Luck in needles 2

In the forest, through which they walked all night and half the day there was nowhere to get lost. On the way, they saw no villages, no resting points and not even chapels, which were usually easy to find all around the world.

They didn't know how much longer it would take to reach their destination, but they didn't really care. Rue, feeling strangely happy after his nighttime experience with the fireflies and filled with the feeling of being a little closer to Ylre, kept smiling and continued his usual behavior.

Ylre watched him walk by him for a moment, then by the trees and by the water...watched him run up to him and ask if he ever saw the kind of flowers he spotted, if he saw the kind of animals he met. And Ylre always enriched him with knowledge of the species which hadn't been there two hundred years ago.

They walked for long hours, stopped at a few rivers, ate a few forest fruits and moved on. No one stopped them, and they had no reason to rest anywhere, since neither of them needed it yet.

The first person they met after a long time was a little boy who attracted them with his cry. Although Rue didn't know what was going on, he changed his steps towards the children's sobs while Ylre just watched him in silence. They reached a tall tree near the path, with a boy sitting on one of the branches.

He was clinging to the trunk in terror, as if afraid to climb down.

"Child, are you alright?" Rue asked, catching the boy's attention.

"H-help...help..." he whimpered, "help..."

"It's all right, just stay calm. What happened?" Rue didn't know.

"A bear," sobbed the boy.

"A bear?" Rue asked, looking around but didn't see any animals, "There's none here."

"There w-was...I climbed up and can't go down..." he cried.

"Ah," Rue understood, "it's okay...it happens," he smiled, "jump down, I'll catch you," he promised.

The boy shook his head violently and gripped the branch tighter, "I-I'm scared."

"You don't have to be," Rue promised, smiling softly, "or should I go to you?" He wondered.

Ylre beside him wordlessly approached the tree and simply put his foot into one of the holes in its trunk. In no time he climbed up to the branches and grabbed the child. The boy screamed in fear and held tightly to Ylre in terror. Without a word, Ylre climbed down and pulled the boy off of him.

"You're saved, go away," Ylre said and looked at Rue, "shall we continue?" he didn't want to hang out with a human child.

However, the moment Rue nodded, Ylre's dress was firmly grabbed by the boy, stopping him. One sharp look from Ylre made the boy flinch in fear before he approached the friendlier looking Rue next to him.

"Th-thank you," he muttered to Ylre, though from a distance it looked like he was more afraid of him.

"If you're down, disappear, we don't have time for you."

"Ylre," Rue sighed and bent down to the boy, "don't worry, he's a good person, he just doesn't know how to behave sometimes," he laughed, but Ylre didn't respond, "if you're fine, go home...do you know where is you house?" he asked.

The boy nodded and pointed in the direction they were going.

"If you want, we can take you home." he added.

The boy hesitated for a moment before nodding and lightly touching Rue's robe, which in his eyes was a more beautiful fabric than any he had ever seen in his life. As soon as Ylre realized that the boy was coming with them, he gave him a displeased look, but didn't speak.

They walked together, but it wasn't even twenty minutes before they got out of the forest to a more open space. In front of them was a vast meadow, end of which couldn't be seen. There were some houses, but the area was nowhere near what could be called a village.

Ylre stopped in shock as he just realized what a mistake they had made.

If the boy hadn't run to one of the houses and pulled Rue with him, Rue would have noticed something was wrong. However, he didn't notice and watched the boy. They got across the meadow to one of the houses. It didn't look like rich people lived in it. The boy ran into the house while Rue waited outside until a woman emerged from the door with more children. She looked at them in surprise while the boy explained to everyone what had happened.

As soon as the woman understood what her son was talking about, she ran to Rue and knelt at his feet gratefully, "Thank you...thank you, good sir..." it was clear to her from their clothing that they must be someone from the nobility or senior members of the church.

Rue blinked in confusion, "You're welcome...don't kneel...there's no need."

The woman stood up, "How will I repay you, sir?"

"My name is Rue, I don't need a reward...besides, I wasn't the one who saved your child," he looked at Ylre next to him.

The woman reached him and he began to thank again warmly, but Ylre didn't like it and just backed away from the woman in displeasure.

"No need...shall we go?" he asked Rue.

But Rue didn't have time to answer when they heard a voice from the house, "Jennet, where did you go?" The old man slowly came out and looked at the group of people in front of the house. He stopped for a while and raised his voice, "We've already paid the tax! Get out!" he shouted.

"No father, no..." the woman stopped him.

"They're not bad, grandpa!" the boy ran up to him, "They saved me...one looks scary, but he's said to be good." he clarified.

The older man visibly relaxed and walked towards them in confusion, "I'm sorry, thank you very much," he changed his words and looked at the people carefully before he came even closer in shock.

Rue backed away slightly as the guy approached his face inappropriately and when the man walked over to Ylre, he simply stopped him, "What do you think you're doing?" he didn't understand.

The old man looked at the couple in disbelief for a while, and after a while he said, "How is this possible?" He didn't understand.

"Is something wrong?" a woman came up to him.

"What's your name, boy?" the man asked Rue, who just answered calmly.

