Child of the Moon.

~Chapter Eleven~

The sun shone bright on Eugene's face as he stumbled out of the caravan. It looked to be around noon. Eugene had heard scuffling and voices a few hours before but had ignored it. After all, he was incredibly tired after the events of the past ten days or so.

It had been roughly five days since the party had left the House of Yesterday's Tomorrows, and so far no demons had come to reap their souls. After they'd found Cassandra - which had been strange in and of itself, considering how shook up she seemed to be and how she wouldn't tell anyone where she'd been while the others were trapped by Tromus - they had returned back to where they'd left Adira with Hector. The two had been sitting together with Hector's animals and didn't even seem to be aware of the world around them. When Rapunzel had finally worked up the courage to make their presence known, Adira had simply nodded, helped Hector up, and informed Rapunzel that they would go look for the caravan and return in half an hour. They did end up finding the caravan with the horses still attached to it, though they were quite shaken up, and the party continued on their way towards the Dark Kingdom and its secrets.

In the days that followed, Hector hadn't spoken a word, but it didn't seem that he was angry. He was just quiet, thoughtful, and a bit spooked whenever he heard a sudden sound. Adira in turn kept a close watch of her brother and hardly ever left his side. It appeared that the two were on better terms than they had been throughout the whole journey. No one knew what had happened between the two, but they were glad that there was some peace. Maybe they were even friends.

As for Eugene, he too watched Hector, but he did so from a distance. He wondered if at some point if he should maybe try to talk to him, or at the very least check if he was okay. But in the end, his fear of Adira always won over. Who knows what Hector could have told her about how much they had talked even though he promised not to ask a single question? Who knows what Hector was feeling when it came to Eugene and what happened with the vines? Who knows what Adira thought of him now?

And although Eugene was tired and worried, noon was still far too late to still be in bed. And so, he stepped out onto the soft grass of the clearing in which they had made camp and looked around. He couldn't see Rapunzel or any of the others in sight. He was about to call his girlfriend's name when he heard singing coming from around the back of the Caravan. Eugene almost instantly recognized the beautiful sound as Hector's voice and made his way around the caravan.

"Hey, Hector-" The former thief began before he saw what his friend was doing. "Are you... doing the laundry?"

"Yes," Hector responded, kneeling on the ground beside a large washing tub and scrubbing away at what appeared to be one of Rapunzel's dresses. "What do you need?"

"Well, I was just gonna ask where everybody went."

"Rapunzel and Cassandra went on a scouting trip, Lance went to collect water and firewood with the gremlin, and my sister is hunting."

"And you stayed behind to wash everyone's clothes?"

"Someone had to. What about it?"

"Well, it's just," -Eugene shifted uncomfortably on his feet. - "Don't you think that's kinda... below you? I mean, being this tough warrior guy and all."

Hector stopped his washing to look up at Eugene and raise an eyebrow.

"Are you saying I shouldn't be doing it because I'm a warrior? Or is it because I'm a man?"

"What?! No! Yes?! I don't know! I just thought you would maybe want to do something else and have someone like Adira do it!"

"Because she's a woman?"

"No! I... stop putting words in my mouth!"

"Okay, okay! Calm down, Pompous. I seek only to understand what the hell you meant by saying that doing basic cleaning is 'below me'."