Arlo didn't care for it either. The possibility that any of the terrors that haunted Emea might find a way to slip through into the material world, in much the same way that mortals fears and worries followed them onto the dreaming plane. On the one hand, the idea fascinated him. And he wondered, was it possible? But on the other, he'd seen and witnessed some of those things, and wouldn't like to meet up with any of them along the way.
"Me neither," he decided. And yet he resolved somehow to look into it.
Girls built dens though? He'd shrugged, though he was skeptical that her experiences on a boat matched up exactly with those of young girls brought up on land. Arlo figured that girls fashioned fairy glades and 'castles' where they wore silly hats, served tea from chipped pots and cups and kept the boys out. Not that any like him would've wanted to go in.
Vega was right though and he grinned when she as much as admitted that he wasn't a kid. He'd have argued that he'd never been, not from the time that they'd met anyway. But Arlo figured it was as close to a compliment as she'd ever give him. And if called on, she'd deny it. Anyway, it
was the journey that was important. And no self respecting follower of Cassion would pass the ruined outpost by without having a look.
"This one's for you then, Cassion," he uttered as they approached. Even this small thing, he dedicated to his Immortal of choice.
They split up, though the ruins weren't very expansive. And after discovering a number of curious things, but not surprising ones for the most part, he'd just picked something up when Vega called out to him. He seemed a little unnerved already when he joined her and looked at what she'd found.
Gnarly wasn't exactly the word that Arlo would have chosen, viewing the little collection of oddities. Ordinarily he liked that sort of thing. In fact it wasn't uncommon for him to leave similar things for others to find.
But this one was
different. Even when he took a much closer look at the markings, he did it without actually touching the stones they were carved on.
"Don't care for it either," he said as he straightened up.
"It could be a shrine to a lost one. Or to an Immortal maybe," he considered.
"Or even some sort of charm or totem meant to ward off evil." Looking around them, he wondered that maybe it hadn't worked nearly as well as intended.
"I'm not touching that," he decided.
"I think we should leave it alone. Over there," he said, pointing to an area that once must have been a separate room in the small outpost,
"I found some old metal remnants. Rusted, bent. Some of them look as if they're from broken weapons. An old cooking pot too. There's stains on some of the stones that look like they might be very old blood. And I found this," he said, and showed her what he'd been holding in his hand.
It was a small leather ball, like a child's toy. Except that it was very, very old and in places the leather sleeve was dried and cracked and had old, musty bits of straw sticking out.
"I wouldn't have thought there'd be any children here," he said. And maybe there hadn't been. It could just as easily have belonged to an adult, or could have been dropped along the way long after the outpost was already in ruins. To him though, it's presence combined with the collection of candle, ribbon and markings seemed all the more unnerving.
