they would be safe.
Fire cackled inside of the cabin. The doctor had a fireplace, and so Eku was getting warm, which was a big relief. Conveniently, the bed was right next to the source of warmth, and that meant that Rehenna, who was lying on the bed all bandaged up, was able to sleep peacefully.
The boy that had saved the both of them bid them farewell the moment they reached the doctor’s front door, quickly running back down the mountain most probably to his home.
Ekubar looked at the man who was washing his hands with some melted snow, they were a little sticky due to the herbal medicine he made.
"So," said the doctor as he shook his hand around to get rid of the water, "What were you doing with a knocked out girl with various different kinds of wounds on her body who, I should mention, is also blind." he placed his hands on his hips, "Sounds very, very fishy."
"We were... attacked... sorta." Ekubar mumbled as he sat on the side of the bed.
"Okay, yeah. I'll buy that...sorta." joked the Doctor as he relaxed on a chair. "You're the first customer I've had in a while, so I'll let it pass."
“How is she?”
“Well, outside, her wounds were already healing… which is a miraculous fact, because I’m surprised that they haven’t been infected yet. All I had to do was patch her up and give her some healing ointment, but as for her internal wounds? I detected a lot of damage. I don’t know what you both have gone through, but hopefully, you won’t be bringing any bad people into my establishment. I’m just an innocent doctor, you know.”
Ekubar nodded, “I see… how much for the treatment?” hopefully it wasn’t that big. He didn’t have any money on him right now. He had some, but the men that had been transporting him took it all and spent it on booze. He was lucky that they had not sold his favorite daggers. They were rather expensive.
“Oh, not much,” shrugged the doctor as he dried his hands over the fire, “Just... I dunno, twenty gold coins.”
“Twenty gold coins!? You couldn’t make it silver?!”
The doctor shook his head, “Nope. It’s got to be gold coins.”
Where in the world was he going to get twenty gold coins? Ekubar sighed. Eku was by no means an unfair man. If he had a debt to repay then he would repay it without a doubt. This was going to be hard.
“I’ll wait for you to pay. Judging by what you’re wearing, it doesn’t look like you have anything on you.” The doctor sat down in his rocking chair, and sighed in content, “Now… I must become one with the chair.”
Although, he wasn’t able to relax for more than a second because someone was knocking on his door. “Knock, knock!” was the muffled voice of the person outside.
"Who's there?" the herbalist asked a little grumpy.
"Johnny!" that voice most probably came from a kid.
The herbalist opened the door with a blank face and said bluntly, "I have no time to waste on knock, knock jokes, what do you want? I'm busy."
"Orphan is sick." said the little boy with a wide smile on his face.
From the view that Ekubar can see, there was two boys and one grown-up woman. A very pretty one at that. The world never seemed to have a shortage of pretty women. Or maybe it was just him, he saw every woman as pretty.
The other boy, maybe a teenager, whispered something to the younger one.
“Oh, it’s you.” Said the doctor, he opened the door wide, “Come in… Sorry, but she can’t lie down on the bed. It’s already taken by someone.”
The two boys pulled the woman inside slowly and looked inside curiously, noticing the other people inside of the room. They furrowed their brows noticing Rehenna who was resting on the bed.
The doctor led the woman to his favorite rocking chair and told her to sit. As he observed her condition, the younger of the two boys was staring at Ekubar. His eyes strayed from his face all the way down to where his daggers were sheathed.
“You have a lot of weird customers, don’t ya, herbalist?” laughed the boy. Ekubar twitched at his comment.
“Herbalist?” wondered Ekubar. He thought that he was a doctor.
“Doctor, Herbalist. Meh, I’m the only healer in this town so multitasking is something that I have to do.” Said the doctor nonchalantly as he placed his hand on the woman’s forehead. “Why don’t you boys sit down over there while I take a look at her?”
“Alright!” yelled the jolly boy as he skipped over to the extra chairs. The other boy was just silent, but he let out a smile at the other as he sat down right next to him.
“You’re a bit hot…” muttered the doctor, “Are you coughing a lot?”
She shook her head, "No, not really."
