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year 5, quarter 3
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"Wanted: Caius Dragelion. Dead or Alive. Reward Offered".
It wasn't a posting by the soldiers, it was plastered on the bulletin board clearly by a resident. Staring at it on the bulletin board, Caius couldn't help but chuckle slightly. They had changed the reward, he noticed. He was worth quite the pretty penny in gil now. And they had scribbled off "Alive" from the posting, quite poorly at that. It seemed that he had indeed managed to do more than just ruffle the feathers of this "Original Sin". They didn't just want to teach him a lesson now, they wanted him dead on the spot. That was fine with him. It just meant they would hunt him harder, and he would eventually learn who their leader was. Then he could put an end to this. Even if things became a little more difficult for awhile, he knew he could pull through this.
But he did find what he was looking for. A job posting, one he had been looking for in particular from a woman named Darlene. She had told people apparently, that she was hiring for someone to rescue her six year old from bandits. The job posting looked hastily written and had some rips in it, as if the writer had clearly been having some emotional difficulties while writing. Caius had decided to find this posting and take it, and left a note with the address at their small, ramshackle base of operations for any Dragonblades member that wished to join him if they were quick about it. Before long, he found himself at a small house in town. After knocking, a young woman answered the door. By the looks of her puffy, red cheeks, Caius wagered she had been crying recently.
“You’re Darlene?”
“Yes, I am. How can I help you?”
“My name is Caius, I’m part of the Dragonblades. I’m here about the job posting?” Caius inquired, his tone calm. He did try to sound more emphatic considering what he knew of her situation, but… He was still adjusting to, well… Emotions in general. Things he had shut out before Celes came into the picture. With strangers, it was still a bit harder to get comfortable with letting it show.
The woman’s eyes lit up at those words, her pupils growing as she took his hands. The expression on her face indicated he had just made her day, if not her entire week.
“Oh, thank you! I was starting to think nobody would help!”
“What about the soldiers?” Caius would ask. “Odd that you wouldn’t go to them first.”
“I did!” The woman cried, giving a deeply frustrated pout. “They claimed they sent men, then they apparently never came back!”
Never came back? Interesting, he thought… Perhaps these bandits were more problematic than he had thought.
“While I grieve for the fallen, they refuse to send more men to get her back, they stated they can’t spare the manpower with all the chaos started -- first by the dragons, then the monsters that followed suit, and then that stupid witch blowing up the square! But I’ve been there! I tracked them to their camp! They’ve got all these cages!”
“They’re slavers too, then.”
The woman’s expression grew to absolute horror at the deduction. As if the reality of the situation had just washed over her. “But, but that means…” The woman began trembling. “If they move her, or… Or by gods, sell her off, I... I’ll never be able to find her!”
Caius would slowly nod his head, letting out a resigned sigh. She was correct. Odds were that should they find a buyer, or move her to another holding, the woman would probably lose the trail on her daughter and locating her from there would be next to impossible. Which meant that time was of the essence.
“You have to hurry! I will pay any price! Any price you name, just please save Emily!” She cried, her hold on Caius’ hands tightening to the point that it actually began to hurt him. She had a very strong grip, this girl… If not for the numbers game, he wouldn’t be surprised if, with her determination she would have gone to the base and tried to take her daughter back herself and likely had a measure of success. One desperate for something as much as she was, even without the proper training, could pull off miracles. It was also possible she’d already attempted - and narrowly escaped with her life. Caius was no parent, but he knew enough from his time in this world that people tended to value their children as much if not more than life itself.
“Of course” Caius spoke softly as he would place his arm over his heart and give a half-bow, the customary salute for a Kingsglaive. “I will do everything in my power to bring your daughter back home safe. I promise.”
Final Fantasy X
19
YEARS
Female
Tidus
Heterosexual
294 POSTS
Erin
I live for the people of Spira, and would have gladly died for them, but no more!
Yuna’s first meeting with Celes had gone well, and she was pleased to finally have a complete picture of the Dragonblades. She thought that the blond pair made a good set of leaders—Caius with his talent for recruiting new members and Celes with her ability to train the new ones since she was used to being a general. She looked forward to seeing their operation take off over the next few years.
