Slender, floating purple flames quivered in mid-air along a wire stretched between two poles, moving as if in rhythm to a brisk and lively melody audible only to them.
People assembled on the improvised paths weaving between wagons, tents, and pavilions, their interactions illuminated by the flames' lavender radiance.
Underneath the poles stood a thin man clad in a plain smock, adorned with a vivid red sash, wielding a wooden staff, directing it at the line. After a brief pause, he began projecting additional purplish flames onto the wire, rejuvenating them and significantly enhancing the brightness of the scene.
Walker looked on with interest as he watched from the bench where he was eating with Pietro and some of the red-haired man's friends. Pietro had introduced the large group to him, but he had hard time keeping their names straight while vigorously eating the variety of dishes available.
'There's no telling how long I've been eating travel foods and leftovers, these are amazing!' He steadily ate several pieces of tender meat lightly sauced with a glaze that accentuated the flavors. A pile of grilled root vegetables and other fragrant ingredients soaked in a buttery-looking gravy in a small bowl next to his plate.
Pietro and his friends watched with amusement and confidence as Walker munched and listened to their good-natured banter, which was occasionally aimed at him but deflected away just as quickly as it came:
"Yo, zombie man, what was wrong with you when you were sick? I watched you go off to the latrines a couple times. . ." The brown-haired lady paused before continuing, "but I just thought you were someone who had seen too much back in the Capital, like some of those others who just walk or sit around all day, staring."
Pietro choked on his drink and managed to finish his swallow before gleefully taunting her. "Loria, you...actually followed Walker? When he went to relieve himself?" He threw his head to the side and cackled loudly, side-eyeing Walker and elbowing him as several others chortled and chuckled along.
The brown-haired woman protested, "I only noticed him strolling by and watched him wander off!"
A voluptuous blonde reclined languidly on the lap of a muscular, shirtless man. Though appearing at ease, she firmly grasped the man's strong forearms and leaned back into him as she commented.
"Not a chance, Loria, we all know your style. There was that time just a couple years ago where Guy was sneaking in a nap back on Astanto Street Foods, over in the basement larder. He woke up to you tugging his boots off his feet!"
Loria, the brown-haired lady smirked wryly, knowing she had been caught. "I, uh- I, just couldn't stand not knowing."
The muscular guy pushed aside a wild shock of blonde and brown hair and asked, "Couldn't stand not knowing what?"
Trying to appear shy, Loria quietly-but-not-so-quietly admitted, "I just wanted to know if your feet were really that big. I mean, those are some really big boots." She pushed aside her hair and waggled her eyebrows suggestively.
The entire gang roared out in laughter. Even the sultry blonde chuckled and appeared nonplussed, shaking her head in pity before giving Guy the side-eye. The muscular man wiped away tears from laughing so hard before he held up his hands in innocence.
Then the discussion fragmented into separate conversations, leaving Walker struggling to keep track or actively participate due to the rapid pace at which the group spoke among themselves.
They were a boisterous yet well-intentioned crowd, frequently asking about his past. Walker managed to address their curiosity effortlessly by asserting that he had retained almost no memories from the time before the invasion of the Capital, due to his illness and other factors.
Walker inquired of their plans for the future and learned that they planned to depart the convoy as a group once the convoy reached the city of Keln, some distance ahead yet. They were civilian laborers who had struggled through their younger years together, so they all felt comfortable braving a new city as a group.
They jested and relaxed for a while longer before the group gradually dispersed to attend to other responsibilities or retire for the evening. Pietro and Walker remained at the Mess Tent, with Pietro storing away meats that had been smoked over his makeshift chimney.
They had been chatting amiably about nothing in particular when Walker, struck with a sudden thought asked Pietro with all seriousness: "When you mentioned that you had a lady in mind for me, did you mean Loria?"
Caught by surprise, Pietro had an immediate guilty look as he muttered, "Maybe."
Walker chuckled and patted the red-haired man on the shoulder as he replied "You're friendly but even your friends probably don't suspect how cunning you are! She's probably been really into you, hasn't she?"
Pietro ran his tongue over his front teeth and put his hands on his waist. "Damn. How'd you guess that? You're sharp. I guess I owe you for that."
Walker just shook his head, "You don't owe me for anything! I haven't done anything; you deal with your own problems!" He replied with genuine laughter as he started to walk away from the Mess Tent. He stopped.