"This is just a regular fever, I suppose." He went to his cupboard and took out a small sack of... something. "This is the medicine I made for things like this. Drink it every day for a week and you should be fine. Just to make sure, I want her to stay here for a day for me to monitor her condition."
"A day?" the teenager frowned and crossed his arms, "Are you sure that's necessary? Also, how much do we need to pay you for the medicine?"
"It is necessary. You never know if it ends up being more serious than just a regular fever, and for the medicine don't worry. It's free."
“Free!? Why!?” that wasn’t fair! Ekubar had to pay twenty gold coins, while this woman got her treatment for free? He sighed. Well, he would’ve done the same in face of a gorgeous woman such as her.
"She was supposed to start working for me today, but I guess it's can't happen because of this. I'll just take out the money from her paycheck." well in a way, it's still not for free. "You boys can go back now. I've seen you wandering around with others, I'm sure that they need you too."
The oldest thought about it for a while and then nodded, "Joke, you stay here with Orphan. I'm going to go back to the cottage." so the younger boy was named Joke. Strange. He was sure that he said that he was Johnny back when he was knocking.
Joke straightened his back and saluted, "Yes sir!"
"Wait, don't I get a say in this?" said the woman that was being treated.
"Thank you, Mr. Doctor. Joke, take care of Orphan."
"Orphan, look out!" Yelled Joke as he jumped onto her lap, to which she responded with pain.
"Urk!" she held in my cry of pain as she wrapped her arms around the other, "Johnny... p-please don't do that again." now she was calling him Johnny. What...
"Your brother just told you to take care of her and here you go trying to kill her." said the doctor, "Don't injure the patient, boy."
"How about Rehenna? How is she doing?" Ekubar asked, not even making a move to keep his knives in front of a child and an innocent woman.
"Relax. I just treated to her a few minutes ago, it's not like she's going to suddenly die." said the nonchalant doctor.
Ekubar huffed and turned away. He sat right next to the bed on the floor and leaned against the wall. He crossed his arms and closed his eyes, thinking about how he was supposed to repay the doctor. Lucky enough, that other woman didn’t have to go through much hassle.
Whatever that witch had done to Rehenna it just seemed like a simple knock out spell. She would wake up soon enough. The witch should already know that the first place he would go to was a healer’s area, and since there’s only one healer in the entire village it wouldn’t be hard to find the both of them.
With one eye half open, Eku looked outside through the window. Caution must be practiced. You never know when they would pop out.
“So cool!” Ekubar jumped in surprise when Johnny popped up right next to him. The boy’s eyes were sparkling as they were observing his daggers. “They are like… so sharp and so shiny!”
Internally, Ekubar was laughing at himself. He was just thinking about being cautious, and then right after that, he allowed himself to be surprised by a boy.
With a smile, Ekubar nodded and ruffled Johnny’s hair. “Yeah, shiny, right?”
Johnny nodded, and said, “My big sister always carries around daggers like that, but they don’t even compare to what you have. Are you some rich prince, or something?”
The woman who was being treated looked at the both of them nervously, and said, “Johnny, come over here.” Ekubar chuckled to himself, she was afraid. “Come on.”
“Aww…” Johnny groaned and went over to where the woman was. Was she his mother?
Ekubar watched as the woman caressed Johnny’s hair fondly, a smile graced her lips. The boy was laughing, whispering to her in a low voice so that only the two of them were able to hear it. The woman giggled out an ‘oh, really?’. They looked like a happy family.
Looking over to where Rehenna was peacefully slumbering, Ekubar gave his own fond smile. Soon, when he returns Rehenna to where she belonged, she would be able to return to that same happiness.
Suddenly, Ekubar doubled over in pain, clutching his head. It was back! He desperately tried to breathe in for air, but it didn’t seem like his lungs were obeying him. Whispers and images were flooding his mind, and he could do anything to stop them.
From around the background, he could hear the little boy shouting out in fear, and his mother gasping. The doctor was immediately by his side trying to see what was wrong, but Ekubar wasn’t able to hear anything he was saying.
The next thing that Ekubar knew was that he blacked out.
“Rhea?"
ns 172.69.58.240da2
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