Yuna had been disappointed that she had missed Caius at the base—she had wanted to say goodbye to him before she continued her ill-advised trip of escorting Aera to Provo. However, with the catastrophe that had gone down in the square, Aera and Yuna had decided to postpone their travel for a few days, as eager as the woman seemed to be to locate Ardyn. Yuna couldn’t understand why. She had done her best to dissuade Aera, but she was steadfast in her resolve. Yuna didn’t want to see the woman get hurt, so she was relieved to have their trip delayed, even if it was at a terrible price.
Yuna spent a few days offering her services to assist with the wounded in the aftermath. She felt a little sick at seeing the carnage that this mysterious witch had left behind, and she slipped off one day to visit the base where she had met Celes. She wanted to see if the woman had any insight on what had happened in town. It looked like the person who had done this was likely just as a much of a threat as Ardyn.
Unfortunately, Celes wasn’t at the base this time, though there was a message hastily written by Caius. Yuna scanned the sprawling writing, frowning as she understood the situation. It seemed that the bandits that she and Caius had encountered during their very first mission together were still a problem. She couldn’t imagine how anyone could ever kidnap a child that young. The girl’s plight tugged at her heart as she imagined what they were doing to her, and after only a moment of hesitation, she took the note with her since it listed the address on it. If Caius wanted any help, then she’d be happy to give it to him. Especially for something like this.
When Yuna reached the small, cozy-looking house, she hesitated outside. While she could hear voices inside, she didn’t want to interrupt a meeting with a grieving mother, so instead she stepped back off the porch and sat on her knees in the grass while she waited.
After a few minutes, the door opened, and Caius stepped out into the front yard. Smiling at the sight of her friend, Yuna got to her feet to greet him. “Surprise,” she said a bit teasingly. “I got your message. I hope you don’t mind the company.”
She hadn’t seen Caius since his only slightly disastrous first attempt at flying on Vordun, but she imagined that he had immensely improved since then. He wasn’t the type to stop working at something just because it hadn’t gone amazingly the first time.
Caius knew full well who the witch was that had done it. Descriptions matched her perfectly. It was odd, whenever a catastrophe seemed to happen – whether it be a town square being blown to bits or a plague hitting Provo, it seemed to always be tied to someone that Caius had encountered in his travels. People that Caius hadn’t killed the first time around and prevented these things from happening. That was a regret for him, though he wouldn’t say that aloud. Caius understood that for all his capabilities, there were just some things that he couldn’t do. He could not stop immortality, and he could not singlehandedly stop a magic user such as they. But that was part of the point of the Dragonblades, he supposed. Together, they could do what they alone could not do. So the Dragonblades needed to continue to grow. They needed to continue to recruit powerful warriors of remarkable strength of character, and for the lesser so, home grow their abilities and train them into the warriors and people that they needed to be. That was part of what made Caius and Celes such a team as well when it came to their co-leadership. One was able to breed strong warriors… The other set out to bring about their strength of character. Strong warriors, and strong people. That was what the Dragonblades needed to be. And they had the means to make that happen. And eventually, they would put a stop to threats like that witch, and Ardyn. They just had to keep building. Building a reputation, building strength, building people. It would take time… But he knew that they could do it.
But along the way, they could do all that they could in order to help the people. Especially cases like this. Caius refused to allow any further harm to come to that child. He had failed his own family way back when, and he had failed that village child on the mountain who had met their end at the wyvern’s nest. He refused to fail another. Caius stepped outside of the house and the expression on his face indicated he had full intentions of making a complete beeline to the stables to retrieve Vordun and get going as soon as humanly possible. What he hadn’t been expecting though, was to run into Yuna, and he stopped a moment. Smiling slightly at the remark of “Surprise” he nodded his head when she indicated she had decided to act on the message he had written back at the base. He was quite happy about that to be honest, Yuna was one of the few people he trusted most in a number one priority type job situation such as this.
“I’m leaving immediately. If you have any further preparations to make, meet me at the stables, but do hurry.”
At the stables, Caius would quickly speak to the stable holder, before a cabin opened to let Vordun out. While before the holder was hesitant about allowing a dragon to be stabled around horses, Vordun had proven his capability to restrain and act as nothing more than a very large horse. Caius had intended at first for Vordun to follow him in the streets, but the dragon had been tired from all the flying and Caius had decided instead to secure him a safe place to rest for now. Vordun seemed full of energy when he came bounding out though, and was actually a fair bit bigger than when Yuna had seen him last, if one could believe that. The fully grown dragon would be led out of the stables as he began to sniff at Yuna, whenever her arrival was.
