just about getting back.

Of all the things they prepared for, double and triple checked, things to account for going wrong, somehow a broken wagon wheel wasn't on the list. It really should have been now that they think back on it, but understandably

Vincent was stressed enough. He was already over worrying on the whole 'oops I walled in a noble matriarch alive in her own estate thing.

"We shouldn't have done that. We should have just..." Vincent moaned into the cool dirt underneath his hiding spot.

"We left a little hole? It will be ok." the youngest of the group spoke up.

Merely a small tender looking child, yet the most comforting. Amar was also the only one small enough to easily slip in and out of the under wheels.

"No it won't! We're trapped now! Trapped!" Vincent cries.

"His spirit is solid and strong as a bowl of ganoush." Cass bluntly noted.

The eldest and only female of the group tried shooing little Amar away from what she saw as a bad influence. Not that she particularly disliked Vincent or anything. There were bound to be many types of people. Something she knew well from her travels. But she grimaced at the thought of the young charge picking up any such behaviors.

That and she didn't want him dirty in the mud.

Traveling was always filthy business but even more so in these strange lands. The common people drew wells, not pumps, had few if any sewers or cisterns. They knew not much of running water controlled by the hands of man. There were even people, the locals, that did not purify themselves with simple water.

She shudders in how a small lost child would care for themselves in such a world. Almost mournfully, she instinctively brushes the edges of the boy's hair, curling at the ends. She remembers them feeling so much softer, scented in baby's soap, almond oil and rose water. She remembers it from a long time ago and the boy pretends he doesn't.

It's a good thing they're not alone, for then the boy might just forget it all.

"He just needs a baba' to feed and spoil his ganoush." Yuna tormented, "Shaaaaame, I think Georgie's more of a -"

"Stop mentioning him!" Vincent screamed, turning pink under the shadows.

"Who is this Georgie and why do you hold his name like a gold cheese to a dying rat that cannot eat? You're telling me this one holds a lover? " Cass points down, unbelieving.

"Ha! Nah, he wishes he could even think about it without exploding.-"

Suddenly under the wagons sounds out screaming, groaning and begging wishes to just end him, and other insane nonsense.

On the side, Cass had already given up on reasoning with the possibly crazy pale young man with a bad crushing case of...whatever it was Vincent had. Instead, she was dusting off and fussing with the little boy.

"I'm fine." Amar groaned, getting his face wiped, bandages checked and worn clothes inspected for the 13th time today.

Caspara sighed at the stubborn wriggling child. The summers here were cool and lovely with its meadows of soft green and wetness, yet the boy sometimes burned still so hot inside. It was as frustrating as it was familiar.

"...We'll set up camp here for the night. It will take time regardless and there's no use in sitting around watching a grown fool cry in the mud." she reasoned, voice forcibly gentle.

A snort and a sorry cry came from the others, above and below the wagon, but she keeled to speak only to the boy directly.

"Little kahk, can you scout around for a good spot? Flat dry land. Remember? Nearby water and a source of fire wood? Do you have all your knives? Your whistle? Call if there's trouble or- "

"...I don't. But ok." Amar nods, quickly running off.

Steps quicker than a wild rabbit escaping from its cage.

He's gotten so much faster in the time Cass hasn't seen him. Taller too. It does not reassure her heart at all.

"You call him kahk? As in the cookie, for breaking a fast?" Yuna kicks the wheel again, tucking a strand of loose hair behind his ear. It only came a little below his chin but that was enough for the light to reflect and shine.

If he was paler, his features fuller and cut just a more round about way, he could be mistaken as one of those far Western foreigners dressed like that, with hair like that. Fine and fair, spun like gold thread.

He could be wrong in his guess, but it was fitting the teen thought. The small bites of sugar sweetness, buttery baked only on special occasions. They called them 'cookies' around the troops, though it varies as others claimed other words such as 'biscotti'. His mouth salivated only in his memory. He hasn't had a kahk in years, hasn't seen or smelled a lot of things that were once home.

But that's the thing, once meant no more, and that's the lot most of them were in. Yuna especially.

Cass quietly sighed at the empty green hills, nodding.

"If that's what you call them... the small ones always complained unless it was served plain," she confirmed.

"Plain is the best way to go." Yuna sneered

"Don't be ridiculous. Agameya flavor is best." Cass bit back, humor rising dark in her voice.

"Meh, if you gotta add something make it at least malbam or agwa." the blond spoke, words rolling off his tongue as if it were never in disuse.

