"Can you get… off of me?" asked Heru as it became annoying to have Blanc sitting on his chest.
"Nah, it's quite comfortable," Blanc shook his head before drinking out of the waterskin while all awaited for the ladies to be done talking.
"Tch," Heru clicked his tongue.
"Thirsty by any chance?" Blanc asked as he took the waterskin off his lips.
"Y-yes," Heru nodded.
"Good, open wide," Blanc grinned as he watched Heru open his wounded mouth slightly.
When he did, Blanc began pouring water slowly, aiming as best as he could toward his mouth.
After gulping down what he could, Heru began coughing as he choked on the water and all the dried blood that entered his throat.
"Whoa there, this water is valuable," Blanc said out loud.
"Sorry," Heru muttered once the coughing subsided.
"Quite the calm demeanor over the angry bird you were earlier," Blanc added, looking at him.
But just as Heru opened his lips to reply, Miyanna was approaching the four.
"Is it done, love?" Blanc asked.
"Y-yes, hubby. It's done, but…" Miyanna replied, stopping as she turned around towards Celine.
"But what?" Blanc asked, his head tilted to the side.
"Celine agreed to return Heru for a large sum," Miyanna explained.
Blanc nodded as he thought on the result, "Well, it's to be expected, they pay for him, then we all go our own way."
"Yeah, I know. But, the sum is… large," Miyanna added in a whisper, as if afraid of the words.
Blanc had a very bad feeling about this.
Miyanna was a commoner who lived most of her life with nothing, so they got used to it with her sense of money and how it differed from theirs.
However, this was the first time he saw her afraid of the number.
"My love, h-how large?" Blanc stuttered, his eyes narrowing.
"A, uh, a tho-thousand gold coins," Miyanna replied, her eyes glued to the ground.
"..." Blanc watched her blankly, his mouth not opening as if sewn shut.
After the shopping, they all did for the wedding and the road ahead, Blanc counted all the gold he had left.
He had ninety-one gold coins and twenty-two silver coins.
And he started with a bit over a hundred gold coins.
A sum of money that could keep them going for a very long time.
…
Blanc looked at Miyanna, and when their eyes met, she only nodded to his gaze, confirming that what she had spoken earlier was the truth.
Kael looked lost in thought as he processed what Miyanna said while Lune was attempting to count that sum on her fingers.
Even Heru's only functional eye looked over the sky as if reading the truth, while his mouth was opening and closing as if the words themselves changed their mind before being uttered.
Blanc closed his eyes and let his head rise slowly towards the sky, and after a large whiff of the air, he could not hold back from laughing at the absurdity of it.
A thousand gold coins offered endless possibilities for them.
Possibilities he planned to take advantage of once they left this Domain.
But now it was time for this blessed bargain to be finally struck.
"Come on, Heru," said Blanc, grinning from ear to ear as he got off of him, "You can go home."
And with Heru still stuck on the sum that was paid for his ransom, Blanc and Miyanna had to pull him to his feet and drag him towards Celine and the two women who watched with heavy intent.
As they approached, Blanc could not help but chuckle as he watched Celine's victorious smile and the bags full of gold at her feet.
If she did not look like the most gracious being before, she surely looked like that now.
The two women, though, did not look as happy as Celine was, but neither were they defeated.
The tailed woman looked worriedly at Heru as they approached, but the white-eyed woman looked with heavy intent at someone else.
She was not staring at that person as one would do when lost in thought.
She was moving her eyes with each step he took, following his every movement.
Blanc did not even notice how she used her crystal white eyes to stare into the greyness of his own eyes.
Not until he got close enough and stared back as he let go of Heru.
They stared into each other's eyes for just a moment too long.
Long enough for Celine to notice it.
"As agreed," Celine began gathering the attention of all, "Heru for the gold coins, agreed Allegra?"
"Agreed," the white-eyed woman nodded, before turning her head towards the tailed woman 'Grab him for me."
