Chapter 208: 209: Slog

The desert is hot.

Fresh lays there, splayed out over the bench of the cart and several boxes, her right leg is kicked up one way and her arms dangle the other, swaying limply as the cart rolls on down the road, as if she were already dead. She has given up fanning herself with the paper-fan that she had made only the day before. It’s too hot. Using the fan just somehow made her even warmer.

One of the fairies has access to water magic and another one can use ice-magic, but the two of them are at odds with each other over the Pentti-incident and refuse to cooperate, even if they could combine their spells to offer a pleasant cooling effect. The same goes for the wind-fairy, who had been a part of the execution.

“Told you it was hot,” says Jubilee, staring at her almost upside down head that hangs off the side of a crate. “You’re gonna break your back if you keep lying like that.”

“I think it’s already broken,” sighs Fresh. “Jubileee~ I’m meeelting~”

“Should I help?” asks Shamrock. Fresh yelps, sitting straight back upright in an instant as if this were some deadly threat. She doesn’t want to be shaken out again. That hurt a lot.

“No, thank you!” she beams, doing her best to sit upright and straight. But she doesn’t manage, her body sagging and drooping again, as if she really was a melting slime, sliding down the bench. “It’s so hooot~”

“It’s a desert. Don’t know what to tell you,” sighs Jubilee. “You’ll get used to it.”

“Aren’t you guys warm?” she asks, looking at the others. Shamrock is sitting perfectly still, his armor not moving an inch, as if it were simply sitting there as an entirely empty shell. But otherwise, he shows no signs of discomfort. Jubilee is leaning to the side, unsuccessfully trying to push her sweaty face off of their leg without actually touching her, saying that she’s gross. Fresh protests this insinuation by rubbing her sweaty face all over her friend. “You’re gross now too, so you have to let me stay here.”

“Fuck off!”

As for Basil, the priestess almost seems to be enjoying the weather, having rolled her sleeves and the bottom of her robe up to get some sun on her arms and legs. “Would you like to sit up front?” she asks. “The wind is a little stronger here,” explains the priestess. Fresh, pretty sure that she has transformed into a slime, given how damp and saggy she feels right now, gloops her way over to the front and reaches up behind the bench, pulling herself upwards behind Basil. Channeling the same energy of such a creature, Fresh tilts her head sideways and bites Basil on the right side of her stomach. Basil yelps with an odd, surprised noise.

The day goes on like this, with Fresh processing her suffering by dragging herself towards everyone, trying to find some way to interact with them. This usually involves annoying them in some manner, there just isn’t much else that she can think of to do. Unfortunately for her, the others seem to only put up with this for so long. Shamrock eventually lifts a hand, blocking her from approaching, simply holding her at bay. Jubilee flicks her forehead any time she comes close and Basil distracts herself from the road for a moment, taking the opportunity to bite her back.

Fresh yelps, retreating back into her corner, having been beaten on a field of honorable battle and rubs the spots on both her forehead and on the side of her already bruised stomach.

“You gonna settle down now?” asks Jubilee.

“I wiiill~,” relents Fresh, drooping back down over the boxes. She simply opts to let herself melt again, signaling her defeat with a long sigh as her body falls slack. She turns her head, looking out of the back of the cart. They really are in a desert. As far as her eyes can see, all she sees is sand. Sand and sand and more sand and there to the left, there’s some sand and look over there, out there on the right - !

More sand.

It’s just all sand everywhere, even the road seems to be half-buried under sand and she has no idea how it manages to stay entirely free from it, rather than being buried under the fine, dusty grains.

“How long until we’re there?” she asks.

Jubilee looks around. “If nothing happens, tonight.”

“Huh?” asks Fresh. “What could happen?”

Jubilee shrugs, leaning back. “We could crash into a cactus and die.”

“Is that likely?”

“With some cactuses more than others,” says Jubilee, looking her way. “Cactus monsters,” they explain, seeing her confusion.

“Oh!” says Fresh. She hadn’t even considered what kind of monsters would be out in the wild-desert. “What other kinds of monsters are there?”

“Out here? Outside of the dungeon? Uh…” Jubilee looks around. “Bunch of weird shit. Life in the desert makes monsters get strange.”

“Strange?” asks Fresh.

“Sure. Cactus-things, dire-vultures, giant lizards.” Fresh gasps.

Basil chimes in from the front. “I’ve heard that the ocean has a lot of monsters too,” says the priestess. “Serpents, giant crabs, supposedly goblins too. But they don’t really exist anymore near the city.”

