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Gillion’s tail swished back and forth leisurely as he followed Chip and Jay through the relatively busy town. Vendors lined the streets in shaded stalls that were spilling with fruits and other goods. The people selling cried out to others that were walking by, begging them to take a look at their stock.
A big man pulling a cart barreled past, causing people to split to the side to avoid being trampled by the large wheels. But the gap was quickly swallowed back into the mass of the crowds. Gillion made sure to keep one eye on Jay so he knew that he was still following the right people since, in a place like this, it would be easy to get separated. And who knew what would happen if they got separated.
So Gillion stayed close, trying not to get too distracted by the bustle of the town. A humanoid man was yelling obscenities at another vendor, arguing over the price over something probably trivial. Gillion’s ears twitched, folding back some in an attempt to muffle the noise around them. He reached out and took Chip’s hand, intertwining their fingers together.
Chip just barely looked over his shoulder, raising an eyebrow before he too reached over with his other hand and grabbed Jay’s so that the three of them were all connected. It was easier that way.
The cobblestone streets were hot from baking under the sun all morning and Gillion’s feet were aching from the heat. How could all these people stand walking around all day when the ground was so hot? His claws scraped against the rocks, kicking a few pebbles away that hit Chip in the back of the ankle. He didn’t even turn around in response to it.
They passed a stand that was piled with exotic-looking fruits and other foods. A stack of long yellow fruits caught his eye. Gillion furrowed his eyebrows and tilted his head to the side, curious about its shape. It reminded him of the moon when it was almost fully covered by shadow. Interesting.
But he was pulled along, happily watching the people of this island go about their business, knowing that this was their sacred ritual that the three of them had the blessing to experience. All towns had their rituals and their knowledge. People could avoid potholes and turns that they knew were bad, but the three of them who were strangers and had no idea what would be lurking, took the turns without question.
It was always interesting to see the different workings of towns. Gillion thought it was refreshing to see a routine that was different from the one they had developed on the ship.
He figured that in a way, that meant they had their own town as well. They knew their ship well, and Gillion knew most of the nooks and crannies that the Albatross possessed. In the morning, Gillion was usually up first after taking the last watch, so he was on the deck training with Pretzel and watching the sunrise.
Just after sunrise, Jay would usually pop her head above deck and ask if he wanted to help make breakfast. And rarely Gillion would say no to the opportunity, so the two of them made breakfast until Chip woke up. Sometimes Jay left Gillion to finish making the breakfast and she went to wake Chip because he wouldn’t come upstairs.
They would share breakfast as a crew with Drey, Ollie, and even Alphonse joining them at the table, even if Alphonse didn’t really eat. After that, they would split off and go about their day with whatever tasks that needed to be done.
Gillion was about to point out this realization to Chip who was walking in front of him when the man suddenly stopped and pointed out a shop across the street. His hand slipped out of Jay’s palm, gesturing towards the sign above the door.
“We could see if we could get some healing potions for cheap there,” he said quickly, tilting his head to the side, “do we need any more?”
“Sure,” Jay shrugged, “we can check it out if you want.”
Chip nodded, squeezing Gillion’s hand, “why not?”
Jay nodded in response, looking across the street for a moment where they could slip away from the stream of people and cross the busy river of carts and wagons. Gillion watched as well, even if he didn’t have as good of judgment of when they could go because he was sure that the time Jay finally began to pull them across wasn’t very safe. But he didn’t voice that since they were already on the other side of the street without getting run over.
A cracked bell rang as they entered through the front door whose hinges creaked loudly. The cold wooden floorboards were a relief compared to the hot stone and Gillion took the moment to relish in it, tail wagging slightly. His ears flicked back and forth as he glanced around the crowded shop.
There were shelves lining the area, similar to a library. But instead of books, the shelves were stacked with potions or other magic items. Chip whistled appreciatively, eyebrows raising as he surveyed the store. A rug stretched from just beyond the entrance all the way to a thick wooden countertop where a small halfling sat. When they walked in, the person behind the counter looked up and called out a greeting.