"Agameya is superior."

"Is not! But damn could I go for one. "

"I may be down here quiet but I'm not actually dead." Vincent complained, interrupting only after long losing the conversation. Lost in translation.

As overly stressed as he was, a part of Vincent was glad that Yuna had another person he was actually willing to talk to. Someone that made the boy open up, even just a cruel crack. The younger boy was frigid, and hard to reason in this sensitive age. A whole new can worms.

But on the other hand, couldn't it have been someone better for his nerves?!

"A ganoush without a baba" Cass agreed with what the younger teen earlier said.

"As good and reliable as a basket of frogs." Yuna added on.

"I've known great great grandmothers carrying a village's worth of babies with straighter spines than you." she yelled down under the wagon.

"I don't understand! But that sounds about right." Vincent whimpered to that.

For a weak moment, he allows himself to miss Tamera and her familiar brand of painfully annoying.

Her punches hurt but it was only his bones and body, not his very delicate heart and liver when this Cass girl spoke her sharp words. He did not need it after a long and terrifying week of getting pushed and poofed borders of countries away from his safe spaces controlled by the Troops...to playing 'guest' in the big too big airy castle. aka the far and out of sight residence of a 'sickly' madame Damia.

Yeah, Vincent was still mentally and physically recovering from that, ok?! But staying any much longer at that place, despite how friendly Damia's sons welcomed them after their 'transaction' really was worse for Vincent's health. The soundless screams that must be going on under the castle, just being there, was also bad. Lots of bad.

So they were on the road back to any of the troop's outposts, though most likely just the long way back to Ventrella lands, because that portal did not offer a return trip. With his magical monstrous 'creations' that neither needed food nor sleep, oddly disguised as very dark stallions per Lord Ventrella's request, if they followed the schedule perfectly, and nothing went wrong ever, they could do it in under a month.

'If' was already ruined, it's been less than a week since setting out and they've already broken a wheel. Great. Just great.

"If you get out from under there, I'll get it up and out of the mud pit you drove it in." Cass offers blandly.

"Told you this, 'oh we don't need to stop for rest, not if we rotate and follow the schedule' bullshit was a bad idea." Yuna snorted.

"It is a very stupid schedule. Though you are a spineless whining weakling, you are useful for running the bony steeds. Nor I do not wish to see you truly bury yourself alive. Children are watching. It's not good for him. " she took a long stick to start poking about.

" Oh I don't think you know Amar then." Yuna kicked, still trying to get it at a better angle. Would be easier if Vincent would just climb out.

"I know plenty."

"So much so the brat runs like hunted prey, only from you."

He does not miss how she flinches before sternly holding her glare.

Yuna enjoys the older woman's presence, really now. At least more so than Vincent on an average day, while Amar was just still a brat. Precisely because he's a child, sensitive as they are, that Yuna can't ignore the way he flinches and twitches away. There is a history, anyone with eyes out of their ass can tell it is a complicated one.

But don't they all have complicated stories hidden under the sand? Especially them? Foreigners in a strange place, far from homes they can no longer return to.

Yuna remembers a little boy, too young and small, when the sergeant leader's first assigned him to his section. They had chosen Yuna, of all the older children, to look out for him, not because the ex-slave was particularly strong or responsible. But the shades in their skin, the assumed shared background.

It didn't matter.

They were like islands of a home better off forgotten.

Yuna remembers how the child was so mutely dumb, unresponsive, that others feared he was retarded. But Yuna knows fear so intense you lose yourself. Lose your mind. Knows well what it tastes like personally in not so distant memories.

He can feel it again here, now. In between moments with this stranger, Amar let tag along specifically.

Personally he doesn't mind Cass, could be a lot more annoying. And she was actually useful. But he doesn't like how quiet that boy got again.

"Are you two fighting? Can you do it away from the wagon? I'd like to rest in peace." Vincent whimpers, feeling the imaginary bad air already.

He typically left this kind of stuff to Tamera, but overreliance on his roommate and admittedly friend was a bad thing. Having no idea what to do now. He wishes to bury himself and let the problems all fix themselves, but of course, that's impossible. Death was much easier than living, a lot less complicated.

"No." Cass smirks, crossing her arms in a challenge. "Just a filthy brat being stubborn. Typical."

"Whatever. Whoever has a head-wound keeps feeling it" Yuna raises back, knowing the exact translation is lost on Vincent, despite him understanding each word individually.

