As soon as the sun rose, Lumi was already grumbling, both his stomach and his mouth. Right now, both were grumbling about being hungry. He fell back on the ground, whining dramatically. "Candyyyyy… I'm starvinggg… when are we gonna find some actual food?" He asked, lightly hitting his friend on the head a few times as he sat beside them. "Ughh… we gotta get moving either way. I swear to god, this has got to be why I'm so short. No nutrients." He huffed and got to his feet, running his fingers through his hair a bit to neaten it up a bit.
Once adequately ready to go, Lumi peered out of the doors of the large, abandoned barn that he and Algodon had slept in the night before to see if there were any people outside. Not seeing anyone, he gestured to Candy that it was all clear and headed out the doors.
Candy had woken up just before sunrise and was getting in his morning routine. He had done his hair and done some exercise, so he was ready to go when Lumi gestured at him to go. He was used to Lumi's grumbling by now, he just smiled and began "There's likely a town nearby with a supermarket. Or maybe even restaurants. You just gotta wait a while you big baby" he said this teasingly, but in all honesty, he was also pretty hungry. He headed out the doors of the barn and ruffled Lumi's hair " Alright let's go. I saw a river nearby when we got here. That should lead us to a town nearby. Probably"
(tbh I'm not quite sure what to do)
(You could just have a premise of what your character is doing if you want 🤷♂️ hopefully they'll meet up soon aha)
(maybe write Ty getting ready to ambush Lumi and Algodon with the search party?)
"We don't have any money, though. We're broke." Lumi huffed, following after Candy without bothering to fix his ruffled hair. "And we don't exactly have any means to make any money right now, so…" He tilted his head from side to side, considering. "You know, we wouldn't be nearly as hungry if you just let me do my thing. Slip an apple or two, maybe some fish… mmm…" His mouth was watering at the thought of food. If only they'd let me steal more.
After two mugs of lukewarm, sludgy coffee and a suspiciously lumpy orange, Zelra returned to his tent. Clarys had already left, grumbling something about doing a final prop check, but Myrah came with him. She helped him stuff his dirty clothes into bags, roll up his cot, and move what little furniture he had into their shared caravan. Putting away the actual tent itself took a little longer. She used her claws to pry the nails loose from the tough ground while he slipped the supporting poles out of their spots. Together, they folded the old, weather-beaten fabric into a small rectangle and stashed it in the very back of the caravan.
“That didn’t take too long!” Myrah hummed brightly. She bounced from foot to foot as if walking on hot pavement. “Is there anything you need to do before we join the line? You’ve got a bit of time!”
“Showers have already been taken down, yeah?”
“Yep! They’re always first to go,” she responded. Her nose wrinkled automatically. “Aw, man, you’re gonna stink the whole ride.”
“Nah, I always smell wonderful. Like a fresh flower, I’ve been told,” he shot back, grinning. She playfully pinched him on the arm before hopping into the caravan. He followed suit.
Candy looked at Lumi with a face of concern "Listen, you know I'm tempted just as much as you are, but we can't be entering large cities and towns and doing that kind of stuff. It's waaay too risky, especially right now." he sighed "But maybe we'll find a dump with some food or something. Or even better! We'll find a generous person who'll give us something to eat!" they looked at Lumi's pouting face and felt some guilt "… Fine. If we don't find any alternatives… I'll let you steal something."
"We can't be eating food from dumps all our lives…" Lumi whined. "It's unsanitary or something, I dunno. We'll die before we're 30, if we're lucky enough to even get there. I'm lucky to have lived to 18." He was trotting a bit to keep up with Candy's longer legs, sulking about not being allowed to steal. He grinned brightly at the tentative permission, however. "Sounds good to me! I won't let you down~"
Ty was the only one silent while the rest of the group got ready. There were only four of them total; he had known the other three since they were all younger. They were…more devout than he was, in many ways, though he was also the only one whose family had a history of magic. The only one that the priests spent extra time with, working with him to help him repent of the family's sins.
" Yeah, well, we'll die earlier if we get caught" Candy said, chuckling a little, but fully serious. "Besides, most of the food in the dumps is decent to eat. We won't be dying anytime soon." he smiled at Lumi shaking his head "Though I do wish they would throw away healthier meals" he pouted. His head perked up though, when he heard the chatter of people. "A town?" he looked up from the ground. Just as he thought, a few yards ahead of them was a small town, full of the usual bumbling that urban environments usually had. He smiled again "A town!" he repeated, affirmatively this time, grabbing Lumi by the hand and sprinting towards it.
"Not if I have anything to say about it. And we'd get fed in prison anyway, so we might actually be better off." Lumi kept close to Candy, not wanting to get lost in the crowd. He was thankful that they were holding tightly to his hand. He whined softly at the sheer quantity of people, turning his ears back and holding tighter to his friend's hand. "Where are we going this time?" He asked.
Candy stopped as they rushed into the town when he heard Lumi's question. "I… I'm actually not entirely sure where we're going" he rubbed the back of his neck, smiling awkwardly " I guess I was just kinda… following the crowd. I have no idea where I'm going"
Myrah and Zelra picked Clarys up before they steered into the line of caravans. She was sweating hard and looked especially proud. The tattoos on her tan, strong biceps stretched as she flexed.
“Pretty good workout, lifting all that crap. Beats training any day,” she said, all too pleased with herself.
“I like training!” Myrah protested. She was daintily perched on a crate in the cramped back. Her transparent, pearl-colored leggings flashed as she crossed one foot over the other.
“You like everything.”
