Devon and Elias found a place to spend the night, Elias cuddling up to Devon during the night. Devon had taken his mask off and set it aside, he had taken it off to gain the others trust, and put it on again once he told then who he was. He hated people seeing the scars on his face, hated the pity in their eyes. He sighed and went to sleep.
In the morning
Devon was up before the sun, but he didnt move, aside from putting the mask back over his face that is. Elias was sleeping soundly laying on Devon, Eli being a overly friendly qnd cuddly person in Devon's opinion.
Ciana was pacing the outside. She looked drained, exhausted. She had put up a simple illusion to keep them hidden, and had kept it up most of the night, sleeping in brief, 15 minute shifts every two hours. When Devon woke up, she nodded at him, whispering "I don't need much sleep. Once the sun's up, I'll rest for an hour. Two, max. I'll be awake again before the city is. As long as you keep watch, make sure we aren't spotted. I don't get much rest without the sunlight anyway."
Ginger surveyed her pack one last time. a few changes of clothes, maps, money, food, water jugs, a simple bedroll and a few weapons all fit comfortably in her fancy backpack, with the bedroll strapped to the top and the quart-sized jugs dangling from the sides. Nodding to herself, assured that everything was in its place, she hoisted it up onto one shoulder and made her way out of her room. she snagged her nice new traveling cloak from the peg by the door as she passed.
It had been a pretty easy thing to arrange for her absence; tell the servants she'd be out on a solo camping trip, on a whim. It seemed a passable enough lie, since it was common knowledge that Princess Ginger liked to camp and travel in her kingdom. her parents were out for the week; some sort of high-end jewel and spices purchase.
And thus prepared, she stepped through the woven archway, once more entering the gardens looking for her new companions. It took a few moments to spot them, waiting under a tree partially obscured by a low hedgerow.
"Aight," she greeted them, approaching the tree as the dawn light filtered through the leaves. "Shall we?"
Once it was time to go, Devon and Elias got their stuff together and met up with the others. Devon looking at a small map, looking for the best route.
Ciana, having stopped to rest a bit ago, awoke at Ginger's arrival, yawning and stretching out. She grabbed her bag and nodded. "At what point should I raise your illusion?"
She grabbed an apple from her bag to eat on the road.
Ginger turned to Ciana, away from Devon's map. She was trying to help him navigate out of her kingdom, but the map was small and a bit disproportionate.
"No need for right now, but once we encounter people, I'll need to be disguised from them." She told her. "How will it work? What will I look like? Oh, does it drain on your energy to keep the illusion up, or does it only require energy to put up and then it will stay on its own?"
Ginger surprised herself with the questions. She was a curious person, but wild barrages of rapid-fire questions weren't usually how she went about satisfying her curiosity.
Ciana giggled, finding the curiosity amusing. "It takes energy to keep it up, but it takes a lot more to put it up. As soon as it is up, the energy I get from the sun will keep it up. It won't exhaust me, but it will prevent me from gaining more energy from the sun. I can make you look like anything really, as long as it isn't smaller than you are. And if I really try, I can make you invisible. For this, though, I'll make you look like an ice kingdom commoner, mixing facial features of all four of us to create a new face. That will also help people believe we're traveling together as a normal group- at least kind of- since you'll look related to us. You won't feel anything, but the world might look a bit brighter to you, since the illusion is made of small amounts of light." She smiled, looking at the map with interest.
Elias hummed, "dont know why you bother with a map, I mean, I know how to get through the kingdom undetected once we get there, its the getting there thats the problem" he stretched. "I'm friends with Winter, one of the ice kingdom heirs, I've visted him before, often got kicked back out after a few minutes, but thats not the point"
Devon shook his head, adjusting the mask on his face.
(I think our different time zones are honestly kinda funny. And also, I'm pretty sure serenity doesn't sleep. Cause Casey, you often respond soon before I sleep or while I sleep, and serenity responds both into the middle of my night and in the middle of my day.)
