Sebastian's spirits lightened considerably with the real possibility that they were dealing with astral conduits or ghosts. This was right up his alley, and would be far simpler than contending with a mage. He would not get his hopes up just yet though. This also opened up new realms of possibility. There could be a necromancer…or several.

He had noted Nura's observations, but did not speak on them until they had reached market.

"Ghosts, then…" Sebastian mused as Nura shimmied into her new trousers.
"I am aware of the tales you mentioned. Either of the pirate lords you mentioned sound like a promising theory…"
He paused to appreciate her new look, and chuckled at her enthusiasm, despite the dark mood hanging over what was to come.
"I must admit, I admire your mettle and tenacity. It is not often a client accompanies me. Even on simple errands. I remain as ready as ever. I already have much of what we will need on the road in my bag."

~~~

The road to Vilpamolan was long, but far from dull from Sebastian's perspective. He seemed to take every single detail as it came, and gave little focus to the job he was to do. Speculation was enough for now, it seemed, as he was still confident in the face of a cornocopia of unknowns. After some amount of ground covered, he took off his overcoat, slung it over his shoulder, and unlaced the collar of his tunic. He cursed the mosquitos that swarmed aloud, and wished ill on them and all of their ilk in a most colorful manner.
Some time later, he abruptly shouted out with great urgency, only to run and pick a flower for Nura's hair that matched her hip scarf.

Sebastian was very curious about Nura, though his questions were never overly personal. Despite the comfortable distance he kept, he did listen intently to whatever information she shared of herself.

Time, Nura had stressed, was of the essence. Thus, Sebastian made no motion or word to set up camp as evening turned to night. He did what he would do if he were walking alone - drink an entire flask of coffee, and walk well into the next morning. He, unspoken, at first had left it up to his charge if she wished to rest. Bash intended to keep awake until he was ready to collapse. The deeper the sleep he could fall into, the better. He was not without care or observation, however. Seeing the state Nura was in, contrary to his best efforts to keep her engaged, he stopped, and set his things down once they reached a clearing nearby the road.

"Sit," he told her, gesturing to the log by where he had set his effects. The ground and vegetation was well flattened out, and there was evidence of a fire previously having burnt here. It was clearly a common place to stop for travelers. Sebastian began to gather bits of deadwood scattered about the indented camp site.

"We don't have to sleep. We should at least gather our bearings though," Sebastian suggested. Even if Nura did want sleep, he would not surrender to it. Meditation would suffice. His focus needed to be sharp in case he would require all of his preternatural capacity in the presence of whatever it was they were dealing with.

'It's not the destination, it's the journey,' Nura often recalled her mother saying when Ardashir complained during their travels. Her elder brother was unlike the triplets, who held a great joy and fascination in adventuring. Of the three, Nura embodied her mother's phrase the most. She engaged in chat with Sebastian, sang songs, recited prose at random, and practiced bird calls as they walked. All the while she kept an eye out for edibles, and would often slip off in a random direction to pick things to shove into one of the pouches that hung from her belt at varying lengths.

When it grew darker she no longer slunk away to pick food, and grew quieter and more contemplative. In truth, she was starting to get a little worn - her joints and muscles needed to be stretched because they had become so used to the monotonous routine that was walking. But she continued on without complaint. She was the one who had said that time was of the essence, after all. Also, her mother's phrase was not wholeheartedly true in Nura on this trip… she was somewhat anxious to get to their destination in hopes they would find themselves closer to her belongings.

Still, she was glad when Sebastian had decided it was time to rest. She let her bag slide off her shoulders and caught it by the straps before it were to hit the ground, then set it down far more gently than it would have plopped if it were to have fallen the entire distance. Immediately she began to stretch. She was hardly one to let another do all the work in setting up camp, however, and so her stretches were quick. Sebastian was already on top of kindling to get a fire started, so Nura decided to go dig a latrine and find larger branches to burn.

When she came back, she let her bundle of branches drop next to Sebastian, and then walked around to sit on the other side of him. “Look what I found,” Nura said, handing him a dented tin mug that had been lost and left behind by some other traveler. They'd be able to cook the potato(if they cut it into pieces), or make coffee.

“And also…” she grabbed one of the little pouches that hung from her belt, and pulled out a bundle of leaves. “There's no lemon balm here to rub on your skin, but I found some sage, should keep the vampire-bugs away.” She tossed a couple leaves into the fire that Sebastian had started, which resulted in a plume of good smelling smoke. She smiled and set the handful of leaves down between she and Sebastian so he could throw a couple in whenever he wanted.

Leaning back against the log, beside Sebastian, Nura pulled out another pouch and flayed it open in her hands. There was a mixture of random things in it – blackberries, blueberries, strawberries, elderberries, gooseberries, mushrooms, and red clovers. It was everything she had picked along the way. “I always love seeing what I have harvested each evening,” Nura said with a grin. “These are fertile, giving lands; the harvest was bountiful.” She set the splayed open pouch down between them as well, clearly intending to share her wealth with Sebastian.

“Why do you not sleep?” Nura questioned, popping a berry in her mouth. She recalled he said he tried not to sleep the night before, but had said he wouldn't get into it. Now they had plenty of time together on their hands.