“So! What do you think of going for a flight?” Caius offered to Yuna as he began getting the saddle on Vordun’s back. Once it was snapped on, Caius quickly climbed on with Vordun’s help. With that, he held out a hand to help Yuna onto Vordun’s back. There was a real saddle this time, custom made with Vordun and Caius in mind.
“We’ve gotten better since last time, I promise. It’s completely safe.”
Final Fantasy X
19
YEARS
Female
Tidus
Heterosexual
294 POSTS
Erin
I live for the people of Spira, and would have gladly died for them, but no more!
Yuna nodded when Caius said that he was leaving immediately. She had expected that from the nature of the quest. Since a child was involved, there really wasn’t much time to waste. “I’ll meet you at the stables then. I won’t be more than a few minutes,” she assured him before splitting off to return to the inn where she and Aera were staying. Unless their mission went wrong, she didn’t expect that they’d be gone more than a day or two, so she quickly packed a bag with some simple supplies and scribbled Aera a note on where she’d gone. She knew that the blonde Oracle was eager to get to Provo, so hopefully she wouldn’t mind a small delay on top of the one caused by the destruction in town.
Ready to go, Yuna approached the stables with her bag slung over one shoulder and her staff clasped in her left hand. She was certain that she’d need it if they were infiltrating the same people that they had before. The bandits had been all too quick to use their guns and even quicker to use innocent bystanders to get what they wanted.
Yuna had expected that maybe they were renting chocobos at the stables, so she pressed one hand to her mouth and laughed as Caius led Vordun out of a stall instead. The dragon was even bigger than he had been during their flying lesson, so she held her breath as the creature sniffed her, leaning up to lightly stroke the scales along his neck when he seemed to recognize her.
“I can’t believe how big he is. I still remember when you carried him in your coat,” she mused as Caius began to snap a saddle onto the dragon’s back. It looked like the two had come a long way since they had been forced to make do with rope and a behemoth hide. The saddle must have been commissioned specifically for Vordun. The dragon acted like nothing was out of the ordinary, so he must have been fairly used to flying with Caius now.
Yuna straightened and stared at Caius in surprise when he asked if she wanted to go for a flight. “Really? He can carry two now?” She trusted Caius, but even she had to eye the a pair a tad dubiously. They had made amazing progress during their lesson, but it had naturally been a bit clumsy since they were new to flying. Had they really come so far since then?
“You’re lucky I have faith in you,” Yuna said with a slight laugh, but she took Caius’ hand when he offered it to her and used it to climb up behind him on the saddle. Her bag was secured across her shoulders, and she made sure to tightly hold her staff against her lap with her elbows as she scooted closer to Caius so that she could hold onto him.
“Is this okay?” She was a little embarrassed to get so close, but hopefully they were good enough friends by now that it wouldn’t be too uncomfortable for either of them. Bracing herself for the lift-off, Yuna peered around Caius to peek at the road ahead of them.
"We've learned best we can, and I ride Vordun everywhere now in order to practice. As far as two person riding goes... Vordun's been vital in rescue missions. I hope that will be adequate reference that our capabilities are at least acceptable."
Caius didn't seem to mind her movements at all. She had shifted close for practical reasons, and if they had been for anything other than practical, Caius wouldn't have known seeing as he didn't think about those kinds of things. As far as he was concerned, Yuna was ensuring she didn't fall off. Taking the hint that she was securing herself as best she could, Caius would turn himself around to face her. It was a custom made saddle, so he doubted she'd know how to secure herself in properly, he figured he might as well teach her how it worked. He doubted this would be the last time they needed to utilize Vordun, after all. He silently showed her each securing part of the saddle before snapping it in around her, with the intention of helping her recognize each part and where it needed to go, as well as how it needed to be tightened. He hovered a hand over her leg a moment, cocking his head to inquire for permission - and if given gingerly grasped her leg and brought it down to the fashions to secure her foot. "Right leg here, I'll let you do the other leg" Caius instructed calmly, as he finished snapping her in. Once that was done, he turned himself back around and secured himself in quickly, with an ease and quickness that verified how much practice he'd had doing this. It had taken some time to make it work, but he and Vordun were far more capable than before at least. How that boded though, was yet to be seen.
At the least, Caius was comfortable on the saddle now. Letting out a deep exhale, Caius steeled himself for the flight to come. He was still adjusting to the takeoff a little bit, but at least he knew that Yuna was a little more used to this and he wouldn't have to take as much care with her, so that calmed his nerves a little.
