The Tribes of K'haren - Completed

Chapter 41.2

'Hello again, haven't seen you in a while.' Feyn said, eyeing the two up curiously.

'Hello, that's true indeed.' Nume replied with a smile. She didn't even give Kran a chance to greet Feyn as well before she started asking questions the harpy struggled to keep up with.

'Slow down, give me a moment and please, only ask one question at a time!' Feyn interrupted her at some point.

With a sigh, Nume said: 'Alright, first things first, how are you doing?'

'Good, and you two?' The harpy replied, slightly confused by the question.

'Great.' Nume said and Kran didn't dare to say a word, Nume was too hurried at the moment. 'Next question: What are you doing here? I saw you nervously flapping your wings, something must be wrong, right?'

To Nume and Kran's surprise, they then witnessed a harpy blush for the first time. Feyn looked to the ground, muttering something inaudible before finally sighing, looking at Nume and saying: 'No, nothing's wrong, I was just talking to somebody about personal things.'

With big eyes, the two phraio stared at her. The question of who could be felt in the air but neither of them dared to ask. Before long, Feyn was back to her usual cold-looking expression and asked for the next question.

'Oh, eh, well, what's going on in the rest of K'haren?' Kran chimed in when Nume failed to close her mouth and stop staring in surprise.

'Quite a lot, loads of small problems, but nothing big. Some people struggle to fit back into their families but we harpys have made it our duty to act as messengers between heatened heads whenever necessary, that's working rather well. One orc recently joined us, stating he couldn't stay with his pack any longer. It's hard to integrate him here though so we're trying to solve that problem which proves to be the hardest so far...' Feyn explained in length.

'Good, then tell me, how are things going here? I heard Tarlequin and Raf are working without so much as a plan...' Nume said not without judgment in her voice.

'We're getting along, what do you think why I'm here instead of travelling from one place to another? I mean, they do their best, but those two really aren't too good at keeping a group of people together... Maybe they just lived by themselves for too long. Anyway, Mersha was really helpful too, before he started going on ever longer lasting tours with Zar'gno. Now everything's pretty much up to me and a few others who proved to be helpful.' The harpy spoke. 'But now that you're back, I suppose you'll be taking some responsibility again?'

'Well, we actually wanted to talk to you about that as well...' Kran said but was interrupted by a soft punch in the side from Nume.

'We need to talk to Mersha, where have they gone to, do you know when they might be back?' She chimed in.

'No idea, they'll be back eventually, you could very well work a little in the meantime. We need some more people to go looking for new food sources in the south, even though many have left the city again, there still are too many of us in one place to feed from what's nearby without taking too much.' Feyn quickly explained. 'I have to go now, somebody's waiting for me down by the river, they want me to show them how to catch fish more efficiently...'

Before they could say another word, Feyn already rushed away. 'Great.' Nume muttered. 'What now?'

'We go do some work?' Kran suggested.

When Nume turned around to look at him, her heart stopped beating for a moment. Behind Kran stood Gaplae, looking at her as if he were waiting for something.

'Hello.' Nume managed to say whereupon Kran, too, turned around.

'Oh, hello Gaplae, how are you?' Kran asked happily.

'Good and you?' The young Frago replied, not taking his eyes off Nume.

'Good, good, we-'

'Kran, do you mind looking for the others who'll go southwards already, I'll catch up in a bit.' Nume interrupted him. For a moment, her friend just stared at her, but then he wished Gaplae a nice day and walked away.

In the middle of the city with loads of people around, Nume would have felt rather exposed to somebody eavesdropping but over time, she had learned that a big body of people actually was rather protective, nobody care about the individual conversations going on within anymore. Thus she felt safe talking to Gaplae there rather than somewhere on their own where they might have caught people's attention just by being on their own.

'So...' Nume said, not knowing what else to do.

'Hello again.' Gaplae said, stepping a little closer but not too close for comfort.

'You're doing good then?' Nume couldn't help asking.

'Yeah, well, I wanted to talk to you real quick, about what happened a while ago...' Gaplae hesitated, still looking into her eyes. 'I'm sorry.' His worse caught her by surprise.

'About what?' Nume asked, blinking a few times, trying to make sense of it.

'About making such a fuss the other day. I shouldn't have bothered you with it. You obviously aren't interested in me and that's alright. Some things have changed, I've moved on and I just thought it might be nice to tell you so you don't need to worry about that anymore. But I have to go now, got to go to the river...' Gaplae explained, speaking way too fast. It took a moment after he'd finished talking for Nume to actually process the words. All of a sudden, a thought came to her.

'Wait, you're meeting Feyn down by the river, right?' She asked. Gaplae immediately looked away, confirming her theory. 'She just mentioned something about fish, anyway, thanks for telling me. Have a nice day then.' Nume said, deciding not to make him feel any more uncomfortable.

'Thanks, you too...' The Frago replied, not looking into her eyes anymore before he walked away. Now Nume couldn't help smiling, the thought of these two together was just too cute, though she didn't know why she associated it with cuteness. But then she suddenly realised she'd sent Kran away so she quickly went off herself, looking for him and the others.

// That was a hurry, hope I didn't make too many mistakes, running out of time here, don't forget to vote and leave a comment below, thanks as always ;)