"She didn’t even drink ale for heaven’s sake, how is she drunk?" Confused, Orson asked Elian to confirm how the hell she got drunk in front of them. They already told the alehouse keeper to serve her something extremely light, so her unexplainable situation wasn’t clear to either of them.
Taking her drink in his grasp, Elian sniffed it quickly. Puzzled for some seconds, he took another sniff before setting down her glass drink of strawberry on the table. He closed his eyes like a fool who just realized something late, and then he opened them back.
"Strawberry Daiquiri contains really light liquor, but I guess she can’t even handle that." He shifted his attention to Inna who was humming a melodious tune with her head thrown back on the chair.
"And she wanted to drink ale." Orson was tempted to use this opportunity to give her all the scoldings, but he refrained from it, afraid she might remember them when she wakes up.
It was already late in the night at the Alehouse, and Elian rose to his feet. He walked towards where Inna sat, crouching on his knees in front of her.
"Get on my back." He instructed Inna in his blunt tone, and when her dizzy eyes focused on his back, they lit up at the thought of Elian carrying her on his back.
"Okay!" In an instant, Inna’s hands went around his neck, and she put her legs around him. When she was settled, Elian lifted her properly with his hands going under her covered thighs to steady her, and Inna’s hands remained secured around his neck.
"Let’s go." Elian said to Orson who’s mouth hung open. "If you’re carrying Inna, who’s going to carry the rest of the loads?"
"Obviously it’s gonna be you, we should take full responsibility for our actions."
"You’re carrying Inna! How’s that part of taking responsibility??! You’re a vampire!" Orson argued, feeling cheated in some way, and Elian didn’t bother to hide how easily he fooled Orson.
"Get the bags, except you plan on sleeping here." Saying this, he walked away with Inna, exiting the Alehouse, and Orson who couldn’t shed a tear, had no other choice but to give in to their demands and carry all the four heavy traveling bags on his shoulder.
The Midnight air greeted them when they stepped out of the alehouse. The street was silent by this time, and Orson already loaded his gun before hanging it at the side of his waist.
"Always stay alarmed is what the chief general at our bureau made extremely clear to us." Orson uttered in a whisper to the less bothered Elian.
"Night time.." Elian sighed, knowing his brother would probably be heading for Whitebridge already. "I could use my speed, but then, you’d be left behind."
"Am I supposed to feel thankful?"
"For this little sacrifice of mine, yeah, absolutely."
"Don’t talk to me again, annoyingly, everything you say really pisses me off." He threatened to hit Elian with his gun if he continued to mess with him.
"That felt satisfying to know." Elian half-smiled.
Orson could only curse him in the head. After figuring out he was the sick King’s lost son. He had been trying to keep his actions down so Elian doesn’t remember all of the bad things he said to him. If Elian returns home when everything is restored, he would surely be the first to lose his head after speaking bad about someone of royalty.
"Hey." Orson suddenly remembered something, "when are you going to reveal yourself, I mean, after everything is over, you’ll return to your family in the Palace, right?"
Elian didn’t answer that question, the wind whistled past them, and Orson was starting to wonder if his question had left Elian uncomfortable.
"No." Elian replied before Orson could tell him to forget it, but his ’no’ response wasn’t something Orson had expected.
"Why not?? If I was in your shoes, that’ll basically be the first thing I do. Come on, born in royalty, who would say no to such a good life." Orson snorted, finding his answer unbelievable.
"Royalty is good, but I don’t belong there anymore." Elian answered firmly, "I want things to continue the way they are. Alaric is doing a good job too, he’s pretty wide and knows how to deal with those councils and Ministers. Let it remain that way. Somehow, it’s a good thing to be forgotten."
"You are a sad Vampire, I want to pity you but you’ll look pathetic." Orson tsked, unable to hide that he did feel sorry for Elian and his brother. "If you don’t want to stay there when everything is over, you can still stay with us till you figure out your next plan."
"I plan to leave."
"Huh?"
"Leave Carmarthen, for good." He glanced at Orson who was puzzled by the news. "I’m only here because I want to get my revenge on that mastermind. Once he’s gone, I have no other purpose in Carmarthen."
"Wow." Orson looked away, for some reason, he wasn’t happy with that decision. "So where do you plan to go then?"
"I haven’t decided yet, but it’s going to be somewhere really far from here."
"You’re not going anywhere." Inna, who had been silent all this while, suddenly awoke from her subconscious slumber after hearing Elian say he’d leave.
"Go back to sleep." He ignored her protest and tried to persuade her into sleeping.
"But why are you leaving?" She asked regardless, her face was contoured into worry, but he couldn’t see it.
"Where will you go? Who will I... who will I trouble if you’re not around? You promised you’d stay till next year, so you can’t leave." She shook her head at the thought of him leaving, and Orson suddenly felt like a third wheel when it was Inna who ruined his conversation.
"And here I was assuming you’d be the happiest to hear this news." He teased, but Inna rested the side of her face on his back, her eyes slowly drooping to a close.
"I only said them cause I was angry." She uttered quietly, "if you leave, then I will be really upset." Saying this, her eyes finally closed shut, returning back to her sleeping state.
Elian couldn’t comprehend why, but hearing her say something like that made the heart he thought had died inside of him skip a beat.
"I don’t think anyone would want you to leave." Orson added. "That doesn’t include me though, I’m speaking for Cas and Maddie."
Elian rolled his eyes, "it sounded obvious from the beginning and what the hell are you doing Orson?" Elian looked at Orson who had put on Inna’s fancy purple hat on his head, and Elian smiled sheepishly.
"Apparently, this is the only load that my head can carry." He immediately covered up his silly tactics, but to his surprise, Elian shook his head with a faint smile before walking away.
"Did he just smile at me?" Snapping out of his daze, he hurried towards Elian’s side, pointing his gun ahead and playfully staying alert.
"I think I spotted a Fiend."
"There’s one behind you."
"What?!" Out of instinct, Orson quickly turned around in fear, his gun pointing at the Fiend behind him, but the only problem was, there’s no Fiend.
Immediately, he knew what Elian did.
"Bastard" he cursed.