Turning, he asked Pietro, "Didn't you say before when we were on the road that you came to visit me before when I was sick? Can you show me where that area is, I can't seem to find my lodgings."
The red-haired man finished adjusted the coals in the trench and walked over, "Yes. I inquired of the scout captain about your whereabouts, and he directed me there. I think I can figure out the general area, but is something the matter? You don't remember where you're set up?" He looked at Walker with some confusion.
Aware that his excuse was becoming overused, he devised a revised version: "I wasn't the one to set it up myself; I was away when it was arranged, and I don't recall how to determine the camp quarters' formation, because of my recent problems."
Pietro nodded as if that made complete sense and agreed to show Walker where the scouts were quartered, nearby.
While the civilian quarters were arranged in a quadrant of the inner ring, the military quarters were divided amongst the entire outer ring, but it was easy enough to determine which section contained the scouts, archers, and some other light infantry groups.
Pietro, though a civilian, had quickly become used to the camp formation used every evening for the past several months. Having seen the formation and structure of the camp repeated nightly, Pietro thought it odd that Walker couldn't find the area, but he shrugged it away in his mind and they moved on quickly.
Pietro pointed Walker to a large tent with several guards and waved him on before departing.
Heading inside, Walker realized it was a low-order command tent, used to disseminate information to the members by relaying non-urgent instructions and other information between the counterparts of the military forces. He was quickly able to learn where his tent was placed and he wandered that way, unaccompanied.
The section he was in was actually set aside somewhat from the others, and nearer to several large, armored carriages. As he looked around without hurry, he heard a woman's voice, singing beautifully. Though she sang somewhat quietly, her voice carried from one of the nearby carriages, singing a hauntingly beautiful song:
"I spent the better part of seven years, erasing hidden scars, and testing my fears;
Her eyes were unlocked doors, through which I wandered, every now and then.
Her lips a candy goddess, I wish I still had her favor, for their flavor.
From servant to king, a king is still just a man."
Walker had stood absorbed in the song for some unknown amount of time, until the woman nearby stopped with lines he'd just heard. He thought about their meaning, albeit only briefly, before he continued walking toward his tent's location with the music still ringing in his mind.
He located his tent and entered it without difficulty. The interior was unoccupied but divided into sections; one side contained a cot and something emitting a pleasant fragrance. There were also some bags that clearly contained another person's belongings. At the foot of the cot were several books stacked.
The opposite side featured a neatly arranged cot and nothing else. A nearby footlocker held only a nearly full flask and some travel rations.
Full of food and feeling confident for the immediate future, Walker set down his bow and quiver of arrows. He took the flask and opened it, discovering it to merely contain water. He took a few swallows before he capped the flask and returned it.
Climbing inside the cot's thin blanket, he nonetheless felt it sufficient for the temperature, which was only slightly cool, and he quickly drifted off to sleep as he replayed the song in his mind.
***
Waking up with some confusion, Walker first noticed the camp was mostly quiet. He turned to look at the side of the cot and was confused when he didn't see any table there. 'How am I supposed to tell the time if I can't see my clock?' he thought with some sleepy confusion.
A moment later he frowned as he realized that he didn't exactly recall what a clock was or what it looked like. He was suffering from this dissonance when he heard a jarring noise and looked at the canvas partition to the other side of the tent.
On the other side he could see a silhouette due to several lit candles. The figure had frozen in a slightly lowered defensive posture before it rushed over to his side in a flash.
The lithe silhouette turned out to be a strong-looking figure in pale flowing fabric that quickly rushed to the side of his cot and brandished a studded club, before lowering it in confusion.
It was Amberlin. She held the metal reinforced club somewhat loosely as she looked at the closed entrance to the tent and back to him.
With no small measure of surprise, Walker quickly averted his eyes from Amberlin's heaving form, having already seen a bit more than he bargained for. He immediately quelled any thoughts of what she looked like in her nightclothes.
Only a minute lapse in vigilance and a stray thought emerged where Walker wondered about the numerous lightly glowing markings over the exposed portions of her.
Amberlin rolled her eyes and muttered "Good thing for you I hav' good stayin' power. Otherwise, I'd probably be able to see what the inside of your head looks like right now."
"Thanks." Walker dryly replied, wondering why she was also living in his tent. He found it to be incredibly suspicious, given that she wasn't a scout. It seemed odd that they wouldn't avoid co-ed living arrangements and the trouble they might cause.
"We need to talk." They both said at the same time.