'A guilty person will give himself away.'

Cass understood like he knew she would. Like Amar still does though he's so young, so far from the home that birthed him. They drank the same teas when others here drank the wine of their grapes and ales of grain. They preferred the same type of bread, missed the same bites of sour, sweet, and spices.

" He who doesn't know, says "lentils." she answers back, without any weight on her shoulders. Her height was taller than Yuna's current own, looking down on him, though he's growing damn it.

'Those who don't know the true story will just say anything as an explanation.'

"I am so confused," Vincent complains from below.

In the end, both of the 'foreigners' relent, calling back to their only slightly awkward truce. They still had a long way to get back to the troops, and though Vincent's set schedule promised under a month, they both knew reality would take far longer.

"I know you already like it, but lay down and keep low." Cass instructs to the somewhat trapped teenager below their vehicle.

Vincent gladly complies, sinking himself comfortably into the mud. It's cold but almost like those relaxing mud baths that Rosalia introduced him to. He'll gladly take his pay from her in mud baths and spa treatments from now on. Gold merely children's pocket change compared to what her Lord father paid.

What a terrifying family.

He's so comfortable he hardly notices when the wagon steadily lifts off of him, though it does expose him back to sunlight. The stuck wagon seemingly floating up in the air until it carefully repositions itself off the side of the muddy road. Yuna yelling out instructions such as "more to the left" as the Cass woman concentrates.

"It's not so bad." she inspects, looking up at the damage before willing it back down.

"Yeah. I can whittle something that will work till the next town, but camp first sounds like the best idea" Yuna remarks, stomach already growling.

"I saw boar and deer tracks around, I could hunt something. I tire of the rations." Cass sighs, thinking about the hardtacks, lentils, and salted jerky the troops supplied.

Even better, the fish oil like edible nutrient jellies that Vincent seemed so fond of. Something he's been over-relying on, "like all he ever eats regularly when no one looks after his ass" Yuna informed.

Sure they worked, somewhat, at staving off the worse hunger and providing energy. But they satisfied nothing else, not to mention the hunger pangs still remained. Though they managed to get a few more travel provisions from their grateful hosts at that awful castle before they set off.

The food wasn't quite to her tastes, nor Yuna's, but their complaints were only among themselves.

She didn't want to dip too much into her own personal stowed away supplies, though she would, should the child ask for it. Like how he requested her help to sell the broken jewels. How she pulled out, even more, even grander ones, to his uninterested eyes.

Cass can think long and hard about how much he's suffered in this land, all alone, but that changes nothing and only made her feel worse. The best she can do now it provide what she could where she could.

She did not take offense to the young blond's accusations. Nor Amar's flightiness. It could only take time, heavens willing, for them to become comfortable again.

Until then, the one called Yuna works to clean and repair the parts of the broken wagon, while she helps left and carry what is available in her space. The Vincent one, lays in his spot, a strange one that does not sleep nearly enough.

A rustling sound comes at them, like tiny bells, indicating safety.

"I found two? Do you want to camp in the shelter of a grove? Or near a water pond?" Amar asks, hopping down.

"The wooden grove!" Yuna exclaims, immediately annoyed by the thoughts of insects.

"That will work. Thank you little kank," she gently agrees, and when she pulls out the hidden sugared and stuffed cookies, kept fresh all this time in her space, the little boy smiles back and accepts.

When Yuna gasps and balks, she's forced to hand him some too, and Amar giggles.

"Needs tea. Are you getting up now?" Yuna asks, having already stuffed two of the sweets down his mouth. Of course, he went for the date paste flavored ones.

Cass wonders if it was worth exerting effort to move Vincent by force. It was quite a lot more work lifting a person than immovable things. She'd rather save her strength for building camp, repairing clothes, watching closely if Amar's tastes have changed.

The boy seemed to enjoy more things now, not simply eating just plain sugared ones anymore, but the pistachios, the rose water, the malbam, the agwa, and all the flavors he's seemed to have missed when once avoided. He had grown and none of them were there to see it.

"Up. Up. I'm moving." Vincent groans, lazily crawling up to call for his undead steeds to rearrange themselves to help move and make camp at least.

This schedule wasn't going to work out at all but he would try. Weird party mates of, one very crass though secretive woman, one very grumpy teenager with a mean streak, and an honestly unpredictable six-year-old.

This was going to be a hell of a return trip.

"Who has the map again?"

.

DAYS TILL DESTINATION: 3/49.

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