Travelers

Chapter 44 - The Siblings

Jacob walked silently beside Cat, hundreds of thoughts flying through his head. What would they do when they finally found Vince? Had Mal found the others yet? If she had, were they safe? Had Cat actually agreed to let him go with her? Was she really cool with it this way, just being friends and ignoring the awkwardness? Was it just him that felt so strange around her? That last one was probably a yes.

"Why didn't you want me to go with Mal?" he suddenly found himself asking out loud, shattering the silence. Cat just sighed and kept walking for a few seconds before answering.

"Because if I avoid the awkward situations, then we aren't ever going to be friends again. Also, Mal can handle herself, and I will need the help once we find Vince," she told him as they walked.

"Cat?" he started asking.

"Yeah?"

"Are you scared? About this whole 'end of our travels' thing, I mean."

"Honestly, I am a little. I'm not sure I want to leave and never return," she admitted.

"Because of the Redwins? I get that their like a second family and a second home to you. You don't want to miss them," Jacob said, knowing what she was talking about. She nodded, though Jacob couldn't quite tell how she felt about it. He decided not to push the matter any further. He knew her history with the Redwin family was interesting. They had their own name for her, even. He knew how Cat might have felt when she lost Drinian, but he had no clue how it might have felt when she met him again in the forbidden forest.

The two of them walked in silence again, and Jacob's thoughts started to wander again. He tried to not focus on her, knowing she wouldn't exactly approve, so he tried to focus specifically on their little prophecy that they had been given. He guessed that the poetic and vague nature was due to the change in the creator of the visions. This time he was fairly confident that they had been given the vision by Galadriel. He wondered how they might find their actual purpose in Middle-Earth.

They soon came to a stop just outside a small hut made of wood and stone. Cat stopped to knock on the door, which opened minutes later thanks to a figure that Jacob recognized, though he was surprised he did. Before him stood an orc, and it was the very same orc that had cut his bonds so he could carry Cat so long ago when she had been crippled by an orc.

Cat immediately took a step back so that she was next to him, and he quickly pulled the most convenient weapon to him, a single arrow, held like a small knife. The three of them looked at each other warily and questioning. Finally, their standoff ended when the orc simply turned and went back into his small dwelling. Jacob led the way as the orc waved them in, and they followed him.

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Cat did have to admit she hadn't been expecting to see this orc ever again. She didn't even know his name, but he seemed so different from the other orcs both then and now that she felt fine trusting them. They walked inside and Cat noticed that the home looked like a normal home of a man, rather than that of most orcs. Maybe she was simply assuming that orcs didn't care for decoration and were complete slobs, but Jacob seemed to be just as surprised by the look and he probably had seen some of the orc's stylistic choices in his studies of Middle-Earth. The orc even pulled out a small kettle set it over some smoldering coals.

"You probably don't know me too well," The orc started before she could comment on the home, "I am known more commonly as Shak the Wise. I met your friend Vince when he first arrived and earned my title as operating as one of his head counseling orcs before he found a human lieutenant, the racist." Cat was a little surprised at the orc's calm manner as he insulted Vince.