To answer her question, he shook his head. "Not far with the speed we'll be going. We'll land at a distance, get a vantage point and plan our next move."
Motioning for her to hold on tight, he let Vordun take off. The ascent was fast, and Caius had to hold on incredibly tight and hold his breath. But they had learned a good height to get up to, one where the ground and what was below them were still clearly visible, so it didn't last as long as the initial practice session. The air was also less thin here than last time.
Final Fantasy X
19
YEARS
Female
Tidus
Heterosexual
294 POSTS
Erin
I live for the people of Spira, and would have gladly died for them, but no more!
“I trust you,” Yuna said with a faint smile when Caius explained that he’d been working hard with Vordun and taking him on rescue missions. It had been a long time since their first initial training session after all. If Caius said that it was fine, then she believed him.
Yuna assumed that they were about to take off, but Caius turned around and started helping her with what she now realized were buckles. It hadn’t occurred to her that they might strap themselves in to the saddle, but it made complete sense. Yuna had just only ever used a saddle on a chocobo before, and they didn’t go fast enough to warrant anything like that.
Caius asked for permission before he touched her leg, and Yuna was grateful for the thought. “Yes, alright.” Her cheeks flushed red in embarrassment as he strapped her in, and she nodded a bit too quickly when he said that she could do her other leg on her own now that she knew the process. “Mm,” She managed a noise of agreement as she leaned down to finish up. She thought that she’d been quick about it, but Caius still finished his entire set-up before she was done. She supposed that he was so used to it at this point that he could probably buckle the saddle in his sleep.
Caius explained that they’d be landing at a slight distance from the bandits’ camp so they could plan their next move. “Makes sense. We’ll have to see how many of them are with the hostages first.” As they were about to ascend, Yuna scooted closer to Caius and held on gingerly to his waist, but at the first gust of wind on take-off, she quickly wrapped her arms around him with an undignified squeak.
As they rose higher in the sky, Yuna loosened her grip slightly, laughing as she looked out on the horizon. “It’s so beautiful!” The world was an endless sea of blue sky and green landscapes below them. It really hit home how there was so much less water here than on Spira, but it still reminded her of views that she’d seen from up high before. Flying in on Valefor. Riding on the airship with her guardians.
Airship?
Sucking in a breath, Yuna touched one hand to her forehead, wondering where that had come from. Airships were a relic of the past that were forbidden by Yevon. She’d never even seen one, much less ridden on one. But then why did she feel so certain that she’d seen the view from an airship window before?
Feeling uneasy, Yuna renewed her grip on Caius, no longer enjoying the flight as much even if the views were still breathtaking. “You weren’t kidding,” she murmured, hoping that their destination wasn’t too far. “You two are great at this now.”
Caius wouldn't have brought Yuna along this way if he didn't trust Vordun. He trusted Vordun and knew he would do well. And this was a rescue mission, after all. They needed to get there at the best speed possible, and he was sure that Yuna understood that.
Once they were up in the air, Yuna seemed to adjust quickly. He supposed she would, considering she had some level of experience. When she commented that the landscape below was beautiful, he looked down and smiled lightly as Vordun settled into the air and began to go straight once they had ascended enough. "I suppose it is, isn't it?" He remarked. He hadn't thought to appreciate it until now, to be honest. He was still so used to just seeing nothing but death, and despair. His mind worked almost thinking as if, should he look down... Then it would be a ruin again. Like the dream he'd been living would end. But when he looked down, it wasn't a dream after all. And that made him happy.
Not noticing her shift in mood when her memories flooded back, Caius chuckled when she pointed out that they had indeed improved at this. "We try."
Over time, a crag came into view, and Caius motioned for Vordun to land there. What Caius hadn't seen below the crag, was a figure staring up at them before they disappeared. As Vordun landed, Caius dismounted and walked to the edge of the crag, looking down below at a large, fenced in camp.
"Odd. I don't see any cages" Caius remarked, brows furrowed as he pulled out a pair of binoculars he'd bought from Sonora and began to look through them. "By the looks of their gear... It's definitely the same group of bandits as last time" He observed. "The Original Sin, I've been told. They've posted a bounty on my head, how about that?" He quipped lightly, though his tone was still a fairly serious one at the same time.
