Put back together

12. Do you trust me?

The soup tasted even better than it smelled.
It was warm and had a lot of meat and potatoes in it.

Roman found himself listening in on the librarians but realized he barely understood any of the conversations.
Complicated names and bits of languages he had never heared before mixed with the overlapping of voices made it almost impossible to really follow a conversation.

He had hoped to hear more about the revolution and whether his family was still alive or not.
Not knowing was terrifying.

Sure, he could just ask but as much as he wanted to know he also dreaded the answer he might get.
Everyone was occupied by other topics.
It would be rude to just interrupt a conversation.

Yes, that was the only reason he didn't ask anybody.
He wasn't afraid.
Not at all.

He chose to ignore the man at the end of the table who was only mindlessly playing with the corner of the closed book in front of him and the woman at the other end of the room who seemed to only have eyes for her food.

Everyone was occupied.

After a while people started to get up and bring their empty bowls over to a small cart.

Patton finished earlier than him and waited for him.
They brought their bowls away and retreated back to their room.

"Good night, kiddo," Patton jawned and crawled onto the bed, which he had claimed earlier.

"Good night."

Roman wrapped himself up in the covers.
For a moment both of them were silent. Roman could feel himself drifting off.

Then Patton spoke up: "Roman, do you trust me?"

He frowned at the question.

"What do you mean?"

"Do you trust me?", the baker repeated.

"Yes, I do. Why do you ask?"

Patton was quiet for a moment as if thinking over his words.

"Have you ever heared... voices?"

Roman instantly thought of the voice he had heard in the forest. It felt like forever ago.

"...Yes, why?"

"What did it say?"

'It told me to just give up and forget about this entire mess,' he thought.
"Nothing important," he said instead. "Why do you ask?"

"'Cause I've been hearing the same voice every now and then ever since Remy made that prophecy."

"How often?"

"Twice."

"What did it say?", Roman asked, half expecting not to get an answer or for Patton to avoid the question similarly to how he had.

"The first time it didn't really say anything but the second time it told me to be careful. That I was in danger."

Sometimes Roman wondered what the point of voices was.
He could understand the ones that warned people of stuff or gave them advice but for some reason most of them went around pointing out obvious stuff.
As if someone on the run from a revolution trying to fulfill a prophecy didn't know that they were in danger.
Humans weren't that stupid!

"Good night," Patton mumbled against his pillow and a few moments later Roman could hear his breathing even out.
The other had fallen asleep.

Roman's eyelids felt heavy and after a few moments he found himself falling asleep.
It had been a long few days.

The next morning he woke up slowly.
The ache in his legs had dulled over night and for the first time in five days he didn't wake up feeling cold.

For a moment he was almost convinced that he was back home.

Then he heared Patton shift and turned to look over at the other bed.
He was still sleeping, golden locks sticking up in every direction.
Roman couldn't help but smile at the sight.

He stayed like this for a while, underneath the warm blanket pretending that everything was alright.

He wasn't sure how much time had passed when Patton began to stirr.

The baker sat up slowly, rubbing his forehead. Then he noticed Roman.

"Hn, morning...", he muttered not fully awake yet.

"Good morning," Roman replied sitting up as well. His back ached at the movement but he chose to ignore that for now.
He slipped out of the bed and walked over to  the closet, in which he had left their stuff.

After just a moment of searching, which was impressive considering how little he had cared about things such as 'order' or 'system'  the day before, he found a more or less clean shirt and pulled it on.
Patton took a moment longer and some cold water in the face to wake up and get going.

Roman had no idea how late or early it was when they finally stepped out of their room.
There were a few people in the dinning room, chatting calmly and some playing a board game, which he had never seen before. He guessed it was Teronan.

"Look," Patton caught him attention, pointing at the old woman, who had let them yesterday.

The baker made his way towards her. Roman followed him. He figured this woman was a good place to start looking for answers.

The woman looked up as they came closer and smiled at them, the thin wrinkles around her eyes deepened: "Good morning. Can I help you with something?"

"Yeah! We were hoping that maybe there is some information about the artifact of the prophecy somewhere here in the library!", Patton said smiling brightly.
For a moment Roman was almost sure that he was actually glowing.

"Oh, I'm sure there is," the woman said. Roman only noticed now that she had never told them her name. "You can ask Valerie, back there. Ancient History isn't really my subject."

The woman pointed over to a small group of people.

"Thank you very much!"

They walked across the room, passing the board game players again.

"Does one of you happen to be Valerie?", Roman asked.

The three looked up.

"Uhm, yeah, I'm Valerie," a young woman with long dark hair and pretty brown eyes answered.

Roman explained their situation as quickly and simply as possible, ending with how the woman had sent them over.

"Oh, sure, I can help," she smiled and got up. "See you later!"

She gave a quick wave to the rest of the group and lead them out of the room and towards the rows and rows upon bookshelfs.

"I think I read something about the artifacts of the gods a while ago. I'm not completely sure though," Valerie said and Roman couldn't help but admire the confidence with which she turned at seemingly random corners.

Then they reached a gitter like door, leading into a small room.
Valerie pulled the gitter back and gestured for them to come in.

Then she pulled it shut again and pressed a small round button with the number 75 on it.
Roman frowned in confusion.

Suddenly the ground moved down.

Patton yelped in surprise.

Hi there.
I swear I thought I'd be able to introduce the next main character. I swear.
But here we are again.
I could make promises about the next chapter but I know my track record. It'd just come back to bite me.

Feel free to comment, ask questions or roast me for spelling mistakes!

Have a nice (gay) day!