The rain pattered down heavily in the dense forest that surrounded the cave that Lina and the others had taken refuge. True they were sheltered from the rain the fact still remained that it was still cold in the damp dark cave.
With the help of some magic they had managed to get a fire started but it was weak and small due to the lack of dry wood on handy. Everyone huddled near the fire trying to keep themselves warm with the meager flame while a lone figure from their group stood at the mouth of the cave staring out into the raging storm.
Rena didn't care for the cold. While the others shivered she didn't feel the deathly chill of the night air. She stood, silently staring at the scene before her. Since the storm brewed up everything was noticeably darker then it had been before. The darkness only interrupted by the occasional bolt of lightning. It was a real fierce storm that made Rena wonder how long it would be until it let up.
"Miss Rena, you should come over here near the fire!" Amelia spoke through chattered teeth.
Though Rena didn't need to keep herself warm like the others she complied and walked over to where the others were sitting. Sitting down her eyes darted, glancing at each of her current traveling companions. All of them were cold, even the monsters. Rena grinned mentally. She knew even though the barrier that had kept monsters out of this area was gone some of it's magic effects were still there. I wonder who made the barrier and sort of spell he or she used.
"Cold?" Rena asked with a half smile. Everyone glared at her with tired and annoyed eyes.
"Oh no not at all." Zelgadis said sarcastically.
"You mean you aren't cold at all Zelgadis? Wow you're lucky, I'm freezing right now." Garry commented.
Everyone groaned minus Gourry and Garry. No one was going to bother to explain Zelgadis' sarcasm to either of the two.
"So what are we going to do about watch duties?"
"I guess we just have to pick three people to take the shifts. Any volunteers?" Lina asked.
Everyone looked at each other. Most were either too cold or too tired to want to stand watch.
"I'll take first watch because I know I won't be able to fall asleep anyway even if I tried." Gavin finally declared breaking the long silence.
"Very well then I shall take second watch." Rena spoke soon after. She did need sleep like any normal person, but she didn't need as much sleep.
And back to the staring back they went. If no one volunteered soon for the last watch it would have to be decided by drawing straws. Rena got out some straws while everyone remained quiet.
"Are we going to draw straws or is someone going to volunteer?"
No one answered Rena and she just sighed. I'll give them one minute. A minute later Rena set the straws up and had everyone pick a straw. And Ameria ended up with the short straw.
"I ended up with the short one?!?!" Ameria whined pouting a little.
"Well it was fate I guess." Lina commented with a sly smile. Ameria gave her an annoyed glare.
An hour later everyone was asleep on the cold cave floor. Gavin having the first watch was the only one awake.
He shivered, wrapping his cloak tighter around himself. Since he wasn't used to traveling like the others, he wasn't used to being out in the cold like this. His home country was usually very warm and was never really too cold out. He wasn't sure if he could ever adapt to the weather very well or how Lina had managed to.
Gavin's eyes focused on the sleeping form of his older sister. He was happy that he had the chance to help her out on this little quest. He had missed her terribly since she had left home. When Lina left Gavin had no more defense to the wraith of Luna Inverse.
Gavin didn't like Luna. Luna was mean and cold to everyone around her. And she was scary. Luna was freakishly strong (but then very few Inverses weren't freakish strong) and she wielded a bigass sword, which she knew how to use very well. She liked inspiring fear in others. And like many others Gavin was afraid of Luna. But never before had Luna ever laid a hand on Gavin. Even when Gavin had went shooting his mouth off saying things that only a suicidal person would say to Luna. How? Because Lina had never allowed Luna. Lina made damn sure that Luna didn't do much as lay a finger on Gavin. Granted Lina could have been a crappy older sister to Gavin like Luna had been to her, but she choose not to.
But then when Lina had left to go traveling on her own Gavin was left defenseless. So after Lina left Gavin had to be extra careful around Luna.
It wasn't only the safety from Luna that Gavin had missed; he missed being around Lina. Lina always knew how to make boring days interesting or how to make Gavin happy when he was sad or depressed.
Gavin smiled and his eyes traveled over to another sleeping form, Rena. Rena was a mystery to Gavin. He knew that it wasn't weird that Lina and Rena's personalities differed from each other. But he had never thought that their personalities would be that different. They seemed like they were almost opposites of each other. And what was weirder was that the descriptions that he had heard of Rena from a year ago matched more of Lina's personality then it did Rena. It's almost like she went through some really bad experience. But what? Gavin frowned. He hadn't a clue to explain it.