Jay raised her hand in a short wave, giving her most polite smile to the man. Gillion was already distracted looking at the shelves filled with items that he had never seen before. Chip was just as enamored, their curiosity almost equal when it came to trinkets.
“Chip, I’ve got my eye on you,” Jay warned, giving Chip a pointed look. He held his hands up in front of himself defensively, rolling his eyes.
“I’ll behave,” he muttered with a huff. Gillion walked around the edge of one of the shelves, stopping to look at the things that had been displayed in the front window. Some more potions that seemed more to just be for show than anything, some small jars filled with what looked like seeds, and even small weapons. All sorts of items that Gillion could practically feel the magic radiating off of them.
This entire place was humming with magic, a steady stream that thrummed along the shelves of items. It was almost overwhelming. Gillion pressed his lips into a thin line, chewing on the inside of his mouth. He tucked his tail close to himself, conscious as to not knock something over since that would just cause trouble. Chip often warned him about his tail whenever they went into a shop that seemed to contain a ton of magic items.
His ears twitched, listening to the sounds of creaking wood as Chip walked nearby. Jay had gone up to the counter and was striking up a conversation with the owner (at least Gillion assumed that was the owner). She talked casually, lilting her voice in the way that she did when she was trying to be polite. Gillion thought it was interesting how she seemed to change her tone so much when talking to different people.
The place smelled strongly of wood shavings and acid, not enough that it would make Gillion’s head hurt. But enough that it surprised him slightly.
He paused by a rack of weapons, examining the sharpened blades and trying to decipher the story behind them. A broadsword was displayed on the wall with words engraved into the blade. It was in an unknown language that Gillion didn’t know but he assumed that it must have been important. So he left it alone. Not that he really cared for a new weapon. He could appreciate the craftsmanship nonetheless.
Jay was asking the man about healing potions now, Gillion could hear her thumping the toe of her boot against the ground, and he peeked around one of the shelves to see her leaning on the counter. Her bangs fell in front of her eyes as she tried to move them away. She still smiled politely at the man who was sitting on a high stool just behind the counter.
He seemed nice, but there was something in his eyes that Gillion was unable to decipher. But nothing seemed off about him and Gillion couldn’t smell anything particularly evil about the shop, so he didn’t think about it too much.
There was a soft woolen rug between two shelves which was very soft. Gillion stood there for a minute or two, ruffling his feet on the fluffy rug. It was still better than hot cobblestone roads.
He looked around at the shelves on either side of him, bottles of mysterious potions stretching across the wooden displays. Most of them were different colors, some bubbled in a way that caught Gillion’s attention and caused him to look at them for a little longer than he should’ve. He liked the blue and purple ones, the color of the liquid pretty in the way that it swirled.
The bottles all had tags tied around the necks with a piece of twine, Gillion just admired the colors and patterns. One of the potions seemed to have some flower petals floating in the liquid. He picked it up and swirled it around to see the particles swim and flutter before setting it back down again. He didn’t bother to read the label on it.
Gillion picked up a yellow-looking potion, bright in color and swirled with an almost ethereal pattern. It bubbled when Gillion disturbed it and he examined the round bottle thoroughly, turning it around in his hands. Without thinking too hard about it, he uncorked the top and sniffed it, just to know what it smelled like.
A warm aroma filled the air and the sweet scent was almost familiar. It wasn’t overwhelming and if Gillion’s senses weren’t as heightened as they were, it probably would’ve barely been there. It almost reminded him of the soap that they used on the ship, not that he knew what the soap was trying to smell like. He placed the cork back in the mouth of the bottle and placed it back on the shelf.
He moved a few feet down the row, picking up a bottle of a purple potion. When he tilted it to the side to examine it in the same way as before, the liquid sloshed slowly and thickly. Barely moving at all. He wrinkled his nose curiously and uncorked it.
It didn’t smell like anything. He had honestly expected it to smell like the syrup that they had on the ship, it had the same viscosity after all. It didn’t seem sticky though, and Gillion figured it would probably be a bad idea to stick his finger in the liquid. So he placed it back on the shelf where he had taken it from, looking for something else that might catch his eye.
