All the better; all the worse . . .

[Nayt]

"Wh-- wha--" Akizets was about to ask, but stopped short the second she realized what Eld was talking about. What he was joking about.

If she weren't already blushing, Akizets would've started right then and there. Eld was . . . he was kind of acting weird right now, the same sort of weird that Noah acted around her before he went off to school-- except with Eld, she didn't feel too uncomfortable. At first, though, Akizetsumei felt the urge to shy back, clasp her key and retreat in on herself. She was afraid of something. What exactly, she didn't know-- but the type of fear, that she did know. It was an anxious one wrought with conflict.

It took all her willpower not to shy away. She took in a deep breath and was all smiles again, though was clearly as bashful as ever. She was suppressing a giggle almost every second. Akizets put her hands on her hips, puffed her chest out bravely, and regarded Eld with a confident but happy smile.

"Well I-- I dare ya to try!" Akizets exclaimed confidently, as if nothing Eld could ever do in his life would sway her heart and make her fall for him.

A bold faced lie.

[Zach Kaiser]

Eld laughed loudly; he couldn't help it. Here he'd been thinking he'd embarrass Akizetsumei a little by suggesting boys would be after her, then by suggesting that he might be after her. "You really are fearless, huh? Even Em gets a bit worked up if I tease her about boys liking her. Guess I can't win this one."

He scratched his head, smiling a bit bashfully at her. He was having fun, but being outdone by a girl three years his junior was mildly embarrassing.

"Anyway, you better protect that key, and don't lose it. Believe it or not, someday you'll want a boy to have it."

[Nayt]

Eld's compliment made her quite enthusiastic. If she'd lost any of her drive to go out and hike, she'd have regained it all in full force right now. Akizets actually kind of liked being brave and confident, even when sometimes it was all just a ruse. It wasn't even that she was a strong person. Pain scared her. The imminent threat of pain would have probably coerced her to curl up in a ball somewhere and hide from the world as a whole. She just had a bad habit of forgetting sometimes that there were imminent threats of pain, be they physical or emotional.

She calmed from what was about to be an energetic moment, however, and succumbed to thoughtfulness. Slowly, she nodded to Eld, but was not at all solemn about it. In fact, she still seemed fairly content with where she was now and who she was talking to.

"Y-yeah . . ." Akizetsumei replied. She no longer smiled playfully or confident-- she now smiled innocently and bashfully. Someday, there would be a boy she wanted to have this key.

Someday.

[Zach Kaiser]

Ah, to be young and innocent again. Not that he was particularly old or wise, but Eld definitely felt he'd lost his innocence somewhere along the line. Maybe that was why he hated looking at that old picture of him: it reminded him of something he'd lost.

That's pretty melodramatic; I should write that done later.

"So, do you have everything you need?" he asked Akizetsumei, in an attempt to call her back from outer space. He supposed he'd been a bit presumptuous when he'd assumed Akizetsumei was too young to be thinking about boys. He wondered if she had any that she liked...

Well, he could always tease her about that later.

[Nayt]

When Akizets spaced out, she really spaced out. She had a bad habit of getting her head in the clouds, and sometimes it took something like a snap of a person's fingers to draw her out of it. She imagined just then what it would've been like if she somehow managed to hand Eld this key. Would it be romantic? Would it be a surprise? Would he accept it? But-- no, no, it was way too early for those sorts of thoughts and she was totally too young to be giving her heart away willy nilly, anyways! Eld was just a cute boy that she happened to like, that was all. That was as deep as her affections went.

Eld snapped her back to attention and she checked her messenger bag. It was empty, which was good. She really didn't want to cart around a bunch of books today.

“Yeah I think this is—” Akizets began, but cut herself off before she could finish. She was forgetting something. She knew that much. "Ohright! I was gonna make us something to eat later!"

Without skipping a beat, Akizets started for the door to the back left side of the room. She swung it open without a thought and entered. For nearly half a minute she disappeared, until realizing again that she'd forgotten something. Only then did Akizets open the door enough to pop her head and shoulders out.

"Eldridgewhatkindasandwichesdoyoulike?" she asked hastily.

[Zach Kaiser]

"Huh?" It wasn't so much that she was fast as she was sudden. Before he could mount a coherent response she was already practically through another door. The rapid-fire speech didn't help matters.

"Oh, uh, anything's fine. I'm not picky," he replied after a few moments.

[Nayt]

"Okay then!"

So Akizets pulled back into the kitchen. In preparing them some eats for later, she picked virtually anything she happened to look at and find tempting.

She returned from the kitchen not a minute later, he messenger bag now full of various goodies for later. Having gone hiking before (by herself), Akizets understood how important it was sometimes to have something to eat and drink on hand. She had a good place in mind to go for the latter, but unless Eld planned on hunting furry woodland creatures for food (something that would have made Akizetsumei very, very sad), they needed to actually bring some food along with them. Hiking could really take a lot out of someone, after all!

"Okay so, um," Akizets thought aloud as she tried to recount all the things she might need. She couldn't name anything she was missing yet. "Are you ready to go?"

[Zach Kaiser]

Maybe I should have offered to help her make them. Granted, he meant it when he said he was fine with anything, but that was assuming Akizetsumei kept herself to normal sandwiches. Plus, given that Maya was the only one of his friends that could cook more than passably, he didn't have the highest faith in the ability of others to make edible meals.

Eh, they're sandwiches. I mean, it's not like she's going to put paint on them. I can choke it down even if it's something icky.

The fact that she returned quickly was a good sign. Disasters took time, right? "Yeah," he replied, stepping aside so she could get to the door. "After you."

[Nayt]

"Okay," she smiled up to him.

