The Twins - Chapter 11

Ok, here it is!! The end of the chapter is ... not exactly where we want it to be. So if you have any suggestions please comment!


“Great, now what are we going to do with him?” Ellyn threw her hands up in the air with an exasperated edge to her voice.
“If you ask me, I say we take him along with us,” Brynn responded, gazing absently into the fire.
“What, trail him along like some puppy? I don’t think that is going to work. Besides, he will refuse to come with us, you can count on that.” Ellyn paced back and forth in front of the fire.
“I don’t know about that, Ell,” Gavin said.
“Why? If he is a deserter, he will want to stay away from anyone that might give him away.”
“Or he might want to stay with us. He might be afraid that we will give him away, and because of that he will stay with us to make sure we won’t.”
Ellyn sat down with a moan. “This is too confusing! All I know is that I refuse to have him come with us. The man is barbaric!”
“Ellyn, just because Erath slapped your hand does not mean he is barbaric.” Brynn glanced at her. “Rude maybe, but not barbaric.”
“Well still, I do not like having him around here. As soon as he wakes up I am going to make that clear to him.”
“No Ellyn, you won’t,” Gavin cut in. “When he wakes up we are going to try to carry on a reasonable conversation with him. We’ll see what he thinks about all this.”
“Fine,” Ellyn gave in. “You can have it your way. But he won’t want to come with us.”
At that moment, Erath moaned and his eyes flickered open. Brynn stood and went over to him. “Are you ready to talk?”
Erath glared up at Brynn, and slowly dragged himself up to a sitting position on the ground.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Brynn continued on. “Where are you headed?”
“What does it matter to you?” Erath asked spitefully.
“Well that depends on your answer.”
“Somewhere out of this country. Tiras maybe.”
Gavin and Brynn exchanged glances, and Ellyn moaned and put her head in her hands.
“It just so happens that we are headed to Tiras as well,” Gavin stood and came over next to Brynn. “Would you be interested in coming with us?”
Ellyn coughed.
Erath raised an eyebrow. “Why would I want to come with you?”
“The road to Tiras can be dangerous. The more people you travel with, the safer you are.”
Ellyn coughed loudly.
“And,” Brynn joined in, “we could very easily report you. Would you not want to stay with us to be sure we won’t?”
Ellyn’s cough turned into a strangled, choking noise. Gavin quietly kicked a bit of dirt at her with his boot to silence her.
Erath shot her a curious glance, and then ignored her. He had been worried that they might turn him in, and as much as he d to admit it, they were right. “You swear you won’t turn me in if I go with you?” he asked.
“Of course,” Brynn replied.
“Fine. I’ll go with you as far as Tiras.”


Ellyn reluctantly pulled out a roll of bandages from her travelers’ bag and tossed it at Erath. “Fix yourself up,” she said coldly.
“Ellyn …” Gavin looked at her. “You’re the only one that knows how to do it well.”
She sighed. “Fine.” Reluctantly going over to where Erath sat, she unrolled a strip of cloth, cut it, and forcefully grabbed Erath’s arm.
“Ow! You don’t have to make it worse!” he said in annoyance.
Ellyn pinched her lips together and wrapped the cloth as tightly as she could around the long cut on Erath’s forearm. He pushed her hand away forcefully and angrily unrolled the cloth from his arm. “If you insist on being rough, I’ll just do it myself.”
“Are you sure? I don’t mind it that much,” Ellyn said sarcastically.
He lifted his cold eyes to her. “Yes.” It was firm and quiet, as if he were about to start shouting.
“Suit yourself,” Ellyn stood, unaffected by his rudeness, and set her blanket by the fire to sleep. Gavin came over and sat next to her.
“Really Ell,” he said. “Do you have to make things worse?”
“Worse? He’s making everything worse!”
“Ellyn, we need him. As soon as he heals, he will be a great help to us.”
“Yes, and before he heals I have to tend to him and feed him and take care of him. That’s making things worse.”
Gavin sighed. “Ellyn, please. It won’t be for too long.”
“Yes, that’s what bugs me. As soon as he is better, he will be bossing me around. Right now I have control … but not for long.”
Gavin chuckled. “Don’t take advantage of it.”
“Take advantage? Why would I do that?” Ellyn asked in surprise, and then lay down to sleep.


