Young Writers Society

An apology. And an expression of gratitude. For some reason, he didn't see that coming. But he found it endearing, and he did appreciate it.

As Eve walked up to his side, he turned to her with a full smile.

"Yeah." He nodded and then walked into the water with Elliot following at his side.

Evaline felt the heat of embarrassment pool in her face as the only response she seemed to get from Yoen was a charming dimpled smile. She figured an apology and thank you was due, but he didn't have to be so quietly smug in response.

She watched as Yoen starting walking through the water with Elliot, then splashed up behind him to follow.

James let them through the water, glad that the water only ended up coming up to their thighs when they made it to the deepest point. Elliot was doing fine, and the water didn't even touch his stomach.

James did have to be a little careful though, as the sand was mostly covered by a bunch of small rocks and pebbles on the stream's floor, some of which were slippery. Elliot did stumble for just a second, but James stopped and helped him, making sure he was steady, and lead him around the problem area.

Otherwise, they made it to the other side without issue. Wet from their thighs down, but just fine.

James stopped and took a moment to flick water off his feet and haphazardly dry them with his sleeve before putting his shoes back on.

They crossed the water without a problem, although it was annoying that part of her pants were wet, she was glad it wasn't any deeper. They reached the other side of the land and quickly dried off to put their shoes back on before they continued walking.


They walked in silence until they were interrupted with a deep rumble in the distance. This caught Evaline off guard, and she was glad Yoen couldn't see her flinch and jump in place. "What was that?" she asked, worry seeping in her voice.

James paused in his steps and looked back at her. She'd never seen horses before. She didn't eat meat and had never seen it before. She didn't know what thunder was.

He was starting to think there was really something off about her. Not wrong, just off. She still seemed sane, just... clueless. More than sheltered. Something else.

He couldn't put his finger on it.

"Thunder," he said, looking up at the sky, which was quickly growing darker. They needed to find shelter. Soon. "It's going to rain."

He started picking up their pace. He had an idea of where shelter might be up ahead, where there were some rock formations and caves, but they'd have to hurry.

"Come on, we need to hurry."

Thunder. Of course. It happened so suddenly that she thought perhaps it was something man-made, like a bomb. But it was just thunder, which she remembered learning was not an uncommon weather incident.

She silently cursed at herself, knowing she had indicated that she was not around here, just like the horse incident. She had to be more careful next time.

She nodded and quickly matched Yoen's pace to avoid the incoming rain, but there was a part of her that wanted to stick around and witness what rain and thunder was like.

James pushed them forward, heading up a slight incline until he finally saw a small change in the landscape up ahead. Large boulders and rocks started to appear, jutting out of the ground and stacked atop each other, some of them cracked and broken, and some of them towering over them like tall statues. In the distance, he could see the hints of a small cliff-face, where he knew there would likely be caves to hide in.

The only thing that made him nervous was that Butch would know James was taking shelter from the rain and would start looking in all the places James could hide. Depending on how close he was, he could come here.

He didn't want that to happen, but he had to consider it. As they trudged ahead, he considered the possibilities.

He would have to sacrifice himself to make sure Eve could get away. Butch wouldn't care about keeping her alive. He barely kept James alive, and that was only because he wasn't wanted dead.

As they walked, James started picking up some fallen branches and dry wood that he could use to start a fire. Just in case.

When they came up on the edge of the cliff-face James finally spotted an opening at the base. The ceiling was just tall enough for Elliot to enter in comfortably, but Elliot couldn't go too far in, as the ceiling lowered, and became more narrow. It was enough, though, for a shelter. It would have to work, because it was starting to sprinkle.

James hurried in, waving for Eve to come as well.

It was a drizzle, at first.

Evaline saw that Yoen had waved her in, and she took a few steps forward to follow, but then it began to rain. She knew this should cause her to head towards the caves for cover even faster, but instead she stopped and extended an arm out.

The water gently dripped on the palm of her hands, slowly at first, and then faster and faster until it felt like she had stuck her hand in a flowing stream. She looked up as the water drummed around her. The rain cascaded from the gray sky and into her face, washing away all her worries.

So this was what rain felt like.

It was... nice. Not cold or perpetual like snow. Mysterious, but relaxing.

Evaline felt a smile crawl into her face as she let out a few giddied laughs, not believing that she had gone her whole life without ever witnessing rain.

It wasn't like seeing a horse for the first time, because horses really are extinct. And it wasn't like eating meat for the first time, because she had no desire to eat meat. But this—this was different.

Earth had rain and natural wonders, but she never did get to witness it.

She looked off to her side and saw the cliff overlooking the forest and more water below, and although it may have looked dull and dreary under the raining gray sky, she suddenly began to appreciate all the beauty it offered.

And maybe, just maybe, she didn't need to be in such a rush to get home after all.

Now James was certain: there was something very different about Evaline that she wasn't telling him, and he was beginning to suspect that it had nothing to do with magic at all. It seemed like she came from a completely different lifestyle that was completely cut off from the rest of the world. She might as well have grown up underground with how foreign everything seemed to her.

