With my mud-soaked clothes caking up in the sun, I figure it's probably best if I find a watering hole or something to wash off in, but I can't lose track of those footprints so I suck up the discomfort and press on like the soldier I am.

To think, the day has only begun and already I'm ready for a midday nap and maybe even the end of the day itself- so far, nothing good has come of it.

I don't get very far with the prints before I come across a Godsend.

Before me lies a nice wide yet shallow river. Its many rushing rapids create a nice relaxing atmosphere, but all I can think about is washing up.

Stripping down till I'm butt naked, I fling my soiled clothes aside and splash into the river. Thankfully, the water is a comfortable room temperature which feels amazing on my sweaty skin. Turns out the middle of the river is a bit deeper than the edge, so I wade my way in deeper to continue cleaning myself.

Rinsing off all the sweat and grime and bird spit and swampy mud water, I don't even occupy my mind with the very real thought that this river could be contaminated or have some hellish parasite or slimy creature in it. Sighing blissfully, I move onto taking care of my hair, washing out all the ick and getting it clean and moist again.

By the time I walk out of the water, I feel like a new person.

I know I don't have time for this, but after such a rejuvenating bath I can't imagine getting in the same filthy clothes as before. As bougie as that makes me sound, I'd rather not suffer the feeling of walking around in dirty- and let's be honest- puke worthy smelling clothes after taking a nice clean bath.

So I get to washing my clothes the best I can by hand. I'm not sure if you can wash calves skin pants- or if you even should- but I'm willing to try it. And, yes, I'm washing naked, what else am I supposed to do?

While I wash my clothes, I get to thinking and wondering- mostly about the same old things I've been thinking and wondering about since I dropped here. I worry about Brent and how he's coping- he's probably giving that Tymos creep a hard time (serves the jerk right), but I always have to remember that Brent's only twelve, he's still a kid who's probably scared and worried about what's going to happen to him. He knows I wouldn't just abandon him like that, or at least I hope he does (I'm cold-hearted but I'm not the devil, contrary to what some might believe).

As I wash, I feel a lump in the pocket of my pants. Curious, I pull out the unknown object and that's when I remember the key I pulled out from that bird. Now that I'm not faced with the threat of being swallowed alive, I can inspect it better.

The gold object turns out to be an arch of some kind. I'm not sure how else to describe because I've never seen something like it before. It's like some arched curve or something- not sure what it's used for or why it was in the back of some bird's throat but it feels like actual gold so that makes it worth something. Plus, there are some tiny blue diamond-looking gems embedded in the arch that looks like it adds to the value.

Satisfied with my inspection, I pocket the item again and continue washing.

Meanwhile, the other half of my thinking and wondering has to deal with everyone back home. I don't know how time works between dimensions, but it sounds kind of wonky seeing how a day passed here and yet it seemed only an hour or so passed back at home. Hopefully that'll spare me from explaining myself when we return home and there are Amber alerts out for us. Truthfully, I don't think my parents would suspect anything is up for a while. To them, it's probably a good day when they don't hear from us because it means neither of us got into any trouble- which relates more so to me, but hey, I can't help that trouble comes looking for me.

And oh how trouble comes looking.

Another part of my "life guide" book will lay out all the times when trouble comes my way- unwarranted by me because, I'll be honest, sometimes I do stir the pot. On second thought, I might have to save the numerous tales of my life for my autobiography, which will proudly be titled: "The Chronicle Confessions of a Small Town Bitch".

I'm just about done washing my clothes, getting them the cleanest they're going to get being hand-washed, when a rustling nearby puts me on alert. Instinctively, I hurry to the edge to get my sword, arming myself. Creeping backward into the river, I keep an eye out for anything suspicious, only lowering my guard when nothing jumps out at me in the following seconds.

Finally, I brush it off and place the sword on a rock close by. I have to scoff at myself and ruefully shake my head as I resume my washing.

Look at me, acting like some on edge-

"Joan?"

Drat, just when I thought I lost them.

Out of all the voices I least expected to hear it's Lan's. How on earth could he have tracked me so fast, I don't know, but what I do know is that if he's around then the other two aren't too far-

"Did you find her?" I hear Nimu ask as she emerges from the bushes. "Joan, is that you?"

"No, I'm a figment of your imagination."

Come on, it was hard not to say that.

On one hand, I'm kind of glad they found me because I still sort of need them in a not so useful way, on the other hand, though, I was actually starting to enjoy this solo quest- alas, as they say, all good things must come to an end.

"At least we know it's her," Chasan replies flatly.

I don't think they're aware that I'm naked- not sure how they haven't jumped to that conclusion- so I keep my back to them, not even glancing over in their direction.

