When Xecran returned to camp he saw his cousins silently sitting around the fire, blankly staring into the flames. Neither of them looked up at him as he approached. He just stood there, taking a moment before breaking the silence.

  Kamilis was huddling in his cloak. Xecran couldn’t help but notice his eyes were puffy and red. He looked defeated. Klavis didn’t look much better.

  Klavis sat with his cloak around him, but he didn’t clutch onto it like his brother. He too was staring absently into the fire; his face was unreadable. The one odd thing was his hand, it was holding some wadded-up paper.

  Xecran broke the silence. “Klavis, what’s that?” In that silence his voice was surprisingly loud, even to himself.

  Kamilis shrunk further into his cloak, the only indication that he’d heard Xecran. He remained looking into the fire. Klavis on the other hand looked like he was physically shocked out of his contemplation and turned to look at Xecran, a confused look upon his face “What?”

  Xecran pointed down at his hand. “That.”

  Klavis looked at his hand and looked a little surprised to find himself holding something. “Oh, that, I completely forgot I was holding that.” He folded back the paper, showing a piece of bread. “I stole a small loaf of mother’s sweet bread. Earlier, when I woke up, I was eating it for breakfast. I didn’t want to share it. If I’d known this would be the last time I would eat any of her baking…” he looked over at his brother and handed over that last bite of the bread. “Kamilis, here, I think you need this more than me.”

  At hearing his name, Kamilis looked over at his brother and his outstretched hand. After a moment, he slowly reached out an arm from under his cloak and took the bread. He brought it to his face, and took a slow, deep breath, inhaling the smell. He closed his eyes and just sat there, letting the smell fill his nostrils. After a few more moments he put the last piece of their mother’s bread in his mouth and chewed it slowly.

  Klavis looked over at Xecran “I’m sorry I got you into this mess. I should have just told you not to come.”

  Xecran shook his head “No, it’s not your fault, I knew something could happen.” He waited a moment for Klavis or Kamilis to say something, neither did. Normally Klavis would have taken charge and if not him, his brother. Kamilis went back to staring into the fire, still slowly chewing the bread, which surely must have been little more than a paste by this time.

  Klavis sighed, it almost looked like he was going to say something, but turned his attention back to the fire rather than continually looking awkwardly at Xecran.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Xecran started to get upset. He didn’t blame them for his own choice, but their self-pity was galling. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

  He loudly clapped his hands together once. “Hey, snap out of it. Stop sitting around the fire acting like the world’s ended. It isn’t doing any of us any good. We gambled, we lost. Get over it!”

  Surprised by the outburst, Klavis snapped his head back in Xecran’s direction, glaring and nearly jumped up. Kamilis’s reaction wasn’t as big, but he did jerk his head towards the loud noise and seemed to have finally snapped out of his daze.

  Xecran nodded and spoke again, but in normal tones “Good, that’s better.” You both looked like you were giving up on life. I’ll miss home too but look” Xecran waved his hands at the surrounding forest. “We have a whole new world to explore. This forest looks the same as the one we went to sleep in, but focus, pay attention, it’s different.” He closed his eyes and breathed in deeply through his nose, holding his breath for a moment and slowly exhaled. “Even the air is different.”

  Klavis stood up, closed his eyes and did as Xecran had done and took in a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “Yes, how did I miss that? The air is denser, thicker somehow. The scent of the forest is more pronounced.” He opened his eyes again and looked around. At first glance the trees were the same or at least in the same spot, but they did seem smaller. They somehow looked less foreboding than the night before. His eyes moved up the trunks of the trees, to their upper branches. “Kamilis, look up.”

  Kamilis had been listening, but he had stayed sitting down, still huddled under his cloak. He looked around but it was the same forest, nothing had changed for him. He sighed and figured he could indulge his brother, and he looked up. He could see blue sky through the trees. He asked his brother a question although he already knew the answer. “Klavis, wasn’t the forest so thick that we couldn’t see any sky before?”

  Klavis just nodded.

  Kamilis stood up as if standing would give him a better view of the treetops. All the while looking at the sky.

  Xecran also looked up, he hadn’t caught that. He could see it in their eyes, they finally answered the question they had never even asked. “Exactly, we are not where we were when we slept. Didn’t you see the mountains? How could you miss them, they are magnificent.” They both stared at him. Even he was surprised by the amount of enthusiasm in his voice. “We have a whole new world to explore! And perhaps somewhere out there we’ll be able to find a way home.” He grinned. “But that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy ourselves in the meantime.”

  Klavis smiled at his cousin “I’m not sure if I’ll ever live this down. Here I am, the most outrageous person in our generation and here you are having to give me a pep talk!”

  Kamilis took a moment to feel the air, to smell it. “Hey, do you guys smell that?”

  They both turned to look at Kamilis but it was Xecran who talked. “Yes, as I said, it smells different.”

  Kamilis waved a hand dismissing his comment. “No, I know, but smell again; it’s smoke.”

  Klavis rolled his eyes. “You’re standing next to a fire genius.”

  Kamilis glared at his brother. “I know that. I’m not talking about our fire; it’s coming from downwind. Smell, really smell. It’s smoky but it’s different. It’s hard to tell why, I can barely make it out.”

  Both of them indulged Kamilis, closed their eyes and smelled the air. It was Xecran who talked first “Yes, I can smell it now, it’s different, that’s for sure. Maybe it’s a different kind of wood?”

  Klavis opened his eyes “I know what it is.” Both Kamilis and Xecran opened their eyes and saw Klavis grinning as he spoke. “It’s food!”