(> (I think our different time zones are honestly kinda funny. And also, I'm pretty sure serenity doesn't sleep. Cause Casey, you often respond soon before I sleep or while I sleep, and serenity responds both into the middle of my night and in the middle of my day.)
(lol😭 im on US Eastern time. sometimes I respond im the morning, sometimes way too late at night)
"Oh, ok. Sounds good!" Ginger turned to Elias, eyes wide in mock shock. "EEEEEly! What did you do?" her mouth twitched as she tried in vain to suppress a grin at how natural it felt to joke around with him, or at him.
Elias grinned, "welll, Winter is fine with me, and my flirting, its the other one that doesnt like me, kinda got all upset I was 'trying to sleep with her brother'" he shrugged.
Ciana rolled her eyes but grinned slightly. "Does that mean I should disguise you too? Either way, we should get going."
(lol😭 im on US Eastern time. sometimes I respond im the morning, sometimes way too late at night)
(Oddly enough, so am I-)
(Mountain time for me- so we aren't that far off. You guys are just two hours ahead. So why do you respond at my midnight sometimes? Both of you. Cause that's your 2am. You guys should not be up at that time-)
(> > > (lol😭 im on US Eastern time. sometimes I respond im the morning, sometimes way too late at night)
(> >)
(> > (Oddly enough, so am I-)
(>)
(> (Mountain time for me- so we aren't that far off. You guys are just two hours ahead. So why do you respond at my midnight sometimes? Both of you. Cause that's your 2am. You guys should not be up at that time-)
(…😃…)
"Sounds about right…" Ginger muttered at the mention of Winter's sister. When last she's seen the twins, Winter had seemed like the fun one of the pair, Eira being the goody-two-shoes married-to-the-rules poster child of snobbish royalty. geez, calm down! she told herself. Shaking off the memory of her encounter with the Ice Heirs, she squinted at Elias. "Why was that, Ely? Were you trying to sleep with her brother?" she could no longer even attempt to hide her grin now.
(I want ciana to say something like "I've known Eli for less than a week, and I can already tell you he tries to sleep with everything. Bet he's trying to sleep with a tree if he wasn't afraid of splinters", but ciana isn't the type of person to tease someone without knowing them for a while first. Especially since she was so sheltered, and kinda scared of messing things up- DEVON SHOULD SAY IT!)
(also, what kingdoms still need an heir. And is the ice kingdom basically just a section of the water kingdom that broke off, since ice is just frozen water? Or maybe ice IS the water kingdom, and they just find it easier to work with a solid rather than a liquid?))
"I've known Eli for less than a week, and I can already tell you he tries to sleep with everything. Bet he's trying to sleep with a tree if he wasn't afraid of splinters" Ciana said, glancing at him. "He offered to 'include me in his sex life'. Probably would have pushed harder if he didn't know I could blind him with barely a thought."
"Psh, I just want to give everyone a chance to have a good time with all this" Elias said, turning in a circle as a way to show off.
A cackle burst from Ginger's chest, her grin widening to a big toothy smile. "Right, right," she said, sarcasm lacing her tone. "Has he hit on you yet, Devon? Tried to 'give you a good time'?"
Ciana raised her eyebrow. "Ever thought that not everyone wants a chance with…" She raised her fingers in air quotations. "'all that'?"
(Im dying 🤣😭 bro this is gold)
Devon shrugged, "you spend most your life being tortured by your family, you wouldnt care as much who you sleep with" he said quietly.
Elias laughed, "oh come on, we've been hanging out on this like save the world quest for a while, of course we've slept together"
((haven't they also only known each other for like- three days?))
((wait, I forgot about the unspoken travel time from the electric kingdom to the fire kingdom))
Although she didn't show it, Devon's mention of familial problems didn't escape her notice. But she decided not to pay attention to that, instead focusing on the real question at hand.
She widened her eyes at Devon. "And?" she whispered conspiratorially. "How was he really?"
Overhead, the clouds had slowly thickened to a dark soup of impending rain. The first little sprinkled droplets fell lightly on the travelers.
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