Young Writers Society

Okay. Don't ask about her past in monster hunting. But that didn't leave him with much to ask about. He knew very little about her to begin with. He didn't have much to go off of.

"That's young," he commented quietly, letting another extended silence follow before changing the subject. "Have you traveled much? Or are you most familiar with the Outlands?"

"I go where the monsters are. I've been a lot of places." She didn't mention that it was less about following monsters and more about evading pursuers.

"Ah. Does that mean you speak more languages than just the common tongue? I'm curious."

That was a lie. He wasn't, really. Not in the genuine, actually interested sort of way. He was just trying to get an idea of how long she would've traveled around, and if she'd been enough places long enough to pick up other languages.

"I speak most languages badly."

James kept himself from sighing or showing any signs of annoyance at her persistently short answers. “How many?”

"Two broken, two fluently."

James was exhausted. Trying to keep the conversation going was pointless, and he had quickly run out of motivation to do so. He responded with nothing but a quiet “mm,” before he gave in to the silence. He wouldn’t have minded it as much if he wasn’t progressively growing more and more physically weary as time went on. It was night when they’d escaped, and when the sun started to slowly rise, he realized just how long he’d been walking throughout the night.

He slowed to a stop as the sun broke through the trees and exhaled wearily, setting Tasha down with as much control as his sore arms would allow. As soon as she was on the ground, leaning up against a tree, he plopped down into the grass, trying to catch his breath for the second time that night. Or morning, rather.

He wanted to sleep so badly.

But he didn’t really trust Tasha, and his body instinctively fought to give in to that notion, trapping him in a perpetual cycle of weariness, and forcing himself awake. It was giving him a headache.

Tasha didn't speak another word and closed her eyes as she leaned against the tree, gritting her teeth. Every movement hurt and even getting carried by James didn't keep her wound from getting jarred around, just from her having to put any weight on it.

James sighed, looking down at Tasha. There was little he could do to help her, and he knew she knew that as well. Really, she just needed to rest.

And so did he.

He sat in the dirt for a long time, staring into the morning sunlight with a bleary-eyed exhaustion. He managed to stay awake for a quite some time... but he eventually fell asleep, head finally falling back, leaning on the tree behind him beside Tasha.

By the time James awoke, Tasha was sitting next to a small fire and playing fetch with her dog who was positively ecstatic about being reunited with her mistress.

James felt an ache in his neck from having it awkwardly angled against his shoulder and the tree. He painfully stood his head back up, feeling the sharp pain run down from the bottom of his head to where his spine arched into his back. He groaned, holding the back of his head.

As he opened his eyes he squinted at the sight of Tasha and the fire, and the dog.

"Feeling better?" he asked groggily.

"That question might be better aimed at yourself," she answered. "Seeing as you're the one who's considerably less conscious at the moment. But yeah, I'm fine."

James still had a headache, now on top of neck pain, so he wasn't going to answer that.

"How long was I asleep?" he asked, voice still gravelly and low after waking up.

"Few hours. Not sure, honestly; wasn't paying too much attention."

James nodded as he got to his feet and stretched. He looked around at the forest in full daylight, getting his bearings and remembering which way to go.

"Do you feel well enough to finish making our way to Gardey?"