Indra glances at Beist and gives a little bit of a snort as his hand hovers closer to her. She doesn't pull away or bare her fangs though, letting him pat her and letting out a low rattling rumble from deep in her throat. 

Eameia doesn't respond to Beist's question immediately. A heaviness settles in her chest and her stomach turns at hearing her brother's name spoken aloud as if he's still alive and well. 

"He is very busy keeping far away from any oozes. I can assure you of that." 

She turns away and tries to find anything she can do to escape from the conversation. 

Shael makes a bit of a face then looks at Beist. "Did he seriously stick his arm in an ooze? That's a stupid thing to do." She helps him unhitch Indra from the wagon. "Doesn't seem like something he'd do." 

Zarius always came across as the type to not make mistakes or be reckless around dangerous things. The guy was always so calculated and sometimes downright neurotic about planning for every contingency. Imagining him fucking up enough to nearly lose a limb to an ooze just isn't something she has an easy time picturing. Guess even folks who pretend to be perfect still make dumb mistakes. 

She glances towards Eameia. 

Yeah, perfect people are just fooling themselves.

Beist's impromptu shelter comes very much as a surprise to the young elf. She thought they'd just stay in Beist's wagon overnight or camp outside it, she could never guessed they'd get actual beds in side a giant pumpkin. She looks around the space in awe. 

"This is great! Won't have to worry about scorpions sneaking into our boots!" 

While she's impressed with the space, Eameia is significantly less optimistic than Shael. 

"Hopefully it doesn't attract anything hungry," she says as she takes a closer look at the walls and tries to discern if it's actually pumpkin flesh or it's just some magical facsimile. 

"You need to stop being such a downer." Shael plops down on one of the beds and pulls her boots off to empty the sand out onto the floor. 

"You need to not make a mess," Eameia retorts, giving the teen a disapproving look. 

"I'll clean it up." The teen huffs and then looks to Beist, curbing her attitude a little. "Sorry."

Beist frowned at Eameia's answer that wasn't really an answer at all. He still had no idea where Zarius was or what he'd been up to since the last time he'd seen him. Maybe whatever he was busy with was a personal matter that he didn't want shared, like the whole arm being stuck in an ooze situ- Oh.

"Uh, I'd appreciate it if you didn't let Zarius know I mentioned that. I think he may actually have preferred I kept that a secret..." Beist whispered, as if Zarius was listening, waiting to pop out of the sand behind him like one of those Kruthiks. He looked at both Eameia and Shael hopefully.

Beist sat down on a couch, taking up nearly the entire thing which protested at his weight, but it was sturdy enough not to break. He smiled to himself watching the short exchange between Eameia and Shael and mistaking it for friendly banter. They must be good friends to get along well enough to talk to each other like that.

"It's good to clean up after yourself, but it's alright in here. This cottage is only a temporary shelter. It lasts a day at most, so we should get some rest and then head out. Just to be safe, if you're worried about the pumpkin attracting anything, maybe we should take turns keeping watch."

Beist turned to Eameia who was feeling the wall. Eameia would find that the walls did indeed feel like the inside of a carved out pumpkin, but oddly harder and seemingly as durable as solid wood. It was still slightly moist though. Unlike the walls, all of the furniture pieces felt dry and like normal wood and fabric if she tried any of those. Tapping the window glass also revealed a slightly strange material that was more like a very transparent, almost rubbery plant membrane.

Beist didn't mind her taking a look around. After taking a moment sitting in the shade inside, he got back up with the help of his walking stick and started to head back outside.

"Let me make something for Indra to get out of the sun too, and then we can figure out a watch order."

Outside, he walked to the side of the pumpkin cottage and raised a hand in the same way he had when he summoned some food. Thick roots began to sprout out from a point in the sand and spread, tangling together and burying themselves. He never used this spell in the desert before, so it was interesting to see how differently it behaved. The sand didn't clump together to be supported by the roots like dirt did, making the roots need to form something much more tightly woven. It took some more effort, but he kept going until there was a partially buried burrow with a ceiling inside made of woven roots big enough for Indra to curl up inside.

Beist let out a breath and showed Indra the burrow for her before heading back inside the pumpkin cottage. He was feeling a bit tired now after using so much magic in one day and running for so long. He could use a rest.

---

Druid's Hut

Shael snorts. “Yeah, you don’t need to worry about him finding out. Secret’s safe with us.”