Hours later Rena was woken up for her watch. Immediately after Gavin had woken up Rena, Gavin fell straight to sleep. Poor kid must be really tired. Rena glanced at him with a sad smile. She could see that even in his sleep he was shivering like mad. Gavin was more cold then anyone else there. Looking around Rena decided that it was safe enough and she took off her dark cloak and placed it over the young time mage. Her smile broadened a bit as glanced at Gavin. As soon as Rena had placed her cloak over him, Gavin immediately in his sleeping state wrapped himself up in the cloak very tightly. She shook her head slightly. The truth was Rena was a bit envious of Lina. In this world Lina Inverse did not have a younger brother named Gavin. All that Rena had in the way of siblings was her older sister Luna. She wondered what it would have been like to have a younger brother or sister. Would I have enjoyed having a younger sibling? Lina seems to have quite a bond with her brother. I guess I'll never really know.
Rena sighed as she sat back down on the ground. An icy cold breeze gushed through the cave but Rena did not shiver.
Gavin was the first one to wake up that morning. The bright sun shined into the cave blinding his eyes as he strained to open them. Adjusting to the harsh brightness Gavin was surprised to see Rena not Ameria awake.
Rena sat with her back facing the group staring outside the entrance of the cave. Gavin was going to ask her why she didn't wake up Ameria up for her watch when he noticed that Rena wasn't wearing her cloak and that it had been wrapped around him instead.
"Awake huh?" Rena asked without turning her head, her gaze still fixed outside.
Gavin was startled and blinked a few times. "Um yes... I'm awake." Gavin got up and went to sit down next to Rena. She had one of her bottles of red wine out and was taking the occasional swig from it.
"How did you sleep?" Rena asked still looking straight ahead.
"Well enough I guess. Um Rena...?"
"You want to know why my cloak was on you like a blanket. Well it's pretty obvious you aren't used to sleeping conditions like this. You were very cold last night and I thought you'd benefit from it." Finally she turned her head to look Gavin in the face.
"Thanks. But weren't you cold?" He asked while handing her back her cloak.
She took it and put it back on relieved that she had it back on. Rena had spent so much time in that cloak trying to hide her identity that she didn't feel quite so safe without it on.
Probably silly too because he probably can tell whom I am even if I'm wearing the cloak and hood. Rena thought bitterly. "No. The cold doesn't phase me like it does others." She returned her gaze to the scene outside. Everything was dry outside like as if it had never rained the night before. And just like the day before it was hot.
"Oh."
A silence swept over the two of them. Neither spoke because neither had much to say. It was a very odd feeling for Gavin. Normally Lina and him would be able to talk to each other easily with no troubles, but with Rena it was a different story. He found it uncomfortable even being around her.
"Um Rena...?"
"Yes?"
"Why didn't you wake Ameria for her watch?"
"Guess I just lost track of time." Rena spoke in a neutral tone even though she was mentally grinning. She had no intensions of waking up Ameria for her watch. She knew exactly how much sleep she needed which was one of the reasons why she wanted to take the second watch.
"Aren't you tired?"
"Nope."
Silence again.
"What about you Gavin? You didn't exactly get that much sleep either."
"Nope I'm fine."
"So when do you think they will wake up?" Rena looked over to the others. Most of them were peacefully sleeping except for Garry and Gourry whom were both snoring very loudly.
"I have no idea."
Later on everyone finally woke up and was both relieved and disappointed that the storm had passed. Relieved that it wasn't raining and they would be able to continue their trek, disappointed because without the storm it was back to being overly hot.
"So what are we going to eat for breakfast?" Gourry asked with his stomach growling right after.
"Hmm... let's see..." Lina went fishing through their supplies picking out this and that for the group to eat.
Rena blanked out staring off into to space not listening to what was going on. It wasn't until she had Lina right in her face that she snapped back into reality.
"I'm sorry what did you say?"
"I said even though you may be feeling sick you should still eat something!" Lina said with a snort. Rena was handed a few rolls with filled with various things. Rena made a sour face but she was forced to eat anyway.
