Chapter 107: 108: Fresh fish

The water of the river rushes past them with a steady, strong flow. It is resoundingly quiet however, as the crashing noise seems to be absorbed by the densely packed forest surrounding them on all sides. It is close to becoming dark again and the four of them have opted to stop here for a while. Not for the whole night, as they needed to keep moving. But for a few hours at least to rest and to finally have a moment to breathe, all together.

Fresh sits at the bank of the river, her damp boots taken off and laid to the side to finally properly air out. The bottom of her dress is hiked up and she has her feet dangling down into the cool water of the river, staring at her own reflection which is waving back and forth on top of the rippling surface. Sparsely any sunlight remains that manages to shine in through the thick canopy. Instead, Basil’s lantern hovers high in the air above the tiny clearing, illuminating the entire space with a rather grim aura that seems to beckon in the dark night to come just a little faster.

Jubilee had forbidden her from trying to help get the small campsite ready, saying that she would just set the forest on fire and get them all killed. She lets out a sigh that then quickly turns into a long, deep yawn before it finishes leaving her throat. They had been walking through the forest for the entire morning and then the entire afternoon and then the entire evening. Fresh’s legs feel like slime. At the end of their march, she was basically dragging herself along to keep going and eventually Shamrock had to hoist her over his shoulder again, despite Jubilee’s protest to just leave her behind in the forest. Saying that she’d catch up if she really wanted to.

“You’re a lot of trouble, you know?” says Fresh, looking at the girl in the water who just shrugs back at her, looking just as exhausted as she feels.

Her stomach growls, her gut clenching together as if in response to her own statement. She flops backwards, leaving her feet in the water as she spreads her arms out over the grass and stares up at the tiny fragments of the dark sky that are still visible through the foliage hanging above them. Her hand grazes the fabric of her bag which is set to the side. Pressing a finger into it, she feels the many coins. A small fortune, which could buy them absolutely nothing out here.

“Water-water everywhere and not a drop to drink,” sighs Fresh in a sing-song voice.

“Don’t drink the river water until we figure out how to boil it, goo-brain,” says Jubilee, standing behind her and leaning over forward, their mask hovering above her face. “Especially now that you’ve tainted it with your goblin feet.”

“I don’t have goblin feet!” protests Fresh as she stares up, looking at Jubilee who stares back down at her, neither of them say anything further for a while. Perhaps both are too tired from the exertion of the happenings of this recent disaster.

“Thanks for not leaving without me,” says Fresh, breaking the silence.

Jubilee lets out a sigh now as well, their hard eyes softening as they pull back and turn away. “As if. I need you so that we can open a new store somewhere else.”

Fresh tilts her head back, looking at Jubilee’s back. “I’m sorry about your house.”

“Yeah.”

“I know it was important to you.”

“Yeah.” Jubilee looks back down at her. “It was our house. Not mine.”

“Jubilee,” calls Fresh out quietly, somewhat surprised and touched.

Jubilee rolls their eyes and turns back forward. Neither of them say anything further, listening to the water of the river as they watch Basil walk by, carrying a load of sticks for the fire that the man from the sect is starting. His giant hands are clasped around a tiny ember, like a titan nurturing a tiny, budding blossom before the breaking of the first spring of its life.

“It was about time anyways I think,” says Jubilee rather abruptly.

“Huh?”

“You have to bury the dead eventually, I think I waited long enough.”

Fresh stares at Jubilee, not sure what to say. She lifts a hand, grabbing hold of her friend’s leg simply for the sake of it. A loud growl rings out, breaking the quiet as Jubilee’s stomach rumbles this time. Fresh frowns and both of them sigh at the same time.

The clearing erupts into a bright, warm light as Shamrock pulls his metal gauntlets away from the newborn fire. His wild eyes, hidden behind the heavy helmet, stare intently at the tiny blaze, the orange light reflecting off of the besmirched metal of his body, painting the dark-cobalt with a kind warmth that seems oddly out of place on his frightening exterior.

“Wow!” says Fresh, the water splashing as she rolls over, pulling her feet out to look at the growing fire. “You’re really great!”

The man exhales loudly, the massive breath of his lungs pushing the flames to the side, almost extinguishing them.

“It’s just a fire, goo-brain. Literally every adventurer knows how to make a fire without matches. This is day one stuff.” Jubilee looks down at her and shakes their head. “But maybe it’s for the best that you don’t know how.”

Fresh gets up, letting go of Jubilee’s leg and she wipes off her dirty robe, heading over towards the fire with her boots and bag in hand. She looks up to the lantern above them. “Thank you! You can take a break now,” she says with a nod and smile. The lantern lowers itself down, floating back over to Basil who tenses up immediately as it floats at her side again.

“Does it have to float right next to me?”

“Mm!” says Fresh proudly, not picking up on Basil’s unease. “That’s what makes it great!”

“I see…” says Basil, looking at the spooky lantern hovering close to her head. The priestess tosses the bundle of sticks down next to the fire and looks at the man from the sect. He lifts his head, looking back up at her. Both of them stare at each other, perhaps wondering why the other is doing so, before they break their eye-contact and look back towards the steadily rising fire.

