Echoes of the Past

[JxSlaughter]

"Are you sure I shouldn't be worrying about you? All this time I've been trying to ease your appetite and give you strength for the journey. I know your hiding something, I didn't mind all the eating up until now. Five servings?" He tried to keep his voice stable without yelling, and without being hostile. "Something is wrong, and you can't keep hiding it forever. If all this time I've been trying to help you gain your energy, and your still losing it...." He was wondering what more he could do, but maybe if she opened up... He thought that some how he could help. He couldn't help but worry now, her body was thin and she really was getting weaker. He looked down into a frown and stared into the fire as she did. Jiru had a feeling that she wasn't going to say anything about it.

"I don't know what you think of the situation right now but... right now we are a party." He thought of how he wanted to go off on an adventure, long before she met her. "I will help you, and you'll help me, that's how it goes right?" "So just-- get some rest and heal up." Jiru set up the beds. He got into his and rolled away from her again.

[laraine]

Echo sighed and lied down, falling asleep almost instantly. But after a few hours in the middle of the night, she woke up and got out of bed. She walked carefully around and into the woods. She got to a place that was far enough away so Jiru wouldn't hear or see her and she bowed gracefully.

"My Lord, I call upon thee. It is Echo, your loyal and loving servant."

The figure appeared before her, a man dressed in white and gold. She bowed once more.

"My lord...I don't know how much longer I can keep this a secret from him. He already noticed me getting weaker. I'm not sure why its progressing this fast either."

"The powers I gave you have yet to become stable. From the beginning this was something that was never done before. Giving you the powers only a god should possess. You may be a priestess Echo, but that body of yours is human. Yet, you knew the risks when I offered them to you. It could be something, or it could be nothing. Not even I know the result of this. But be calm child, you will not die....remember our promise?"

Echo nodded. He smiled.

"Good Girl...now go back to sleep before you notices you gone."

She turned and started to leave.

[JxSlaughter]

Jiru heard her footsteps come closer to the camp. He had a hard time sleeping tonight. But he wasn't going to ask her where she had been. He thought that it would be... too soon to ask her. Wanting to wait for a better time he tried to sleep and was actually able to. Probably because she was well enough to get up. It must have been the food-- if anything.

In the morning he got up and prepared everything for their next leave. He refilled the bag of food he gave her, as he noticed that all the contents vanished into her bottomless pit of a stomach. He scraped words onto a pear before placing it inside. It was a silly idea, but he had to do something to make her feel better. He sat near the dying fire until she woke up. There was more soup for Echo. Jiru's mind mirrored and echoed the words that he put onto the pear.

"Get better soon."

[laraine]

Echo awoke soon after and looked up at Jiru as he stared at the dying fire. She looked down. "Ah good morning.." She said. Then noticed her breakfast and started to eat as much as she could. in the end, it was 5 bowls like last night.

She helped gather up everything and walked over to her horse, getting on quickly.

"Well, lets go, we have another long day ahead of us.."

[JxSlaughter]

"Four more days if I am not mistaken, do you think you can handle it?" Jiru asked with a look of uncertainness. He added to the conversation as they started to head back onto the road, "It wont be long before we start seeing people taking the same route as us. You might have suspected the town is very active in vending. So the majority of the people will be merchants in the side of town that I am taking you. Day after day there will be more and more people..." Jiru seemed to have a hard time continuing his point. "I'll try not to tempt myself into conversing with too many people... and trading with them... so we can get there faster..." He became silent as he held his mouth shut by biting his lip.

[laraine]

"I'll be fine..As long as I don't over use my powers I should be okay health wise. But if another enemy shows up, I won't be afraid to use them either." She turned to him with calm eyes.

"If we have to hurry for any reason, its to stop those demons in time before they destroy that village I don't know where they are right now, and that worries me. Besides, I look forward to seeing the town where you grew up." She gave a small smile.

I'm an idiot...I'm supposed to act mean..not nice...but its no use if he keeps on worrying about me...Gah..Echo focus...

[JxSlaughter]

Jiru didn't respond immediately. He was too busy thinking of town. "She'll definetly find out. But I don't think it matters, all she wants is to kill those people-- so she should over look everything..."

[laraine]

Echo and Jiru continued the ride in silence. It was awkward considering how close they had gotten before Echo pulled away. But she refused to talk to him. It was a matter of choice. Still, she wondered about the man she traveled with. He had his own secrets and she could tell he wasn't exactly in a hurry to get back to his town. She wondered if it had something to do with that eye of his. But she wouldn't push the matter. Far be it for her to start a argument over his secrets now, especially when she was trying so hard to keep her own.

She pulled the pack out, wanting to snack on a couple things to ease her mind about everything. She pulled out the pear which had the "get better" writing on it. She blushed a little and bit into it.