"How are you still alive?" The sheer amazement in Lan's voice is priceless. "I thought you were dead, we all did. That creature was something else."

I shrug. "Eh, what can I say, I have a great guardian angel and kickass moves."

"Why are you standing there, we need to get a move on."

This is a new level of dense I tell ya.

I chuckle a bit. "I like your enthusiasm, but if you could give me a moment that'd be great."

Without even looking back at them I can picture the realization coming over them- or at least Lan because I honestly don't think he understood the situation beforehand.

"Oh, yes, of course," He stutters out. "We'll be...around, waiting."

Shaking my head, I hear their watery footsteps splash out of the water before their voices fade away and I'm left alone again.

Okay, yeah, a little bit of a dick-ish move planning to leave them behind (and still entertaining the idea), but it's easy to see that I get stuff done faster on my own. Still, their lives depend on me getting some truth out of them.

Laying my clothes out to dry on a stone to bake in the sun for a little, I sit on a nearby stone and play with my sword for a bit while I wait. After about five or so minutes, I hear rustling from the bushes and so I quickly hop back into the water and face away. I have some morals installed in me.

"It's just me," I hear Nimu call out. "Can I talk to you?"

"Sure, whatever."

Seeing as it isn't Lan or Chasan, I have no qualms about turning around and exposing myself to her- I mean, we're both females after all. I can't begin to count all the times I saw Nora naked and vice versa, it's just a girl thing.

Nimu, though, apparently hasn't been raised with a girl code and so as she's making her way to me, she freezes up and shields her eyes as I turn around.

"What? Have you never seen a female body before?"

"I can't take you too seriously with you...out in the open like this," She explains, still covering her eyes.

"You're such a nun," I chuckle as I go to put on my sport's bra. "Better?"

Cautiously, she opens an eye and looks relieved that I have something covering my abundant bosom. Since the water's deep enough, I don't have to worry about slipping on some underwear.

She settles on a smooth surface stone while I lean casually against another stone that's facing her.

"Alright, talk to me, what's up?"

"Do you remember the talk we had about communication not too long ago?"

Oh, geez, it's starting off as one of these? Kill me now.

"Yeah...? What's up?"

"It's nothing to panic over," She explains. "I just want to make sure we're still in agreement about it."

Um, okay? Where's this heading?

"Yeah, we are. You want open communication, I let you in on the loop, simple."

"Exactly."

"Okay...so is that it?"

That can't be all she wanted to talk about.

"For now," She casually replies. "I want to be unified on this because one fracture in our armor is not going to leave us in a good place when it comes to dealing with Tymos."

"Yeah, yeah," I walk over to check on the remainder of my clothes, already checked out of this useless conversation. "Unity, I get it."

"Sorry if I made this sound more urgent than it needed to be, I just want us to be in agreement."

"Yeah, no, we're still on the same page. I'll let you know if we've skipped a couple pages."

"That's all I ask."

My pants are drying nicely and thankfully not shrinking from being washed.

"Alright, great talk." A greatly useless talk.

"I'll go continue to wait for you," She says getting up.

Before she can retreat again, though, I call her back.

"Wait, before you go, I have a question I need to ask."

Approaching me again, she nods.

"Okay. What's the question?"

Seeing as I have her full, undivided attention, I figure it's best to slip this question now. But again, I have to do a build-up to it.

"Okay so hypothetical situation here," I begin, casually leaning against the stone again. "Say you're...say you're..."

Kind of didn't think this through...

"Say you got this amazing talent or skill or whatever- you can use your answer from yesterday- and you get the chance to be in this elite group or team that'll help you excel even further in that skill or talent. So you try out or audition or whatever to get into this group. Keep in mind, that you are like a prodigy 365 days a year, except that day. You try your best but it's like all the talent and skill's been sucked from you and you bomb, big time. You know for a fact, like birds can fly and fish can swim, that you are not making into this elite group," I pause. "I say all that to ask, what would you do?"

She blinks a little like she has to process all that crap.

I'm just like my mom right now with the ridiculous hypothetical situations- that aren't really so hypothetical- but I picked it up from her.

"Well, that's a lot to consider," She begins still seemingly processing this. "You asked what I would do if that were me?"

"Yeah. What would you do, how would you feel, that stuff."

I'm already expecting the kind of pat answers everyone back at home might give me- either basic, flat answers or vague answers like my dad does. So it surprises me when I get some unfiltered honesty, even more surprising seeing that it's coming from by-the-book Nimu.

"I would feel crushed, defeated, maybe even worthless," She replies. "I would have to question myself and it would take me a little time to come to peace with that lost opportunity, that's how I would probably respond."

"Wow," It's all I can say at first. "That was...that was deep."

"I'm simply saying how I would be. I answered your question, right?"

