It had had been quite a few hours since we had decided to suddenly take off. I was having my doubts. I had stressed eaten a small majority of our current rations so it was a good thing that we were going to Eryan's house to travel a little heavier. I was kinda excited to see what kinds of weapons she had with her. If I'm being completely honest I wasn't sure what kind of weapon I would use, since fighting wasn't really my forte.

    "So where exactly do you live?" Ryan asked wearily, "I'm getting kinda tired."

    "We're almost there." Eryan informed. "I live closer to you guys than I originally thought. It's amazing we haven't run into each other before."

    "We don't usually go this far southwest." I informed,"there's like another pack or something over here. I've never been out, because you're only supposed to go on long distances if you have a wolf and uh...well."

"None taken." Peri snorted before I could even apologize.

Oratio jumped out of the grass suddenly, barking loudly and disappearing a gain before popping up a few feet away. Eryan laughed at him.

"Is he always like this?" I asked, seeing as her familiar had been doing that for pretty much the last hour.

"Oh yeah." Eryan nodded. "He's basically a high strung ball of energy twenty-four seven."

"Sounds like fun." Ryan observed dully.

"So what's it like having bird familiars anyway?" Eryan inquired, reaching down to grab another strand of grass, I think she was making something but she was in front of me so it was hard to tell.

"Constant sass, all day, all night. I get no sympathy." I replied immediately.

Peri snorted so hard he almost fell off my shoulder. "Touché."

Ryan laughed. "Lucy's just nice, she tells me what's poisonous most of the time or tells me if I'm danger of accidents stabbing myself."

"That's easy to see." Eryan agreed. "Speaking of familiars, has anyone seen Matri? I didn't see him this morning."

I blinked in realization. "You're right, I wonder where he went off too."

"Who knows." Peri shrugged. "I don't trust him."

"Hey, be nice. He's probably one of elders familiars or something, their wolves like to roam around the camp sometimes." I explained.

"That's comforting, he seemed nice." Eryan agreed, then held up her grass creation. "Look at this."

It was little grass circlet. It was also adorable but that was irrelevant. She placed in on my head like a crown and I admittedly blushed a little bit. What a nice gesture.

"Prince Craig, ruler of the forest." Eryan smiled.

I smiled and she laughed again. Ryan however was taking my new title very seriously.

"Can I a bit of that forest, my liege?" She asked, raising an eyebrow.

"O-of course." Sweet Spirits I needed to pull myself together. "You c-can all have some."

Peri made a trilling sound in my ear and I just about slapped him.

"Hey, we've come up on my part of the forest! My place is just up this path." Eryan directed, pulling some bushes aside.

We climbed through the foliage and came across a flatter area of land that had been cleared away. There was a small house nestled behind some trees, It was small, rusty brown in color, with various plants growing all around. There was even a good sized plowed away garden.

"Come on in." Eryan opened up the door and it creaked open.

"Did you build this yourself?" I questioned, amazed.

"I had some help from Oratio and a few local friends I had at the time. I haven't seen them in a while though so it's been pretty boring." She admitted. "I get by though."

The inside was cozy. There was a bed on side, a hearth on the other. There was a few book on one side and a few different bows hanging from the walls along with a surprising amount of different blades. There was only on sword that I could see, it didn't look very used. Along the wall were also a few skinned animals like squirrels, rabbits, and even a porcupine, quills and all. It was very organized actually.

"Dude." Ryan said, pupils going big as she spied the various knives.

"Oh yeah!" Eryan grinned, taking a few different ones off the wall wand hand them to her. "Hang on, I'll get you a belt you can put those one."

She rummaged through a small chest full of clothes and tossed a belt at her, which Ryan tried on with amusement.

    "Now you can forest prince and blade princess." Eryan observed, putting her hands on her hips.

    "What about you?" I asked.

    "Queen obviously." She replied, putting a hand under her chin.

    We laughed and she started pulling out some extra rolls. "We can plan today and started off tomorrow after a good night's rest. In the meantime we need some food."

    Oratio, upon hearing those words, set off out the door. I wasn't sure what he was gonna do but Peri seemed relieved thought.

    "Oh good, he's gonna go catch us something." Eryan said, pleased, handing out some of the leftover dried meat from earlier.

    We munched on that contently while Eryan pulled out a large piece of paper, which I discovered was a map.

    "Okay, so your chief mentioned something about Zestos, yeah?" She started, pointing to a spot on the map. "According to this it's gonna take us a while to get there. Maybe about a week if we jump from bus to bus."

"That's not that bad." I nodded, sitting down next to her. "Do we have enough food for that?"

Eryan scratched her head. "Probably. I've got a few gold coins saved up anyway."

"So do we. If that helps." Ryan added.

    "It does. What happens when we get to Zestos? Do we just asked around for...? What was her name?" Eryan inquired.

    I rubbed my head. "I forget, I think it started with an A."

    "That's better than nothing." Ryan shrugged. "I'm sure she's well known around Zestos."

A thought suddenly occurred to me. I wondered if Aurora lived near Zestos, seeing as she had a polar bear familiar. It would be nice to see her again.

"Yeah. I mean we've got a whole week to figure out what to do."  Eryan admitted. "I'm kinda tired though, so is everyone alright we we take a short break to maybe hunt? Craig you wanna come?"

"Oooh." Ryan gasped, standing up again. "I do, sounds fun."

Not wanting to be left alone in this new place, I nodded my head in agreement.

"Grab a bow, I'm gonna teach you two how to shoot."