She Enters The Grasslands

"I was a bit surprised earlier, actually. You seemed quite calm facing the bones of another person." Christian said suddenly, breaking the silence between them as they headed back.

"Come to think of it, you're right! Maybe it's because I hadn't seen his face when he was alive..." Robin mused.

'No, wait, it's probably because I'm used to all those Halloween decorations, that I unconsciously thought of it as one, in order not to freak out...' Robin thought to herself. But, she decided not to tell Christian. It would be too troublesome to explain why people would decorate their houses with fake skeletons and creepy monsters.

But, even if Robin didn't say anything, Christian was watching her face as her expressions changed during her thoughts.

'Ah, he's figured something out, now. But he doesn't want to explain anything....Somehow, it seems like the explanation would be troublesome.' Christian smiled.

He felt he was getting a bit closer to Robin by learning more about him. In fact, Robin generally had a good grip on his facial expressions most of the time. It was only during moments like these where his thoughts somewhat showed on his face.

"Oooy!" Robin looked up to see the wind fairy, Elise, heading to them.

"You guys were taking too long! Gerard and the others are getting nervous." Elise said, flying around the two, effortlessly, as she attempted to hurry them back.

Robin was surprised. Surely, they hadn't been inside the secret room for that long, had they? She turned to look at Christian,who was gazing up at the sky.

"She's right. It's been an hour already." He said. "If we want to camp out here, then we could probably set up an early camp...but I don't want to camp out knowing that spider is around here..."

Robin nodded. "We're done here. You can tell Gerard that we're on our way back."

"I'll tell him! I'll tell him!" Skye called, zooming by on his way to camp.

"Oh no you don't! Not if I tell him first!" Elise chased after Skye. She flew at top speed to catch up with the flying cat, despite his head start.

Robin chuckled at seeing Elise's competitive spirit. Even if Skye DID arrive first, no one other than Robin and Elise could understand what the flying cat was saying. The fact that Elise didn't realize that she was being teased made it all the more humorous.

"Ho? A contest is it?" Christian asked.

"If it's a contest, then the winner is fixed." Robin said, with a fond expression. "Looks like those two might become good friends..."

While it had never really happened to her, she had noticed other people becoming friends in that manner. 'Yep. I was just unlucky that I couldn't find a friend back then. Not many people would willingly cross that group, after all...' She thought as she gave a small sigh.

Christian didn't know why Robin's eyes stared off into the distance, or why Robin's smile suddenly seemed melancholy, but he didn't like this quietly morbid atmosphere.

"Friends, is it?" He asked. "I see...Then, maybe someday they'll be as close friends as we are now!"

Robin stared at him, as if he were speaking a foreign language.

'Da heck, who are you, and what have you done with Christian!?' Was what Robin might have said. Instead...

"Pfft! Ahahahahah!" Robin suddenly found herself laughing uncontrollably.

"Did I say something funny?" Christian asked.

"Yes." Robin chortled, wiping away a tear that had crept out of her eye. "And no..."

"I don't understand?" Christian was at a loss.

"What I'm trying to say is...Thanks for being my friend, even if we've only known each other for a month." Robin said, clapping Christian's shoulder.

"Likewise." Christian grinned rogue-ishly.

-------

"You were taking too long!" Gerard pouted sulkily.

"My bad. We lost track of the time." Robin replied.

"Then-" Gerard began to say, but Robin interrupted.

"BUT! That doesn't mean you're getting an extra serving of sweets tonight." Robin said, looking pointedly at Gerard's gut.

Gerard was a skinny lad when he set out. Now he could be seen as having a normal weight. But, if he ate any more than the normal portions on a regular basis, then he would probably roll straight towards becoming a big fatty.

"Tche!" Gerard clicked his tongue as his strategy failed.

"Lost track of the time? Surely the tower ruins weren't that extensive?" Jasmine asked.

"We found a hidden room" Christian replied.

"Oh? A hidden room? Was there any treasure?" Keith teased.

"There was a very large poisonous spider on top of the skeleton of a young man." Robin replied straight away, stopping Christian from saying anything.

"Oh? how could you tell?" Chelsea asked.

Robin scratched the tip of her nose. How could she explain rudimentary forensics?

"The skeleton didn't have any wisdom teeth." She finally said. "Generally people don't gain wisdom teeth until after they turn 18. This means that he was younger than 18 years old. But judging from the skeleton, he was almost as high as you, Christian, so that means that he shouldn't have been much younger-most likely a little older than I am."

"Is that so?" Jasmine asked.

"While I wouldn't say this knowledge is that common where I come from, there is a special branch of -shall we say-scholars? These scholars study ways to identify a person based on their bones. I only happened to hear a few pointers from them while I was training my hand-to-hand combat." Robin said, as she attempted to explain.

"While it is pretty amazing, how is that important?" Gerard asked.

"Well, you can tell if they used the skeleton of a midget or a dwarf to replace the skeleton of a child." Robin replied. "This might help in case of kidnappings disguised as deaths."

"That seems to be a very specific case." Gerard noted.

Robin shrugged. "Like I said, scholar stuff. I'm just a layman compared to them. Given time, they can also reconstruct an image of how the skeleton would have looked before they died."

"They can bring back the dead?" Christian frowned in confusion.

"No. the dead remains dead. At best, we can just see what they looked like before they died." Robin shook her head. "That's why, although you can snatch them from death's jaws, once they're dead, that's it."

"Ahem! I believe we were going to travel a bit longer before setting up for the night?" Keith politely hinted to the company.

"Ah, that's right. We can talk all we want in the carriage." Robin chuckled, and politely bowed to Jasmine and Chelsea.

"Ladies first~!" She said, with a mischievous smile. Jasmine and Chelsea looked at each other, both struggling not to laugh as they climbed into the carriage with Robin's help.

-----

As the carriage continued, the forested areas gave way to hilly grassland. The trees became fewer and farther between. Here and there, Robin could make out many plants that she recognized: blue flags, cowslip, black locust trees, yarrow, milkweed, bayberries, agrimony, balsamroot, speedwell, meadowsweet, etc.

"You've been muttering something for a while, Robin." Chelsea pointed out. "Please stop making us so concerned and just tell us!"

"Eh?" Robin looked up in surprise. "I was saying something? I was only thinking of the names for all these plants we are passing by."

"That's it?" Jasmine asked.

Robin nodded. "It's a game I played with my brother whenever we were in the countryside. We would compete and see who could name the most of the flowering plants we passed by."

Then a rare blush crept up on Robin's cheeks.

"Um, sorry, for playing such a childish game. It's been a while since I've been outside the city, so I couldn't help but think of it. This place looks similar to the area we used to visit when we left the city."

"Not a problem~ Seeing that the hero just became an adult only several days ago, I can overlook it~." Christian joked.

"Oh? And you are the very picture of maturity?" Jasmine raised an eyebrow at Christian.

"Geh! Give me some credit for staying out of trouble this long!" Christian pleaded with Jasmine. "I've been giving it my best efforts!"

"Oh really? Back in the castle, didn't you-" Christian hurriedly covered up Chelsea's mouth.

"Nope nope! You must be mistaken, that wasn't me!" he said hurriedly.

Robin laughed at their exchange.

"Let me play too!" Gerard added.

Robin looked at him thoughtfully. "Do you know the names of the flowers?"

"Ah..."

Gerard froze as he realized that he only knew forest flowers. Everyone in the carriage laughed.

Having travelled several miles into the grasslands, the carriage finally stopped at the foot of a hill, where the surroundings were more level and visible than the other places.

They pitched the tents, and tied the horses to a long lead rope so that they could graze on the natural hay.