With a nod, she went and took Heru from Blanc, and after placing his hand over her shoulder, she began walking the way they came from, leaving only Allegra behind with Blanc, Celine, and Miyanna.
"Then we will leave this place," Celine said.
"And we will leave you all alone without the threat of following you," Allegra added.
Even though a deal had been struck, Blanc could not help but voice his concern.
"Allegra, right? How can we trust you will keep your word?" Blanc asked.
She turned towards Blanc, "Are the gold coins not proof enough?"
"What can gold coins assure me with, if, after following us in secret, you could just attack us in the night and grab them back after you are done with us?" Bland replied.
"A fine idea, but we, Metamorphs, do not do such a shameful thing," Allegra replied casually.
Blanc sighed, "Ah, well now, with that piece of information, I can sleep in peace."
"No need for sarcasm," Allegra sighed, her eyes cold, "What can I do then to assure you all?"
"Oh, there was nothing you could do to convince me besides swear on the Vita itself," Blanc began, "But if you do not do that, I can only let you know that no matter how strong you might think you are, try anything to us once we leave this place, and not only will I kill you, but I will hunt the rest of those behind you like rabid dogs."
"Should I take that as a threat?" Allegra asked, unfazed by Blanc's words.
Blanc shrugged his shoulders, "If you take it as a threat, it means you plan on following us."
She stared into his eyes long enough to feel the stares Celine and Miyanna were sending her.
However, both for different reasons.
"I see…" she muttered, turning to the two women, "Luckily for you all, I couldn't care less."
"Then feel free to take my words as bad poetry," Blanc replied.
"Bad poetry indeed," she muttered as she turned her back towards them and began walking in the direction the other two went. "Good day. And may we never meet again."
With that, the hair on Allegra's back began growing out past her clothes, and as she fell to the ground, it appeared as if the hair swallowed her whole.
But moments later, the giant bulb of hair turned back to them, only for Blanc and the rest to realize that Allegra was now a giant ghostly white bear.
"A Spirit Bear," Blanc muttered just as Allegra, in her bear form, nodded to them.
As Blanc, Celine, and Miyanna nodded back, she took off running through the giant grassland as if it made way for her passing, only for the giant grass to revert back to normal once she passed.
"Celine, love," Blanc said as he still watched the patch of grass Allegra ran through.
"What is it, my love?" Celine asked.
"How did you manage to squeeze so much gold out of these poor fools?" Blanc asked as he bent over to look at the gold coins inside.
"Squeeze? It was honest business," Celine giggled as she joined him, but not before dragging Miyanna by the hand down with her. "With this, we can buy over forty Marks between us."
"Only forty with one thousand gold?" Miyanna yelled, exhausted from that last half an hour, which was supposed to be a break, but it felt more exhausting than a night with Blanc and Celine for her.
"Only forty if we buy legally," Blanc replied to Miyanna, calming her down slightly, "But still, I find it scary and amazing how you managed to do this. Now I hope we get attacked again. If this is the result every time, that is."
"That will be difficult, but I could guess this Heru was someone important. Not for the two women but for their people, these Metamorphs," Celine explained, looking at the gold.
"Yeah, weird bunch, but I wonder why no records mention them. Most likely, they are from outside the Empire and just take advantage of the chaos to plunder," Blanc theorized.
Celine nodded to her husband's words, "If we had enough time, I would have wanted us to follow them, but now, I think it would be best to find a place to rest and focus on what we have to do."
After checking all ten coin purses and agreeing that all the coins were real gold and accounted for, Blanc spoke loudly for the twins who stayed back and out of the adults' way to hear.
"Kael, Lune, you can come now. Help us with all this gold, it's quite heavy," Blanc grinned.
And he did not have to ask twice, as the twins came running.
After deciding for each to hold two full coin purses in their own bag, and after Blanc cleaned his wounds, they set out again to leave these grasslands behind and find a place to rest for the night.
The Domain was large, and their target in this Domain was at least two days north of where they were.
The target?
The Silver Gardens and the turtles inside it.