Akizets opened the door and held it open for Eld. Once he was out, so was she, and she wasted no time in starting their walk. Her goal was to go one a hike with this boy. There was a spot she always enjoyed visiting, a great spot to adventure to--and it was a bit of an adventure to get there. There was a good reason she decided to pack some food for them! First and foremost, though, they had to reach the tree-line of the village, where civilization ended and total and complete forestation began.

"So, um," Akizets started as she took the lead; she was walking in the direction of the Vaerbond ranch, but her direction was askew to the left. It'd take a few moments to get there, though. In the meantime, Akizets tried to think of something to talk about. "Do you go out into the woods a lot?"

It was kind of a silly question, but Akizetsumei didn't quite acknowledge how strange it was. To her, it was completely normal to go out hiking through the woods on a semi-regular basis.

[Zach Kaiser]

"Well, umm..." His first thought, given the direction they were heading, was to recall his brief sojourn their right after Akizetsumei's accident, where he'd seen the figure and the red eyes. Which was probably just his imagination, given that there'd been no sign of anything like that since then.

After that, his mind drifted back many incidents of being dragged there by Sarah for one reason or another. Usually with the rest of the group, too--though they didn't tend to go very far in unless they took a trip to the nearby lake.

"Every now and then, I suppose," he said at last. His favorite spot hardly counted, since it was just inside the woods behind his house, so he couldn't say he went there too often with any honesty, but he was familiar with them at least.

[Nayt]

"You should be just fine, then," Akizets replied as she looked back to him, smiling confidently-- confident that Eld would make it through a wooded area with no problems.

Eld seemed like a very strong and confident boy, anyways. He was probably a ton sturdier than Akizets, at least. That meant he could handle this without a doubt. Akizets stopped to think, though: Maybe this'll be too easy for him? But then again, she also hoped that it'd double as an excuse to spend some time with him, so maybe-- just maybe --he'd be able to see past how easy of a hike this was going to be by seeing it as a reason to hang out with her . . . or something to that effect. Akizets had high hopes.

Akizets led Eld to and past the Vaerbond Ranch, over to the tree-line to its immediate left. Technically, this was property of the Vaerbond family, but Akizets was not aware of that. Sarah probably wouldn't be upset with them taking a hike through her woods, anyways.

Inviting Eld to go past the tree-line first, Akizets put a foot down on the thick brush that dotted the edge of the tree-line. Just bull rushing into the forest would've sent someone through this brush and had them all kinds of cut up. Akizets motioned for Eld to go on in first.

The canopy was thick overhead and blocked out a good portion of light. Fortunately, though, while these trees were hulking and tall, they were spread enough to form something of a natural path betwixt and between them-- and at first, the terrain was rather flat. It was going to be flat for awhile, too, well beyond the area that Eld investigated after Akizetsumei's accident, an area they would no doubt pass through soon enough. It was one of the most open clearings this close to the tree-line, making it a great stop for anyone that happened to be passing through this area of the forest.

[Zach Kaiser]

Hmmm...this is pretty close to where we went after the accident. Eld wasn't too concerned about it being on Vaerbond property, since he knew the family well enough that they wouldn't have a problem with him being there. He was more worried about Sarah's warnings that the woods might be dangerous now--even hadn't been too keen about going too deep before.

But Akietsumei seemed to know where she was going, and if it was a place she'd been to before then it obviously wasn't all that dangerous. He was fairly certain she'd have mentioned running into predators or bad terrain or red-eyed shadowy figures-

Stop that, he ordered himself, forcing himself to remember that it had just been a mistake, a trick of the light.

[Nayt]

It wasn't long before the passed through the same area Eld examined before. Nothing had changed with it-- no footprints, no broken sticks, nothing. Even Eld and Sarah's footprints had all but ceased to be by then.

"I was actually, um . . ." Akizets trailed off as she looked up to the canopy. "I was kinda surprised, you know? When Sarah gave me directions to this place."

Akizets practically walked without looking-- and without realizing it, she was leading Eld through. The natural path to the woods seemed to jut and wind through gaps between trees, and Akizets traveled them like some sort of seasoned veteran. It was almost like she was walking through her house.

"'Cause I kinda come out this way a lot."

[Zach Kaiser]

They went through the small clearing area he'd searched with Sarah, and indeed it still looked perfectly ordinary. No shadows danced at the corner of his vision, no red orbs gazed at him in the distance.

"I can see that." Given what he'd seen of her thus far, she definitely moved with a purpose. She'd probably be getting jumping if she was lost and just trying to pretend to know where to go. They seemed to be following something of a natural path, but Eld wasn't sure he wouldn't stumble off it himself without her to guide him.

"I wouldn't be surprised if you knew these woods better than Sarah herself." Being the most outdoor-oriented person in his circle of friends by a wide margin, Sarah knew the region better than anyone else he knew. But he didn't think she ventured in here too often anymore, and certainly not very far in.

[Nayt]

"I-- I-- I don't think that at all," Akizets shook her head.

It was a nice thing for Eld to say, but Akizetsumei had only been traveling a few paths for a good while, and she rarely ever deviated from them. She'd been lost in the woods before. It wasn't fun. Likewise, she was limited in the places she could go. Namely places that required any significant climbing.

"There a toooon of stuff I can't do out here. A ton of places I can't go," Akizets affirmed confidently with a nod of her head, "'Cause I'm not really, um, I'm not really strong."

Akizets turned to face Eld. She continued walking, however-- just backwards for now. She held up one arm and lifted her forearm as if she were flexing. The girl was skinny all around. Her arms and legs were like thin pipes. She was short and scrawny, not at all built for anything requiring much upper body strength.

"See? No muscle at all," Akizets said as she nodded affirmatively.