And the World Shall Forget You

[Zach Kaiser]

It was an innocent enough question, but in his current situation it only set off Eld's mind in the exact opposite direction he wanted it to go. He imagined convincing her to go swimming, except that since they didn't bring swimsuits (as far as he knew), they'd just have to go in their underwear. And maybe later there'd be some activities that involved taking even that off...

No, no, stop it!

"S-Sure. Umm...I still need to get dressed, so why don't you try and think of something while I change?" He desperately needed to get into clothing that was more...restraining. Tonight he'd definitely have to sleep in normal clothes if he couldn't shake this mindset.

[Nayt]

"Oh. O-kay," Etsu replied.

Not that she thought she'd figure out the answer to that predicament and actually find something for them to do. Really, it was a travesty. Maybe they were better off as enemies. Etsu had a million and one ideas for things to go do back when she thought he was horrible!

Maybe Eld would think on it while getting dressed, though. That would be just superb, as there was a fair chance she wasn't going to come up with anything, despite the want to.

"I wir-rr be out-side," she said, before crawled out of the tent and leaving Eld alone to work on getting dressed.

He probably couldn't spend too long getting dressed, though. Otherwise she might start to worry about him-- or worse, become curious.

[Zach Kaiser]

When Etsu left the tent, Eld breathed a small sigh of relief. At the very least he could put on some real clothing, though he doubted he had enough time that he could try to calm down, let alone take the more...expedient solution to the problem.

He quickly found that letting Etsu pack most of his clothes was a problem. The shirt he ended up wearing was a bit old and rather small on him--tight enough that his form was fairly clearly defined through it. On the other hand, his pants were a wee too baggy and Etsu hadn't packed any belts, so they hung a bit lower on his hips than he would have preferred.

But he had to work with what she packed, and his main concern was with ensuring his little problem wasn't visible, so the other flaws in the clothing choice were kind of overlooked.

He emerged from the tent after just a few minutes. "Well, did you think of anything?" he asked. He'd been too preoccupied to come up with anything himself, though he did offer one condition that might help narrow it down: "We should probably stick within sight of the path, so we can see if our caretaker arrives."

[Nayt]

Etsu was standing before the Graveyard by the time Eld emerged from the tent. She looked over at him with a tilt of her head, only to find herself smiling on the inside. Oddly enough, that was actually a pretty good style on Eld. He wasn't stacked with muscles or anything, but he was pretty decent, at least. He had enough muscle feature to him that he could wear a tight-ish shirt and make it look good.

Unfortunately, though, she hadn't thought of anything in particular to do. Etsu solemnly shook her head. Of course, they were probably going to go to the lake. The lakeside path was the only sane way to go the graveyard, and it appeared to be the only way that had been taken with any degree of frequency.

It was way too morbid to spend the day in the Graveyard, anyways. Even Etsu was against that sort of idea. They slept nearby the Graveyard and that was enough for her. She didn't need to spend the rest of the day near this place. It might've started to creep her out if she did.

"Did you think of any-thing?" she asked, hoping that Eld had given the topic some thought as he was changing.

[Zach Kaiser]

"It's a shame we forgot our swimsuits, or we could go swimming," Eld mentioned in spite of himself. He had no intention of suggesting any of the thoughts he'd had earlier, but...well, maybe on the off chance Etsu was interested, she'd suggest it herself.

He mentally berated himself for such a hope.

Other ideas were limited. He imagined since they were here Etsu wouldn't just want to spend the day reading, and hiking around wasn't an option since they needed to be near enough to the trail to see anyone using it. And if Etsu wanted to spend the day fishing it would probably be the first thing she suggested, so he figured she was ready for something else.

"Well, we could take a walk. So long as we don't stray too far, it should be fine." That was about all he could come up with, and even that wasn't much.

[Nayt]

"Hm," she trailed off, "O-kay."

Taking a walk didn't sound like a bad idea. Maybe they could chat or something. It was going to be weird at first, what with Etsu at a loss for how to feel about Eld-- but she was giving him a second chance and was really trying to accept him in spite of all her prior feelings about him. So walking and talking was a good idea, then. She'd just have to pretend that she was trying to seriously get to know him.

Actually, come to think of it, there'd be no pretending involved. Etsu really didn't know that much about Eld. Trying to get to know him would be pretty easy, actually.

