“Hmm…you guys look like you haven’t eaten all day…,” Tempest smirked, “What a better way for you to trust me than take you to my place and get you some food…,”
“Yeah but how do we know you won’t poison the food…,” Andomiel said snidely.
“Shut up, Andy,” Fenris said, “I haven’t eaten longer than you, and I’d take anyone’s cooking right about now…even if it was poisoned, at least I’d die full…,”
The group laughed, except Fenris, who was dead serious.
“C’mon, I took a quicker route to get here than you guys,” Tempest rolled a few stray stones aside from the path, and soon they were back on the surface, a slight glow lighting up the sky.
“Morning already…,” Pharda rubbed his eyes, “I’m tired…,”
“Hurry up guys, it’s just a little further…,”
The five entered the little house that Tempest claimed her home, she scrounged up a few loaves of bread and cheeses, and soon the group was quite content, their previous misery almost forgotten.
“There’s blankets in the back room, I’ll get you guys some place to…,” by this time all four had dropped off to sleep, leaving Tempest to smile to herself and shake her head.
It wasn’t long before the four of them awoke to the smell of…cooking…?
Sure enough, silver-haired tough-girl, Tempest had made breakfast for them. An odd combination of fried eggs, broiled fish, and potatoes.
“Well don’t just smell it, eat it,” Tempest said jokingly, “I learned how to cook and fight from my mother, it’s been years since I served anyone, besides you slept for twelve hours…,”
“…You don’t understand…,” Pharda said shaking his head somberly, “The last time we had a good meal was at my…mother’s house…,” then he quickly took a bite of the food before she could ask him what he meant.
She looked to ask, but then lowered her eyes, “I see…that’s what you mean…,” she took the frying pan and began to wash it, “I told you before, she did it to me too, she took mom away…,”
“We all lost something when we ran into her, what she is, what she represents, should be destroyed…, at all cost…,” Andomiel reasoned, gripping his hilt nervously.
Pharda abruptly snapped, “But what can we do, I ran my blade fully lengthwise into her side, she’s not even human…,” his voice carried a tinge of despair.
“We can only find out where to go from here…,” Andomiel said, “Maybe finding those stones is the key…?”
“We really don’t know much about these stones do we? Except the legend they represent…,” Urd reasoned, “If we knew a bit more about them, maybe then we can get an idea of where to look…,”
Fenris bit on his fish thoughtfully, “I seem to recall that the Zodiac Brave Story was written and chronicled by a guy named Durai, he died a long time ago, but there should be some places where we can look for the book and find some clues…,”
“You want to know where there’s a Library with that kind of book in it?” Tempest said, “The only one I know of is the Library of the Ancients due west of here…we’ll have to go through Snowfly Forest to get there though, I’ve never been there myself, so it would be interesting.”
“Alright, so then since that’s the only course of action we can take for now, we’ll go through the Snowfly Forest…,” Pharda said whimsically.
“We really don’t have anything else we can do anyway, we have no clue where the other stones are, much less how to get to them or what they’re for.” Andomiel reasoned.
It was about mid afternoon when the group took up food and provisions for the march west. Everyone was either planning or getting ready. None of them knew what lay ahead for them, but whatever it was, they would take it head on.
As Tempest stepped outside of her home for the last time, she thoughtfully quoted an old saying, “It doesn’t matter where you are, so long as your home lies in your heart.”
“Provocative…,” Andomiel said, “A scholar…?”
“Not really…my mother…,” She closed her eyes and thoughtfully remember the last moments of her mother’s life with her.
“A warrior and a philosopher, how’d that happen?” Andomiel said humorously.
“We really should get going, we want to be in and out of that forest before nightfall…,” Pharda urged. Pharda was always like that, pushing them forward when they would linger on little things…that’s just how he was.
The group was only just beginning to understand the nature of Tempest, she was under normal circumstances quiet and complacent, but when they witnessed her for the first time in battle, she seemed an entirely different person. A swift, cold, merciless warrior, capable of nearly anything, just like her namesake.
Fenris piped up, “Do you think we’ll find any trouble in that forest?”
“Probably, we’ll be ready though,” Urd replied.
Urd and Fenris, despite having somewhat of a standoffish communication gap, really liked each other, and strangely enough, would never admit it either. Tempest was the first to notice the connection as the two argued and played around during the walk.
“Hmm…this could get interesting…,” she thought. But for the time being, matchmaking would have to wait…they arrived.
Little white flakes of snow started to cascade down along the forest floor, mossy trees hewing out the rocky path before them.
A sign tacked on to the tree gave an ominous warning:
“Should you get lost,
follow the snowflies,
they foregather where
the dark runs deepest.”
“Snowflies? The dark? I don’t think I like this…,” Fenris said, gripping his spear tightly.
“What are snowflies anyway…?” Pharda asked, as if to answer his question, the little white specks that looked like snowflakes, fell in a pattern, but never hit the ground, they would get swirled up under an unseen wind and simply flow through the forest, like small faeries.