"Uh, yeah. You actually answered it like a human being, not a Hallmark movie character."

Her ears twitch. "Like a what?"

"Nothing. But seriously, no one gives me honest, gritting answers like that, they always want to seem reasonable and not human, you know, like they're perfect. Being perfect is not a flaw."

She cracks a smile at that and nods.

"Being perfectly flawed, that's about the only perfection I've seen in people."

"Where have you been all my life?" I raise my hand to give her a high five. "Meet me halfway."

Clearly confused by this foreign gesture, she hesitantly raises her hand to softly meet mine.

"Pff, you call that a high five? Try it again and this time with force."

I raise my hand again and she goes to meet me halfway again, this time putting some force behind it, but still hitting it like a three-year-old. Whatever. There's time enough for her to learn.

"So you asked me what I would do," She begins. "What would you do?"

Seeing how this has already happened to me, I don't even have to think about my answer.

"Feel pretty crummy. I worked so hard- no, lie, it's actually effortless to me, but for it to go wrong on so many levels at that time and place when I had a chance to prove myself, it sucks balls, that's all I can say about it, it sucked balls."

Okay, now no more wallowing in the past, I gotta move on from that trainwreck.

"Can I ask you another question?" I start.

"Sure."

Grinning, I already know how stupid this might sound.

"So since you have ears-" I make a gesture of pointy cat ears above my head. "Up here, do you not have ears on, you know, your face like other people do?"

Like I assumed, she finds the question stupid- judging from the "really" look on her face- but she replies anyway.

"That's for you to figure out on your own."

I sigh then smirk, "Fair enough, but you have to tell me at some point."

Returning my smirk, she gets up and starts to head back to the bank to wait for me to finish up. She disappears out of view, leaving me to do what I need to.

After a few more minutes of sun-drying, I get out of the water and change into my newly washed clothes. Though my hair is a frizzy, wild mane, I ignore it by tying it up in a ponytail. Dressed and ready to continue onward, I go to alert the other three that I'm done and ready to move out.

"Let's get a move on," I wave them on, not bothering to wait for them as I start to wade my way to the other side where I hope to see the continuation of footsteps.

"Well that took long enough," Chasan grumbles as they emerge from the foliage and begin crossing the river, following behind closely.

To avoid getting wet again, I hop up on the rocks and travel past the deeper middle part until getting back in the shallow bank on the other side.

"Are you still following those footprints?" Lan asks, peering over my shoulder as I pause to see if I can spot any prints.

At last, there's movement from the corner of my eye and I see shadowy prints track their way along the path and through the jungle.

"Yeah," I reply hurrying out of the river to keep up with them.

"Are you sure it's a wise idea to follow an unknown entity that nearly tried to lead us off a cliff before?"

"That is an excellent question, but one that will not be answered. Just have faith in me, alright? If something's not right then I'll let you know. You see, we all have this thing inside us called an intuition- some of us just use it more than others."

"Yeah, you must scarcely use yours," Chasan mumbles flatly.

He's just trying to work a nerve, but I won't let him have this moment when the path is laid neatly before me and he distracts me with stupidity.

In order to keep Chasan off my back, I move on.

"Alright, question time."

Judging by the way he growls, Chasan isn't really looking forward to any more questions, but it seems Lan isn't deterred by my announcement.

"Ask whatever, I'm ready."

I decide not to go with the prompt I used with Nimu because firstly, she might catch onto my little question a day ruse because she's actually the second one next to me that owns a brain in this group, secondly, I already heard the answer I kind of wanted to hear so it would be annoying trying to water down a previous victory, and lastly, I want to vary and be a mixed bag because at the end of the day I learn a lot about them that I normally wouldn't care to ask.

"Okay, so question time." Rubbing my hands together in thought, I watch the footprints continue on their steady path ahead of me.

"Wait," Lan interrupts me. "Can I ask you a question in return once I answer yours?"

That actually sounds like a good idea, plus it helps level out the field so it doesn't seem like I'm just drilling them day in and day out.

"Sure, why not," I shrug. "In fact, you can go first."

Lan's a charm, I tell ya. He lights up and matches my stride as we walk.

"You, of course, aren't compelled to answer my questions if you find them troublesome. But why do you wear a ring like a necklace?"

I had totally forgotten about my dad's ring; it's nice to know that it's still securely tied around my neck.

Pulling it out from under my shirt, I shrug.

"What safer place to wear it?"

"How about your finger?"

Oh boy, just when I thought I was making progress with him, Chasan has to go and make a sarcastic comment like that that practically demands retaliation from me.

"How about if it actually fit and we jumped to that easy to get to conclusion instead of making smart Alec remarks?"

That little number earns me a glare from him, but I've withstood worse (he's lucky I didn't give him the finger). Brushing that aside, I return to answering Lan's question.

