Around the eighth hour, just as I was waking from deep sleep, there was commotion outside of the cabin. Rushing, I pulled on my clothes and grabbed my belongings, kicking Sao, who had passed out on the floor, awake. Rubbing my eyes, I opened the door to see several people outside.

“There! There he is! He’s the one that harassed Alice last night!”, the jealous chap from before claimed to the guards.

“What! I did no such thing! He’s lying!”, Sao swore.

I glared back at Sao, then back at him, “Now, I know my brother’s stupid, but he’s no abuser”, I attested. 

The man growled at my words, “I saw it with my own eyes! Arrest him!”

“No, you saw your crush talking to another man, so now you feel wronged”, I sighed, “Sao, we’re leaving”, I growled at him,  “Thank you again”, I turned and bowed to the old lady one last time.

“There won’t be any leaving until we get to the bottom of this”, the guard said, “take them to the prison”

I scrunched up my face, agitated, “Sorry, but we have much more important business than being framed”, I said, taking off at full speed, pulling Sao along, “I hope that bastard has my horses ready”

I whistled a call to my horses as I slid into the stable. Bless the goddess they were ready and trotting towards us. With a quick once over of the horses and wheels, I tossed the stableman a few copper and took off. 

“Stop!”, I heard the guards yell from behind as they chased us out of the outpost, onto the road.

“Fucking hell, Sao!”, I cursed at him as I glanced at the squad of guards chasing us.

“Sis, ugh, sis I’m sor-hic-ry”, he moaned, then puked out of the window of the carriage. 

“Ugh!”, I whined, just as I heard crashing behind us. 

I glanced back to see very confused guards, who had fallen over into a messy pile of armor and horses. The old witch winked at me from a tree, then disappeared. A sigh of relief rushed over me just as the putrid smell of rancid mead and rotted meat hit my nose, but I resisted the urge to stop to put enough distance between us and the outpost. As we rode, I came upon a creek and stopped the carriage. Hopping down, I wished I hadn’t seen the sight. Vomit splattered along the sides and wheels of the carriage. A scream welled up in me and I beat the ground with my feet. My scream echoed off the hills. Saovin slid out of the carriage, still hungover.

“Jy…”, he moped, “Jy, I-I”

“No! No! You’re not sorry, Sao! Had you done your duty and not fooled around, we wouldn’t be wanted people right now! The carriage wouldn’t look or smell like it went through pig slop, and I wouldn’t want to bury your body in these woods!”, I yelled, trying to refrain from choking my mother’s only son.

I breathed heavily in huffs, trying to bring my temper down. I pointed at him, but stopped myself from saying anything else. We stood there in silence as I tried to figure out how to clean up the mess. 

“I can be of assistance”, a voice said.

I spun around, unsheathing my daggers looking for the source of the voice, but there was no one to be seen. I blinked, trying to make sure I didn’t miss anything in my field of view. 

A chuckle rang out, “down here”, the voice said.

Looking down, the water was moving unnaturally. I approached it to find a man, not my reflection, looking back at me. I sighed. It’s the creek’s deity. I pulled out the map to remind myself of this body of water’s name. 

“Rem”, the voice said.

“Ah”, I said, “Lord Rem”, I bowed slightly.

“Seems as though you’ve had it rough”, he chuckled.

“Yes! For I was cursed with this-!”, my fiery anger returned like a volcano.

Lord Rem stopped me before I could curse my brother, “It’s alright, let me take a look”, he said calmly as he raised from the water to take the shape of a lanky man. 

He first looked at Sao, then the horrid condition of the carriage.

“My, this is unbefitting to transport a water maiden in”

“How did you-”

“You have a scroll marked by Lord Kano. Humans can’t sense it, but deities like myself can”, he smiled.

I raised my eyebrows, accepting his explanation. He turned back to the mess and with a flick of his wrist, streams of water began to wash down the carriage and Sao, who seemed to be getting an internal and external cleaning, as water was being forced down his throat. I couldn’t help, but laugh at the sight. Everything was clean in the blink of an eye.

“Hooo, that was rough, but now I feel renewed”, Sao shook his head, his drunkenness gone, “much thanks”

Lord Rem smirked, then Sao was flying, landing in the center of the creek. Dazed, he looked up as Lord Rem towered over him.

“It’d be wise to refrain from causing your sister any more trouble”, he warned, “less you want to become my water maiden”, he sneered at Sao.

Sao fearfully shook his head, then scampered out of the creek. 

“I’ll remember that offer, Lord Rem. I’ll bring him to you anytime!”, I bellowed in glee.

