Lost Reverie

Chapter 1: A New Man

The next morning, Rend found himself waking up under a tree. Last night he just ran aimlessly to get away from the soldiers that were chasing him down and the idea that Tsuki was gone now. He was looking off to the side as he heard some birds chirping above him. Where had he ran off to anyways? And where would he get food and water? His tongue was dry and stagnant from the hard night work out and the lack of water he was already given at the confinement. He looked up and forward as he felt himself get poked with the tip of a sheathed katana.

There was a young man around the same age as he was. He had near upper chest-length brown hair that was clean and neatly brushed through. His bangs covered lightly over his left eye which still shined the bright blue. He had a friendly smile drawn on his face and wore very fine clothing. This man was well dressed, properly fed, and was taken good care of. Rend really wondered why he did not panic at the sight of this man being he was on the run and wouldn't be shocked if he had a bounty on his head already... Maybe it was because of that soft smile.

"Hey there!" the young man said in a friendly tone as he showed a genuine smile "You look like you've been through quite some hell now don't you? I've seen twigs with a cleaner look and fat on them that you do sir." He took a second break before speaking again "If you don't take care of yourself, how the hell do you expect to live?"

Rend remained quiet when the man spoke to him, his eyes only partially open. He couldn't say that he completely trusted this guy but he couldn't say that he didn't either. It was just hard to reply to such a friendly person after the four years in that retched confinement and then seeing all he had taken away from him. His dry tongue and throat didn't help either.

"Ah! You must be thirst. That's right! Here" the young man pulled out a water bottle from the small bag he was carrying and held it out for Rend to take "Take it, you need it more than I do." He smiled as Rend quickly snatched it from his hands. It seemed a bit rude though he was so thirsty it did not occur to him that his actions could have been deemed rude. "Hey, why don't I take you back to my place to get you back to some form of proper condition. That is if you don't have anywhere to go."

Rend chugged down the water bottle faster than anyone could say anything. He wiped his mouth on his torn shirt before looking up at the young man who was still hovering above him. "Who are you?"

The young man chuckled and smiled "Can you walk? If not I can carry you to my place." he spoke as he offered his hand to help Rend up.

Rend took the hand, weakly standing up. At the moment he could barely stand and let alone walk though he wasn't going to rely on making someone else carry him. He took a branch that was near him and under the tree to give him support. "Who are you? It would be nice to know that at the very least"

"Nah. It doesn't matter at the time being. I'll tell you when we get to my house, you clean up, and we eat over some dinner" he said "Are you sure you don't want me to carry you?"

"I'm sure" Rend replied with a firm tone.

It took about an hour to get to the young man's house. The most of the trip was silent with the occasional small talk between him and the young man. As to be expected, the young man had a nice house. It was by the beach side and was very large in length and had three floors to it. Rend looked at the house "Do you live by yourself?"

"Yeah" the young man said shyly "I would say it does it very lonely living in there alone. Occasionally it will get creepy too... Anyways, you should take a shower and clean up while I grab you some better clothes and set us up something to eat and have a conversation over"

Rend sighed. He didn't want to accept it though he didn't have much of a choice. He had to be in a good condition otherwise he wouldn't be able to escape if need be and this man was offering all this for free. There wasn't anyway that he would be able to reject it. He nodded and headed off.