From the Vast

Chapter 31: Curiosity

The idea of heading outside was as exciting as it was worrisome.

Even putting the purely logistical issues aside—Anne felt a bit better than yesterday evening, but doubted she was strong enough to walk unassisted—she was still unsure about some things. Her brief walk alongside Aria was more terrifying than either of them could've predicted, for many reasons. Some of them obvious, some... much less so.

Would she still be so terrified of the passersby in the daylight? Would the self-consciousness about being seen to be afraid of them without a good reason immediately start pummeling her? Would she make an embarrassing spectacle of herself because of difficulties walking?

Neither Anne nor anyone else had any answers to these questions.

Either way, she lived here now, and would have to go outside eventually. Her current company was the best she could've asked for in these uncertain conditions. It was just a matter of gathering the courage, pushing through these worries, and daring to venture into the vast unknown beyond these four-ish walls she'd spent the past few days in.

Said action took about fifteen seconds of consideration, but they were some of the more intense fifteen seconds in Anne's life.

With that settled, Anne began her slow routine of preparing to brave the outside, a more awkward one than she'd expected it to be. Sure, Autumn had her shawl, but that was a matter of moments as opposed to the minutes it took the human girl to slide into everything needed.

Especially without help, which would've made it all ten times more uncomfortable.

Thin, but still-holeless socks, muddied shoes, reasonably thick jeans, an old sweater she got from grandma Lisa and stretched so much over the years she still fit it. A jacket would've been a good idea too, but her current one had the double issue of being stashed somewhere else in the village, and being soaked in blood.

They'd all have to learn how to clean Anne's array of clothes eventually, ha.

But that was then, and now the sweater was perfectly sufficient—especially when combined with Ember refusing to let go of her and Autumn's Safeguard. Finally, after some of the most self-conscious few minutes of her life, Anne was ready to head out.

And the village hidden in the Unovan woods greeted her with snow and interesting architecture.

She wasn't ever the one to pay a lot of attention to buildings, but it was hard not to notice the sheer diversity of shapes and materials on display here. Canvas, logs, thick planks reinforced with tar, stones, fired bricks—even dirt and mud; the snow capping the diligently kept mounds left them hard to spot at a glance.

Almost all of them were quite a bit smaller than any houses in Mylock, but she supposed it made sense—they had to hide from humanity, after all.

...

And they probably didn't have that much stuff that needed to be stored...

The thought stung, snapping Anne back to her surroundings as Ember held her good arm that bit tighter. No matter how much she wanted to, she couldn't run from the reality of the villagers' opinion of her forever. Grabbing the Braixen's paw, the human took a deep breath as their group turned around the corner, ready to face the leers and snarls ahead—

And finding... curiosity.

Granted, she wasn't a body language expert even for humans, let alone for the over dozen species in eyeshot, but she couldn't spot anything that felt threatening. There were some weary looks, sure. A few passersby looked away from her; a couple glared at her for a split second before noticing her company—but nothing more than that.