“And you,”, he flicked water at my face, “be sure to keep that head of yours cool”

I huffed at him for lecturing me. Lord Rem smirked and tossed a corked bottle to me. 

“Healing waters. In case you get into any more trouble. Now, be on your way. Lord Kano isn’t exactly patient these days”, waving goodbye, he yawned and descended into his creek.

Now clean and presentable, I pushed Sao back into the carriage and set off to Turnsbury at full speed. Being suspects in a crime, I had to alter our path and avoid the main road, luckily the Elven roads through the forest didn’t veer off too much and no normal human could access them. 

“Sis-”, Sao called, “Jy!”

“What!”

“What is this road, it’s not on the map”

“Not on the human map”

“This is a magic road?! Is this safe?”, he began to panic.

“As long as you behave yourself, then yes”, I growled.

He snapped his mouth shut at my anger, but I shouldn’t be surprised at his ignorance. The communication cut off agreement limited his exposure to the occult world to books that he refused to read. Shaking my head I let out a sigh and pushed the horses to speed up. Around dusk, I forced Sao to take the reins.

“Follow this road. It veers off a bit to the right due to a settlement, but just keep following it until the sign for Turnsbury appears”

I shoved the map into his hands and rubbed my aching neck as I got into the carriage. The ride was smooth as the sun disappeared.

“Jy! Jylan!”, Sao’s voice woke me up, “You might want to come out here, there’s some scary looking elves!”, he panicked.

“Who are you to be using our roads? State your business!”, someone yelled.

I jumped up and hopped out of the carriage. Elves surrounded us on all sides. Walking to the front of the horses, I accessed the situation.

“I’m Jylan Aniceta, this is my brother Saovin. We’re simply passing through on a transport mission. We have permission to use the roads”, I said, holding out the map and pass.

They looked at us cautiously, still suspicious of our presence. 

“How do we know you’re not lying?”

Shock spread across my face in disbelief, “I have the pass. It’s imbued with elf magic, so I can’t possibly lie”, I tried to convince him. 

“Until we can verify your claims, you will come with us. Take them away”, the leader said, snatching the pass from my hands.

Despair welled up in me as the reality of this journey has been more worse than bad. They chained and escorted us to the Willow Elves settlement. 

“Sao…”, I said dejectedly, “Did you really not do anything bad back at the outpost?”

“I swear, Jy. All I did was have some drinks, meats, and danced with her”

“Then why is karma beating me over the head with a dwarven hammer!”, I barked at him. 

As we entered the gates of the town, a tall elf with black hair stood waiting in front. 

“What is this?”, he asked.

“Lord Argus!”, I exclaimed in glee, not hiding my relief to see his arrogant face. 

His eyes opened wide at the sight of me.

“How dare you call him in such a way”, the guard yelled at me.

Argus put up his hand to silence him, “Let them go”

“But-!”

Argus’s eyes grew dark and shivers ran down the guards spines. They removed our bonds and handed us over to Argus’s servants. 

“They will stay with me for the night”, he said, leading the way to his estate.

 As we were seated for tea, “Uh, thank you so much!”, I beamed at him.

“It seems our fates are intertwined. Had I not been here for a visit, you’d be rotting away your days in the dungeon”

Pinching my lips, I nodded while staring at my cup of tea. The awkward silence was deafening, though Sao was obliviously stuffing his face with tea cakes. Argus’s demeanor was stony, so unlike his mischievously teasing self when faced with Mother.

“So what brings you to the Willow forest? Why have you taken the elven road?”, he asked.

“Oh, there’s less traffic, so it’s much faster”, I answered.

“Liar”, he accused, looking down at my cup.

The tea had turned black as night! It was liar’s tea, an elf specialty for sussing out confessions, which changes color if you try to lie. 

I sighed, rubbing my temple, “fine, we had a bit of trouble at a human outpost during this mission, so now we have to avoid the main roads…”, I confessed, frowning at Sao.

A smirk appeared on Argus’s face, “Why am I not surprised… You are Gaea’s children after all”, he said with a nostalgic look, “You may stay here and be on your way in the morning”

“Wa-was our mother really that much of a troublemaker when she was young?”, I asked shyly.

“Not on purpose, though her insatiable curiosity and poor choice in companions fanned the flames”

“Ah”, I understood, “Aniceta bad luck runs deep then”, I thought.

“Is-is your mother alright these days?”