“Ellyn, wake up.” Brynn shook her.
“What?” she slowly sat up and rubbed her eyes.
“I shot a rabbit for breakfast and I need you to cook it now.”
“A rabbit? For breakfast?!”
“Yes, what else did you expect?”
“I don’t know - eggs, biscuits. Something more… breakfasty.”
Brynn laughed. “Welcome to the real world,” he said. “No breakfast in bed here.”
“Great,” Ellyn stood. “Where is the rabbit?”
“Here,” Brynn held it up. “I just skinned it.”
“Eww! I changed my mind – you can cook it.”
“Come on Ellyn. Me and Gavin are busy, you’re the only other one that can do it.”
“Fine, fine. I’ll see what I can do.” She reached out and squeamishly took the rabbit from Brynn.
Ten minutes later Ellyn was stirring a lumpy, brownish stew over the fire and pinching her nose at the same time. Gavin came up behind her.
“Oh good. Breakfast. I’m starving.”
“Eat at your own risk,” said Ellyn.
Gavin took the ladle from her and tested the stew. He raised his eyebrows, and had a bit of difficulty swallowing it. “It’s … good,” he cleared his throat.
“Hmm,” Ellyn took the ladle back from him at continued to stir the stew. Brynn came to the fire just then, and tried it as well. He had more difficulty swallowing it than Gavin did. “What did you put in this?” he asked her.
“Look, you asked for breakfast, and here it is. If you do not want to eat it, you don’t have to.”
“Well, I want something,” Erath called from where he lay close to the fire.
“Serve yourself,” Ellyn called back to him.
Gavin sighed and grabbed a bowl. After ladling some stew into it, he brought it to Erath.
“What is this?” Erath asked suspiciously.
“Breakfast, stupid,” Ellyn said hotly.
He opened his mouth to say something, then changed his mind and sipped from the bowl. Immediately Erath began to choke and spit it out. “What are you trying to do, poison me?”
“You know what? I’ve had enough. If you want to eat, you can make your own food.” Ellyn angrily thrust the ladle into the stew and stomped off to her bag to find something else to eat.
The rest of the day passed slowly. Erath was still not well enough to walk for very long, so they ended up having Brynn and Gavin carry the bags and Erath riding on Ben. When Brynn came back with another rabbit for supper, he showed Ellyn how to skin it and what kind of herbs she could find that would go well with it in a stew. The result was a supper that tasted slightly better than what they had for breakfast.
But what really annoyed Ellyn was how demanding Erath got. She had to do everything for him, including changing his bandages every night. And the better he got, the crabbier he got. Ellyn struck back in whatever way she could. His stew had more lumps and hair in it than everyone else’s did. His bandages were either too tight or too loose. And if he needed something, Ellyn went as slow as she possibly could to get it for him. Needless to say, with every day that passed, both Ellyn and Erath’s moods got worse. By the fifth day since Erath’s arrival, the tension in the air was so much that Brynn and Gavin took whatever opportunity they could to get away from the other two. And of course that only made things worse, because it left Ellyn and Erath alone together way too much. By the end of the week fireworks went off every time they spoke to each other, and everyone had very short tempers. So of course it didn’t help that Gavin read the map wrong and they went in the wrong direction for two days. And when they finally got back on track they found that a bridge had washed out, so they had to take an extra day to cut down a tree and somehow make a bridge out of it so that Ben could cross. By that time no one could carry on a rational conversation. It soon became apparent that someone had to take charge or else everything would fall apart.