To change his mind, she changed herself,

so like strangers they would meet.

She never gave a second thought

to who the second time he’d be.

I’m not sure what was wrong with me, but I my legs started working before my brain did.

Before I knew it, I had dropped the gun (which had just been weighing me down), and I was running towards him at top speed, about to trip over myself because of the thick sand and steep incline.

I couldn’t tell you why I had this sudden rush of emotion. Normally I would have assumed he was fine and whatever-ed. Unless of course I saw he was hurt—but in that case I probably just would have gotten sick. But for whatever reason, I was sick already.

When I finally got down to him, I was breathing about seventeen times as hard as normal and had this stinging pain in my side, and in my eyes, and I’m not sure now how much of it was just from running.

“Driscol!” my voice cracked as I quite literally fell to my knees and put my hands on his shoulders, flipping him over. “Omigosh,” my voice caught. I couldn’t see because my eyes had filled up with water, which I assumed was from all of the sand that had blown into them. “I’m so sorry,” I said. “I know you were really obnoxious and bratty and everything, but I never meant for it to go like this. It’s all my fault! But I’m going to find those guys and… whatever them for you! I’m going to—”

I could have sworn I felt him moving. I let go with one hand and used it to clear my eyes, and sure enough he was blinking his eyes open. Probably just because of natural human compassion, I felt my heart lurch. For a second he looked right into my eyes, and for a second I could have sworn that something deeper than words passed between us.

That is, until he started talking.

“Your fault is right,” he grumbled, shaking the sand out of his hair. “I do believe this is lawsuit material.”

“Wait… what?” I demanded. “You’re not hurt?”

“Physically,” he said, standing up and brushing my hand (which I hadn’t realized was still on him) off like it was just another clump of sand. “Not much. But emotionally? I think scarred is the proper term. Or maybe that’s—”

“You are such an IDIOT!” I screeched at the top of my lungs. I couldn’t believe he made me worry like that! Well, he could bet I would never worry about him again. Ever.

“Well you,” he said indignantly, crossing his arms. “Are about to be poor.”

“ARG!” I roared and without thinking about it (mostly), shoved him backwards as hard as I could. He almost fell, too, but managed to keep standing and looked pretty darn proud of himself, what with the smug smirk and the way he almost literally turned up his nose. That is, at least, until he saw my expression.

Then he started running.

“What is your problem?” I demanded as I started after him. I felt so violated! So stupid about feeling so vulnerable! He was so dead. Unfortunately, however, I found that going uphill in all of the sad was a lot harder than going down. Both of us kept tripping and falling forwards, catching ourselves on the upward slant and starting up again.

“What’s your problem?” he shot back.

“You’re my problem!” I didn’t know why I was yelling at him with the same vigor in which I yelled at someone I knew as well as my little brother, but I was. “What did you think you were doing—oof—laying out like a lump? I thought you were dead!”

“I was tired!” he cried defensively. “I walked like, a mile or something!”

I realized that we had approached MacDougal and Oreille and all of the caravan people, but I still wanted to slap him. I really wanted to slap him. But sadly, when I almost had him, he jumped behind Oreille, who grunted.

“He’s not dead!” I bellowed accusingly. Apparently nobody got the negativity of this statement, however, because everyone started cheering.

I tried to lunge at him the way pro wresters do (Turk made me watch it with him, I swear), but Oreille caught my arm (apparently being the only one who realized what I was doing) and MacDougal stepped in front of me, grinning.

“I’d have ter’ say this was some good luck, wouldn’t you, Oreille?” he spread out his hands warmly, taking one of mine and shaking it enthusiastically. “Before you know it, we’ll have Blossom’s heart and get back that—”

“Ahem,” Oreille grunted loudly. “We should really be getting back to moving, if we ever plan on catching up to the others.”

MacDougal nodded and Oreille let go of my arm and the both of them headed towards their horses, leaving me to deal with Driscol, who looked really confused. He was standing with his hands on his hips, staring back and forth between the caravan and the vast sheet of desert that was surrounding us in all directions. We could see for what was probably at least a few miles in every direction, and there was absolutely no sign of life in any of them.

“W-wait,” his voice cracked as MacDougal hollered for everyone to start moving again. “Why are you going that way? Shouldn’t we be going back?”

“We still have much left to do,” MacDougal called back to him, smiling encouragingly. “You seem to be a resilient one, have no worries.”

“B-but! But!” he sputtered, but nobody was paying any attention, besides myself, I guess. He wasn’t making a move to follow anyone, I guess he was just that stubborn. But at least I had enough common sense to know that there was absolutely no way we could make it anywhere without them.

