"I told you they always are late!" Hissed Tresgon, a ranger from a recently annexed kingdom.
Shaking his head subtly, his comrade says, "Don't worry. If they are late by another five minutes," the man drops his arms to his sides, "you are free to go back to maintain your story, Tresgon." 'No, I can't risk correcting his grammar. His story requires he is from an uneducated family.'
Taking a smooth long breath, Tresgon commented. "Tch, whatever you say, Lacvo." He walks back to his corner of the clearing in the forest. Grumbling something under his breath, he looks out the direction he was assigned to watch out for.
A small burnt out campfire ash laid in the middle of the clearing. The clearing itself contained nearly indistinguishable trees of near same height. Yet, all had leaves that individually were different from the tree next to them.
Before any other word is spoken let alone wind whispers, a scrubbing echoes.
Lavco and Tresgon both instinctively locked on the same distance and direction. Lacvo ready with his bandaged arms with his shirt sleeves underneath them, and Tresgon nocking an arrow on his bow while holding two more in his grip.
'Tresgon, just don't miss,' Lacvo secretly prayed to the Lady of Repentance.
"Umm, hmm," a slightly rough voice coughed. Then coughed again a little louder. Tresgon pointing his arrow a bit down, just in case.
Another voice, one that also is rougher in tone but differently. "Yes, you are now in Greater Kingdom of Palre."
Lacvo instantly sat down and took out an empty water canteen. Tresgon, however, adjusted his blazer and put on a hat he had placed on his side of the clearing's tree.
Three sets of footsteps sounded off. Lacvo eyed Tresgon. Tresgon nodded as he put back the two arrows and drew a dagger to be held in his left hand.
Bushes parted, branches were bent away by force. And three males walked in the clearing. Two of them were the ones Lacvo and Tresgon were waiting here for, and the stowaway they had caught was the unknown person.
Neither Lacvo nor Tresgon had the choice to show that all of them knew each other. Not when they didn't know who this unknown stranger was, nor when they were not confirm if they won't talk about this particular happenstance to someone else.
The stranger accompanying? A boy in his teens with a brown overcoat and a very unique rope gripped in his hands. His chrome yellow locks of hair captured the daylight like crystals caught the starlight occasionally. Whereas his stature complemented his slightly tanned fair skin. The very same one who had escaped the desert via a castle of unknown origins.
The boy however was wondering of a few things he had noticed since entering the clearing.
'That campfire was not snuffed out in the last hour.' He had inklings as to why someone will have a bow, but the number of seen arrows don't look to him to be sufficient. 'Where is the rest?'
The other two randomly stopped seeing Lacvo and Tresgon. Acting surprised since they had maintained the façade of looking back at the wanderer as they walked ahead.
"Um, uh, we are sorry?" Said the one on the left of the wanderer in the brown overcoat.
The one on the right elaborated, "Excuse us, we…I mean me and my friend, Frew only-"
"Save the explanations for later," Tresgon cut in. "I am detaining this one right here," he pointed with his right thumb at Lacvo, "and now I am detaining you three as well."
Tresgon stepped forward with a commanding air. "Going nearer to any borders of the Greater Kingdom of Palre is crime without the approval." He caught his forehead and temple in between his middle and fore fingers, and thumb. "Did you not understand the amount of resistances from previous kingdoms?"
The boy in the brown overcoat slightly raised his eyebrow only to return it to normalcy.
Lacvo spoke up, "So, where did you guys go?"
The wanderer cut in fast, "Oh, I am new. Like literally, I just crossed the….what do you guys call that great chain of mountains?" He pointed to his south, the mountain peaks covered in clouds visible from here. "I crossed them like half a week or so ago."
Tresgon's calm stature cracked. 'That's…that's impossible.'
"Woah! Really mate? Where are the rest of your group?" Lacvo intervened. 'Tresgon forget the prophecy. Just forget it.'
"None…survived," the boy referred to the group of people he had trusted in the city-state of Beret.
At that moment, the one on the left of the wanderer asked, "Hey, didn't you say you came into the desert and then some random flying castle took you in and dropped you here? What a few hours ago?"
Wanderer in the brown overcoat nodded.
"Hey, blondy. You got to be joking." Said the one on his right. "There's literally nothing in that desert. So how could there even be a flying castle?"
A clap rang out. Tresgon got everyone's attention. "Enough with the absurd sentences." He scanned each of them. "Let's go to the city. I need to file all four of you."
'The language sounds the same. I hope the written is the same too.' The wanderer only hoped.
His mind however ran loops around his heart. The same one that became afraid by mere existence of a skeletal being. His mind and heart both still ran memories of the black castle rising back into the sky, the murals he had seen, and the unrecognizable symbols of possibly a language.
Bringing himself back to the present, he voiced his uppermost thought in a tight whisper. "I need to get to a city. I need to get to a city. I need to get to a city."
Lacvo standing up, noticed the stranger in the brown overcoat mumbling something to himself. 'Hmm, could he have really crossed the Mountains of Despair?'
Lacvo knew what other names the great chain of mountains held, but he preferred using the Mountains of Despair. His preference more steeped in regret and fear than mere stories he had heard.