Hunting For Lies

The next morning, as I woke up, I found the place a whole lot quieter and peaceful than last night. There wasn't anything to like about that peace. I slipped out of my warm bed, feeling the dry cold on my skin, as it made me sigh, I went downstairs.

I had passed out before dinner last night and had to be roused up. To my dismay, it was the blandest stew in all existence and I'd rather have stayed asleep. I simply couldn't understand how the owner took so long to cook something that tasted this much like boiled water. I held my disappointment in and dined in silence before dozing off. I think it was Lubbock who carried me to my room and dumped me on my bed. I did sleep like a baby, so I was feeling quite refreshed now.

As I went towards the bar where the owner was cleaning glasses all alone in silence, I noticed the lamp in the window had no light.

"Mornin' son", he greeted me.

"Morning", I answered.

The windows were fogged up and it was still rather early, so it wasn't exactly bright in here, despite Agartha being so high up.

"Your brother up yet?", he asked.

Oh right, I remembered, Lubbock and I were supposed to be brothers.

"No, not yet", I answered shortly.

"So tell me, what made you decide to come up here now of all time?"

"Well, er...the truth is, our father died recently. We wouldn't have come up here if it wasn't his wish. You see, the two of us don't even remember much of any of our life here. We were too young when we left. But that house meant something to our father, so...it just felt like this had to be done. He'd wanted to come here himself but he was sick for such a long time, it wouldn't have been possible."

"Oh, well I'm sorry to hear. But how do you intend to find your place if you don't even know anything about it? I don't want to sound this way but...I can't put you up forever, with our resources running thin like this. You understand, don't you?"

Of course, I understood. I could almost still taste that tasteless stew in my mouth, I knew there wasn't much cooking for him.

"We'll head out today, I hope we don't have to stay long either. Ah, I didn't mean any offense by that."

He nodded and then delved back into his cleaning.

"Isn't your granddaughter here yet?", I asked after a long awkward silence.

"My granddaughter?"

"Ah...perhaps your daughter, I meant Serena."

"Ah Sangmu! She isn't anything to me", he chuckled, "She just works here."

"I see and that, erm...", I wasn't sure how to talk about Miss Traveler, "That lady that's staying here. Is she, well, a traveler?"

"Hmm, she arrived a weak before you lot. A good young girl that one, wouldn't say her name. I didn't get into asking her anyway. Sangmu enjoys having 'er around."

Just then, the door opened and the lady herself walked in. She had her face covered and was breathing heavily.

"I shoveled all the snow, old man", she said removing her mask, "The roof too, it's all clear...for now."

Snow? I was surprised to hear it. Apparently it had snowed all night last night and quite heavily too.

"Thanks for your hard work, you're really a god send."

The owner was clearly glad to have her which only made me feel bad about us. Lubbock was probably beyond hope, as childish as he was. In the end, it came down to me to earn us a place here.

"Well, I'll be heading out to hunt or something, don't worry about my breakfast", she said before looking over at me, "Hey Seraph, if you're feeling alright, wanna tag along?"

Here was my chance to be useful, I jumped at the opportunity. But hold on, did she just call me Seraph? I was pretty sure we hadn't given out names yet. That meant only one thing, Lubbock must have chattered wildly last night. I wonder what else he had said, I hope it wasn't something that didn't align with my story. I definitely needed to talk to him when he woke up. For now, I was all ready to go with her.

"Not so quick though, better get you some warmer clothes before you freeze out there", she answered.

Soon, the two of us headed out. The owner lent me some of his clothes from way back in the day. I felt pretty secure even as we headed out in the snow. Indeed, the snow was at least a feet above the ground and it was hard to walk in some places.

"So, what are we hunting out here?", I asked her, as she led the way.

"Well...", she stopped to ponder for a second, "Not sure, anything we can find would do."

It only dawned on me now that I was given quite a bit of time to prove to her how useful I was. Take it as a masculine instinct, but every man thrives for a good show in front of a pair of beautiful eyes. I had to look good in front of that lady. That was about all I was aiming to do right now. I was a good hunter. Since I was such a loser as a kid, I was left alone most of the time. Without magic, I had to rely on little hunting games. Birds were my specialty. All in all, I was confident I'd get to show off my abilities in front of her.

We walked here and there for a long time, chattering a while about this and that, useless things, concerning neither her nor me, just what we saw around us. Soon it became quite apparent to me that there was no game in that place. There wasn't even any vegetation left after the snow, so we were bound to return empty handed at this point. I was rather disappointed that I didn't get to do anything.

"Hey Seraph", she said stopping in one place, examining an abandoned hut, "Why did you lie to the owner?"

I was stupefied for a moment. Had Lubbock told her? He wasn't that stupid, or was he? In any case, it was apparent to me that she was onto something. There wasn't any point in denying it.

"How'd you figure?"

"Well, you two certainly aren't brothers. You didn't come up here together."

Did it mean she had been watching us from way before she met us? Was she the one that saved me...? Or was she the shadow I was following? The latter seemed unlikely. But I thought I could get a confession out of her if she really was my savior back then.

"We started out together", I said.

"But you didn't come here to look for a house, did you?", she asked, with an unimpressed air about her.

My silence was enough answer for her. I couldn't egg her on to say any more. And she didn't seem to think much of this either.

"Hey, let's go down a little, we might find something better", she proposed as she strode off.

As impressive as I had wanted to look, I was left even more embarrassed but it wasn't yet over so I tagged along silently.