The trek continued slowly. The sky remained persistently brilliantly blue as if to spite our mourning. Or maybe I was the only one mourning. Envy seemed cheery as ever. Lust never spoke and so I couldn’t tell. Wrath had pets now. That are eating most of the boar that I worked so hard to kill. The forest didn’t understand my sadness, becoming dewy and then brilliant with the sun shining. Our eye in the sky was somewhere near the valley's end where the village of some unpronounceable name was located. I seemed to be more upset than I thought. Tears came down my face making a sorry sight. I was crying about someone I barely knew in a place I didn’t know. I didn’t know anything. I stopped and let the others flow around me. I needed a moment. I leaned against a tree. Teacher was over my shoulder cursing the weakness. I used to cry more. He changed that. He changed me. I shifted a little.

I received little warning before something in the tree erupted onto me with gnashing fangs. Luck was really having fun wasn’t she? She’s lucky she wasn’t real or I would murder her. Back to the fangs scraping against the shield on my back. Envy appeared to be panicking. As a much more manly man, I was flailing desperately while crying. A true image of power. I started laughing. I guess karma did exist. Whatever was trying to eat me was not being successful. Was I going to go just after Gluttony? In the time it took for me to reevaluate my will to live, Wrath had supersized and hit whatever was on my back like a battering ram. I heard air rushing past my head as well as a yelp of pain. It was times like this that made me happy not to be an enemy of Wrath. I’m rather certain whatever got hit was… dead? I scrambled to my feet to see the love child of, I'm assuming a lion and a turtle with maybe a little dragon mixed in, clambering to its feet. Catlike face with a squat body. How it ever got into the tree was beyond me. Its tail could explain it. I got to observe it real close when it used its tail like a flail and sent me flying into Wrath. She caught me like one would catch a ball. I could only hope this wasn’t a game of catch. I was put down, to my relief, as Wrath charged. Its long tail stretched out and tripped Wrath. Then she got really angry. It is safe to say that I turned around and closed my eyes. So did the rest of the group. Spines were not typically made to make those kinds of noises and my sympathy went out to whatever that thing was. How the intestines got even near the top of a tree was not something I wanted to know. Wrath’s Lizeer seemed content eating some stomach.

I needed to focus if I was going to survive. It looked like the forest was actually filled with deadly creatures. As scary as it was getting jumped on by a turtle lion thing it did help me recover a little control. Not that it would last long. Everyone seemed shaken too. Envy signaled that we would begin looking for shelter for the night. Her hands were shaking. She also appeared to have bulked up. Could have been my imagination. We clustered together looking at the trees. Then bird boy scared all of us half to death by plummeting from the sky like a javelin. He landed softly and looked at Envy.

“Long day huh?”

Envy replied with a sigh that lasted for several minutes.

He gave his report quickly.

“Well I couldn’t see a large pursuit but I did see smoke up ahead at the end of the valley. The problem being that I also saw some snakes that you would probably want to avoid. They were basking on boulders and were the size of trees.”

He then saw the two pink blobs eating in Wrath’s arms. He was about to pose a question when Envy silenced him with a hand.

“Don’t ask”.

He spent the next couple of minutes muttering to himself about how “he doesn’t have to listen to her” till Envy shot him a look that was deadlier than mine. We trudged on in silence till, in the left of the valley, we found a tree that was probably there before the mountains. It had a large hollow in its trunk that could have fit a herd of cows. Luckily for us, we were smaller than a herd of cows and had plenty of room and space. As now tradition, I sat in the corner facing the wall. Or so I hoped. Instead, I was sent to get firewood among the trees of ill repute. If I got killed by another turtle, I was going haunt Envy forever. The wood was mostly damp and of the rotted kind. I found a tree that had fallen and hacked off a few limbs. I dragged them back to our treehouse and trimmed the foliage. I passed the branches up to Lust who brought them inside. The menial task kept me from thinking, which was a blessing. I climbed up into the tree with the realization that the adrenaline had worn off and was being steadily replaced with an aching pain from the bruises. The pain was in my head began as well.

I sat in the corner for two hours as the rest of camp was set up. First came clouds, then thunder, and then storms. When a storm like this came through, my cell would echo with the sound of water dripping on the stones. It was calming, the repetition. This had no repetition. It was a furious tempest that formed over the mountains and raged down the valley. I sincerely hoped that it shook all those ambush turtle dragons out of the trees. Once Lust finished laying the stones for the fire pit I put some of the small branches onto the pile and began striking with the flint and steel. Those leaves I had trimmed off the main branches were used as kindling to start the little flame. Small and insecure it flickered back and forth before growing stronger and warmer. I fashioned skewers out of the two of the smaller branches and started to heat the remaining boar meat. I tossed a few pieces to Wrath who fed them to her mewling fauns. She made sure to turn away first. I then returned to the corner and slumped. I felt terrible inside and out. It only got worse because just as I got relaxed Envy thought it was time for a meeting of everyone.

