My eyelids shot open. My vision was misty from the deep sleep. As soon as it cleared, I found myself staring at someone’s face. I blinked once or twice, making my vision clearer and clearer. She had light blue eyes. The way her lips were formed made her appear a bit confused. Probably was. She had brown hair, which came to shoulder length in the back and then frilled up. Her bangs parted a bit to the right.

“Morning! … Err… Evening!” she said with a smile.

I shot her a death glare and twitched. I am not a good person when I wake up.

She gave me a weird look. A look that says, “party pooper.” With this, she raised up. She was wearing a red tube top dress. Around her waist was a thick green belt. To help compensate, she wore a brown vest that had small sleeves. The made it appear more like she had a low cut shirt. She had on a cap similar to mine, but wore the bill forward when I wore mine cocked to the side a bit. He clothes looked a bit ragged. She must have been a vagrant as well. “Fine,” she declared. “I wasn’t going to partner with you anyway.”

Hearing this, I sat up, letting m legs make a make a half-closed ‘V’. “Huh?” I muttered.

“Nope too late. Not changing my mind now.”

“No, not that. What did you say? Partner?”

“Hmm? Oh, yes. Well. Too late now. Nyah!”

“Oh well,” I said flatly.

“What?!”

“I said, ‘Oh well’. I don’t need you. Hell, I don’t even know you.”

A silence filled the air. I sat and studied her while she stood there, thinking of someway to break the silence.

“So… Um… Want to partner up?” the girl yipped enthusiastically, welding together a few words.

“Sure. Why not?” I pushed myself up. I grabbed my sword and took a few practice swings into the air. Her turned around and grabbed hers. Hers, on the other hand, was quite different. It was quite thick and the end and went into a point at the end of the sword. It also seemed a lot sharper. Then, she picked up what looked like a messenger bag. It seemed to be made out of the same material as her vest and a bit more ragged then her clothing. “What time is it?” I asked drowsily, looking around.

“It’s around noon, I’m guessing. If it weren’t for me, you could have had your stuff stolen!”

“Ugh.. You’ve been here that long?” I replied, turning to walk to the location he had slaughtered the purple balls.

She seemed dazed for a second before the girl finally came to and ran beside me and walked with me. “Ever since twilight. I saw you laying there, so I decided to watch over you.”

“Why?”

“Um… Well, I had nothing better to do..”

“Whatever,” I said, rolling my eyes. It was silent the rest of the way. I’m not sure if she had nothing to say or whether she was thinking over her actions. I didn’t care. I thought the whole ordeal was pretty silly. She must have been pretty lonely. I don’t blame her. It’s not like there are many vagrants that would actually be happy to talk. What bothered me was the was pretty social. Maybe she had only recently been a vagrant.

We fought through some brushes, finding the area the purple abominations nested at. She was much more experienced than I. The only thing she did was run up behind on and sliced it from behind. It only took one hit for her. It was amazing. The reason why she stayed her with me was confusing. She could obviously take down much stronger beasts than the ones here. Not only that, but she knew to take the stones from their mouth, which was promptly placed in her bag.

The way I took them down slowly. I made quick swings, pelting it many times before it took a nice long sleep. The blade was pretty dull. It actually rarely drew any blood. I focused on landing many hits before it could hit me, even when the damage it could do was minimal. The main thing that slowed me down was when I started to feel pains in my arms. It wasn’t so bad. I could barely noticed while fighting, but simply running to the next one was a chore.

The sun started to set again. Once twilight started again, we settled beneath a nearby tree. She reached into another compartment of the bag and pulled out some biscuits. She stretched her arm to hand out one of the biscuits. I was too exhausted to take it. Seeing this, she got frustrated and threw it at me. It simply hit my head and rolled off to the side. A silence fell over for a few more moments. “So.. What’s your name?” she asked. There was some pauses between each word. Even when she did little work to kill one, it took a lot out of her.

“La- Lamvao,” I emitted. I was much more exhausted. On top of that, I was sore. My limbs were heavy and I was about ready to slip right into a good sleep. “Yours?”

“Songoto,” she said after taking a much deeper breath then resuming breathing normally. A silence soon fell after. Songoto had taken a biscuit and started nibbling on it. I, on the other hand, rested a few more minutes before taking it and chewing on it. I was hungry. I hadn’t had the chance to eat in a day or two. She took note of how quickly I had eaten the second one so quickly. “Wow, you must be really hungry.”

“Of course. I only started this yesterday,” I replied, I stopped breathing heavy but the sweat still soaked my hair.

“Wow, really? I’ve been doing this for a while, really.”

“I bet. I saw you taking care of many before I could take down one.”

“Yeah, these are pretty easy. I prefer fighting peakyturtles, really.”

“Peakyturtles?”

“Yeah! If you haven’t seen them, I’ll show you tomorrow!”

“Why are you so talkative?”

“What do you mean?” her voice lowered, as if I had revealed something secret.

“You are a bum, right? You can’t possibly be so social to someone you just met today. If you are, then why don’t you have any other friends to hang out with other than me?”

“No, not really.. I wasn’t always a vagrant, you know,” she replied with a sigh.

“What happened?”

“I’m not sure. I don’t know whether Dad was tired of me or what. He just gave me these ragged clothes and this sword along with a few thousand penya and demanded I leave.”

“A few thousand penya?!”

“Yeah… Is that a lot?”

“Yes! I’ve barely had anything my whole life and you come here as a hobo saying that you were kicked out with what seems to be to you ‘very little’!” I yelled.

“Ok, ok! I get it! It may be a lot but I’m trying to hold on to it as long as I can. Just be a happy you have a friend that can get you food.”

I sighed. She was right. Rich or not, it was a good thing Songoto came around. It was silent the rest of the night. I took off my shield and laid my sword with hers beside her bag. I fell asleep quickly while she stayed up a bit longer, continuing to nibble on her biscuits. Songoto still sat where she was. I lay myself on the other side of the tree.

“Well, at least I have a partner, ” she muttered. “Maybe he is right, too. I shouldn’t think about the ordeal so lightly. I got to live a great life before being a bum. Even as one I’m doing much greater than all the ones that were born into poverty.”

Bushes rustled a few feet away. Songoto sprang up, picking up her sword. She walked cautiously toward the bushes, ready to slash at whatever it was within it.