"If we were not on our merry way to repossess from ghost pirates, I would be thoroughly convinced I had booked some sort of enjoyable hiking excursion with you," Sebastian exclaimed to Nura as he set about arranging the fire pit. The circle of stones had been carelessly kicked askew from previous use, and he arranged the kindling around the larger pieces for a good burn. He went through his bag for his tinder box, struck the Flint, and blew gently until he had evoked a roaring blaze. He fed it another small log before relaxing next to Nura.

Sebastian inhaled deeply when she threw the sage into the fire. "You're truly a saint," he remarked. "Do you have enough that I can light up as we walk? The nasty little buggers seem to love what I've got for some reason. Always have."

Laughing was Sebastian's first response to Nura's inquiry as to his sleeping habits. The reaction was genuine though, not deflective. He truthfully felt a bit manic at the moment. He paused, gazing into the fire as he gathered his thoughts. "Many reasons, truthfully. I used to always have nightmares when I was younger. The town I'm from was destroyed years ago. Not just destroyed, but erased. Only those that had been to it before seem to know of it now…Runcible Grove."

He poked at the fire with a stick, shifting one of the more ashen logs on its side. He sampled one of Nura's blackberries before continuing.

"I still have those dreams from time to time. As you have no doubt picked up on, I am also what you would call a 'sensitive'. When I am not on guard, I am like a lighthouse…to spirits, and really all manner of things in outer realms. It's not just that though. There are other dreams…"


Sebastian turned to Nura so he could study her expressions as he spoke. "Do you ever have dreams that you were so sure were real? That you have these memories inside of you that are not yours, but at the same time they must be, because these other lives you see play out, the same things happen… Just in different ways? I've seen a world where the World Tree was alive. I've seen darkness worse than what I've experienced…amazonian tribeswomen, a devil trickster claim itself as my parent, and an obsessive, shadowy creature. Terrible, but beautiful at the same time, devour me whole." 

Laughing again, Sebastian took another berry and threw more wood onto the fire. 

"You probably find me quite mad at this point. I do tend to ramble incoherently when the sun goes down. None of it makes a lick of sense, really…but that is my answer as to why I avoid sleep like the plague."

"And on that note…"

Sebastian withdrew a canister of Abeddian spiced coffee, his flask of water, and a press from his bag. "Would you care for a cup?"

Nura wondered what was so funny as to provoke Sebastian to laugh about his sleeping habits. She was not one to pry though, preferring to let things happen in their own time, and so she did not press when he grew quiet and looked into the fire he had built. He then answered her question, and she still wasn't quite understanding what was funny. She did, however, pick up on a familiar name. She remained quiet, however, as he continued on to explain what he wanted to share.

“No, thank-you,” Nura said, holding up a hand and shaking her head to his offer of sharing coffee. “Unlike you, I am in need of sleep at some point this night.” No doubt, he was in need of sleep as well, he simply refused it. Nura wasn't sure how he was able to do it, even with all the coffee that he drank. Every living creature slept, though amounts might have varied. Depriving one's self of sleep surely had to take a toll on one's health or mental state.

“I can't say that I've ever had those kinds of dreams,” Nura admitted. His dreams sounded terrifying and beautiful all at once. They sounded as though they were filled with great inspiration to apply to the waking world. She thought about the fabled World Tree, which had been dead for quite some time before her own existence. What would it be like if it were yet alive?

“I do know of Runcible Grove, however,” she continued. “In fact, I have been there… twice. My mother, sister, brother and I visited it when we were young… that was thirty-two, maybe thirty-three years ago. We stayed for several months because Jul got severely ill. Everyone there was so kind and welcoming of us. We stayed with an elderly couple… Loren and Maude. Jul and I went there again about twenty years ago. Loren had died, but Maude was yet alive and eager to share a roof with us again. I think it was maybe six or seven years ago that I ventured back again, but it was gone.”

Nura slid down to lay, using her satchel as a make-shift pillow, and watched the flames of the fire dance upon each other. “What ever happened to Runcible Grove, do you know?” Nura asked. A yawn quickly followed the question, which she tried to either cover or hide with her hand.

Sebastian's humor on the subject of his past  did not abbate, though his overall tone and mood did become a touch darker. "Funny…I remember chopping and stacking firewood for them regularly. We probably even saw each other in passing when you came without even realizing it."
He poured coffee from the press decanter into the used cup. "Few have memory of the Grove anymore, but you are not the first I've encountered. It was…well, desecrated would not even be a strong enough term for it."

Sebastian left his personal assessments of the attack and his possible role out of it. He had very quickly become comfortable with Nura, but wanted to avoid scaring her. This line of thought did remind him of a certain detail that she should know, however.

"Before we reach Vilpamolan…"
Bash's fingers fidgeted anxiously together around the mug as he held it in both hands. "I must request that our information gathering be restricted to man or mer, if possible. I have nothing against the wolves or vampires. They have nothing against me either. In fact, they happen to like me a little too much…"
He unconsciously touched at his neck before taking a deep gulp of coffee. The blazing aspect of his somber autumnal gaze was intensified as he looked into their camp fire.

"I don't want you to fret," Sebastian added quickly as he glanced at her. "I can shield myself from their senses to a degree. Maintaining that level of concentration would just be difficult when we are already piecing together this puzzle."

He paused a great while, staring into the half-full mug. "Sleep would probably help."