She tried to ignore the feelings, knowing that Jiru himself would be in danger if she started to get close to him. It was going to be a long four days.

As the hours passed and the silence increased, Echo also was thinking about what had happened to her health wise. She seemed okay for now, as long as no evil guys showed up, she should be fine. But since it was still four days away she knew that would be too much to ask for.

[JxSlaughter]

The trees were long past them now, the terrain became more field like and across the plains where an occasional ox or two- with their sides branded by some sort of emblem to mark that they were owned by someone. All the oxes in the field were very deep blue and their horns and eyes were black. Jiru's ox was white with a large orange spot on its back, with spatters of other spots here-and-there, toped with cream tinted horns and blue eyes. The emblem style on Jiru's ox was vaguely similar to the far off oxes and so was the frame of the animals.

The silence was broken by a suggestion. "If we cut though this field, eventually we can go across the rocky mountain and cut down a day. I'll have to lighten the load because the trail is thin." Jiru scraped his chin in thought. "You wanna head there? Because of the chill the mountain retains the water will be pure, and we can always hunt some mountain goats if we run out of food-- and we still have half a boar. The cool air will keep it from rotting today." He did ask if she wanted to go, but after running through his list of reasons to go out loud, he felt that it wasn't questionable. He murmured to her, "There will be people on the trail though..." It started to sound like he was questioning himself. Still, it would be shorter and he still felt impatient. He had second thoughts because it would be rather dangerous considering that it is a steep road, they might be vulnerable. But he justified it in his mind because he wanted to be adventurous today.

Jiru started to turn his ox, Echo would not be able to talk him out of it.

[laraine]

Echo watched him turn and sighed, turning herself to follow him through the plains. She studied each animal they rode past and Echo studied the terrain as it slowly changed. Still she refused to speak to him, knowing that if she did, it would really all come out into the open.

But I promised my lord...I must not disobey him...

Soon the chill of the mountain enveloped the entire area as they got closer to the mountain.

And Echo could see distant figures on the road before them.

[JxSlaughter]

Jiru stopped a distance away from the mountain. He needed to lighten the load and abandon the wagon before trekking further. He didn't know if they were townsfolk or if they were criminals because he wasn't able to see that far with his overused eye.

"Are the people in the distance merchants?" He squinted his eye, hoping that he could see for himself.

[laraine]

"I'm not sure..." Echo stayed put on her horse in case she needed to use her magic. As they got closer she could see two people talking to each other on horseback one had a large pack over his shoulder. While the other one had something draped over the back of his horse.

"But they seem harmless. I don't sense anything negative.."

[JxSlaughter]

Jiru decided to stand his ground until they had past or became hostile. He pretended like he didn't suspect anything and started to cut up the canvas covering his cart with the knife he used to skin the boar. He the canvas into bags to pack them upon the ox. The strangers continued to close their distance. Jiru did have his katana with them in case they were hostile.

This was one of those times where he couldn't rely on the dog. There was no training a dog to predict if someone would attack. So the dog remind silence as if it was in Tamasha.

Jiru packed food and the rest of the hog from the night as well as some firewood, and his tools like the pot and cooking knifes. He placed his hunting arrows on his back. Jiru was about to grab ropes to use the ox like a mule as his people would do. But the strangers were now at their side. Jiru hoped that they would keep moving along. He didn't want Echo to use any of her power.

[laraine]

The air was tense as the two men noticed the boy on the horse and the man with the ox and dog. Echo tried to look like a boy on the horse, she didn't want anyone knowing she was a girl.

The one man stopped and gently bowed his head to Echo. She did the same back, he turned back to his friend and the two went on their way.

Echo turned to Jiru and nodded. "It was fine see? They didn't mean us any harm. And you did say we'd meet other merchants."

She carefully moved her horse over to him. "Do you want to ride up here with me? Or do you plan on riding the ox?" She grinned slightly at this. "Cause I don't think you'd get far on foot."

[JxSlaughter]

Jiru was slightly embarrassed by his paranoia caused by Echo's sudden weakness the night before. But the coldness was making him feel sleepy. Smiling, he stuck his tongue out at her when the strangers left.

Jiru was relieved that she would allow him to ride with her, but at the same time he was offended. Of course he could get there on foot, he had been here many times before. But since they were still on low ground, it probably looked like a hard walk looking up to it. But even if the trail was thin, it was still walkable. It was only hard to maneuver around the trail. "Of course I can walk it."

He tied the baggage onto the mule and untied it from the cart. "Do you want anything to eat before we leave all this stuff here?" He sat down in the cart and he started to wrap up his feet. He was giving himself more arch support before putting on his boots.