chapter 30: Tongue wagging

- Ah...ah atchoum!

His own snot is hanging from his nose but of course he has no handkerchief to wipe it off.

After rubbing his nose he tries to wipe the thing against the black trunk. It doesn't really work since the wet wood blackens his hand who is still sticky.

Resigned he ends up rubbing it on his top.

Now he's got snot all over his shirt. To top it off, he's still hungry.

The boy tries to stay alert and watch his surroundings.

The earth is soaked, with each step the foot sinks and leaves behind a hole. To erase the traces of their passage here seems impossible unless they stop continuously to fill in the puddles that have the shape of their feet.

So Dust is stressed because someone can just follow their trail to find them. But to tell the truth, feeling stressed has become an usual state of mind for him.

And then has he already said it? He is hungry.

The crows begin to caw simultaneously in the distance. Loud enough to make it sound like hundred enraged birds is having a shouting match.

Then there is a rustle near Dust who already has his muscles tense. The birds pass quickly over his head. Their black wings beating the air without emitting the slightest sound throwing their innumerable shadows on the ground and on his white face.

Splash!

the projected mud dirty the bottom of his pants.

-Still no lake.

Under the surprise his tongue was bitten.

Dust tastes blood in his mouth.

The adrenaline helps him talk.

-You could twist your ankle going down like this.

He quite like how they arranged their roles.

Suspicious climbs and he is the look-out.

So he has to make sure that the man does not handicap himself on a bad fall for thing to stay that way.

It is only after making this remark that he turns to his interlocutor.

- I brought eggs.

The boy looks at his blood red hair decorated with pieces of branches and then raise his eyes to contemplate the tree from which the man descended. The thing is high enough to twist ankles and neck if one fell on an unlucky day.

Luckily Suspicious waited until he was at an appropriate height to jump.

-Eggs?

His companion seems in a better mood or at least more approachable. Since he speak a bit more for some reasons eluding Dust. It's not as if their situation has really improved. Although he won't spit on eggs.

He classifies Suspicious as a mercurial character, changing his mood faster than a cat.

He may be temperemental but he is also accommodating.

Dust is grateful to him for climbing the tree each time without complaining.

If he can, he will repay this favor one day.

From his pockets the red haired man takes out four eggs, small, blue and speckled with black spots.

After only showing them for two seconds the tallest of the two puts his eggs away as if they were precious jewels in his pockets.

He walks and Dust follows him automatically.

-Let's find a drier place to cook them.

The brown-haired young man can't help but question him.

-Won't the smoke attract the savages from earlier? Couldn't we eat them raw instead?

Suspicious' icy eyes glare at Dust. The unfriendly look that seems to say "What is this heresy?"

- No, we'll disperse the smoke. (he add with more seriousness than he should have for this conversation) An egg is eaten cooked.

And lo and behold, under this statement he walks faster.

Dust with his smaller legs is struggling to keep up.

Finding a dry place in a swamp is not as easy as it seems. Dust takes the opportunity to propose his idea regarding the lake.

-We should climb the hill you saw earlier rather than try every taller than average tree we come across, or so I think.

In front of him Suspicious shrugs.

-If you want.

Their sticks hit the muddy ground. In one hand the red-haired man holds his lantern which seems to not burn out and in the other his stick.

With the bag hanging from his shoulder, he looks like a character from a fairy tale who ventures into a desolate land.

Dust hesitates, then gritting his teeth he decides to keep going.

-Excuse me (he pauses then breathes in to speak louder) but we're not going in the right direction.

-What?

One foot already stuck in the mini pond facing them Suspicious stops. From his profile his nose resembles that of Michelangelo's David,

and display an expression that Dust will qualify as confused.

-Yes, when you told me about it, you said it was on our left, and at that moment we were facing the sun...

The boy remembers it very well because apart from "no lake", "Dust" and "Someone needs to climb to see where we are" it's the only thing that Suspicious has deigned to say since he fished him out from the shifting sands. They look at each other in silence for a moment, then the smaller of the two sniffles in puzzlement.

The older one looks up to stare at the gray sky in daze. He takes a while to find it but he ends up seeing the sun in question too. He pivots on himself his face once again indifferent.

-I think you are better than me in orientation.

Dust nods but his companion doesn't see this.

The boy finds the situation a bit comical.

Still in a good mood Suspicious talk again.

- It will probably be necessary to go up in a tree again. Just to be sure that we go in the right way for the hill.

Dust manages to get back into the same cadence of the man side by side they walk. Without hesitation he dodges the task by taking the role of the look-out.

-Yes, I'll watch downstairs while you climb.

The blue eyes give him a new glance but this time they carry no judgment just curiosity.

Dust avoids his gaze and stares at the ground again.

The two walk side by side. Their clothes wrinkled, their shoes and pants dirty with mud.

Each with a bag and with a stick to feel the ground in front of them.

On top of all that Dust is the water carrier. He holds the half-cracked bowl as if it were the holy grail.

The water in it is now only enough for a maximum of two mouthfuls.

Like pilgrims of the Middle Ages lost in a cursed forest.

When Suspicious looks away Dust checks the leaves of the trees for cobwebs above their heads. And when he has finished checking that there is nothing

he looks between the trees to see if there are any suspicious shadows wandering there.

And to be sure that no danger will surprise them, he does not fail to look behind him as well.

Dust is more comfortable with Suspicious than he was before. Especially because this man talks to him now and because... well he saved his ass when he was in the quicksand.

He guesses that kind of thing brings people closer.

And that is why he contemplates for a long second the idea of ​​continuing the discussion but he quickly changes his mind for fear of seeming too sticky.

And although they talk together they both remain tense.

Their voices are so low that they are almost whispering for fear of attracting the few madmens who apparently live in these woods.

so he ends up thinking that making as little noise as possible when he can is the best step to take here

. It is precisely after he thinks about this that he coughs again. In his opinion, loud enough to be heard more than 50 meters from his position. At least this time his nose doesn't run.

While lowering his head he casts a guilty look at the man with red hair who seems to to be impatient since he says to him:

- There is nothing dry here.

He doesn't really know what to answer to that but Suspicious doesn't seem to be waiting for an answer either since he stops walking.

The man runs a hand through his red hair before adding:

-Can you look for the twigs who aren't too wet in the area?

It's the first time he's heard him speak so politely so under surprise and hunger Dust obeys him. He sets down the bowl with the water to search. This is how one looks for bits of wood on the ground while the other look in his bag to get the old bits of fabric taken from the cabin. With a wave of his hand Suspicious sweeps the surface of a large stone.

Then he places the scraps of fabric there and picks up the bowl of Dust to put it in the middle of the arrangement. After this he takes the eggs and with caution, that Dust would not have suspected coming from him, places them in the bowl of water. As the boy arrives with his branches, he notices that the water cannot completely cover the eggshells.

He opens then closes then reopens his mouth after deliberation and ends up expressing his doubt.

-Do you think we'll be able to cook them with this amount of water?

The taller of the two pays full attention to the branches. He arrange them in such a way that the whole thing seems to Dust to be a new nest for the eggs.

This observation only reinforces his perplexity.

Suspicious still has his back to him, some of his red locks sliding down his forehead to hide his eyes.

He only offers him a short answer.

-We'll see.