Chapter Text
It's been a quiet day of traveling out in the wilds, but Orwin finds himself relieved anyway when the group finds a perfect spot to make camp and decides to stop early. His old bones aren't used to walking for hours on end, and certainly not to carrying around all the supplies they need while doing the aforementioned walking. He'll take the extra rest when he can.
Everyone has their roles, and as soon as all the packs are down, everyone gets to it. The others have already banned him from both cooking and firewood duty despite his absolute best efforts, but even Orwin can't mess up refilling all their canteens if someone points him in the direction of water - not badly enough for Aegis to find something else for him to do, anyway. Normally he dreads it a little; carrying all that weight back from the source is painful on his already-sore back at the end of a long day. Luck seems like it's on his side for once, though, because tonight's water is coming from close enough to camp that Orwin can still hear indistinct chatter, off past the dry underbrush and sparse trees.
By the time he gets back, there's already a strong smell of cooked (and slightly charred) meat. He has no idea what it is or where it came from, since it sure as hell wasn’t there when they started setting up camp. Kanata is chattering excitedly at a half-listening Vicious about his plans for some kind of stew while cutting slices off the mysterious meat, balancing it on the closest thing to a flat surface they own. Orwin tunes it out; he barely understands cooking talk anyway, and it doesn’t matter as long as he keeps getting fed.
“Ah, Orwin,” Aegis says as he notices the man. “Are those the last canteens? Excellent. Come here - I'm sure you're hungry. It'll be some time before Kanata finishes up the main course, but there’s bread that ought not be wasted, so we're having a small snack to tide us over.”
“We do hors d'oeuvres now? Getting awfully fancy around here.”
“Hors...” Aegis pauses at what Orwin realizes belatedly must be a totally unfamiliar phrase, shakes his head slightly, and offers a surprisingly thick slice of bread with several thin slices of meat atop it. It doesn't exactly look promising, especially with the oddly uneven color of the meat, but Orwin will... probably live. “Just go ahead and sit down. And thank you for the water.”
Glad to finally get off his feet, Orwin does exactly as instructed, and settles down on a surprisingly convenient tree stump next to the already-resting girls. Yuna is perched on a folding stool so small he's not sure how it can support any weight, not even as little as hers, and appears to have already finished with the snack; Misella is simply on the bare ground, legs tucked underneath herself, unconcerned with anything other than eating. Aegis joins them shortly after, but remains standing with his food, eating it tidily.
It's a calm moment, lit by the cookfire and the golden glow of the rapidly-setting sun. Orwin finds himself experiencing a strange kind of peace that begins somewhere deeper in his chest than just his heart, and for a moment it feels like that glow of westering sunlight is spreading inside him.
Then he tries the food.
It is, perhaps, the worst thing Orwin has ever bitten into - and given how many awful meals he's eaten in pubs and taverns that only sold food because it was illegal to sell exclusively alcohol, it's a hell of a bar to clear. It at least doesn't taste like anything in particular, but the texture is somehow both chewy and insubstantial. The bread has a difficult job serving as the relief to this awfulness, but it manages better than he could have hoped, especially given that it’s going stale.
Yuna seems to catch his pained expression, and the corners of her lips curl just enough to see her amusement. “If zis is not to your taste, I am sure mademoiselle would be happy to assist.”
“I'm good,” Orwin says, although he is definitively not good at the moment.
“Are you sure?” Misella asks, attention momentarily caught by the idea of more food. Orwin just nods while trying not to grimace. There's either an unfortunate aftertaste of char or the smoke of the cookfire has wafted directly into his mouth and nose. Disappointed, the girl returns to her own portion, and the group lapses back into silence for several minutes.
Orwin mentally grasps for something else to think about as a distraction from the horrors of bad food. His eye catches on the pale patterns on Misella's skirt, spread out as it is around her like petals, and on the limp edges of it where the damage to the fabric starts to blend into the dirt underneath her. It sparks an idea or two, and while eating, Orwin ruminates on them.
“Y'know,” he eventually says, around an especially stringy and unpleasant final bite, “I could get you a new dress next time we see civilization.”
The quiet continues around the half-circle of them for a tense moment before Yuna says “Pardon?” in a tone that, to her credit, is only a tiny bit venomous. Orwin chokes slightly and hurries to swallow the mouthful, trying to avoid a coughing fit.
“Sorry, sorry - not you, you're, uh, fine. Misella.” Yuna gives him a suspicious side-eye, presumably about the stumbling over his words. Normally, he’d try to explain he didn’t mean anything by it, but he suspects right now he’d only manage to make himself sound like an even worse person.
Although still somewhat distracted, Misella does look up at the sound of her own name. “I missed what you said,” she says flatly. “Was it important?”
“I do believe 'e was offering to furnish you with a new wardrobe, mademoiselle,” replies Yuna acidly before Orwin can try to explain himself.
“Well - not a whole new wardrobe -”
“Wait, why?” Misella asks, and now she looks suspicious of him as well.
“I'm sure he has only the most noble of intentions, Misella.” Aegis' tone is carefully defensive, but the almost-glare he shoots at Orwin says you had best not make a liar of me.
“Let a man explain himself, would ya?” Orwin protests, more than a little desperate. “I just thought maybe it'd be nice since, well, white clothes don't exactly travel great.” It's not the most tactful way to point out the tatters that her skirts are in, but all the negativity has thrown him way off. None of them respond right away, so he keeps talking anxiously in order to fill the silence. “You don't have to get rid of it or anything, but you could at least have somethin' different to wear that won't get so beat up on the road, you know?”
“Are we talking about clothes?” Kanata interrupts brightly. Orwin almost jumps out of his skin, having not noticed his arrival. “I was just coming over to let everyone know how the stew's going, but...”
Misella perks up, as she always seems to when Kanata is around. “Do you like my dress, Kanata?”
“Huh? Uh - yes! Of course I do,” he replies, clearly embarrassed, “but you'd be really pretty in anything. Why are you asking, though?”
“Orwin said he'd buy me something else when we got to the next town,” Misella explains. Kanata only looks between the two of them with something like confusion, which Orwin supposes he should be grateful for, given the icy reception from everyone else. “Because this is getting...” She picks up one of the skirt's edges and looks at it with something not entirely like sadness.
Kanata glances between them a bit more, vaguely troubled. “Well, that'd be fine, wouldn't it?” he asks. Then, with a bit of hope: “Maybe we can all go clothes shopping while we’re there?” Aegis clears his throat, warningly, and Kanata's expression abruptly turns alarmed. “O-or not! But I think you should get to choose something for yourself, Misella.”
“... Okay,” she replies slowly, and that seems to be that. She returns to the meat, picking it apart with increased delicacy, like she too needs something else to focus on now. Everyone else pauses in yet another awkward silence before Kanata says, “So, uh, the stew will be better if we let it simmer overnight -”
“Excuse-moi de te déranger, Kanabon,” Yuna says abruptly, her eyes locked on Orwin, “but ze good monsieur 'as got a little friend on 'is leg.”
Orwin looks down in alarm to discover a hairy green squiggle crawling its way up his thigh, and the ensuing Caterpillar Incident halts any sort of coherent discussion for a solid twenty minutes.