Johnathan was pulled out of the clutches of slumber through the finger that had poked him in his sleep. He slowly sat up in the bed, rubbing his eyes.

“Wake up, sleepster. Come on, it’s morning time.”

“Kristine…?” Johnathan called out, he himself was unsure where. The entire room was a blur. 

“Yes, it’s me,” she answered from the floor. She had crouched beside the bed. Even on her knees, she was somewhat taller than the bed, but now that Johnathan had sat up on the bed, for the first time, she did not have to look down to establish eye contact.

“Jim… is he already… gone…?” he spoke in between yawns.

“You know how he is. He won’t stop badgering my dad to help him get stronger.”

“He’s still on about that? I thought he would’ve given up by the first session.”

“I thought he’d quit halfway,” Kristine snickered.

“My brother’s a musclehead, so no wonder. I bet all that physical stimulation turned him on, or something.”

“What, so he’s a masochist? He struck me more as the narcissistic type.”

“He definitely is. I don’t know about masochism, however. I don’t think he would’ve gotten mad at you for tripping him.”

“True,” she said. She thereafter smirked and added, “Or maybe falling on his butt ain’t painful enough for him.”

“Oh, come on!” Johnathan giggled. He hit Kristine’s shoulder with his elbow, which prompted her to guffaw as well. After their laughter died down, Johnathan asked, “So, what did you wake me up for, again?”

“Mom’s gonna send me to do errands again. But it’s too boring on my own, so I was hoping you’d come with me. I can show you around, too.”

“Well, I did say I’ll earn my stay. But…”

“But what? Are you gonna help with all those boring chores?”

“Boring or not, it helps me think about what I want to do going forward.”

“You can do that while we’re running errands, too! I’ll even be extra silent just so you can think!”

“You just said you want someone to talk to…”

“No, no, that’s optional!” she shook her head. “You can just listen to me rambling and that’s enough. You can totally zone out or whatever.”

“Do you want me to talk or not?” Johnathan asked with a tired voice. He did not sound frustrated, more like confused.

“Just come with me, okay? It looks like you’re gonna be here for a while, so at least let me show you around!”

“What about the errands?”

“We’ll do those along the way! For real! I won’t slack off or anything.”

“Oh, I bet,” Johnathan smiled bitterly, expressing his doubt. “But I was trying to ask what the errands are.”

“Oh. Just come with me, you’ll see!”

“Fine, fine. Just let me change first.”

“Okay, but hurry before mom kicks me out.”

“Sure.”

Johnathan had worn the same winter coat he wore during their walk to Yderemea. Underneath, he had not worn the same sweater, he had worn a light shirt because the warmth inside of the house had clouded his judgement. His over-the-top trousers were perhaps thicker than his arms, covering his lower body as if it were a shield. He had a beanie and gloves, but he had not worn his scarf.

“Finally!” Kristine yawped. She stood up from the floor she was sitting on outside the door, rubbing her hands on her arms. “Where were you?!”

“I was changing.”

“What are you, a baby? Who dresses for that long?”

“Me… I guess?”

“Come on,” Kristine grabbed Johnathan’s hand and ran outward. She did not seem very pleased while they exited the garden.

“You get mad at me for taking so long, but you’re not even wearing adequate clothing to protect yourself from the cold. Are you sure you got ready properly?”

“Shut up before I start calling you a nerd, too,” Kristine told him off. She sounded very irritated to the point Johnathan would have sworn he saw veins in her forehead. 

She let go of his hand. They walked through the garden and leapt over their fence. Kristine quite literally jumped. Meanwhile, Johnathan was vaulting the fence about the height of his knees slowly, dangling one leg to the other yard, pushing himself to the other side.

Kristine saluted the neighbour whose garden they trespassed upon. It was a flimsy man of average height. He had short, stout dark hair that was disproportionate to the sides. He had an overgrown beard around his mouth, down to his chin. It may have been pitch black like his hair once, but there were occasional white points and a bunch of dirt. He wore thermal clothing underneath and simple clothes on top to shelter himself from the cold as much as possible. His clothes, too, were dirty with soil and organic waste.

The man was ploughing his garden when he noticed the passersby. He greeted Kristine with a warm smile, and Kristine returned the greetings.

Upon questioning, the man stated it was a wonderful day outside. Johnathan, being accustomed to the forever lukewarm temperature of Hjelmstad, was confused. He asked the man what he meant by a wonderful day. The man merely laughed in response. He mocked Johnathan’s unfamiliarity with the lands without offensive pretext, stating that ‘any day you can see farther than your two feet is a wonderful day across the continent of Suverän’. Even though it was snowing, “the snow is sedate,” the man explained; it was slow enough that he believed he could see the soil again if he ploughed unremittingly for the entire day.