"My fingers match my legs and are like sticks so the thing doesn't fit."

"Why get a ring that doesn't fit?" Lan questions confused by this.

"It was my dad's and he has bigger hands than me so..."

Nimu now jumps into the conversation. "Your father gave you that? It's beautiful."

"Thanks, and yeah, it's a family heirloom."

"Can I inspect it closer?" Lan asks.

I'm not really into taking it off from around my neck, even for a second, so he has to be right up in my grill, breathing down my boobs as he studies the ring for an unbearable amount of time.

"Wow," He breathes. "This is some genuine craftsmanship."

"Yeah, it's been in the family for some time so it's kind of important."

While Lan and Nimu are infatuated with my family jewels, Chasan decides to let his double persona out to run rampant for a little.

"How far are you planning to travel today, Joan?"

"However long until it gets too dark. Why? Got a hot date tonight?"

He doesn't fully get that so he shakes his head. "I just want to know the plan for all of this. You know, that thing, a plan."

"A plan? A plan. I've never used such a thing in my life. What is this plan you speak of?"

Letting out a sigh of exasperation, he waves me off as if my presence was irksome.

"You know, forget I said anything."

"No, no, elaborate on this thing you call a...plan."

It's so easy to piss him off, I swear.

"Forget it, Joan."

So we push on in relative silence, nothing but the sound of our feet shuffling along the path. As long as this period of nothingness prevailed then we would be fine until we get to Tymos.

"Do you have a question for me?" Lan asks.

"Oh, yeah. Let's keep with the theme: what's your most valuable possession?"

He brightens at this like he has the most amazing, sentimental thing to say. "My most valuable possession is...is..."

And then he falls flat.

A frown slowly replaces his proud grin as he begins to think.

"I don't think I have a possession like that," He answers.

Chasan's even dubious about this. "There's not one thing you own that you consider the most valuable?"

"It sounds foolish, I know, but where I'm from we don't have very many possession, firstly, and most importantly, we don't focus on material items even if they are handed down- which is also rare because usually a person is buried with their possessions."

I have to scratch my head on that.

"You bury the dead with their possessions yet you aren't a materialistic society? Got it."

He realizes the oddness of that statement and back peddles.

"Yeah, okay," He chuckles sheepishly. "That does sound a little contradictory, but we really don't have too many items. It's not as though our whole house gets buried with us, the furniture stays for the rest of the family, it's mostly things like- like dolls or toys we might have kept since we were little. I've seen dresses and jewelry buried as well. It's all minor stuff."

"Oh, makes a little more sense now," I say. "So, if you were going to be buried- dead, by the way, just want to make that clear- what item would they bury with you?"

"If it has to be an item then probably nothing, I really don't own much. But if it were something else then I'd have to say Ditou."

"Uh, come again?"

Nimu sighs. "Oh for good love."

Lan looks on in dreamy nostalgic bliss.

"Ditou. He was a cock I used to take care of, sort of how you might a dog or cat or some other animal."

Thank God he added the animal part because I was seriously about to steer around from this conversation about cocks.

He continues on forlorn.

"He came to my door one day and I could tell he was young and injured so I took him in and cared for him until he was healthy once more, then I released him in case he actually belonged to someone. But from that day on, he visited me every day and I fed him whatever scraps I had. I got used to him being around all the time, I even gave him the name Ditou and he actually responded to it. One day, though, he stopped coming around and we were going through a famine so I thought maybe he became so weak from lack of food that he died. It made me sad you know."

"Oh, yes, so sad. He must have passed on into cock heaven." I'm impressed I said that last part without revealing my five-year-old self.

"Come to find out, though, he was savagely murdered by one of my neighbors!"

Nimu sighs again in exasperation. "Lan, we were going through a famine, what else were they supposed to do?"

"I understand you do tough things during a famine, but did he ever think about how Ditou felt?"

"Lan, he was a bird."

"Who was sentient."

She shakes her head at him, mumbling stuff under her breath.

"Wait," Chasan starts. "So your neighbor killed and ate him?"

"Yes and I've never forgiven him since."

Must. Not. Act. Five.

I gotta seriously fight to keep a straight face and not burst out laughing, he's still clearly not over this. But it's just so damn funny, like something you'd see in a cartoon.

"Back to the original question," Lan resumes. "Ditou was my most valuable 'possession' and if he was still alive and I was to die, I would want him buried with me."

Okay, Joan, rein it in, rein it in. Don't laugh, don't smile, don't even think about.

"Alright, interesting answer," I breathe.

I am so telling Nora this story when I get home, I just hope she'll understand it through my dying laughter.

So with that, we continue following the ghostly footsteps on our journey towards Tymos.