It took most of Rena's control to swallow the food and not gag or spit it out. And after she consumed the rolls Rena felt like she was going to be sick.
As they got up to go continue their journey to the temple of healing they were searching for Rena a few gulps of her wine when they didn't see. She quickly stuffed the bottle into her cloak.
Like they had the day before they followed the map with Rena guiding them. Only unlike yesterday there was a problem. Before Rena had been able to more or less direct them through the path towards the temple, but after the fiasco from last night Rena was having trouble directing them. So in fact they were lost.
What had happened was that after getting out of the cave Rena was disoriented. They had taken a detour to get to the caves but she was sure where the temple was from where they were. They couldn't even backtrack because they couldn't remember how they had gotten to the caves in the first place because of the sudden storm.
"I don't want to alarm any of you, but we might be lost." Rena said in a very calm and cool voice.
Lina didn't. "WHAT DO YOU MEAN WE MIGHT BE LOST?!?!?!??!" Lina down right screamed that out. But then again Lina was tired, hot and annoyed from the journey thus far so the though to f being lost wasn't a pleasant one for her.
"If only if that storm hadn't happened last night." Rena muttered. Though there were lost something was nagging at the back of her head. She could remember that there was something special about the forest when you got close to the temple only she could remember what.
"Well we have two options ahead of us. One we could keep going and hope that we find our way back on track. Two we could all sit around for a little while and try to figure out where we are on the map and where we need to go. I say we go with option number two. What do you guys think?" Zel looked to everyone in the group. They nodded in agreement.
A few hours later they had chucked option number two and was proceeding with option number one. The map was too damned old and none of them could make heads or tails of it. Rena was the only one whom even had the slightest bit of understanding of the map, but she was confused. According to what she saw on the map they should in fact be at the temple, but instead they were surrounded by dense forest.
"I'm starting to get sick of seeing trees..." Lina grumbled.
"Don't worry Miss Lina I'm sure that we'll find the temple soon enough." Sylphiel said in a cheery voice. Lina almost facefaulted from her overbearing optimism. Though Lina wanted to, she refrained from commenting. She didn't have any energy to.
"It almost seems like the forest has a mind of it's own and is making us lost." Zeros mused with a smile.
"THAT'S IT!!!" Rena exclaimed.
"What?"
"I remember now. The more the lost you are, the more closer you are. It was a riddle that I was told the first time I went out here. This forest is enchanted as you already noticed from the odd weather and other things. Well as an added defense the followers of the temple put a special spell on the area surrounding the temple. What happens is if someone is close to the temple the forest around that person will change around them without them knowing making it appeared to the person that they are lost. The more closer you get to the temple the more the forest reacts around you." Rena slammed her fist into her palm with a triumphant smile.
"My that is interesting. But tell me Miss Rena how do we manage to avoid the effects of the spell. And why does the spell still work after all the temple's followers are long dead?"
"Well the spell is sealed into an item around here somewhere and if it's broken then the spell should stop. As for avoiding it, well the last time I just flew over head at this point and I managed to find it."
Everyone was quite for a minute.
"What do you think the chances are of finding the item that the spell is sealed into?" Zelgadis asked Rena.
"Honestly, very slim. I haven't a clue what the item could be. We could be searching for months and not find it because we wouldn't know exactly what we would be looking for. And even if we did find it I wouldn't want to destroy it. It's here for a reason. Without the spell the temple would be defenseless."
They were silent again thinking exactly about what their options were. They had tried to avoid flying so far, but they didn't know what the risks were if they did decide to fly just for that short time. They could end up with something bad happening or nothing could happen.
"What about using magic on the trees?"
"You mean destroying the forest? That wouldn't work either. There's a reflected spell as well put on the trees and area surrounding the temple. If you cast a spell -- "
"It's reflected right back at you. Well then the only thing I can think of is flying over. But it could be risky. But given what our options are I say we just go for it." Lina tiredly sighed.
Since no one disagreed with Lina they flew over, Sylphiel and Lina carrying Gourry and Sylphy and Zelgadis carrying Garry.
Once over the trees and on the ground they were surprised to see what they saw before them. What they saw was what appeared to be a small mountain but on one side of the mountain it seemed that a structure had been carved right into the rock face.
"Well we're finally here. This is the temple of healing."