A Time of Tigers - From Peasant to Emperor
Chapter 1366 - 1366: Change - Part 3

"It doesn't matter. I no longer need my looks," Lasha said.

"Don't say that!" Nila said, whirling on her. "Even if you don't think you need them, everyone else will be sad to see them go."

"Ha, made you look," Lasha said, with a rare smirk. Her leap was instant then, knowing that Nila would not be able to turn back rapidly enough. With a childishness that would have made even actual children pull faces filled with exasperation, Lasha put everything she had into that second attempt. She was grand, and graceful, poised like a creature of the wild.

Her intent betrayed nothing but absolute certainty.

THWACK!

And, despite it all, she ended up straight back on the ground again, looking up at the sky dumbly, radiating a chilling anger that was likely doing nothing for how cold she already felt.

"I am leaving," Nila declared. This time, she didn't hurry to fuss over her.

A short while later, they were picking their way along the route that Nila had chosen for them, down at the bottom of one of the ravines, avoiding the stream that flowed through it, and searching for a means to cross, so that they might tackle the trails that lead to the other side.

Blackthorn, it seemed, had not learned her lesson after falling from the previous boulders. There were even more of them down at the bottom of the ravine, and she danced to and fro, as if trying to make up for her past shame. Nila was almost jealous of how much fun the girl seemed to be having, but every now and then, Lasha would say something that easily swiped those thoughts away.

"I am cold," she declared, not for the first time.

"I told you that you would be," Nila said back, her nose in the air, and her eyes closed, refusing to pay Lasha any more attention than was necessary.

"My back hurts," she continued. "Lady Nila, do you have no sympathy?"

"I have run out, I'm afraid," Nila said. "Foolish girls that do the same thing over and over again, despite me warning them not to, no longer get the nice treatment."

"…I thought that the Captain's wife would be a kinder woman," Blackthorn said wistfully. "She's so terribly, terribly cruel."

"We're not married yet!" Nila snapped, rounding her. Blackthorn skipped away to another boulder, putting distance between them. Nila could see that she was trying to hold back her giggle again.

"'Yet,' she said," Blackthorn noted. "Nila Felder is a very confident woman. I am envious."

"Somehow a talkative Lasha is even worse…" Nila murmured.

"Oho. That is funny. Lord Patrick said the same thing," Lasha said. Somehow, she'd flashed to the boulder right next to Nila, in time to hear that comment. She was woefully fast and agile when she wished to be – it had taken a pair of boulders with quite a mighty distance between them to finally put a stop to that.

Nila found a crossing and leapt across the stream to be free of the girl. "Don't fall in," she said, sticking out her tongue by means of pay back.

"Who would fall in with such a shallow jump? Not I," Blackthorn said. Naturally, that was when she slipped. The ground was muddy and moist, and moving too quickly across it in those sorts of conditions was not advisable. Just barely, Lasha managed to correct her balance before she ended up flat on her back again, and then she jumped next to Nila on the other side of the river.

"…I keep slipping today," Lasha noted.

Even Nila was beginning to think that it was strange. "It might be your boots," she supposed. "They do look rather fancy... Are you sure they're hunting boots?"

"They are. I hunted for them in my chest of clothes, and found them," Lasha said.

"That doesn't make them hunting boots," Nila said back. "Show me the bottoms of them."

Semi-obligingly, like a horse offering up its hoof tentatively to its owner, Blackthorn raised her boot. Nila had to grab her by the calf to lift it so that she could actually see. "You absolute idiot," Nila said. "Is the noble title some sort of curse of stupidity? Both you are Oliver both, you're always so— Ah, but then Oliver was like that even before…"

"Hm? What have I done? You are being rather cruel to me today, Lady Felder," Blackthorn said.

"Your boots have no treads on at all, Lasha, they're practically flat," Nila said. "These are some fancy noble woman's city boots. They're meant to keep your legs warm in the winter… But they're not for these sorts of conditions. It's no wonder you're sliding all over."

"Ho…" Lasha said thoughtfully. "Then if you lend me your boots, I can make that boulder jump?"

"…I am not lending you my boots so you can attempt to kill yourself for the third time," Nila said.

"Please," Lasha said.

"No," Nila said firmly.

"…But I have no other boots," Lasha said, her shoulders sinking.

"What boots do you fight in?" Nila asked.

"Different ones," Lasha said vaguely.

"If you really do need a pair, I have another pair of boots you can borrow, back at mother's house…" Nila said. "But there isn't any point getting them today, not when we're already there. You've just got to be careful, okay?"

"Okay," Lasha agreed reasonably placidly for once. It was getting to the point where a minor agreement was enough to afflict Nila with a certain degree of relief.

But it wasn't long after ascending up the ravine side, and finally nearing the patch of forest that Nila had intended to hunt, that she heard Lasha give a comment of complaint again. "I'm cold…" She said.

"I told you that you would be. The back of your skirt, and the back of your jumper, they're all wet from those leaves," Nila said. "But you just had to try and jump it again, didn't you?"