The rest of the conversation was unrelated. Kristine asked what he had in store for this season, and the man answered. The man expressed his welcome to the guest and asked about his origin. Johnathan dodged the question, which the man decided to ignore, and he talked about how he tried to plant buckwheat once but it died soon after. He blathered about the unpredictability of the weather, and how a snowstorm so strong one could barely see their own body can suddenly appear. On such days, he ‘obviously’ could not tend to his garden, and the crops wither in pain. He reproached how, “one way or the other” he was forced to buy from that man.

After their conversation came to a close, the man apologised for unloading his frustration abruptly and thanked them for listening.

As they vaulted the fence of the man’s garden, “What did he mean?” Johnathan whispered.

“By what?” Kristine replied in a low voice.

“‘That man’? That was so ominous.”

“He was probably referring to the man who owns the largest market here in Yderemea. We’re going to stop by there later, so you’ll see for yourself what he means.”

“Why are you being all ominous, too? You two in cahoots or what?”

Kristine giggled under her sleeve.

Henceforth, they continued their tour. In the next yard, they met two Demons about Johnathan’s waist height. They threw snowballs at each other and laughed merrily. Although their heights were similar, their appearances were distinctive. The little girl had blonde hair. Her hair was long, although it was tied underneath the hood of her jacket. From the front, a small, pink ribbon could be seen on her forehead, attached to her hair with a hairpin. The girl had light green eyes and a bright smile.

Her twin, the boy with short, blonde hair, was likewise laughing, although his smile was not as innocent. His green eyes were locked on his twin, throwing snowballs and chasing her.

The boy of the twins missed one of his shots and hit Johnathan. Then, he threw a second one, this time intentionally, because his twin sister had hidden behind Johnathan after he unwillingly tanked the first hit.

Kristine explained that these two are the Thorn Twins. Mischievous little children that they were, they were the heart and joy of Yderemea. They ran around, bickering, and fighting, and yet, sometimes, they were partners in crime. They pulled pranks on the other villagers and there even were times they plucked others’ belongings. 

That’s when their surname became a title, Kristine explained. They were separated by their mother, a likewise blonde woman with a tall stature almost as tall as Kristine, decided to sever them from each other so they cannot encourage each other to theft again.

Like an armour enhanced with thorns, this punishment backfired. The twins self-motivated themselves to resist the tyranny against themselves. They rallied against the common enemy, which was their mother, without having the need to forebode their resistance or notify one another for an official unification.

Two days later, the mischievous imps (at the time, they were younger than they currently are, and therefore shorter, too) snuck out of their house. 

With a queer understanding of each other’s thought process, they met at the supermarket. The boy broke the door down and they stole supplies.

The entirety of the village was alerted by gunshots thereupon. The villagers ran outside in unison. Ødger had grabbed an old sword from back when he was a soldier. The Thorn Twins’ father ad hoc rendezvoused the village blacksmith and grabbed a polearm the blacksmith had forged for a client. The blacksmith ran with his trusted hammer. With a pitchfork in hand, the man next to the Chadeleya household, who is essentially interested in agriculture, stood guard.

The other villagers had not had time to arm themselves as the Thorn Twins ran across the streets, throwing tomatoes, oranges and such edibles that oozed liquid upon impact towards buildings. The owner of the shop, a Cryptid, chased after the Thorn Siblings, calling them twats and endlessly cursing. He opened fire with an assault rifle, although his aim was way off the mark because he shot as he sprinted behind them.

Ødger swept the man’s feet and tripped him, then wrapped his arms around the man’s armpits. He lifted the man up, kept him in a hold and lulled him.

They disappeared for a week. Searches yielded no result, and the household had been filled with nothing but tribulation.

One night, rumour has it that they showed up. They covered the house in various colours until the mother and father woke up and went outside to check the eldritch noises. Then, they proposed they are never separated again. The parents knew it meant accepting defeat, but they had missed their children so much that they accepted without hesitation.

“Of course,” Kristine wrapped up the mystery as she pointed at the Thorn Twins getting told off by their mother on the doorstep, “no one knows if that is the full truth. The family refuses to acknowledge anything ever happened, so all we have is hearsay. Although, we haven’t seen either of them alone after that, so maybe there’s some truth to it.”

They walked through yards as a shortcut but hadn’t met anyone else until they arrived at the central area with the giant statue of the Empress. 

From that point onward, their tour was a little more straightforward. A street above, she showed the house of the village’s famous sculptor, who designed a miniature version of the statue. They knocked, but no one answered. She explained he often isolates himself from the outside world to focus on his work. She explained that, even though he designed it, the statue was built by a joint effort by everyone in the village — “even though there was no authority forcing participation, everyone helped with whatever they can, including the twins,” she concluded. 

Then, at the end of the street, they passed by the ‘blacksmith’s territory’. This was Kristine’s definition as the blacksmith had bought conjoint land and built two houses right next to each other. The one that was fortified with locks was his workshop where he worked on forging weapons for commissioners, and by sunset, “he exited his workshop, walked a few steps, and he’s already home.”