Going for a swim didn't sound like a bad idea, either. But like Eld said, they lacked bathing suits. Maybe there could be some sort of substitute, though? She'd give it some thought.

"Per-haps r-rater we cour-rd swim?" she said, before turning from Eld and starting towards the path.

[Zach Kaiser]

"W-Well, maybe, if we don't mind some clothing getting wet." He tried not to think about that; even fully clothed, with the shirt she was wearing Etsu would probably look...

Cut it out!

He started to walk down the trail, heading for the lake. He figured taking a walk around it would be the best course, since they could easily see across the lake if anyone was heading for the trail.

There were a few minutes of awkward silence. It was funny; he'd had no problem with them being around each other and not talking when she'd disliked him, but after last night he found it kind of uncomfortable. "S-So, I've been wondering...um...what's school like?" he asked suddenly. He immediately thought he sounded dumb, but it was better than nothing.

[Nayt]

"Schoor-r?" Etsu tilted her head to the side.

That was an odd thing to ask about, but . . . well, not too odd, she supposed. Eld's schooling was different, right? In fact, he was out of school, wasn't he? That was a strange thought for her, being out of school. The most break she ever had was during summer and winter, and they were far too short for her liking.

"It is . . . ar-rmost ar-rr year round of study," she replied.

Well, if he was interested in this topic, there was no reason why she shouldn't talk about it. Hopefully he'd understand, though. If there was one thing she learned from her own personal schooling, it was that people from outside of their culture frequently misunderstood. Not that Eld would judge her or anything. He was still willing to be around her after how mean she'd been to him, after all . . .

"We are sep-arate by boys and girr-rs. I go to the girr-r's academy," obviously, "Just r-rike ar-rr of my friends. And it is very expensive to be in schoor-r. Ano . . . and it is from what I hear very . . . broad to specific? I do not know what it is car-rred in your r-rang-u-age. But it is . . ."

She held out her hands as if to indicate one particular thing.

"In first year of academy," she said, "It is 'r-rang-u-age,' 'num-ber,' and 'pr-race.' And then every year it is more specific. 'R-retters and words.' 'Common' and 'Cizok.' 'Sentences.' 'Gram-mar and writing,'" she listed these as if going in sequential order from grade one and up, "And it goes untir-r year twer-rve. I hear it is . . . very tough."

Admittedly, this was something she wasn't terribly looking forward to. She liked the difficulty they were at now. They were dealing with mildly complex mathematics, world cultures, world history, high level Cizokian literature, and highly complex Common construction. She was good at all of this. But ahead of her was the history of global economics, ancient cultures, highly complex mathematics, high level Common literature, and linguistic deconstruction of the Common language.

As she explained, she made note that all students had effectively mastered their own native language by year ten, and then began in depth studies of the Common language of the world.

"I am onr-ry in year nine so I do not know every-thing," though she was afraid all this time away from school was going to get her held back a grade. "How is . . . schoor-r in Hir-rr-cu-rest?"

She really botched that pronunciation . . . but hey, there were certain Algerothian words that seriously eluded her knowledge of Common pronunciation. That was one of them.

[Zach Kaiser]

It was kind of odd to hear. On one hand, it sounded like they covered a lot more than the local school did, which he supposed was to be expected. On the other, it seemed like they didn't teach any kind of medicine there. He supposed it wasn't the kind of school that trained doctors, but as prestigious as the Greoulian schools were supposed to be he'd be interested in a quality school that was closer if one existed.

"Well...school's a bit less formal here. All the students study together, even multiple levels. And the year's divided into two sections. A year starts in the fall, then there's a break of a few weeks for the winter holiday, and then a spring section, and then we have almost all summer off."

That probably sounded strange to Etsu, so he explained. "The businesses in town here only make up a small portion of Hillcrest's population. Most of the town is actually farms, which stretch out quite a ways down the road--you probably saw that on your way in. Most farms have their kids help with the work, so during the summer when they're busy tending the crops they can't afford to have them in school all day." Ultimately, Eld was one of the exceptions in town, rather than the rule.

"And...honestly I get the impression our course work is pretty basic. We have arithmetic, language, history, geography, a little bit of science. And it's only five years of school--we're done the year we turn ten. Since I'm trying to get into college, I have to do a lot of studying on my own to make up for it. Especially since they didn't teach medicine beyond first aid..." So while Etsu might have thought Eld was lucky (or ignorant) for having so little schooling, he at least had to keep himself fairly disciplined even after graduating. Which explained the rather boring collection of books in his room, and why he spent most nights reading them before going to bed.