Zelra sent a pointed look to Clarys from his spot on a stack of pillows. She shrugged and plopped down on the carpet, then dug a pack of stale crackers out from seemingly nowhere. She tossed each of them one. He ate his and pulled a disgusted face.
The caravan stopped as final checks were made. An older man by the name of Barker gave them the green light, hitched their cart to two others, and shooed them on ahead. Slowly, steadily, they began to move forward.
"Uh… alright. We should probably try and figure out some vague semblance of a destination, though. Getting jostled by all these people makes me nauseous…" Lumi groaned softly, moving closer to Candy to feel more secure. "I don't really know my way around this place, so I have no idea where we should go. Follow the smell of food, I guess?"
(so Ty's group will attack, and then Lumi and Candy will have to fight them off, yeah?)
Once the whole group was ready to go, they headed into town. Their targets had already gone into town, and all four of them had pulled on hoods and masks to obscure their faces; it wouldn't do to be recognized at any point. They were supposde to be untraceable. Ty still didn't understand why all four of them had been sent, when any one of them should have been able to handle this alone. They were all trained killers. But all four of them went, slipping into town as they followed Lumi and Candy.
(Yeah, that should work. How do you wanna seperate from your group tho? Asking so I can go by a plot thread)
"Right" He turned away, still gripping Lumi's hand tightly, and sniffed the air a bit. He could smell not only the smog of the air, but also the scents wafting off all the people around them. There were some pleasant smells, but they were overwrought by acrid and rotten smells that surrounded. The rumors really were true. These people don't bathe. Finally, they caught a whiff of food in the air. Sweet with notes of nuttiness. "Breakfast" he recognized instantly, and pointed in the direction they would head. " Smells like a cafe. We should be able to sneak in the back dump and get some leftover scraps. Sound good?" they turned to Lumi expectantly, with their usual warm smile.
Lumi sniffed around as well, drawing similar conclusions, but allowed Candy to do the definitive work. He yawned, exposing his sharp teeth, and stretched, although he didn't let go of Candy's hand for fear of being lost. "Mmnh… that sounds fine to me, I suppose. Better than nothing." He shrugged as he headed off in the direction of the smell. "Surely they've got some muffins from yesterday that they threw out because they didn't sell or something, yeah?"
(was planning on just having Ty and the group attack, Ty gets injured and the others are badly injured/killed, and then later on Ty joins up with the circus after Lumi and Candy do. That make sense?)
Ty's group worked well together, silent and deadly as they slipped through the streets, splitting up so that they could come at Lumi and Candy from different angles. Ty knew that Crosser was praying, and Jin would be smiling; she had always taken pleasure in the killing of magic-infested, and this would be no different. Especially considering who one of these people was suspected to be. Ipsum, Ty was not sure of. He never knew what was going on in their head.
After about thirty minutes on the road, Zelra started to get bored. He popped open the side window of the caravan and stuck his head out. The fresh air was wonderful, though it was a little tainted by the distant, acrid scent of smoke.
If the map hanging on their wall was to believed, they would be nearing some type of town relatively soon. He always liked seeing the expressions people made when they saw the colorful train of carts moving past. Kids were usually overjoyed; some would even chase after them, trying to touch the spokes on the wheels or catch hold of fluttering scraps of fabric. Adults were harder to predict. Most looked either intrigued or mildly pleased, though some weren’t so nice. One of their best flame jugglers had gotten a nasty concussion once due to a particularly grumpy gentleman. He’d hurled a rock so hard that it’d nearly taken out her eye. Another time, a man tried to jump into a caravan and drag a young girl away. Clarys had gotten the task of punishing him. She hadn’t gone easy.
A strange noise seemed to carry on the breeze to his ears. It took him a second to place it, but he realized that somebody was crying. Probably one of the newer recruits. They were always weepy whenever it was time to leave a location, especially if it’d been their hometown. Arriving was exciting, but saying goodbye was hard. He called out a few words of encouragement and hoped they reached them.
"I'm sure they do." Candy replied to Lumi, not really paying attention. They sniffed the air again as they rushed towards the smell and gripped Lumi tightly again, making a sharp turn down and open alleyway. "This way… Y'know, it smells almost like my moms pancakes." he turned the corner and he saw the restaurant. People were gather outside, sitting in cafe tables, and also just standing in tis really scarily long line. "Woof, I'm glad we're not going in there." then he spotted the dumpster next to it, hidden behind a wooden picket fence. Nobody would notice if they snuck in there. "Jackpot baby" they rushed over to it and looked over at Lumi "We've got breakfast"
Lumi winced as Candy pulled him along, trying his best to keep up. He seemed uneasy near the restaurant as he looked at all the people, but eased up once he and Candy were out of sight again. "Yeah… maybe we'll be able to actually go to restaurants someday." He sighed wistfully and climbed up into the dumpster, rooting around until he found a bag full of slightly stale bagels that he tossed out for him and Candy to go through. "Those look edible enough to not kill us, I think."
Once Lumi climbed into the dumpster, Candy immediately felt a little guilty that he wasn't letting Lumi take anything from the actual restaurant, but he also knew that by not letting him, he was protecting him. They caught the bag of bagels and looked inside "They look alright." Candy looked around to make sure nobody had seen them go through a dumpster. It wasn't illegal but they didn't want to look too suspicious. Everybody in the town was too busy moving on with their own lives though, nobody really cared about two bummy guys dumpster diving. But Candy couldn't shake the feeling that he and Lumi were being watched. It was like an itch at the nape of his neck that he couldn't shake. Probably just nerves he shook of the feeling, looked at Lumi and smiled "Well, let's find a place to eat this and regroup. We've got a long day ahead of us."