The next one he found was gray, which was already interesting enough. He didn’t know how a liquid could be gray—not that he knew how a liquid could be colored either. But he pulled it off the shelf and felt the rough textured glass in his palm before giving it a sniff.
Immediately recoiling, Gillion wrinkled his nose at the harsh smell. It was overpowering and very strong. It smelled like beer but ten times worse. Gillion sat the bottle down hastily, wiping his face with the back of his hand, huffing indignantly. How gross.
A turquoise-colored potion swirled with patterns of gold that were just beginning to settle by the time that Gillion picked it up. It was almost the same color as his skin, he realized as he held it in his hands. Gillion smiled softly and brought the mouth to his nose to sniff it.
It smelled surprisingly familiar, a scent that Gillion could easily place; apples. The sweet kind of apples that he had tasted once before when they were on a different island, the smell wafted from the mouth of the bottle. The gold pieces inside swished back and forth with the slight tremor that always plagued Gillion’s hands. He set it back down, the pleasantness still lingering in his nose.
He was getting closer to the counter as he explored the shelves, uncorking potions and leaning down to sniff them to see if he could recognize any of the scents. It was surprisingly amusing given how long they had been in the shop so far. Gillion could still hear Jay talking with the person behind the counter, he could no longer hear Chip’s footsteps. That probably should have been worrying.
The potions that didn’t have too strong of a smell were the best. They were pleasant, even if the smell wasn’t super good. But he liked the ones that smelled like fruit, because Gillion knew a lot of fruit, even if he didn’t remember what they were called, he could place what they looked like. One of the pink potions smelled like the little round red fruits with tiny stems that Jay had brought one time. They were hard in the middle, but the outside was very sweet. He liked them a lot.
A blue potion smelled like an orange, which Gillion thought seemed wrong. A green one smelled like plants, which he thought made sense. One smelled like sand, he hoped it didn’t taste like that as well.
Gillion picked up a black potion from off of one of the shelves near the counter, tilting his head to the side curiously. The bottle was triangle shaped, with the top much more narrow than the bottom. Not many of the bottles were shaped like this, which was what he found interesting. There were flakes of something red at the surface of the liquid and Gillion could see that some of the particles had settled at the bottom as well. He swirled it in his hand for a second, watching the red flakes float in the liquid.
He uncorked the top, sniffing the mouth to try and discern any sort of scent. An earthy smell wafted from the lip of the bottle. Earthy like the way the ground smelled after it rained and soaked into every patch of dirt available. It was strong enough that it almost made Gillion feel dizzy.
“Hey, hey, tell your buddy not to be sniffing the potions,” The halfling snapped his fingers at Jay, leaning far enough forward on the stool that Gillion feared he might fall off.
“Gill, put it down, don’t sniff the potions,” Jay said, looking over at Gillion with her eyebrows furrowed. Gillion’s ears drooped and he felt a small blush spread across his cheeks.
“My apologies,” Gillion muttered, startled by the way his voice cracked. He placed the cork back into the mouth of the bottle and placed it on the shelf, wrapping his arms around himself to keep from touching anything else. The halfling eyed Gillion suspiciously, his eyes narrowed until he was sure that Gillion wasn’t going to smell any more of the potions.
Gillion was unsure why it was such a big deal, he sniffed things he probably wasn’t supposed to sniff all the time. Like strange plants. It only turned out to be a bad idea twice. Gillion looked away from the shelves, shuffling across the store to the other side where he assumed Chip was going to be.
A strange feeling bubbled in the pit of his stomach, which he ignored and chalked it up to the shame of doing something wrong again. His tail tucked close to himself as he walked, carefully curling the end of it around his left leg in a way that he wouldn’t trip, but that it wouldn’t hit anything either. He didn’t want to cause any more trouble.
Gillion found Chip between two rows of shelves, in his hand, was some sort of box as he glanced at the tag wrapped around it. He barely glanced up from what he was looking at, a small smile spreading across his lips.