Glass shatters behind them, together with a loud splashing. “Jubilee!” calls out Fresh in surprise, worried that something had happened.

Jubilee stands at the bank of the river, staring up at a spear of glass that rises out of the river-bed. A large, glistening fish flops around on the end of the skewer. Impaled straight through the eyes. “What?” asks Jubilee, looking back at her. Jubilee snaps their fingers, sending a second spear out of the embankment that rips the body of the fish off of the skewered head, sending it flying over their way.

The mangled, decapitated carcass lands on the grass next to her. “You’re in charge of cooking. Clean it and get rid of any glass,” says Jubilee.

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Fresh looks around at Basil and the man from the sect and then points to herself. “Me?”

“You.”

“Are you sure? I don’t know if I can…”

“Yes,” says Jubilee, rolling their eyes. “I’ll see if I can’t get one or two more.”

Fresh rubs her arm nervously. She isn’t much of a cook and she’s never cooked fish before, let alone over an open fire. Another growl rings out quietly, just next to her and Fresh looks at Basil who stares down at the fire, embarrassed. The girl’s eyes wander back to the fish that is still somehow flopping on the grass, despite not having a head and bleeding profusely. It seems like a rather grim spectacle, but she supposes that it is what it is. Her friends are hungry and she can’t do much of anything, let alone anything right, but she can do this. She can try at least.

“OKAY!” yells Fresh excitedly and far too loud, jumping up to her feet and hurrying over to the fish. She still has a knife and a dagger in her bag if she recalls. Maybe she can do something with those.

“Don’t yell, dumb-ass,” says Jubilee, turning back to the water as the glass shatters and is carried away downstream.

“Okay,” whispers Fresh, grabbing the dead fish by the tail and lifting it up into the air. It continues to flop around, slapping against her arm. “I’m sorry,” she says to the fish that clearly can’t hear her anymore. But it makes her feel better at least. It’s like with Mr. Mushroom on her first day here. It isn’t anything personal. It just is what it is. Survival. Mr. Fish would understand, she’s sure of it.

Heading over to the water, she grabs the athame from her bag. It isn’t really meant for this kind of work, but she supposes that she probably shouldn’t use her cursed-dagger to prepare food. That seems like a bad idea, even to her.

Sitting by the water, she cuts a long, vertical cut along the belly of the fish from top to bottom and closes her eyes, holding the fish down beneath the surface. Gulping, she presses her fingers into its carcass and grabs everything squishy and gooey and pulls it out, tearing out all of the organs that she can identify, doing her best not to think about the gross sensations beneath her fingers. It’s for her friends, she’s doing this for them.

Pulling the gutted fish back out a moment later, she sets it onto the grass and takes the knife, pressing it horizontally into the open ‘neck’ of the fish and slices half of its body off, as she runs the blade down towards its tail. Lifting the piece of pink meat up, she stares at it with a rather unexpected feeling of deep pride in her chest. This thing in her hands certainly looks like a fillet. Smiling, she flips the fish over and repeats the movement for the other side, slicing the second half off, leaving only a long bone in the center and the tail. The fillets still have scales on one side of each of them and she considers descaling them, but maybe it would be best to leave these on? To protect them from the heat over the fire.

Returning to the water, she washes the two fillets off and pulls out any small bones that she can find in the meat.

She thinks for a while, wondering what she is going to cook these on? Should she skewer them on some sticks and just hold them over the fire? Or maybe she could find a big rock and just put them on-top of it? Hmm… she looks around, staring at Jubilee for a moment.

“Ah! Jubilee?”

“What?” asks Jubilee, looking back at her. Fresh tells Jubilee her plan, excitedly and Jubilee seems to think it’s workable and makes her a long block of glass that she then cuts into a long plank shape and sands so that it doesn’t reflect. Then she has Jubilee make two thick blocks of glass and sands them down as well using her craftsman abilities. Carefully, she rinses it all off in the river.

Carrying everything over to the fire, that only Shamrock sits down by now, she sets one block on either side of the small fire and then places the long glass ‘board’ down as a bridge over the flames. The light of the fire shines through the glass, filling the clearing with a strange, haunting light that glimmers like a swarm of dancing fireflies, as the flames move back and forth. Smiling, under the curious gaze of the man from the sect, she sets the two fillets down on top of the glass plank, with the scales facing down. The wet meat starts hissing with a satisfying noise almost immediately.

Basil emerges from the side, a bundle of plants in her hand. “I found some herbs, they aren’t the best tasting, but they’re good to eat,” says the priestess and Fresh beams in delight at her.

“Thank you, Basil!”

Clinking glass can be heard from the river as Jubilee catches another fish. Fresh can’t help but smile brighter despite everything that has happened. Maybe it’s because she’s tired, exhausted and even a little delirious, but looking at her friends, for the first time since her arrival, she feels like she really is on an adventure. The sun finally sets for the night, leaving only the aura of the soft flames and the smell of fresh fish in the air.

Razmatazz

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