But it was interesting, to watch her childlike wonder as she stood in the rain. He stood in the cave, letting her have a moment to enjoy it.

It really was like she'd never seen rain before.

He drew Elliot a little further into the cave and pulled out a blanket, that he laid on the ground. Then he started stacking rocks from inside the cave in a small circle, for a fire pit.

"You might want to come in soon," he said. "I don't want you to catch a cold."

The rain started to soak through her clothes and boots, and after a while, she was starting to get cold. But still, she wanted to stay out a little longer...

Yoen eventually suggested that Evaline take cover to avoid getting sick, and an old childish part of her wanted to pout and say no, but she knew he was right. Giving the sky one last glance, she walked towards the cave.

Standing at the edge of the sloped ceiling, she took off her sloshing shoes and wrung her hair so she didn't bring excess water in. It did feel uncomfortable to be on slopping wet clothes, but she had no one to blame but herself.

James had collected enough wood and branches in their walk to the cave to start a fire. With the fire pit done, he broke some branches in pieces and stacked the wood so it would burn slow and hot. He took a flint rock out of his pocket and sparked a flame, blowing on it and shielding it with his hands until the fire grew enough to sustain itself on its own.

He sighed as he pulled away and looked at Eve, who was soaking wet. Even with a fire, she was going to get really cold, really fast.

Eve was going to need another shirt of his, wasn't she? And pants.

He closed his eyes for a minute and then turned to Elliot, digging through his bags once again. He had one spare pair of pants, and another shirt that was a little big on him, and would be even bigger on her, but it was what he had. The pants had bloodstains on the leg, and a hole, where he'd gotten injured, but it was better than being soaking wet for an hour - or however long it'd take her to dry completely.

The last thing he needed was for her to get sick.

He turned to her and held them out.

"Change," he said. "This is all I have right now, but I don't want you getting sick. You can change back into yours when your clothes dry."

Evaline was just finishing up wringing the last of her hair when Yoen told her to change. She turned around, seeing him offering some clothes to her. Hesitantly, she took it from him. By this time, he had offered her so much, and she had offered him nothing in return. She was starting to realize that she felt like a child with a parent.

"Oh. Thanks," she said to him, already feeling the chills of the air get under her wet skin.

Yoen turned around to give her privacy, although Evaline didn't notice this since she had already started to undress. She wished she had something else to dry herself with, but peeling out of the perpetrating clothes took priority.

She slipped into the new shirt, noticing that it was even bigger and boxier than the one she was just wearing. Before bunching her old pants away, she reached in to see if the note was still in there. With all the water damage that had happened today, she figured it either slipped out or would fall apart when she opened it. But yet, it was still there, and she was still able to unfold it okay, even if it was a little wet. The ink didn't even seem to smudge.

Odd, but not important. She folded it back up and put it into the new pants Yoen gave her before stepping into it herself. It seemed to fit the length of her legs, but it was very baggy and would not stay around her waist, even when she tucked the remnants of the shirt under the pants. Remembering that she had torn thin sheets of fabric from her old shirt that she used to tie up her hair, she took out the ribbons and fed it the belt loops, using the three ribbons she had so it could loop around her waist.

"I'm done," she said, placing her wet clothes on some jutted rocks near the fire.

She looked like a peasant. A weirdly fashionable peasant since her shirt was tucked and she had a belt made out of rags, but still a peasant.

"Thanks again."

James had been standing, brushing Elliot's mane while Eve was busy changing. When she was done he glanced back. His clothes were baggy on her, but it looked like she tore up her old shirt to make a belt for his pants.

Which meant he'd be saying goodbye to at least one shirt, eventually. That was fine.

"Not a problem," he said, brushing through the end of Elliot's mane and putting the brush away before he sat down by the fire.

The rain was coming down hard now, and another roll of thunder roared through the skies and echoed off the walls of the cave. A flash of lightning illuminated the sky in the distance.

They could wait a while before they ate again, and though it was storming, it wasn't nighttime, so it didn't make sense to sleep. They just had to wait it out.

James leaned back against the rock currently holding up Eve's wet pants, angled towards the fire.

"What was home like for you?" he asked, looking out of the mouth of the cave. "Before exile, I mean."

Evaline sat down in front of the fire, propping one knee up to support her arm. It felt odd having such casual posture in front of someone else; if her mother were here, she would probably slap her knee away and tell her to sit like a lady. Thankfully, that wasn't the case.

She looked outside, noting the now-violent weather. It was not that long ago that she was standing there, bewildered and amazed. It was a good thing she came in when she did.

Yoen broke the brief silence by asking her what her home was like before she was "exiled." Evaline continued to stare outside at the thundering rain, wondering which home she should mention.

"It was peaceful," she answered. "It's a fairly small town, but that just meant you knew everyone."

James hummed.

"When I grew up on the farm there was a town nearby we would always travel to get supplies. There were a lot of farms in the area, so we all knew each other."

He paused.

"...Do you miss it?"