I hopped on the back of the cart I’d hitched a ride on earlier, having to move my hand around a bit to rest it in a place where I was sure not to get a splinter, starting to look around for a place where I could stay more permanently.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Driscol demanded, this remark clearly directed at myself. I sighed and rolled my eyes and yelled back my logic about how we would die within a few hours if we tried to walk all the way back to the village in that heat without water. Assuming we could even find it. He just stared for a few seconds before talking again, and then he had to shout because he was getting rather far behind. “Die?” I thought I heard him squeak. “What am I supposed to do?”

“Stand there and wait for someone to come save you?” I tried, smirking. “Or kill you, depending on who it was.”

“W-what?” he demanded. “Wait. Hey wait! I’m coming, okay? Jeez, hold your horses would you?” He started running towards the back of my cart, but he wasn’t catching up very quickly, despite the fact that we really weren’t going very fast at all. When he finally got there, he tried to put a foot on the back of the cart, but he didn’t get the other one on fast enough, apparently, because it got yanked out from underneath him and he started falling forwards.

I was about to start cracking up, but I was stopped before I could because I felt his hand around my ankle. “Omigosh!” I screeched as I fell forwards, landing halfway on top of him. I stood up as fast as possible, of course, to try and regain my dignity, having a huge urge to kick him. Instead I just grunted and jogged a few steps and hopped back on the cart (rather gracefully if I do say so myself.)

He got up, looking pretty upset (probably mostly because his ego was tarnished), and when he got to the back of the cart and tried to hop up again, I felt my hand pop out involuntarily to help him when I saw that he was probably going to fall again. He looked as surprised as I felt, but neither of us said anything about it. Actually, neither of us said anything at all. It was getting pretty awkward, in fact, when he announced that he was going to go sit in the shade inside of the cargo area.

“This is going to be my half of the cart,” he informed me as he pushed the curtain aside. “In the shade. So don’t come in here, because… uh…”

“Because what?” I raised my eyebrows and crossed my arms and sat down, leaning up against the hot wooden siding of the cart.

“Because,” he shrugged. “What if I decided to change clothes or something? I know you’d probably just love to see me naked, but—aack!” He fell backwards on his butt and raised his feet in the air to defend himself. The guy from earlier poked his head out and sighed pretty loudly and pulled of his hood and he—

Was a she.

I think it only caught me so off guard because I thought I was the only girl within miles. I hadn’t looked closely enough earlier, I guess, and for some reason I didn’t’ think she wanted me to see her face.

“Will the two of you shut your mouths?” she demanded. As she brushed her hood so that it fell evenly down her back, she tussled around her very many, very thin, very tightly woven braids that were only a few shades darker than her almost charcoal colored skin. The whites of her eyes stood out so much that they almost glowed, and I could have sworn one of her eyes was blue. All in all, she was the most gorgeous human being I’d ever seen in my entire life.

I noticed pretty quickly that Driscol seemed to notice this too. He stood up a little bit straighter, and when he talked his voice got distinctly deeper. I would have laughed, but I was the slightest bit annoyed. I must be been embarrassed to be seen with him.

“Sorry about her,” he said, glancing at me. “She’s insane.”

“Oh, you’re one to talk,” I glared up at him.

“You are both insane for coming on this journey when it was not necessary,” she hissed. She had what sounded like British accent mixed with some sort of African dialect. It was smooth and flowing like water, and surprisingly deep for a girl, but somehow still feminine.

“It wasn’t my idea,” Driscol grunted. “As if I would choose to be submitted to this torture.”

“You drama queen,” I snorted. “Can’t live without a thousand count Egyptian cotton sheets and a maid and a butler answering to your every whim?”

“Actually I was referring to all of the time I’m having to spend with you,” he smiled curtly.

“You both are putting me through torture,” the girl groaned, rubbing her temples with her thumb and forefinger. “As if it wasn’t hard enough being here already.”

“Then why’d you come?” Driscol demanded. “Huh? Huh?”

“And why were you hiding your face earlier?” I wanted to know, raising an eyebrow quizzically.

“Because I did not want… certain people to see me,” she sighed, clearly ignoring Driscol. “You must not reveal my identity.”

I nodded, but Driscol crossed his arms and scrunched his face like a little kid who was being forced to eat broccoli. “What if you’re a spy?” he wanted to know. “Or a mass murderer? Why don’t you think we’d tell anyone?”

“I have very effective means of persuasion,” a corner of her lip curled up as she flashed her sword, if that wasn’t just my imagination. Driscol looked like he was going to be sick.

