"At long last," Mina said, as she flew up over a ridge, "we seem to have reached...nothing."
The other three tiredly sighed, and Camie made a face at her.
They came up to the ridge and looked over.
The signs of the Blight were already eating up the grass here.
Bakugo frowned.
"So this is where they were camping last?" Camie eyed it. "Right in the middle of my territory, huh? It's a good thing we'll be sharing it soon anyway."
"How does your tribe feel about you being gone for so many weeks?" Ei asked.
"I don't know," Camie said. "How do you feel about it, sister?"
They gave her a strange look, till suddenly an arrow shot the hat right off Mina's head.
The air shimmered a few paces down the ridge, and few girls and youths in bandit attire looked up at them.
"You travel with dull-witted companions, Milady," one said, with a disgusted look.
"Well, she's not exactly wrong..." Camie said.
"Hey!" Mina said. "How was I supposed to know? I can't see through illusion magic." She grabbed her hat.
"That could have been your head," the same girl called. "I'm a better shot than that. Next time I'll steal the clothes right off your backside."
"Why don't you just try it!" Mina made a fist.
"Shh," Camie said. "She'll take you up on it. Yea, all of you, where's the Katsuki tribe?"
"That presumptuously named bunch of barbarians cleared out weeks ago," said one of the youths, who had the purple hair of a sprite and the sordid expression of a troll. Or possibly a very grumpy elf.
"Ah, Seiji, you can't say that in front of the King," Camie said.
"You want to try that again, peasant?!!" Bakugo said almost at the same time.
"Is that you, King Bakugo?" Seiji made the King sound sarcastically insulting. "Back from the grave, are you? I heard you'd been thought dead on the quest, but I knew it was too much to hope for."
"Hey!" Ei said.
"Don't mind him," Camie said. "He was cursed by a troll to say only the stupidest and meanest things that came into his mind since birth."
"That is not true! I am not accursed!" Seiji cried.
"Oh?" Camie looked genuinely surprised. "Then what's your excuse? Taking your life in your hands like that is kind of mad, isn't it?"
"This is why you shouldn't be the prince--" began Seiji, but the others shushed him.
"Excuse him," said the girl with the arrow. "He's a gnome, so, you know, daylight makes him sullen, and darkness makes him reclusive. Bad deal all round."
"But if he's a gnome, what's he doing out of the ground?" Ei asked.
"Is he a garden gnome?" Mina asked with a straight face.
"I am not--" Seiji began.
"Why isn't his hair white?" Mina interrupted.
"Not all gnomes have white--"
"The Dark Lord's forces took over his caverns," the girl said. "Which would make anyone sad, I'll grant you. Hi, I'm Tai Lee." She bowed. [Yes, it's a ATLA reference.]
"She's a band leader," Camie said. "So, uh, respect her and all, or she'll steal your stockings. That's Mai," gesturing at a girl who wasn't speaking and didn't seem inclined to. "And that's Inasa. He's nature sprite, like you, Mina."