“Heard you were getting scolded for sniffing potions,” Chip muttered, his voice low so that neither Jay nor the other man heard, but it still made Gillion flinch. He didn’t expect Chip to say something so soon. Gillion let out a slow breath but nodded.
“You gotta be careful with potions, especially if you don’t know what they do,” Chip shrugged, placing the box down on the shelf, Gillion watched it thump against the surface, ears instinctively pinning back. All the smells must be getting to his head if he was this jumpy. It wasn’t rare that too many smells were enough to overwhelm him, so he just blamed it on that.
“I know,” Gillion said, finding himself whispering despite the fact that there wasn’t really a need to, “I have some experience.”
Chip raised an eyebrow like he wasn’t sure if he fully believed Gillion, but he just shrugged and said nothing else on the subject.
“All the stuff here is super expensive, I don’t know what Jay has been talking about with that old dude for however long, but I’m thinking we get out of here and find something to eat,” Chip suggested, leaning against Gillion’s side and throwing an arm over his shoulder. His grin hadn’t left his face from the moment that he had noticed Gillion, but it did slightly waver when Gillion flinched at the volume of his voice, his heart skipping a beat.
“Right,” Gillion chewed on the inside of his mouth, biting down hard on the flesh until he could taste the sickly sweet taste of his blood. He enjoyed the taste of blood, not his blood, but fish blood was good.
Chip looked Gillion up and down like he was searching for something unknown. When he didn’t find anything, he just squeezed past Gillion to get to the middle aisle where he could shout for Jay. Gillion hesitated in the same place that he had stood before, wringing his hands around the fabric of his shirt.
“Jay, I’m hungry, we should find a bar or something,” Chip called, much louder than he needed to in such a small store. But Gillion barely stifled a yelp, bringing his hands up to cover his ears as the sound caused his ears to ring, the taste of panic crawling up his throat. He dug the heels of his palms against his ears until the ringing stopped and he realized that he was leaning against one of the shelves.
“Okay,” Jay’s voice was much softer but still enough to set Gillion on edge. He told himself that it was just all the different smells that the noise didn’t mix well with his sensitive ears. He shuffled around to the other side of the shelf where he could see Chip nearing the door. Jay said something else to the shopkeeper just to be polite before pushing away to the counter. Gillion focused on the rug beneath his feet. He liked rugs, especially soft ones.
Chip pulled the door open, and the bell rang once more to signal their departure. Gillion visibly bristled, digging his nails so deep into his palms that he could barely feel the sting. His ears were ringing, why was it so loud? Why did it hurt so much?
Jay put her hand on Gillion’s shoulder and he hadn’t even noticed he had frozen up. She dragged the pads of her fingers over the exposed part of his skin, urging him forward. He forced his legs to move through the open door that Chip still held open.
“Are you okay?” she whispered in his ear once they had made their way out of the shop. Gillion wrapped his arms around himself, chest heaving slightly. But he forced a nod.
“I am alright, too many smells I assume, it makes me feel jumpy,” he explained, hoping that Jay understood and also hoping that that really was the reason why he was getting so stressed. If it wasn’t, then he had no idea what was going on. Only that it was unpleasant but somewhat familiar of the times when he would get overwhelmed.
But Jay just nodded, letting go of his shoulder. She seemed to understand what he meant. Chip, oblivious of the interaction, took the lead in their attempt to find someplace that had food, preferably a place that had food and alcohol.
Gillion could feel his breaths quicken as his chest seemed to tighten. The sounds around him that weren’t so bad a few moments ago were now so loud against his ringing ears. He pinned his fins back against his head, trying to do what he could to block out the sounds without being too noticeable about it. If he covered his ears, then Jay would notice and she would ask him more questions and Gillion’s heart was beating so fast he didn’t think that he would be able to form words.
He wasn’t even paying attention to where they were going anymore, he followed Chip blindly. Every loud thump or bray of a donkey pulling a cart made him flinch. It was as if everyone had begun to speak at once, grating on Gillion’s entire being and making it hard to focus. It was so loud. There were so many people.