“Both of you are insane,” he said, his voice cracking. He looked like he wanted to say more but decided against it as he walked into the inside part of the cart, mumbling to himself. I decided to follow the girl’s footsteps and ignore him too, turning to her to ask her more.

“Why don’t you want anyone to know who you are?” I asked as innocently as possible.

“I…” she sighed, sitting down next to me. “I have …changed a lot since the last time any of these people have seen me. I must reveal myself… at the right time.”

“Right,” I nodded. Yeah. Well that wasn’t vague or anything. “What?”

“Well, and why are you here?” she demanded.

“Um,” I scrunched my eyebrows, trying to figure it out. “I… don’t…um, know.”

“Mmm-hmm,” she said skeptically. “You have your reasons and I have mine. We’ll leave it at that. I do have business in the city by the tombs to which this caravan is heading, but I do not suppose I shall tell you that either, eh?” she added with a smirk.

“Well,” I started, but I didn’t really know what to say. I was too confused. We just sat there in silence, gazing over the scenery that never changed (almost enough to make me wonder if we were going in circles). It was an abrupt change from how quickly things had been moving earlier, and I was getting more and more confused by the second, and I couldn’t figure out why. The sun was starting to set and it was making me nervous, but that didn’t make any sense. I was never afraid of the dark, even when I was a little kid.

“Well, that’s my que,” she said when she heard someone shout for everyone to stop and make camp, throwing her hood over her head as she went behind the curtain. Driscol came bursting out, tripping over himself, looking pretty weirded out.

“Can a guy not get some peace and quiet around here?” he demanded. His face was pretty funny in that it was so unnecessarily indignant. I felt the corner of my lip twitch up involuntarily. “What are you looking at, you perverted… pervert?”

“What is that supposed to mean?” I snapped back, furrowing my eyebrows. I hadn’t even really been looking at him!

“Oh, you know what I mean,” he shrugged.

“No,” I insisted. “I don’t think I do.”

“When most girls are in love with me,” he informed me. “They don’t KIDNAP me. I must say I’m flattered, but you—”

“You think I’m in love with you?” I snorted. “As if!”

“As soon as—”

“Yes, I know,” I sighed. “As soon as we get back, you’re going to sue me for ‘kidnapping’ you. I get it, okay?”

“No, you don’t,” he snapped. “Does it really look like we’ll be getting back to you? You don’t seem to get it at all. Do you not realize that we HAVE NO IDEA WHERE WE ARE? Have you noticed yet that this isn’t some freaking video game? I just… I need…” he sputtered. “I’m going over there,” he pointed his finger towards the other side of the camp, leaving me alone. It was suddenly very, very quiet.

I guess I was in such a state of shock because I had come to the sudden realization that I wasn’t dreaming, but I think the thing that really got to me was that Driscol was the one who brought me to it. So… how was I going to get home? I mean, I guess I was thinking that it would just take a couple of days to get there and back and everything would be back to normal. Like summer camp or something.

But what if it took longer? What if I was gone for like… a year? What if… they never went back to that shop?

I suddenly got as frantic as Driscol usually seemed. (Was it possible that he had been logical that whole time? …Hah, I can’t believe I ever considered that, I really must have been feeling irrational.) But… I suddenly felt extremely impulsive. What if I just “borrowed” a horse in the middle of the night? And some water. Just enough for one person. Nobody would notice. In fact, I could just—

“Elisabeth?” a boy said from behind me. I jumped about ten feet in the air, making a strange (and pretty unflattering) noise, whipping around to see who it was. As much as I was glad it wasn’t Driscol, it was kind of creepy having this little kid dressed like a guy in Bible movies staring up at me.

“Um, yes?” I said innocently, suddenly paranoid. Was it obvious that I was plotting something?

“MacDougal wants to see you,” he said, and then ran off.

Oh crap.

x

A/N: Yay! So I finally updated!

Since it took so long, I'm kind of feeling weird about this chapter. I was hoping it would start to propel things along and not make them go too slowly, but I'm kind of afraid I went a little bit too far and made it too fast to keep up with.

Your thoughts on this:D

-Playlist for this chapter:- :D

Carry Me Home The Hush Sound
Don't Wanna Think About You Simple Plan
Another Travelin' Song Bright Eyes
Around the World ATC
I Need Some Sleep Eels

Kay guys. Those are songs that I think fit in with the chapter. In order. I happen to like all of them, but they are in no way intended to represent me or my... you know. Essence. So don't judge me. xD So go listen to all of them! And tell me how you like them in the review of the next chapter. I love spreading musica to people. :) Or if you've already heard one, tell me now! xD

But either way, please review. I seriously need to know if everybody is still paying attention to this story. xD