"That's strange though... The camp looks rather barebones despite its size, and it's not very heavily guarded" He observed. "Is it possible that the prisoners are being held somewhere else around here?"
Final Fantasy X
19
YEARS
Female
Tidus
Heterosexual
294 POSTS
Erin
I live for the people of Spira, and would have gladly died for them, but no more!
The flight felt like it went by quickly compared to how much ground they had to cover, but then Yuna was used to traveling on foot or by chocobo. She had little frame of reference for what travel times generally were when someone was flying instead. Or she assumed that she didn’t have that knowledge at any rate--she wasn’t ready to consider too closely what that earlier flash of being on an airship might have meant.
As Vordun landed atop a cliff, Yuna clung tightly to Caius until the descent was finished. Afterward, she started to climb off the dragon but was stopped by the saddle supports still on her legs. Flushing red a bit, Yuna undid the buckles as quickly as she could manage before joining Caius near the edge of the cliff. They could see the bandits’ camp from here. It was a sprawling, spacious set of land that was fenced in with a few guards strolling about. Something seemed wrong about the sight, but Yuna couldn’t pinpoint the problem until Caius voiced aloud that there weren’t any cages.
“You’re right,” she said with a frown. “It’s different than last time. They weren’t hard to find then. The cages were right in the open.” Yuna had thought that the outfits that the bandits were wearing looked similar to the ones from her first mission with Caius, and it seemed that she was correct when her friend identified them as the Original Sin.
“That’s what they call themselves?” Yuna asked incredulously, a note of outrage leaking into her voice as she stared down at the camp. “That’s in such poor taste! Sin has killed thousands since it was first born into the world.” The arrogance of this group to compare themselves to Sin. Yuna didn’t often get angry, but between their kidnapping and slave-trading and now this, she felt something heated in her stomach as she looked down at the camp.
She calmed down a little when Caius lightened the air by joking about the bounty on his head. “Really? How much do they think you’re worth?” She gave him a slightly teasing smile before sobering up as they talked strategy.
“No, I agree. We should at least look around or see what the people here know. Though I don’t imagine they’d be happy to talk to us.” She didn’t feel good about threatening people either, so they might not learn too much by talking. Still, infiltrating the camp was worth a shot when the lives of a six-year old girl and countless others could be on the line.
“Maybe we can sneak in? There aren’t many places to hide, but if we could acquire outfits like theirs…”
She wasn’t opposed to charging in either since there weren’t many bandits around, but she agreed with Caius that the camp set-up was fishy. They should at least tread a little carefully.
Yuna's reaction was uncharacteristically angry, and both Caius and Vordun turned to stare at her when she did, seemingly taken aback by it. But Caius supposed he couldn't blame her, considering that "Sin" was probably a trigger word for her considering what she had likely been through by what she had told him in the past.
"Yuna" He spoke softly, calmly. "It's possible they aren't from your world, and wouldn't know that Sin even existed" He remarked, trying to get her to settle down in some measure so they could plan. Luckily, her fit of rage was short-lived, and they were able to get back to work. But Caius made a mental note not to piss her off in future, now that he thought about it. Now that "Angry Yuna" was on the table, Caius had no desire to potentially get into a fight with someone that could summon avatars of the very Astrals themselves. Noooo thank you.
"Disguising ourselves might work, though I don't know if our particular body shapes are anything close to the rugged sorts down there. Especially with how sparse their numbers are" He remarked. "I'm a bit too large for their average size, and you're of a more lithe frame. It's likely we would stick out like a sore thumb. But we could still try and sneak in without, and interrogate one of them... Hmm..."
Caius didn't get a chance to consider the idea further as a figure jumping out from the rocks below caused him to draw his gunblade and point it at their head. It was one of the bandits from below, by his garb, and the man held up his hands in protest.
"Hey, hey! I wouldn't do that if I were you!" The man remarked, a snide grin beginning to cross his face. "If you lot want to live, I'd suggest surrendering now."
Caius lowered his gunblade slightly, though seemed to change his mind as one of his daggers appeared in his hand and he fired at the man's foot. The man jumped back with a yelp and nearly fell off, but was caught by another bandit who was climbing up from below. Caius got into stance as they both climbed up, and then another... And another... And another...
And all around them, bandits suddenly began to climb up from all sides. Within seconds, Caius, Yuna and Vordun were surrounded by a small army of bandits pointing their weapons at them. Caius cursed under his breath. "We must have been seen by scouts" He grumbled under his breath. Figures. They needed to be more careful in future.
