Almost in Paradise

10. Truely geographic disaster

"Well now what do we do" Ban sighs as he inspects the map. "I thought Cap'n knew that I'm no good in reading maps... and even if I were I didn't exacty have one."

"Guess we'll have to... uh, walk our way to there?" I say with a questioning face. We're stuck in this town now, 'til we know where and how to go.

"You lads lost or somethin'?"

We both turn around to see the old man by the table look at us.

"Uhh, yeah" I say. The old man looks at us with an annoyed face and then stands up. He walks to us and inspects us closely before saying,

"I think I know someone who can help ya"

He walks out the door and me and Ban looks confused at each other. We hurry up to follow him across the streets in the town and then to the front of a house. He knocks at the door and then start to walk away from us.

"H-hey! You can't just leave us be here!" I shout after him but he totally ignores me. I hear footsteps from inside the house and steps back behind Ban a little. The door opens and a familiar character stands before us.

"JERICHO??!?" We shout at the same time.

"Oh my gosh can you be at least a little quieter? She sighs and then realises it's me she's looking at. "What are you doing here?" She lifts me up in my shirt and frowns.

"Hey take it easy, Jericho" Ban says. What history do they have?, he thinks to himself.

She turns her head to Ban and after a while she drops me down.

"What did you do?" Ban asks with a low-voice laughter while walking into the house. I'm just about to tell a joke about what happened at the tavern, when I realise that the story is about him.

"Uhh, you don't wanna know" I mumble to the ground and he looks at me with a wondering face.

"So, Jericho, whaddya doing here anyways?" Ban asks.

She sits down by a table on which there is a strange little thing that I somehow find unfitting to the surroundings. Not just her house, which by the way looks pretty cute with colours and stuff, but to all of places I've been to so far. I wonder what that thing is...

"Well, strange as it sounds, I was looking for you" she says.

"Huh" Ban says dreamy, with his eyes and mind locked on the small thing in front of her, just as me. He then realises what she said. "Wait what?"

"Yeah, remember when you told me you were going to explore the north? I simply chose to go look for you 'cause I had nothing else to do."

"Wait Ban, the north? We're in the north now, and if you were here before you should have known that Camelot's not this way!" I say confused.

"Ohh, so that's why I recognised the places we were in" Ban says as if it was nothing.

"You made us walk back the way you came from?! What kind of a geographic disaster are you!"

"Wait, you're headed for Camelot?" Jericho says but we totally ignore her.

"I didn't know okay?" Ban defends himself.

"But you had barely arrived when we took off! How could you forget?"

"Sorry..." He looks around with his eyes and Jericho takes the silence as a chance to talk.

"Why are you going to Camelot?" She asks.

We both stay silent a short while until I say,
"We're looking for Meliodas and the others."

She stands up and looks at me with anger.
"Are you an idiot? Don't just give away information like that to a stranger!"

"Oi, did you want to know or not?" I say as I step back a little. "Besides, Ban trusts you so as do I."

"How do you know this fairy and why are you helping her?" She turns to Ban, ignoring me.

"Hey don't put me on the spot okay. She knows stuff and I simply think she could be at use for Cap'n's business." He says. "Also what is that?" He points at the thing on the table that we all have been wondering about what it is by now.

"The old man gave it to me. Said that he made it and that it could help me find you."

Then I see it. It looks like some kind of compass and when I look closer the needle keeps moving around, but at the same spot. Ban walks around the table to get to it and the needle moves about a 120 degrees.

"Ban stay where you are" I say, still focused on the needle. It has stopped, pointing towards the direction Ban stands in. "Now walk around" I command. The needle starts moving in the same moment as he does, and follows him with every movement he does. "That proves it then."

"What was that good for?" Jericho says, annoyed at me for ordering Ban around.

"That thing is a compass, although the needle doesn't point towards north... it points towards Ban." I feel weird looks at me but doesn't look up at them. Ban picks up the sort-of compass and turns it around several times to just get more confused.

"How does it know..." he starts.

"Who did you say made this for you?" I ask Jericho.

"Th-the old m-man..." she stutter in shock.

I immediately get to the door and no one stops me from going outside. I run to the tavern I met the man in and knocks the door open. The owner stares at me and as does the old man who have returned to his seat from before.

I walk up to him and sits down. He looks at me with no surprise as if he expected me or any of the others to show up again. We sit and look at each other a while until I make my move.

"Who are you?"