It was extremely light, almost empty. Hawke looked strangely at the waterskin in his hand and then directly at Kaira with a confused expression.
"What is it?!"
Kaira answered nervously, almost shouting, the words tumbling out.
"It's clean, it's not disgusting, there's absolutely nothing strange in there! It's not like that time I put poisonous mushroom juice in the waterskin to give Tairo a terrible stomach ache!"
Hawke raised an eyebrow, processing that random confession, then extended his open palm downwards and shook the upside-down waterskin ; only a few miserable drops of water fell out.
"Huh??"
Kaira hadn't even realized she was handing him the completely empty waterskin; she instantly blushed with utter shame and embarrassment, and began to take extremely quick steps, moving forward again, trying to escape the situation.
"Hey, Kaira, your..."
"I-I'll get it back later, keep it for now!"
She interrupted without looking back, her voice barely audible from embarrassment.
"I'll come back for it later! Come on, Yuka!"
Hawke shrugged, completely confused about exactly what had just happened. Yuka also quickened her pace, following her fleeing friend, the two returning to their previous position in line.
***
They all continued forward in silence for a while longer until Tairo signaled for them to stop, raising his clenched fist.
"I'm going to take a look from up there to confirm the direction!"
He said, his hand already firmly on the trunk of a giant tree, assessing the best climbing route. Everyone stopped obediently to wait ; Yuka took the opportunity to sit down, relieved, on a smooth rock, massaging her own feet.
"I want to climb up and see too!"
Kaira said excitedly, approaching the base of the tree.
"NO!"
Tairo denied in an extremely firm tone that did not allow for discussion.
"There's no point in wasting energy climbing all at once. I'll climb alone, save your strength for the rest of the hike."
Kaira puffed out her cheeks in childish protest, visibly annoyed, but didn't verbally insist on climbing with him. Deep down, as much as she wanted to see everything from up there and have that panoramic view, she reluctantly agreed with Tairo about wasting unnecessary energy when they still had a hike ahead.
Tairo began to climb the large tree, demonstrating an impressive physical skill that Hawke couldn't help but mentally compare to himself, he was infinitely faster than him at climbing, perhaps because he had much more accumulated practice or because he was lighter and more agile, whatever the reason, he was clearly on a completely superior level in the specific aspect of climbing trees.
It didn't take long to reach the top with all that skill, his muscles working perfectly coordinated. When he finally reached the top among the highest branches, he shouted excitedly:
"HEY, EVERYONE! CHEER UP, WE'RE VERY CLOSE TO THE GOAL!"
Everyone below exchanged glances, genuinely pleased smiles spreading throughout the group; things were going surprisingly well up to that point in the journey. They had eaten properly early on with the roasted insects, no one had been cowardly abandoned along the way, and Tairo apparently hadn't forgotten the correct route as some secretly feared.
Some members of the group had even whispered that they were taking too long because it probably wasn't the right way, however Tairo had hit it on the first try without needing to resort to Hawke's preventative markings.
Hawke brought both hands to the side of his mouth, forming a cone, and shouted loudly:
"HEY, TAIRO! WHAT ELSE DO YOU SEE UP THERE?!"
The entire group stood completely still, patiently waiting for answers while looking up, until Tairo's distant voice broke the tense silence in another shout.
"THERE'S... THERE'S A POND! IT'S QUITE BIG!"
Yuka and Kaira instantly looked at each other with excited, shining eyes.
"A pond!"
They repeated excitedly in unison.
After a short while, Tairo descended from the tree with the same impressive skill he had used to climb, his feet finding perfect footing automatically.
"So, everyone," he announced, clapping his hands to remove the stuck bark. "Let's keep going in this direction. At this good pace, we'll soon reach our final destination without any problems."
"Hey!"
Yuka interrupted indignantly, getting up from the rock.
"What is it now?" Tairo asked, confused.
"It's just that we wanted to go to the lagoon first, you know?" Kaira explained, trying to sound casual.
"Why would we do that?" Tairo replied with absolutely genuine doubt. "It will only delay us unnecessarily."
Kaira stopped, trying to quickly think of a convincing enough answer, but Yuka was quicker, breaking the silence.
"We need water!" She hesitated visibly before continuing. "And... and a bath too." She finished extremely shyly, looking at the ground.
"Why would you need a bath?" Tairo asked, genuinely confused, making a vague gesture.
"They're perfectly fine as they are! Besides, we always drink accumulated rainwater or water that naturally comes from plants, have you forgotten that stagnant pond water can make us very sick with stomach aches?"
He looked away, consulting the highest authority. "Isn't that right, Grandma?"
At that very moment, the old woman was trying to climb the tree that Tairo had climbed down by herself; it wasn't very high, actually, it was ridiculously low, just a few centimeters from the ground. Suddenly she completely lost her balance and fell on her backside with a thud.
"HEY, YOU IDIOT! Don't distract me when I'm climbing! I was almost at the top!"
She grumbled angrily, getting up and going straight towards Duggi. She raised her arms like a child asking to be carried, he obediently picked her up and put her back on his back in the usual position, then handed her Hawke's black club and received as a reward some "affectionate" blows to the head.
"We can't drink water from the pond," the old woman declared authoritatively, striking Duggi with each word for emphasis. "Bad water for the stomach. That idiot Tairo is right this time."
"But it's not every time the water makes us sick..." Yuka murmured, too quietly to be taken seriously; she had already mentally surrendered to Tairo's final decision.