“Giant crabs?!” asks Fresh excitedly.

“Don’t you start,” threatens Jubilee. Fresh relents, not starting. Now is not the time for more crabbing. But still, she wants to see a giant-crab. Really, really badly.

“There are two biomes,” explains Shamrock. “- many types of monsters.”

“Mhm,” nods Jubilee. “Water by the ocean, obviously. The desert types are more earth-based with a bit of lightning here and there.”

“Are there fairies?” asks a fairy, popping its head out of a window, having been listening.

“We’re the only fairies, dumb-dumb!” shouts Tarja from out of the window of the neutral house.

“We’re mountain-fairies!” argues the yellow-haired fairy. “Maybe there are desert-fairies!”

“There are no desert-fairies,” sighs Jubilee. “You’ll have to make some of those yourselves.”

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“How do we do that?”

Jubilee stares at the fairy for a second. “Actually, now that I think about it, I don’t think you can,” mutters Jubilee, clearly lost in some train of thought as they rub the chin of their mask. “Or… actually… hmm…”

“Jubilee!” calls Basil sharply back in a stern voice, glaring at them.

“Oh, please!” says Jubilee, crossing their arms and looking at Basil. “As if they aren’t going to find out one day anyways.”

“Find out what?” asks the fairy.

“Hey, look!” calls Basil abruptly, turning her face back ahead of the cart. “A cactus!”

Fresh blinks. Getting up and looking out of the front of the cart. Yup. That’s a cactus. Neat. It’s not a cactus-monster. It’s just a cactus. Cool. Though, she isn’t sure why Basil wanted to point this out.

The cart rolls on through the desert for a while. The wind is only mild, but the sun shines with a glaring intensity. Fresh is really glad that they splurged on the tarp for the cart. The rest of the day is just them rolling on ahead in silence. The sun shines, the cart rolls, everyone is quiet. That’s it. Until eventually evening comes around and Fresh assumes that they are getting close to the city. Jubilee gets everyone’s attention.

“Listen up,” they say to all of the tiny faces staring out of the windows of the fairy houses. “People here aren’t used to seeing fairies. They might ask a lot of questions or get weird,” explains Jubilee. “Some of you are still stupid-fucks,” they say.

“Jubilee!” snaps Fresh this time.

Jubilee points at Tarja and three other fairies. “Those of you who have managed to actually develop a brain are in charge of your groups. If anyone dies, it’s your fault and I don’t want to hear about it,” they say. “People aren’t nicer here than they were on the mountain. They’ll chew you up and spit you out at the first sign of weakness.”

“Can we stay with you?” asks a fairy from the side, raising his hand.

“No,” replies Jubilee very clearly, pointing at him.

“Please?”

“No.”

“Pleeease?”

“No!” snaps Jubilee. “You need to figure your lives out yourselves.” Jubilee snaps their fingers. “Tarja.”

Tarja nods, stepping up to take over with the other three ‘leader’ fairies. They go into their plan. Each of them wants to open an enterprise of some kind. Tarja wants to run a tailoring business. The ice-fairy wants to become a healer and open a clinic. One of the others wants to make candy and food to open a sweets and coughee specialized bakery, Fresh likes that idea the most. The last one wants to become a dungeon-delving adventurer. These four seem to be the most advanced and mentally competent of their peers and have already begun ‘Jubileeing’ their groups, whipping them into shape. The many fairies divide themselves amongst the leader, who they each find themselves the most willing to follow. Though one or two also still split off, deciding to make their own way by themselves.

In truth, Fresh is scared for them all. Despite Jubilee stepping on her bare foot as she says it, she tells them that in the case of an emergency, they’ll always be willing to help them out.

An hour later, the sun begins to vanish over the sandy dunes on the horizon behind them, painting it all over with a warm red tone. Basil calls from ahead. “We’re here!”

Fresh leans over forward, looking out past the side of the priestess, resisting the urge to bite her again, as she stares out at the city ahead of them. The desert might be arid and dry, but here where people have built their tall, two to three story houses in the rocky shoreline, the ground is surprisingly flush with patches of bright grass. Palm fronds jut out from between the many sand-stone, lime, clay and rock structures, painting the city with a welcoming green-hue, as if they had arrived at the only oasis in the entire desert.

Behind it all, even from here, Fresh can see the crashing shoreline of the ocean and she smells the smell of sea-salt.

Razmatazz

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