When Given a Lemon

Part 22

Returning to the village took far too long, and caused far too many bruises as we gashed our shins on hidden rocks and stumps in the twilight of the pre-morning. The trek is cold and dark and horrible and I only wish the day could be over with before it’s even begun. The others seem just as glum as me and our party stays silent the whole way up, even when we pass by the part where the pathway split away from the bank. Careful to follow it this time, we climbed up in elevation while I couldn’t help but continuously glance back at the shore to see if the remnants of the spheres could be spotted in the shadowy light.

We beat the sun to the village and the gate was locked tightly. Denyel had to rap heavily on it several times before a wary villager answered it with the point of his sharpened staff. While I would have likely done the same, it didn’t help settle my nerves or the animosity I felt toward these people for throwing rocks at me, regardless of their intent or reasoning.

At first the man tried to let us in and lock the door firmly behind us but we had rocks to haul. It took several wasted minutes shivering out in the cold to convince him to leave it unlocked before the sun rose. In the end we had been forced to leave Saiya at the gate to let us in when we returned with the first few loads; until the sun had risen enough for the locals to feel safe enough to let us keep it open.

When I returned to our tent that night I was exhausted but sleep could not find me. I stayed awake long after Lemon, again, once more thinking about everything. It was too much, my brain didn’t know how to process it all. It was likely too tired to be able to, even if it were about something simple like the fact that we had forgotten to pack a supper so we ended up working through it.

Almost as an afterthought Lemon had pulled out a wrapped bundle to hand to me while they recounted their day. An hour later, they had fallen fast asleep and I now toyed with the empty material that still had oil stains from the smoked sausage and candied fruit that had been inside it.

The next morning I found myself awake before the sun and rose to watch the beginnings of it from the door to my tent, lost in thought until Lemon roused behind me, yawning, they shuffled around a bit before surfacing next to me.

“Already up?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you sleep?”

“Yeah, a bit.” I know they can see my sallow complexion and the bags under my eyes, but technically it wasn’t a lie. I had slept a bit, a teeny, tiny bit, but every minute counts! right?

“Hm.”

They left and got us breakfast, bringing it back to the tent so that I had more time to get ready to return to the village with the others. We had decided to go later today since arriving earlier proved to be a hassle.

“There was bread too but it was really hard so I didn't grab you any.” They admitted, watching me wolf the porridge down as if I had been starved for weeks.

“Where's my uniform?” I asked as I finished off the last of it, licking my fingers and refusing to feel bad about my manners. A little smoked sausage and fruit the night before was hardly a sustainable amount of food so I was still very hungry when I woke up.

“Hanging up, they pulled open a slit in the tent flap to show it hanging in front of our door. “It didn’t rain or snow last night so they should be nice and dry by now.” They grabbed them to bring inside the tent for me, “ooh, they’re cold but that’s fine ‘cause at least they're dry.”

“How could that possibly be fine?” I'm shivering now even thinking of putting them on!

They chuckled, closing the slit. “you're ridiculous, you make it sound like it's so cold–”