"Rue, my name is Rue," he smiled.

"Rue...and you're...you were..." he blinked as Ylre shut him up sharply with his own words so the guy wouldn't say another word.

"I'm Ylre," he stated as he knew they shouldn't be here, "we should go." he looked at Rue, who however was interested in the man.

"What's going on?" he didn't understand.

"How come you're still the same?" the man couldn't understand, "It's been fifty years...why do you look the same as you did then?" he didn't believe.

Rue blinked, "Fifty years? Have we ever met?" he asked, but immediately denied, "That's not possible, I've never been here."

"I have no doubt...your golden eyes...I would never forget...you saved my life," he declared, "and now you saved my grandson."

Rue, who didn't understand the situation, disagreed, "Fifty years ago, I certainly wasn't here," he smiled, "You are wrong...I was in a much more unpleasant place." he clarified.

"No no...it's definitely you," he said and held out his hand to Rue, but Ylre stopped him.

"Enough of that bullshits, old man," he growled with genuine anger.

"You don't recognize me either?" the man didn't understand, "Thanks to you I built this house...thanks to you I left Alycante and started a better life...don't you remember me?" he wondered, "What are you anyway?"

"Father...father, you're saying things again," the woman pulled him away, "I'm deeply sorry, my father is old, sometimes he doesn't think well." She clarified.

Ylre nodded wordlessly, "We should go."

Having no idea what was going on, Rue just nodded. They walked for a while as more confused words spewed out behind them from the front of the house.

,,Who was it? You think he really knows us," Rue didn't understand, "No, he can't...I wasn't here fifty years ago...and I didn't know you then." he clarified.

"He's an old fool, don't listen to him," Ylre said.

"But don't you think...it's strange here?" Rue looked around the spacious meadow.

"Strange?" Ylre didn't understand.

Rue stood in the middle of the grass for a moment, looking at several houses. He didn't know why it seemed to him that they weren't here once, another image flashed through his mind, a weird one that hadn't been in it before.

He ran his eyes over the stream of river that filled the space with a pleasant rustle of water and turned back to the forest from which they had come. In his mind, he saw a scene of lower trees than what he actually saw, he felt the taste of fish and the fresh smell of water, as if he recognized the river next to him.

He blinked for a moment incomprehendingly. For a split second, he saw himself by the water with a smile on his face next to the fire, surrounded by the smell of fish and happiness. However, a strange memory disappeared from his mind as quickly as it appeared in it.

He thought for a while, trying to connect the pieces of something he couldn't place anywhere with the surroundings he saw right now, but he didn't know how.

It was strange...familiar but unfamiliar at the same time.

"Rue?" Ylre snapped him out of his thoughts.

"Ah," he recovered, "yes?"

"Are you okay?" he didn't know what happened.

"Yes...I just...I just thought about what he was saying...strange, isn't it?" he laughed, "Fifty years ago...I wasn't here," he mused, "I wasn't."

At this moment, Rue had absolutely no idea that if Ylre was Lacrisan, it would be strange for him to even hear about him being alive fifty years ago. However, Rue still didn't really understand the whole world, so he didn't accept anything he said himself as strange. Anyway, he regained his composure and gave Ylre a look as if nothing had happened.

"Everything is fine... shall we continue?" he asked and stepped forward with a smile.

"Yes," Ylre began, walking along with him for a while until they reached the middle of a meadow with a long hill leading down, "but I have a feeling we took a wrong turn and ended up somewhere we weren't supposed to." he clarified looking at the familiar city in front of them.

Rue blinked in surprise at the wide city they could see from the hill. He practically didn't see the end as it spread everywhere it reached and by the time Rue came to his senses, Ylre added with a deep sigh.

"I think we're in Alycante," he knew.

"Alycante?" He blinked, "How? We didn't turn anywhere."

"I don't know...but we shouldn't be here at all," Ylre knew.

"Luck has plans for us," thought Rue.

"Luck has nothing to do with it...we didn't take a good turn somewhere," Ylre clarified, "we should go back and find where it happened...we must not stay in Alycante."

"No," Rue said, "Luck brought us here...there will be something for us," he smiled, "although it's dangerous here...if we've already arrived, we'll find out what awaits us here." he declared and moved forward.

Ylre stared in disbelief at Rue, who rushed into trouble without hesitation. However, Ylre didn't even have time to object when he had no choice but to catch up with Rue. Although he knew that they couldn't really be here, although there was no place less suitable than Alycante at the moment, he couldn't object.

Because just as Rue couldn't defy Luck's will, Ylre couldn't defy his...and now that they were here, the best thing he could do was protect them from the trouble in this Infey-infested city. And although he usually believed in himself, he was currently filled with doubts about whether he would be able to do it.

For though protecting Rue from the others alone would be easy, something else was at stake with their arrival here. The moment a confrontation happened, he knew that Rue would find out who he was, that he would find out what Infey wanted from him... and although Ylre was ready to destroy anyone, he wasn't sure if he can do it on time.

And if he won't...if Rue discovers his identity...everything he's worked for will be in vain. And he wasn't going to allow that.