“Alright we’ve had a rough day but I need to ask some questions and you all need to listen. I have been through this village twice as practice before an assasination. They are paranoid people with a hard lifestyle. You need to know how to act and the rules and customs of this region. You need money to get things. No stealing apples and the like. They speak a dialect of Kardesh here that you should probably understand. I don’t think it is a good idea to bring Wrath and her “friends”. Among other things, Death you need to be blind for the moment. Lust, can you tell us anything about your power that would stop the whole village from falling for you?”

A note was scribbled and Wrath read it aloud. “I need to completely cover my skin”.

Envy thought for a moment and said a long series of plans I didn’t quite listen to. Will it bite me later? Maybe. But that is my future self's problem and not mine. I was woken up by an angry Envy shaking me.

“This is important.”

It always was important. It was never “Hey death why don’t you relax and try and recover some sanity after killing one of the few people you knew and then getting attacked by god knows what?”

“As I was saying, the custom is to offer more money than something is worth here and to place it out first. By doing so they can see you can pay and will then lower the price. We will have to hurry to get there before sundown because they are a walled village and will not open the gates no matter what after the sun goes down. As for creatures, we should try and follow the valley's walls as there is better visibility. Last time I came through the valley we followed the mountain tops where there are no such creatures. Does everyone understand?”

I was very tempted to say no, but it was better just to not know what was going on. I took the shield from my back and put my blanket on top of it to try to sleep. I fell asleep like a rock thrown in a well, darkness growing steadily. A sky met my eyes that for a second reminded me of the blue of my mother's eyes. Brown feathers grew in the ground like grass as I walked under a tree that lit on fire. A family of deer ran away. I heard a sound that bled pain into the air. A cry for help. I ran through the flaming trees to the gaping hole in the ground where Gluttony cried out for help. I reached and reached but couldn’t reach. I fell into Gluttony’s open mouth.

I woke with a start. Sweat covered my body. The dreams seemed to get more terrifying every night. It was still dark. A figure was tending the fire. I coughed to let them know that I was awake. Envy gestured for me to get closer. It was bit unsettling to see a rotund jolly man perched precariously on the edge of the hollow. He was staring out into the darkness with a sliver of moon providing light.

“I thought we should have at least one person standing guard after the day we had”.

I was surprised. Envy had never seemed like the responsible type. I offered to watch for the rest of the night. He declined with a wave of his hand.

“I don’t sleep much anyways,” he replied.

“Same here,” I muttered.

I realized then that all of the sins probably had their own demons plaguing their sleep. We all were the broken toys of the kingdom's amusement. I asked where he would go once the tracking runes were removed.

“I don’t know. I have money stashed away from the assassinations I did. I could retire somewhere quiet. I have just one more assassination to finish. I will kill the bastard who made us.”

His voice was soaked with murderous intent, marinated in hate. I realized I was hungry. As if reading my mind, he handed me a long oblong fruit. It was green with yellow insides. Baobab fruit he clarified for me. I bit into it and recoiled. It was tart, like a rare citrus fruit. It soon became enjoyable. While I was savoring the taste Envy seemed to muster some courage.

“Will you join me in searching for the old man?”

I fought the instinct to say "Yes, sir" and think. The Stranger owed two deaths to me and probably countless more. The irony of Death quite literally coming for him amused me for a moment.

“Yes.”

He sighed in relief. I hadn’t considered this to be worrisome to him. The fact that Envy was nervous about anything hadn’t even occurred to me. Come to think of it I didn’t really think I knew anyone. What they were going to do or what worried them. We were strangers. Except Lust and I, of course, who were destined for each other... To escape that thought, I tried asking Envy some questions.

“How did you get the gift?”

“Same way as you did, I’m assuming, an old man asking my parents to 'bless me'." My parents are scumbags, though. As soon as they knew what the gift was, they sold me to the crown. I can still hear the gold clink as I was led away.”

That murdered the conversation. He didn’t need to ask about my backstory. Almost everyone had heard. After my parents died I looked for the old man in the nearest town. Hundreds died. Out of the sins I had killed the most. Trying to find a not depressing topic was hard for the cell-raised. I thought about the others.

“Do you want the others to join us as well? I asked, albeit nervous of the answer.

“If they know more than I do than maybe, otherwise probably not. The problem is, I think Lust remembers the face of the old man, whereas I don’t.”

I remembered it in vivid detail but I wasn’t sure I should volunteer that information. I was quite literally the only person who couldn’t check without killing someone. I also thought that if I did give that tidbit of information there was a good chance Envy would abandon the others. All around a bad idea. So I simply nodded. Envy was really getting into the middle aged man persona. He did the same rubbing the forehead my father used to do when he was stressed. Envy even did that little cough before talking.

“ I think tomorrow will be a disaster one way or another.”

I was inclined to agree with him. Between our escape and the last two days, it’s probably been the least organized death march I had ever been on.

“At least we know why they didn’t pursue us through the forest.”

I wished we hadn't gone through the forest. He wasn’t the one that got stomped on by a lion turtle thing. I decided to offer to take watch again.

“Sure, I could at least try tonight.”

I guess the bigger stomach helped make the floor comfortable because he was snoring loud enough that any thought I tried to form disappeared under a wave of noise. So instead, I listened to the symphony of noise while staring out into the dark forest. Such tranquility.