Nomad

Rough Terrain

"Uh oh." Adira frowned, looking at her map.

"What is it?" Rapunzel asked, walking over to her.

They'd stopped at the base of a cliff, to which Eugene had sarcastically commented about how he would've done a much better job of getting them through here. Adira looked up from her map and sighed, walking over to Quirin. "Brother, we need to talk."

"About?" He asked, getting up from helping Varian check on the wheels of their caravan.

She sighed. "These caravans. We have to scale the cliff, according to the map, so we're going to have to let the forest take them."

"'Take them'?" Quirin raised an eyebrow.

Rapunzel came over to join them, looking concerned.

"When I came through here before, I encountered a man that had been lost for a few hours before I showed up. He had lost his horse and cart to a sinkhole, and was desperate. So, I helped him get out and we found his horse and cart on the other side. So, I'm thinking that if we let your caravans be taken, we'll find them waiting for us outside the forest. But, I don't know what would happen if a person went through a sinkhole..."

Quirin sighed. "Well, I know better than to question magic forests. I'll go inform everyone that we're traveling on foot for a little while." He walked off with Varian at his side.

"I...guess I better tell my group, too." Rapunzel said, heading back to them.

–

"Raps, are you insane?" Cassandra hissed. "We're just going to follow her advice blindly?"

"Quirin is trusting her and he has an entire village to look out for. Besides, like he said..." she looked over at Quirin, who was talking to his people, "'I know better than to question magic forests'."

Eugene sighed heavily. "Alright, then. Let's go pack."

He headed into the caravan and Cassandra looked over at the colony doing the same. "They...really trust him. They follow him like he's their King."

"He's their leader." Rapunzel smiled. "I only hope I can have as powerful a presence as he does when I am Queen."

After they packed the essentials into backpacks and made sure everyone was out, they all stepped out and joined Adira. "How long will this take?" Quirin asked her.

"About fifteen minutes. We should move on." Adira suggested.

"Right." Eugene nodded, tying a rope to his side and starting to climb the cliff. "I'll climb up first and you guys can--"

"Whoever gets to the top last has to eat Tina's cooking!" Clyde called motioning for the kids to follow him to the wall.

"Hey!" A young woman said with an offended tone.

Eugene stared in disbelief as he saw Varian and the other kids climbing up the wall without any kind of rope, quicker than he was doing it. Then Adira fired an arrow that created a ladder and he groaned as everyone else started to climb up it, continuing his own ascent.

"Guess Mr. Rider's going to eat Tina's cooking." Varian said teasingly as he offered him a hand up.

"It's Eu-- ...nevermind." Eugene sighed heavily as he got up and dusted himself off. "Thanks, kid."

"No problem!" He hurried on with the others and Eugene followed behind.

"That kid does not look that athletically-inclined." Eugene muttered, shaking his head.