[Nayt]

"Souka . . ."

Indeed, that was a little hard to understand. But she had learned about those sorts of circumstances before, so it wasn't entirely out of the question as far as she was concerned. Cultures more interested in surviving and growing than they were in helping their children reach their full potential. Most of the world was like that. It wasn't what you could do later, but what you could do now.

Which reminded her . . .

"Do you have a job?"

That was actually a question that had been biting at her for awhile. Boys in her culture did not work until they were out of school, but for as long as she knew Eld, she'd known that he was out of school. Except she'd never seen him working before. And according to him, it was very common for kids to work in Hillcrest

Surely he was somehow employed.

[Zach Kaiser]

"Well, kind of," Eld replied. His employment status really depended on how one looked at the idea of working. "Like most kids around here I help my parents out. But the clinic doesn't exactly have regular work--lately they haven't needed me. Wait until flu season starts, though; I'll be busier than anybody."

Any time an epidemic hit, he'd often work from when he woke up to when he slept. Contrary to what one might think, his late hours were useful to his parents--when there were a lot of patients someone needed to stay up and tend to them at night.

"Of course, I'm no doctor yet. I'm only allowed to do the most basic things, though I've watched and studied enough that I bet I could do some things like stitches and setting broken bones. Otherwise, I end up being the errand boy a lot, doing shopping in town. I even get sent to Galaens once in a while." This was more work than it probably sounded; one of the reasons he was in decent shape was that the clinic bought supplies in bulk, which meant he could end up with heavy loads, especially when he went to Galaens.

[Nayt]

Well, that was respectable enough. Eld didn't seem busy right now, but he'd be busy in the next few weeks, probably. Maybe she'd be here long enough to see that. If so, hopefully she wouldn't be one of the patients that Eld had to care for. Etsu had gone under with a flu before. It wasn't fun. It could have killed her, in fact. She wasn't about to tell Eld about that, though. With her luck, he'd be set into worry mode, stop right there, and check her for symptoms right now-- even though it was a flu five years ago that almost claimed her life.

Nonetheless, Eld said something that struck her as odd.

"You r-reave town?" Etsu asked incredulously.

Well . . . of he course he left town. They had to leave town to come out to the lake (which they'd since arrived at, but had started to simply walk circles around). But he specifically left town to go to another town on a semi-regular basis. She hadn't seen him do it yet, but it was still surprising.

"We never r-reave town," she said, "When Ojisan came to get me-- that was my first time in Gar-raens and Hir-rr-cu-rest. But I was not in Gar-raens for very r-rong. It r-rooked . . . very big."

[Zach Kaiser]

"Well...yeah," Eld replied, looking a bit surprised. "I mean, it's just to Galaens, which I guess is a pretty big city, but yeah. It's only about twenty minutes away on horseback, so it's pretty common for people to visit there for business or special occasions, like holidays or dates."

"You've really never been outside your hometown before?" he asked. Sure, he didn't exactly get out much, but he at least visited another town fairly regularly and had been on small trips to other places (like Etsu's home).

[Nayt]

"Souka," she replied, then shook her head, "We do not of-ten have the time to. We are ar-rways very busy. It is ar-rso very far. It is much more than twenty minute."

It was about a two hour trip from Etsu's hometown to Hillcrest-- and that was on horseback. They were pretty far south, after all. So close to the Cizokian border that their town may as well have never been claimed by Algeroth. It was almost entirely ethnically Cizokian, to boot.

Something Eld said about Galaens caught her intrigue, though . . .

"Do you . . . go on many dates in Gar-raens?"

She couldn't help it. That just felt like absolutely vital information.

[Zach Kaiser]

Eld looked rather surprised, and almost didn't want to answer. But it wasn't as though he really had anything to hide. "A-Ah, not really. I've taken girls there a few times, but...not for a few years now."

Actually, he'd just taken Sarah there once or twice when they went out. When he'd been going out with Maya he'd been too young to go unchaperoned and her parents wouldn't have let her go with just him even if he could.

"Mostly I go there on errands for mother and father, or with friends once in a while." It was a little more common for a bunch of them to go as a group, and shop and eat up there.

Well...actually there was one time he'd managed to get Sarah and him a room at an inn for a special occasion, but he wasn't about to tell Etsu that.