His gills flexed painfully against his neck and Gillion brought one hand up to cover half of them, digging his claws into his flesh. He didn’t care if Jay saw that, he just needed to not suffocate from his own gills taking in too much oxygen.
He wanted to open his mouth and ask Chip if they could maybe try and find a place without as many people, but his voice wouldn’t work. It was as if his tongue had gotten tied up in a knot in his mouth and he didn’t know what to do. He could feel beads of sweat run down the back of his neck, barely noticeable compared to the sheen of moisture that naturally clung to him.
One foot in front of the other, the hot cobblestone road burned his feet but he didn’t care. Just follow Chip, try not to flinch when someone says something a little too loudly nearby, and don’t make a sound.
Gillion swallowed thickly past the lump in his throat, it was getting harder to breathe. Black dots spotted in his vision and his heart was beating so hard it was practically going to beat out of his chest.
Jay had placed her hand on his arm at one point, he didn’t know when that happened, but he could suddenly feel her warm palms against his moist skin. She rubbed her thumb over the patches of scales that dotted across his shoulders and arms.
One foot in front of the other. Left foot. Right foot. Left foot. Right foot.
Someone yelled something nearby, the roar sounding right next to Gillion’s ears and he froze, legs refusing to work. If he could have folded his ears back anymore, they would be practically inside his head by now. Jay bumped into him, saying something that Gillion couldn’t even understand.
Everything was so loud, a muddled cacophony of voices and animals that he couldn’t even make out one voice from the other. It was all so loud. It hurt, his ears were ringing and he couldn’t move. His tail was tucked so close to his body that it was practically invisible from the right angle.
He couldn’t move. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t move. There was another hand on his shoulder, a worried voice right next to his face. He flinched away, chest heaving as he struggled for breath. Everything hurt, his ears were ringing, the sound reverberating and echoing off his skull as he fumbled.
Another shout nearby and Gillion jerked his hands up to his ears, pressing down hard enough that he would practically squeeze his head like an orange. It barely did anything to block out the sound, panic tightening around his chest and making his entire body physically ache.
Everyone seemed to be speaking a different language, one that Gillion didn’t know. It was unfamiliar and painful. Pitiful tears squeezed from the corners of his closed eyelids—when had he closed his eyes?
His head was splitting open, it was too loud. There were too many sounds, too much noise. Too many people talking over each other and shouting. A pair of arms were still wrapped around Gillion’s shoulders and he realized that he was being guided somewhere. His legs were moving but he couldn’t see where they were going, he was too frozen to open his eyes, palms still pressed tightly to his ears in an attempt to muffle anything.
Was someone speaking to him? Who was touching him? His skin burned under the contact but he couldn’t pull away, his body wouldn’t listen to him.
His knees were shaking so hard he felt like he was going to collapse at any moment. It hurt, tears were streaming down his face in steady droplets. He felt like his heart was going to explode with how tightly panic wrapped around his chest. For a moment, it almost felt like he was dying.
Even with his hands covering his ears, it didn’t do much to help. It just made everything echo, like when Chip rapped his knuckles against the top of his barrel to wake him up if he was still sleeping. Gillion longed to be in his barrel where the sounds were so muffled he could barely hear anything over his own gurgles.
In the undersea, it was mostly quiet. Voices traveled fine but most other sounds were muffled, he didn’t have to worry about the pandemonium that was currently going on around him.
His legs were still moving, he could barely feel the stone against his feet anymore, he was walking through a haze of void. A loud, painful void. His entire body tingled with pins and needles that poked against his skin. He sucked in a sharp breath through his teeth, gagging as he choked on it. Gillion could still feel his gills flexing in an attempt to help him breathe, unknowing that it was only doing more harm at the moment.
A bang, another thump. A bell rang above a shop door. A baby was crying from somewhere.
Gillion’s muscles were so tense from flinching that he felt that if he were to curl up in a ball, he would never be able to get out of that position.
The stone underneath his feet shifted to something softer, albeit a little prickly. The arm around his shoulder was still there with a tight grip, enough to hold him up with how badly he was shaking. His chest heaved and his heart seemed to beat faster.
