'Shit.'
Another day, another battle lost.
The worst thing was, Baoba could not argue with that. If he disregarded this stupid feeling, and went on like nothing was wrong, only to fail because of it, he would never forgive himself.
'I just had to go and be rational, did I ?'
Even though the human squad now accepted the mission, the expedition would not necessarily happen that fast. They needed to recover from their previous errands, prepare as much as possible, and wait for peak weather conditions. Actually, they could take as much time as they liked, the mission was theirs. The whole purpose of this system in the first place was to allow adventurers to take it slow, in an attempt to reduce avoidable deaths.
The ball was in their camp, and they were allowed to go home with it.
So this particular attack of paranoia could last for a long, long time. A period where he would not allow himself to rest fully before finding out what's bothering him.
A thing that probably doesn't exist at all.
'Here's to a fun couple of weeks.'
***
"Wow ! You look like shit."
Baoba arduously turned his reddened eyes to Capscium. She was beaming.
He would have loved to strike back, but she looked unexpectedly fresh on this specific morning. A true miracle.
Plus, he did look like shit. After the disastrous events of yesterday, he spent the whole night wide awake, thinking up increasingly unlikely scenarios where everything went wrong. The only thing he managed to find out was how often people had heart attacks in his imagination.
As a result, he had transformed into sleep-deprived Baoba. A slower, less handsome and more pale version of himself. Not only did he not have the energy to refute the claim, it was a pretty good case as well.
So instead, he just sipped his orange juice for a bit.
"Please say that to me tomorrow. I'll have a fitting response by then."
Her smile dropped instantly. "Damn, you must really be tired. Usually, you would've torn right into me." She sighed as she rested her head on the kitchen table. "And I did my hair too... Am I too untouchable like this ?"
'Ah, so that's why...'
She must have wanted to win an argument, for once. Cute.
Urtica walked into the room, and froze.
"Wow... Messy captain and presentable Capcsium ? Am I still asleep ? Is Venus shy today ?"
The person below the sea of scarlet hair was now toasting a piece of bread between her hands.
"Well, your skin's the color of chalk, so at least that's normal."
He grabbed a pot of jam as he sighed and sat down. "Yes, and you're still a pyromaniac. I guess I am awake. But this does beg the question, what happened, captain ? You're usually a bit less tired and grumpy."
"First of all, don't know what you're talking about, I am but a ray of sunshine. Second of all, you might remember we are in the middle of a tremendously important and stressful operation for which I am working basically alone. I was doing... important... work, all night. You may thank me now."
Capcsium was using her finger to cook a smiley face into her bread. "Ten bucks says he just couldn't sleep."
"Hey !" Baoba slammed his cup down. "That's only partially true."
"You know what else is partially true ?" Urtica sliced an incredibly neat slice of bread. "You working alone. What do you think I'm doing all day ?"
Baoba rolled his eyes and stayed silent. He actually did have a witty response to that one, but also kept enough sense to keep it to himself.
'You're just hiding from Pando.'
After his confession back in the cave, Urtica was extremely awkward for a long time. Now, it finally seemed like he was alright.
But while it looked like it, he still could not forgive himself. No matter what, he always shrunk back in apologetic shyness at any mention of drugs, brothers, or anything that made him think about his past. He also had a tendency to avoid Pando, or if he couldn't, be slightly more reserved in her company.
There was still a lot to unpack here. But neither of them were complaining yet, and Baoba had a lot on his plate already. Who had time for optional problems ?
Not getting a response, Urtica continued : "I'm putting this bread in the table. You know, I didn't think I would ever agree with Venus on this, but I sort of see it now. These missions could really use some more challenge."
"Well, they're made for humans." Actually, even most elves couldn't hunt this easily. But with his instant kill of a blessing, plus all the experience he had acquired since the departure, Urtica had become a bit of an apex predator.
Baoba rejected this description the second it entered his mind. Picturing the guy currently gently buttering his toast with leather gloves on at the top of the food chain was impossible to him.
Urtica gently rested the butter knife on its side, so that the blade didn't touch the table, and picked up a clean spoon with the pot of jam. "Poor things. It's hard to imagine, but these missions are really dangerous for them. You wouldn't believe the amount of corpses I have had to take back to the city. So much so I've already seen the exact same weird ring on a bunch of them. Just a cheap looking brass ring without any jewels. Fashion is especially strange in this town."
"Right ?" Capcsium seemed to have qualms about eating her smiley bread, but she got over them pretty quickly, she was now chewing on it. "They always have some kind of rare stone, and everyone's yellow. I know you worship the sun, but does it have to be your whole personality ? Can't a girl look at some different colors once in a while ?"
She pouted while looking through the window. "It's not like we get to leave that much... Captain's always hogging the earrings. No offense, Urtica, but hoods are kind of ugly, you know ?"
"No, I'm taking the offense on that. How dare you." He said with a deadpan face.
"What do you mean 'hogging' ? I need them for our mission !" He said angrily.
"Yeah, yeah, the mission for which you work so hard, always, selflessly. I know."
Baoba froze. He knew she was being sarcastic, but...
'It's just completely true !'
"You haven't even exaggerated !" He protested.
"Well, it's not my fault you haven't given us anything to do ! It's not like I'm unwilling ! I'm dying for some distractions here !"
Urtica swallowed the first bite of his breakfast. "No offense, Capcsium, but we'd all be dying if we sent you on the infiltration."
She glared at him.
He maintained eye contact.
...
"Offense taken."
"Good."
...
"Anyway," Baoba interrupted whatever was going on there."someone has to do it, and it turns out I'm the most suitable out of the people who were free. And the plan is going perfectly, so you don't get to complain about my complaining. And I'm also supposed to be your superior or whatever, so there's that too."
"Aye, sir..." She said while yawing.
'Wow. I am truly flattered by all this respect. Please. Stop kneeling.'
He had been done with his breakfast for a while, so he got up from his chair and put his things away. "But, as you so kindly pointed out, I seem to be lacking sleep, so I'll get to that. Wouldn't want to have me underperforming on our big thing, right ? See you in like three hours. Unless you suddenly decide hoods are no longer beneath you."
Saying this, he confirmed mentally that today was indeed a day off, and that he wouldn't be late to anything. Just to be safe.
While leaving the room, though, his thoughts habitually drifted to some way this could go wrong.
'I don't have anything scheduled, but this is the day. Who knows what could happen. Hell, the humans might launch the hunt while I'm asleep, and we'd lose the opportunity ! Or worse, Anderson might take Noti out, for some reason, and we'd never know about it ! Just because I decided to sleep right now...'
And he stopped himself once again before spiraling too far.
'Stop it. You have teammates. Pando will wake you up in both those cases. You're stupid right now, go to sleep.'
And he did. Or at least, he tried.
His anxious mind kept him awake for another hour or so. But then, after that, he finally managed to rest.