I looked at him and nodded. He let out a sigh of relief. Those were the same words said by Mortimer, Mother must have been quite popular in her day. The silence returned and Argus excused himself. We were taken to a guest room and left to get ready for bed. The hawk returned just as I exited the washroom, impatiently tapping at the window, for Sao had fallen asleep. I opened the letter to find coarsely written words full of parental discipline that made me wish I had known the Gaea everyone else knew before I was born. She sounded fun. Shrugging I threw the note onto Sao for him to read when he woke and sent a return letter before going to sleep.  

I awoke to a knock and the smell of breakfast, so I got dressed and shook Sao awake, whose face turned aghast at the letter from Mother. We were led to the dining room, where Lord Argus was already having tea. After solemn hellos, we quickly ate and prepared to depart.

“Here”, Argus said tossing a bundle to us, “You’ll need these”

I untied it to find two cloaks, “but we already have cloaks”, I looked at him in confusion.

“They’ll obscure your appearance. Should be easier to get around and avoid the guards”, he smirked.

I cut my eyes at him, “I have a feeling you’ve had much experience in this”

A slight grin appeared on his face before he quickly returned to a stony expression, “be safe on your journey”, he said, handing me the confiscated elven map and pass. 

Saying our thanks, we boarded the carriage and returned on our path. Not yet daring enough to try our luck with the cloaks, I remained on the elven road and raced past Turnsbury with a slight glance at its walls. There they were. Wanted posters. Great. Pushing the horses to their limits, we travelled the entire day until they refused to go any further. 

“Boy child”, I said, unable to hide my disgust, “Go be useful for once and scout ahead on the human road”, I tossed him a bow and arrows.

Begrudgingly, he tightened the cloak from Argus and took off running. I knew where we were; we had just passed Pio’s Den, but to enter the central area of the Grand Duke’s fief, we’d have to exit the Elven forest, cross the river, and get through the checkpoints. Hopefully, we were faster than news could travel to this region. I have a feeling that that framing weasel would stop at nothing to destroy anyone who dared to stand between him and his obsession with Alice. Waiting for Sao, I fed the horses a snack, hoping it would suffice until we could get to a safe town with a stable. 

Covered in leaves, he reemerged, “the road is clear, there are a few campers by the bridge, but they should be out by morning”

Giving a nod, I examined the map; crossing the river, there’s a checkpoint at the opposite side; preliminary vetting of those heading to the center. 

After thinking for some time, I made a decision, “No sleep tonight, stay up and move out at first light, there’ll be less people on the road”

Sao sucked his teeth, but buried his complaint in his throat. If we get past, we can at least let the horses have a drink and rest at the village midway between here and the central town. We relaxed until the sky began to brighten and moved out. Making sure the cloaks were secure, we exited the forest, crossed the river, and were stopped by the guards. 

“Identification”, he demanded. 

I quickly showed him the house crest, then he went to inspect the carriage. All clear, he let us through. Making our way to the last village, Waypoint, before arriving at the Duke’s, I passed the horses along to the town stable and found us a room to sleep for the day.

“Sleep. No fooling around. We need to be fresh and presentable to the Duke tomorrow morning”

He pinched his lips and turned his back to me, obviously still upset. I shrugged, too tired to deal with his emotions. Leaving the window slightly ajar in case the hawk returned while we slept, I turned in to sleep around mid-afternoon. We awoke momentarily for dinner in the inn’s mess hall. As we ate, some big men came in, seemingly looking for someone. We tightened our cloaks as they harassed the diners with a paper in hand.

“Bounty hunters”, I whispered.

They came over to us, “remove yer hoods”, the leader demanded.

“And why do we need to do that?”

“A couple a’ foreigners escaped back up north, man and woman, know anything about it?”

“Unfortunately, we don’t”, I lied.

He cut his eyes at us, then roughly removed our hoods and looked at the sketch on the wanted poster. 

A moment passed, then he nodded, “sorry fer bothering ya, enjoy yer dinner”, and walked away.

We sighed nervously.

“Thank the goddess for elf magic”, I breathed. 

Sao chuckled and went back to finishing his dinner. Climbing back up the stairs, I entered the room to find the hawk sitting on the window ledge. 

“You might want to get that”, I said to Sao.

Dragging his feet, he took the letter. His face instantly sunk, and only continued to fall into despair until he crumbled up the letter and threw it to the floor, then flopped onto the bed face down. I picked it up to skim it; Mother’s wrath could be felt with every brush stroke, every word. I dared not to send a reply and put the letter away. 

“You deserve a break anyway”, I spoke to the hawk, feeding him a dried treat.

We turned in for the night and hoped for tomorrow to be an uneventful day.