Dragons, Dystopians, and Denial

Jerica sent him a venomous glare, jaw set, before decidedly looking away from him again. So it was an intentional question. She snorted. I shouldn't even deign to answer that. What a brat.

She took a deep breath. Maybe if I give him a half-answer he'll stop asking and leave me alone the rest of the trip. Or, at least until they ran into someone who ruined her story by calling her by a title.

"My uncle," she said simply. "Well, uncles. The uncle that I get along with best devoted his life to the military. And my other uncle -- the one who pays my rent -- decided to enlist me because I was too young to marry off at that point. And then I ended up being quite good at it."

It... kind of? resembled? the truth. Derik had devoted his life to being the War Lord. And Levin had been the reason she started training as an assassin to begin with. The rest was far too complicated to even try to explain without telling him her entire convoluted family history.

Jerica didn't seem happy to hand over her answer to him, but Elias shrugged it off since she answered anyways. He was just glad she didn't throw another plate at his head.

So, she was in the military because of family. Specifically, her uncles. One uncle was an inspiration, and the other enlisted her. She stayed because she was good at it.

Or so he assumed.

He was starting to detect that maybe he shouldn't prod further, but he genuinely was curious, especially since their situation wasn't too different at a high-level view.

"You're good at science, too," he said. "Just because you're good at being a solider, doesn't mean you should devote your life to it."

He almost blurted his question out loud, but decided against it since she was a ticking time bomb.

So why are you a solider, then, if you could be a good scientist?

"Heh." She smirked mirthlessly. "Tell that to my uncle."

Singular that time. Derik would love nothing more than for her to quit so that she could go do something that made her happy. But it was just a fantasy. She was a prisoner until Levin -- Biryn, really -- died.

"What about you?" she countered. "I asked you second."

Elias half-rolled his eyes. Teenagers.

But he also could understand the situation Jerica was in. It appeared that she had no choice but to stay in the military because of family obligations. She couldn't go against her uncles' wishes, even if she wanted to do something else. She was just a kid. He did feel sorry for her.

He ordinarily wouldn't want to answer her question, but he did already answer it already. Besides, she seemed so nonchalant about his power. The mesh in his word filter seemed to grow in size with her. It certainty helped that she was some random stranger in some random world who held no context whatsoever.

Still, she was being snarky.

"Don't worry, I'll be out of the military soon enough," he said with a fake big smile. "Since, you know, I'm here to remove my powers. Thanks for that."

"Wait, so the powers are the only thing keeping you in the military?" she asked. I wish it were that easy for me. "Once you can't heal yourself, they'll just let you go?"

Elias shrugged, deciding to not let that heavy question bothered him.

How the hell was he supposed to know? He had no other options left.

"That's a good question," he said plainly. "I guess I'll find out when it happens, huh?"

"Well, good luck to you." Jerica tried not to feel bitter that he might even have that option. Her only reprieve from warfare was pretending to be Aerik's prisoner, and it was coming to an end. After she got Elias to Crevon and back in one piece, she should go back to Atraya. It was her duty. And she was starting to miss Derik and Rek and Akeno. "Any special requests once we get to the town? I think we'll be there fairly soon. And it'll be a little while until the next town... especially if we have to go to Swaltou."

Jerica sounded disappointed. Well, Elias didn't really answer her question that well, either. He expected her to be snippy, but she almost sounded like she could be... jealous.

Which was strange, really, since his circumstance was so unpredictable and he wasn't really sure if this plan would even work. He also couldn't ever remember an instance of someone being jealous of him. He was never the smartest, or the strongest, or the kindest person. He only ever really had humor going for him, but even that was wading away.

He hummed through an answer for her, trying to think of what he would want. He was a simple man; as long as he was happy, that was all that mattered. It was hard to define what 'happy' meant to him nowadays, though. The bar seemed to be getting lower and lower every day.

Elias was already happy now, in this moment in time.

But there was one thing...

"More vegetarian food?" he said.

"Sure." Jerica nodded, trying to think what would be in season in Nykeria this time of year. "Nykeria has a lot of grains and we can probably get a fair bit of wheat for not much money. We'll also get some granola and oats, if we can afford it, I'm not sure if those are in season right now. And whatever nuts and dried fruits we can get. Anything you don't like to eat?"

She wasn't sure how useful of a question that would be, since she had no idea what kinds of weird foods he might eat on Earth.

Elias offered Jerica an appreciative smile. Last night she seemed annoyed that he was a vegetarian, so he was glad that she seemed to be more accepting of it and even thinking through food items that she could buy. It was the little things like that that made him appreciate her more.

If she had asked him the question when he was a kid, he'd have listed a slew of things. How he was able to survive being so picky, he had no idea. But ever since he left his hometown, he couldn't afford to be picky. Now, food was food. He was lucky if it tasted good.

"Meat," he said with a dumb smile.

"Well, you're in luck, I don't think Nykeria has any vegetarian meat," she answered dryly.

The town was approaching quickly. Jerica got stiffer the closer they got, eyes flicking around for any hints of a military presence. Of course, there wouldn't be. This was a small town. They didn't even have a proper city wall -- if anything, it was more to keep children from wandering out than to keep enemies from getting in. But she was still tense. Nykeria was about the last place that she wanted to be just then.

"If you have any questions, you should ask them now, since you can't speak once we get to the town."

The town was getting closer.

The last town they went to, Elias barely had any time to look around because Jerica dragged him over to the horses immediately, and then they left. He did a fair amount of traveling in Earth for various jobs, but a medieval town was never a destination.

"Yeah," he said with a nod. "Can we stay for a bit? Or wander a little? I know you're in a rush, but I think it'd be nice to see what the town is like."

"We'll... see," Jerica answered uneasily. "We're getting food first. And there's not much to see, anyway. But the architecture is a singular redeeming quality of this godsdamned country, so I suppose we could take a quick stroll around if everything goes smoothly."

Elias let out a quick laugh through his nose, deciding to wordlessly take this victory. Although Jerica sounded grumpy to want to look at architecture, something told him that she was also interested in looking at it.

They silently rode the rest of the way, but the town was close. Elias watched with curious eyes as they entered the town's perimeters and people were lazily walking about, starting their morning routine.

Unfortunately, Jerica didn't seem to find it as interesting as him. She bee-lined towards the stables and kept giving him urgent, harsh looks to follow. He didn't want to irritate her, so he did his best to guide Mellie towards wherever they needed to go. When there, he hopped off and quietly tied Mellie up, but he was a bit slow, so Jerica went over and slapped his hands away, finishing the job herself.

Jerica was tense, her mind filled with 'what-ifs' of how this could go badly. What if someone recognized her? What if they tried to detain her? What if Elias ran his mouth and said something stupid that got them killed?

She was short-tempered with him as he poked around like they had all the time in the world. They didn't. They had to get in and get out as quickly as possible without raising suspicions.

Jerica pulled some additional daggers from their packs and slid them wherever they'd fit. A few extra shoved down on her sword belt -- one down her boot -- another tucked into the back of her trousers. She adjusted her swordbelt no less than four times, ensuring it was tight enough and at just the right angle that she'd be able to yank her sword from it quickly.

They strode through the town square market, grabbing whatever non-perishable nuts and grains and snacks that Jerica could find at a reasonable price. After they had their bounty, they went back to the stables and packed the food away into the saddlebags.

"Alright..." Jerica took a deep breath and sighed, packing away a few more coins in her pocket. "We'll go into the tavern to buy some liquor for the road, then we'll wander through the city on our horses so you can see the town, okay?"