“He had many questions that night,” Bel explained. “As mentioned, we do not discuss details of each of our individual partnerships, so that is where the story shall end for now. Additionally, it would be best if you asked your own questions about the partnership and heard your own answers.”
“What do you mean? What answers do I need?” Despite the lengthy explanation that had preceded his question, he still wore the look of confusion etched deeply into his face.
Kitalia’s face scrunched up and her lips moved as if she were mouthing a silent curse. “I think you might have to lay it out a bit clearer,” she directed at Bel. “He can be… clueless at the best of times.”
“No,” he protested, holding up a hand much too close to Kitalia’s face for her liking. “I get what’s going on here, or at least part of it.”
“Move your hand or lose it,” Kitalia hissed, hand on her dagger. Kre’s hand shot back to his side immediately and his body shifted slightly away from her in an instinctually protective move.
“I’m sorry Kit,” he said quickly. “It just feels like I’m being talked around again and that’s very frustrating. I kinda see what’s going on, but it doesn’t make any sense to me why. Obviously, Bel is Azulaphael and she was partnered up with Ser Terync.
“Red is a dragon as well,” he continued, seemingly still on the same breath, “and she seems to hate the three of us for different reasons, but in my case at least it’s because I’m tied to Bel because of my association with Terync. I mean, she seemed utterly surprised that he had died a second time, given that she was apparently present for his first death, which is a highly suspicious thing to admit to.”
Here, he paused for a few deep breaths, but his face indicated he had more to say so neither of the two ladies bothered to interject.
“Now,” he continued, bringing his hand up in front of his own face and raising a single finger, “it seems like we’re trapped here, in an Ancient city, where the Ancients are actually ghosts and boogymen trying to suck our souls through our noses, but we’re in luck,” he said happily, raising a finger on his other hand, which he had just brought up to mirror his other, “because Bel is here and dragons seem to be a boogyman deterrent. Lucky us.”
A second finger shot up on the first hand, clearly the hand indicating the problems they were currently facing, “The downside is that even if we escaped this place, we still have Red up there, hunting us.
“Again though,” he added, lifting a second finger on the second hand, the one he was filling with positive thoughts, “we have Bel, and Bel can help us avoid Red like she did before.”
“Do not forget the Rangers,” Kitalia said with a sickeningly sweet voice. “We would not want to count them out either.”
“They were next,” Kre replied, a third finger going up. “The Rangers are a problem. By now, our description is being run to most of the major cities and towns from here to the Citadel, which means that travel south is going to be treacherous, at best.
“That is,” he added slowly, “if we continue through Tehynshin lands.”