“Impressive,” I said.
“You told her you didn’t want to dance, she should have stopped at that,” she said and shook her hand.
“Were you worried about me?” I asked with a little positive sarcasm in my voice.
“More worried about what you would do to her,” she laughed, “lets get out of here.”
We walked out of the common hall and heard yelling behind us, “HEY! WAIT UP!” it was Levente.
We stopped and waited for him to catch up to us, we weren’t walking back. “You travel right?” he asked.
“Yes, we do,” I said.
“I want to give you something,” he said, “It used to be my mother’s, she traveled a lot. Come with me!”
“We don’t want anything Levente you’ve been nice to us,” Noemi said, as she took the rein to her horse and I took mine.
“No please! It’s going to waste, it’s a tent I figured you could use it,” he said. I felt bad for him, speaking a simple sentence was so hard for him.
I looked over at Noemi, who shrugged then we followed Levente back to his home. He walked around back and came back around holding five posts, one longer than the rest, wrapped in something beige in color.
“There are five posts here, the outside are hides from my mom’s many hunting trips. It’ll keep you dry in the rain and there are two holes, one on each side of the center posts, that way you can have a fire and the smoke has a way to leave the tent.”
I felt weird he was just giving us a tent, so I decided to ask him a question, “Would you like to come with us Levente?”
His face lit up and he chuckled, “No, no, no I’m slow, I have no place outside of here. I would get myself killed or get you two killed. I thank you though!”
I strapped the tent to the side of Sabor who didn’t mind its weight. I minded the fact that my leg straddled it and made it somewhat uncomfortable to ride Sabor. We waved to Levente and took left, some of the townspeople shouted at us to stay, but we simply said others needed our help.
I wasn’t worried about helping others, even though they took my gesture of killing of the vampires as helping them, when I was helping myself. I felt a rush when I killed them, I pictured each on as Derium. It wasn’t the Derium whose head I buried, but the Derium from the night I was taken advantage of. The one with the smirk on his face, like he was enjoying what was happening to me.
We traveled, we didn’t know where to, but we traveled on a path that wasn’t taken much. We traveled a few hours before Noemi broke off on a bathroom break as I stood guard. We traveled a few more hours before Noemi wanted to stop and set up camp, which I did. Levente meant well, but he didn’t pack a rock or hammer of sorts or way to drive the spikes that made the tent taut. I used my bare hands to do it, while Noemi went off to gather food, she snacked on the fish from days ago, but I didn’t care too much for it.
The tent was a decent sized, something told me Levente’s mother done more than hunt in the tent. It could easily hold four or five people and she traveled a lot. I used a little bit of my speed to scout the area for graves, which I should have done before I set up the tent, but I wanted to see the tent set up. When I got back, there was a small pig and a chicken hanging up outside the tent in a nearby tree. I could smell and see smoke rolling out of the top of the tent. I went inside and there stood a naked Noemi.
“I’m sorry,” I said and turned my head.
“You’ve seen me naked before, don’t be sorry,” she said and smiled, she turned and faced me like it was no big deal, “This is how I walked around my hut when I had it.”
I turned my attention back to her as she brought out her small bag of spices from her pack and looked saddened, “I’m almost out of spices, this is sad, we need to find a market.”
“We have no money,” I said, but thought quickly, “Maybe we should start getting things we need from the people we help?”
“That’s not a bad idea, because if you go up in flames again, you’ll have to walk around naked.”
“You don’t seem to mind,” I laughed a little.
“You should try it,” she laughed.
“Maybe when I bathe, other than that, I think I’ll be fine.” I said. She shrugged and went on her merry way, naked around the tent, she went out and brought back the baby pig that was gutted and skinned.
“How did you catch them?”
“The piglet thought I was friendly, and I was until I slit it’s throat, then the chicken, well I hit it with a rock, then snapped it’s neck,”
“You are a brute,” I laughed.
“A brute that looks good and can cook,” her confidence high.
“True there,” I said and watched her work.
She cut the piglet up into small pieces, taking a thick section off the side of the back, that I later and I mean later, learned was the loin. She, then spatchcocked the chicken