"Drop your weapons, and calm your stupid beast" One of them spoke up, referring to Vordun who had let out a resounding roar and seemed prepared to try and rip them apart. Caius considered his options as more bandits began to file in. With Yuna and Vordun in tow, Caius knew they at least had something of a chance of powering through them and escaping. But escape would be the best they could manage, and if they did... Then the girl would likely be moved and they would never find her again. No... They needed to find her, and they needed to find where she was now.
Caius let out a sigh as he raised his hands and dropped both his weapons, waiting for them to hit the ground before they disappeared. Of course, he couldn't account for Yuna. What they did next was her call.
Final Fantasy X
19
YEARS
Female
Tidus
Heterosexual
294 POSTS
Erin
I live for the people of Spira, and would have gladly died for them, but no more!
Yuna blinked slowly at Caius when he gently pointed out that the bandits had likely never heard of Sin before. “…Oh.” Feeling a little foolish by her outburst, she gave Caius a sheepish glance. “Does that word have another meaning here?” Perhaps it had once in Spira as well, but she didn’t think that anybody had said the word Sin in at least a thousand years without meaning the fearsome monster.
As Yuna considered the fenced-in hideout, Caius mulled over her idea that they could disguise themselves before pointing out that they were respectively too big and too small to play the role. “That’s true. I suppose I’d be tripping over my uniform and you’d be bursting out of it,” she said with a slight smile. Caius was much taller than average, and she hadn’t spotted too many women among the bandits’ ranks yet. Unfortunately they might stick out even if they were trying to blend in.
As Yuna debated the best way for them to sneak in, a man suddenly popped over the side of the underbrush. Jolting in surprise, Yuna raised her staff with a gasp while Caius immediately got his gunblade to the man’s head. The man suggested that they surrender with a snide grin on his face, which was bold of him while he was facing down two people and a dragon. But the reason for his confidence suddenly became clear as more and more of the bandits started to climb up the hill in every direction around them. Yuna glanced around desperately for an opening, but they seemed to have planned this. Her heart sank as she realized that they must have been spotted while they were flying in. Maybe they had descended too close.
“Drop your weapons, and calm your stupid beast.” Vordun didn’t seem pleased to have weapons pointed at him as he roared in anger, and Yuna’s mind raced with other possibilities. She could try to summon Shiva for aid, but that could hurt Caius and Vordun too on such a small hilltop. She couldn’t risk it, but nothing else that she could do would save them against such a large crowd. While Yuna was paralyzed with indecision, Caius let out a small sigh as he dropped both his weapons and raised his hands in surrender. Yuna gave him a surprised look as the bandits jeered, but in the end, she decided that it was the correct decision. More likely than not, the bandits would take them to the same group of cages where the little girl was being kept, and they might be able to make a move to rescue her from there. Caius was nearly impossible to truly disarm after all since his weapons came from the ether, and Yuna didn’t really need her staff to cast magic. Though it certainly helped her to enhance it.
Swallowing slightly, Yuna knelt to lay her staff on the ground before raising her hands in a mirror of Caius. The bandits laughed in response when they had their surrender, and a few of them stepped forward to tie their hands behind their backs. Yuna winced slightly at the rough rope—the man who was securing her seemed to have a hard time finding her wrists underneath her billowing sleeves—and she glanced away while the men debated what to do about Vordun and pestered Caius to get the dragon to stand down. Technically, she supposed that she did still have the dagger that Celes had bought for her hidden under her sash. She had zero confidence in her ability to use it yet, and the bandits were likely to find it anyway if they patted her down. But the weight of the silver dagger with its sapphire stones was still comforting to her as the bandits started to drag them off the hill.
One of the men near the front glanced between both of their faces before whistling under his breath. “Well I’ll be damned. We’ll make out well if we hand these two over,” he said with a slight laugh, and Yuna gave him a concerned glance as she tried to figure out what that was supposed to mean. "...What?" Did he recognize them? How? She didn’t believe that he was one of the people from her first mission with Caius, but it was possible that she just hadn’t gotten a good look at him before.
As they entered the bandits’ camp, Yuna let out a slow breath as the fence closed behind them with a slow, ominous creak. There was no turning back now, and she glanced over to see how Caius was doing. Hopefully they had made the right choice.
