For days, Vyth and I travelled the dense forests that surrounded what once was our home. We didn’t know where we were going. We just wanted to get as far from those humans as possible. A brown leaf fell in front of me. Soon, it was going to be fall. We needed to find some kind of shelter before winter came. Vyth snapped me out of my distraction by holding out a hand in front of me. We seemed to have heard something. I listened closely. It was faint, but it seemed to be headed our way. It was the sound of something rolling down a rocky path.

A cart perhaps. Vyth was on edge. He likely thought it was some big creature stampeding towards us. I assured him it was fine and started looking for any roads. The cart could get us to a settlement. I didn’t like the idea of going anywhere near humans again. But, it was our best chance of finding shelter. We had snuck around a village on edge and on the lookout for us before. One without such an extra difficulty should be easy, right?

“Hey, Vyth”, I asked, “Can you climb up that tree to spot the cart?”.

Vyth nodded and quickly went up. “Yeah, I think that’s it!”, Vyth yelled down.

“What are the people controlling it like?”

“Humans…”.

He said that with such disgust and hatred in his voice, it caught me a bit off guard.

“What are they wearing? Are they like the ones we fought?”.

“No, no armour. They’re more like the people from the village. Just different colours”.

This is a medieval-like world, so that would likely mean they have a higher status. Perhaps nobles? My train of thought was cut short. The sound was now really close and you could hear the hooves of the horses clacking on the road. Vyth jumped down and we both hopped in a bush, waiting for it to pass us by.

The cart was only traveling at a leisurely pace, so it wasn’t too much trouble to get on it. As it passed us, I could see three human men and a bunch of boxes and crates. Once it passed we hopped on from the back and hid behind a crate, large enough to block out the sun for us. These guys were likely merchants. They had better clothes than the villagers, but nothing too fancy. One was sleeping, another driving the cart and the last was just staring into the treeline. It’s a miracle that the last one didn’t see us.

We stayed on the cart until sunset. They stopped somewhere by the road, pulled the cart off of it and set up camp. Meanwhile, we snuck away and set our own camp. Vyth kept eyeing them with the same look he gave earlier, but didn’t go further. He knew we needed them for now. As we sat around the fire, Vyth threw me an apple.

“You know what this is?”, he asked.

“Yeah, it’s an apple. A fruit that grows on trees. It should be edible”.

He sniffed it. His eyes were locked on it. He hesitated, but eventually bit into it. There was a second of silence, before Vyth practically burst with joy, yelling out: “It’s soooo good!”. I quickly got up and snapped his jaw shut. I listened for any sounds coming from the human’s camp. I could hear faint laughter, so they probably didn’t hear it. I let go of Vyth and sat back down. He immediately began tearing into his apple. I hadn’t seen him that happy in quite a while. I took a bite of mine as well. It was good, but more importantly, it brought back memories of my former life. A life I had been slowly forgetting. They weren’t notable memories. Just moments of eating with my family or fighting with my sister. But, they were precious nonetheless.

“You good?”, Vyth asked. I snapped out of it and felt that a few tears had rolled down my cheek. “Yeah”, I replied, “I’m fine”. He gave a nod, seemingly understanding. He laid down, looking into the star filled night sky.

“We should probably sleep, so we can wake up before they do”, he said.

“You’re right. Goodnight”.

“Goodnight”.

When morning came, I woke up to stinging eyes. Some sunlight was getting through the foliage and hitting my eyes. I should’ve picked a better spot. I got up and retreated to the darker shadows behind me. No sounds were coming from the merchant’s camp, so they were likely still asleep. Vyth was gone. He picked an even worse spot than me, so he probably was already up. I decided to check out their camp. Maybe there was something useful.

Once I started getting close, I slowed down and tried to be as quiet as possible. They were still asleep, but likely not for long. They were in direct sunlight, so getting close was definitely no option. The cart was in the shade, however. I looked through it for a while. They were mainly taking food. The large crate we hid behind was filled with apples. Another, smaller one next to it was filled with berries. There were a couple of sacks as well, likely carrying things like grain. I took a few apples and went back to our camp.

As I got back, Vyth was roasting two squirrels he caught.

“Caught us some breakfast”, he said.

“Same here”.

I threw him an apple and sat back down. He looked overjoyed and immediately began eating, forgetting to tend to the roasts. I took over duty. After we finished our food, we began hearing the merchants preparing theirs.

“Are we going with the same plan as yesterday, or should we hop on the cart now?”, Vyth asked

“The same plan won’t work this time. They’ll be more attentive. We could empty the crate we hid behind and hide in it”.

“The one with the apple?! Why not another one?”.

“None of them seem big enough for both of us”.

“But…”.

“We don’t need to fully empty it. We can leave some for the road. We can’t eat them if we’re in another crate”.

His expression quickly changed from worry to determination. The plan was settled. We snuck to the cart and began dumping most of the apples. We spread them and made sure all of them weren’t directly visible. After that was done, we got in and closed the lid. It didn’t take long, before the merchants got in the cart and prepared for departure. The cart began moving after everything was ready. I let out a sigh of relief. Part of me was worried they were gonna check their cargo before leaving.

As we travelled, they began speaking. It sounded like the same language the villagers were using. I could even recognize some words, though I had no clue what they meant. I tried using the language spell I learned from that Elf wizard. I hadn’t been able to practice it, since I forgot the scroll back in our old nest. I closed my eyes and focused. I began reciting the words slowly, making sure I remembered them correctly. Vyth bopped me on the head, stopping me midway. He shook his head in disapproval.

“How did you know?”, i whispered.

“I recognized some of the words. How could I forget after last time”.

“But…”.

“You can use it all you want once we’re outside again. They won’t stay silent when camping again”.

“Fine…”.