The noises of the town were beginning to fade as they walked somewhere else. Gillion managed to open his eyes after who knows how long, only to be greeted by trees surrounding him on all sides. A rough dirt path stretched in front of them and behind him as the small patches of grass that poked up occasionally tickled the bottoms of his feet. The only sound this far into the forest were the wind and birds chirping.
It still made him flinch, the wind rustling against his tense body, nearly enough to startle him into another panic. His hands were still clasped around his ears, breathing erratic and shallow.
But it was quiet. It didn’t hurt anymore.
Gillion was guided to sit down, leaning against the hard bark of a tree. The other person sat next to him with a hand placed on his thigh to rub gently at his scales. He recognized the hand, but in the haze of his muddled thoughts, he was unable to remember who it belonged to.
“Hey,” came a soft, whispered voice next to him, “Gill, you with me?”
Gillion jerked his head to look over. His mouth was dry from how he panted like a dying dog, struggling to even suck the smallest of breaths into his lungs.
Jay was sitting next to him, her arm still wrapped around his shoulder, hand rubbing gentle circles against his leg.
“Breathe,” she told him, just as quietly as before, her voice barely able to be heard behind Gillion’s hands over his ears, “you’re okay.”
Her face screamed worry, but she spoke so softly like she knew what the problem was. Gillion tentatively lowered his hands from his ears, his arms were getting sore. It was still quiet, there were no people around here besides them.
Jay squeezed his shoulder, taking a deep breath as if to show him what to do. He tried to copy her, chest spasming in a way that made it hard to keep the air in his lungs.
Black spots were still dotted along the edge of his vision, but it was easier now that he was sitting down. He trembled and shook but he didn’t have to worry about walking or moving. Gillion could just sit here and let the tremors run their course as Jay continued to try and guide him through taking deeper breaths.
He knew he was hyperventilating, he tried to stop it, he really did. But the gasps kept spilling out of his mouth, his own breathing loud enough to make his head hurt. But Jay was patient with him, she was mostly silent, only saying something when she needed to pull Gillion back to reality. And when she did speak, it was always whispered as quietly as she could, quiet enough that it didn’t make Gillion flinch.
Gillion sucked in a deep breath, choking on it for a few seconds before letting it puff out of his lungs in a quick woosh of air. But that was progress. He took another deep breath. Then another. Then another.
Coughs and tremors wracked his small form, but he was able to take a deep breath without stuttering, ears slowly fanning out around his head as he realized that there wasn’t much noise out here that could hurt him. Where were they? How had he gotten here?
“Hey,” Jay ran her thumb over his arm, “how’re you feeling?”
Gillion shook his head, maybe to try and tell her that he didn’t feel like talking (he couldn’t, his voice refused to work). She seemed to understand what he meant, taking his silent head shake as enough of an answer.
“Are you feeling better?” She changed the wording of her question a little bit so that Gillion could answer nonverbally.
Gillion sucked in a deep breath, holding it for a few seconds before letting it slip past his lips. His heart was still pounding faster than normal and he was sure that Jay was able to feel it beneath her fingertips.
It was quiet, his head wasn’t hurting and it didn’t feel like his heart was going to explode. So he nodded in response to Jay’s question. Exhaustion weighed heavily on his bones causing him to lean against Jay with a deep sigh. He wanted to go back to the ship, but that meant passing through the town again and the thought almost made him panic again.
“Tired?” Jay’s soft voice brought him out of his thoughts. Gillion nodded.
“You scared me,” she admitted, “when you froze like that.”
Gillion wanted to apologize, he wanted to tell her that he was sorry and that he didn’t mean to scare her. He had tried to keep it together, but the sounds were too much and he didn’t even know why. He wanted to tell her that he hadn’t meant for all that to happen—whatever did happen, he wasn’t entirely sure—and that he was trying to stay calm. But none of those words came out.
“It’s okay, I’m glad you’re feeling better now,” Jay pulled him a little bit closer to her side, “was it the noise?”
