"Whoa!" Lamar lurched forward in his seat, arms flailing. He face-planted right into Missy's neck and groaned into the matted fur. Fur that now resided in the front of his mouth along with snowflakes.

He could hear laughing at his own expense and he resisted the urge to punch his sibling. A hand ruffled his hair affectionately. "Sorry, Missy's hard to control in this kind of weather you know."

He did know, didn't make it any less aggravating. The air was chilly, bitter to his exposed skin peaking through the tears in his gloves. His first pair lasted a good few months into their journey, once they started to really show their age, Billie had given him their own. That had been around two months ago. Even the wool material hated the Winter.

Lamar straightened back up as the chill lifted slightly. Billie led Missy the llama into a makeshift stable connected to the starkly white inn, covered in a thin layer of fresh snow. He slid off and helped his sibling tie her up, taking their bags and lifting her burden, and patting the thick blankets on her back before they entered the side door.

For a small travelers' inn in the middle of nowhere in an impending blizzard, the dining room was busy but quiet. Small groups talked amongst themselves in hushed tones, pouring over maps and small bags the two siblings couldn't see the contents of. Lamar tried to sneak a closer peek, but Billie ushered him to an available table for two, seated right next to a loner man.

As they sat down, the man briefly looked up. A fisherman's type hat slanted on his head, an overthrown coat that seemed too big for his lean frame. Dark eyes beaded into Lamar's, centered daggers over a wooden bowl of ramen. He gulped, eerily nervous, but the man just looked away, swishing the noodles around in their leafy bath with chopsticks.

Billie didn't seem to notice their brother's disturbed, panicked face and waved at a much friendlier looking woman by the bar. The server smiled warmly, bouncing up to their table with a notepad. "What'll it be, sweetheart?"

"Cake for us both and a small glass of champagne for me, please." Billie said, smiling back and the server diligently wrote it down.

"Coming right up~"

After she left, Lamar settled in his seat, trying to get comfortable in the overbearingly warm room. It was quiet with commotion but he felt too much all the while. He could feel his eye twitching and he rapped his knuckles against the wooden table's edge to drive his own brain's attention away from it.

"Where you youngins going all on yer own?" The man suddenly asked, considering them both with soft regard while munching on noodles and egg.

Billie and Lamar glanced at one another, silently arguing over whether to reveal any sort of information to a stranger. Billie cleared their throat. "Heading towards La'Pollo Canyon."

The man gave a hearty chuckle. "Poultry Canyon?" he asked, amused.

Billie grinned, clearly more relaxed. "That has been another name for it, so we've heard."

He gave a small smile and took off his hat, setting it down on his table. A tiny rubber duckie dangled from the top, giving it a more innocent atmosphere than fishing hooks would've. "My lil sister used to call it 'the land of endless fried chi'ken' hehe." He looked at Lamar and he could see the man's crooked teeth, gaps wholly replacing a few while the ones that remained didn't look too far behind. "Name's Benjamin, but you can j'st call me Ben."

"My name's Billie, this is my brother Lamar."

"Well it's nice to meet the both of ye. Odd to see such young kids on their own but not all too rare." Lamar laughed under his breath, noticing Billie bite their tongue at being called a kid. Their short stature at 23 years old never ceased to be funny to him.

Ben stabbed a piece of egg with a chopstick and offered it out to them but they were saved having to accept or refuse by the arrival of their cake and drink. While they ate like they hadn't in days, Ben told them how he'd been essentially a traveling taskrabbit most of his life. Taking odd jobs here and there from various people around the land, his latest landing him in the inn, delivering some goods to a resident who had left earlier that day.

'I'm trav'lin' to see my sister, Evelyn, in Min Yamen. La'Pollo is on the way and I could help show the way. Lots of g'rds through the towns, nosey as they are." Ben slurped up the rest of his ramen and picked up the bowl, nodding towards the various groups around the dining room. "Safest way to tr'vel 'round these parts is in a group. 'Specially in this weather."

He smiled warmly one more time before taking the bowl up to the bar, giving something from his coat inner pocket to the server who accepted gratefully. He came back for his hat, placing it on his head and nodding. "I'll be leavin' 'morrow mornin'. I'll understand if you decide not ta, but I'll be happy to give my assistance."

With that, he left the room, taking the stairs up to the rooms with an old man virgor amount of speed.

Lamar pushed around the cake crumbs on his plate, pointedly not looking at his sibling. "Should we take him up on his offer?" he asked in what he hoped was an unassumingly way.

Billie raised an eyebrow. "Do you think we should?"

He shrugged. "He seems nice enough." He gathered some crumbs into a pile big enough to eat and avoided Billie's questioning face. He ate the rest of his cake in silence, drawing designs in the table's notches with his eyes in a divert way to avoid further conversation, but they didn't let it go.

"What did you feel, Lars?"

Dangit. It wasn't fair to bring out the nickname card. He let out an exaggerated sigh and slouched down in his seat. "Ben's telling the truth about his sister. He was sad when he said it, but happy. Like you do when you talk about Mom and Ma-Ma."

Billie smirked. "Is that so?"

Lamar nodded. "Aaaaaand," he dragged out, "there really was a person he gave stuff to earlier. But I don't know what it was."

"In that case," Billie took his empty plate and placed it on top of their own. "Guess we should get some sleep. Missy will be meeting a couple new friends tomorrow."