Gillion nodded again. The wind blew against his back, rustling his hair and causing him to flinch.
“I sent Chip off to see if he could get us some food,” Jay curled her fingers around the hair at the back of Gillion’s neck, the motion causing Gillion to practically sink against her, “he should be back soon.”
Gillion just nodded, letting his eyes slip shut for a moment, slumping against Jay’s side like a ragdoll. He wanted to go back to the ship where he could hide under the lid of his barrel and be alone. But leaning against Jay was so comfortable, and he didn’t think that his legs would work even if he wanted to get up.
They sat there in silence for a while. Gillion stared a few feet ahead of them, his eyes tracing the shapes of the plants that surrounded them. A few leaves fluttered off of the tree branches and scattered around them. One of them fell right in front of Gillion’s nose which caused him to flinch. Jay gave a quiet, breathy laugh and he could feel the tension melting from his limbs.
His heart rate had almost slowed back to normal by the time Chip found them on the path. It was almost as if he was trying to be quiet, but Gillion was able to hear him approaching.
He looked back and forth between Gillion and Jay, his expression slightly frazzled, cheeks flushed. In his arms, he had a few sandwiches and a couple bottles of an unknown liquid.
Chip said nothing, pressing his lips into a thin line as he sat down in front of the two of them, distributing the sandwiches and the bottles. Gillion was too tired to eat much, but he picked at the crust of the offered sandwich and really only rocked the bottle in his hands to feel the liquid sloshing around inside.
The younger man looked like he wanted to say something, but he remained quiet, not wanting to break the spell of silence that had settled between them. Gillion appreciated the reprieve, his ears no longer hurting from the barrage of sounds that the town brought, and even if he had no idea how they had gotten to this spot, it was nice. It couldn’t have been that far away from the main town since Chip was able to find them in a short amount of time.
But Gillion was unable to ask those questions, still feeling the lump in his throat and the remnants of panic that left incessant tremors in his hands. He still wanted to go back to the ship, but not yet, not like this.
Jay ate quietly, leaning her head on top of Gillion’s. She nudged his hand which was peeling the crust off the top bun, wordlessly urging him to eat a little more. It had been a while since breakfast and Gillion figured he would be hungrier if it weren’t for the panic that had taken hold of him earlier.
But he didn’t want to make Jay upset, so he took a few small bites of the sandwich with drooping eyelids and rapidly draining energy. He refused to fall asleep here, not when he had already made them come all this way, there was no way Gillion was going to make them stay longer than they needed.
He watched as Chip took a drink from the bottle that he balanced in the open space of his crossed legs. Gillion took a drink as well. It tasted slightly sweet, like only a little bit of flavoring had been added, it tasted good.
After eating a little bit more, Gillion admittedly felt a lot better than before. His hands had almost stopped shaking and at least his stomach didn’t hurt—which must have been because of his hunger. But his ears were still ringing and he didn’t know why, just that he wanted it to stop.
“We could—” Chip started, noticing the way that Gillion flinched at the loudness of his tone and quickly lowered his voice, “we could try and take some back roads and quieter alleys where there are less people to get back to the ship.”
Jay nodded, so Gillion nodded as well. He wanted to go back to the ship, yes, that sounded very nice right about now. He just followed with whatever the other two were doing, it was too exhausting to do anything else.
“If you think you’re feeling better enough to do that, Gill,” Chip was looking at him now with such concern and softness in his expression that Gillion didn’t even know how to answer for a minute or two. He just stared back at Chip, eyes slightly widened and his breaths slightly wheezing. But after realizing he could respond to that question, Gillion nodded faintly.
It took them a second to gather themselves, Jay standing first to stretch her arms above her head. She helped Gillion up to his feet, keeping one arm wrapped around his shoulders. He appreciated the support. His hands had stopped shaking, but that didn’t mean his legs didn’t stop feeling like they were made of wilted kelp.
Chip stood up, worrying at his bottom lip as he glanced over Gillion’s form.
With a small nod, they began their slow trek back to the ship, taking as many back roads as they could to avoid where most of the noise would be.