Eameia closes her eyes and just pushes down the urge to snap at Shael for her snide comment.

At the suggestion of keeping watch, Shael opens her mouth to offer to take first shift but Eameia is faster.

“I will take first watch.”

The teenage dark elf makes a bit of a face at that, but doesn’t argue with the fellblood. Dead gods know Eameia is in a sour enough mood already, Shael wouldn’t be surprised if she snapped and totally lost it if pushed too far.

Once Beist was out of earshot, however, Shael does side-eye Eameia. “Can’t keep this lie up forever.”

“Shut up.”

“Hey. Maybe if you assholes quit all this bullshit lying and trusted people they could help you. This guy is way too damn nice, if you asked I’m sure he’d bend over backwards.”

“Shut. Up.”

Shael scoffs. “Your jerk of a brother was better at making friends than you.”

Eameia stands up abruptly and instinctively Shael reaches for her whip in case she needs to defend herself from the space mage. No spells come flying her way though as Eameia just briskly walks out of the shelter.

After a moment, Shael lets out a breath. “Geez.” Feels like she just narrowly missed getting murdered there.

Outside, Indra is more than grateful for the shade. She even gives Biest a little nudge with her snoot before curling up in the burrow.

When Beist goes back to the pumpkin, he would pass Eameia who is standing against the outside of it just taking a moment to recompose herself. She glances at him as he heads for the door.

“I will keep watch. Thank you for all your hospitality. Please get some rest.”

Back inside, Shael has made herself comfortable and is already starting to doze off. Over the course of the next few hours, everyone gets varying degrees of rest. It’s not much, but it’ll be enough to let them continue on the journey out of the desert and back to civilization.

"Oh, alright. Thank you." Beist agreed awkwardly, walking past Earmeia and heading inside the pumpkin cottage. She definitely seemed to be in a bit of a bad mood. What in the world happened in just a few minutes of him being gone? He had wanted to offer to keep watch first, but he could tell she wouldn't accept and he didn't want to worsen her mood by arguing. Whatever was making her upset, he hoped being alone for a little while was what she needed. It at least felt like it was what she wanted. He gave her one last concerned glance and lightly closed the door behind him.

Inside, Shael was already going to sleep. Well, she wouldn't be any help finding out what had happened in the short moment he was gone. He didn't want to be rude and interrupt her, so he just followed her lead and took a bed of his own to rest. He was a bit exhausted after the day he'd had anyways.

Beist slept a little bit better than Shael or Eameia did, not realizing he might have been causing them some trouble sleeping thanks to his snoring. He slept like a log and sounded like he was being sawed. At least in the times Beist was the one keeping watch, he was overly careful to be quiet.

After getting enough rest to continue, the pumpkin cottage and the burrow he'd made for Indra left no trace as the cottage shrank back down to a tiny pumpkin and the burrow collapsed back into nothing but a sand dune. He was still had some concern in his eyes each time he looked at Eameia, but he didn't ask any questions. He just kept up some friendly small talk and the occasional long ramble while the group travelled. They followed the plan, moving northeast until they were travelling closer to the coast, and then kept heading north.

"I think we're nearly there." Beist pointed out cheerily, looking out at the horizon as he pulled his wagon along behind him. In the distance, the skies were growing darker despite it being sunrise. The telltale sign of the Ashlands and their copious clouds of volcanic ash in the sky. 

Dawn comes all too quickly. Shael is in much higher spirits and raring to get out of the desert as fast as possible. Beist's snoring didn't seem to bug the teenager as much as it did keep the fellblood up. She's used to sleeping through stupid amounts of noise, kind of comes with the territory of sharing space with a rumbly storm drake. 

The storm drake in question shakes sand from her scales when they set out across the sands towards the shadowed skies of the Ash Lands. While Mount Drakolt was no longer spewing thick clouds of ash into the sky, the lava pools were still active enough to create some scattered cloud cover. 

Eameia's shoulders relax a little at the sight of the changing landscape. Sand dunes are replaced with barren rock and spindly bushes as they start to cross the border. The horizon becomes more jagged as the craggy mountains marking the Ash Lands edges scratch at the sky. 

"A few more hours and we should be able to see the city."

"Wooooo, gonna go from sand in my boots to ash in my hair." 

Eameia ignores Shael and looks over to Beist. "Are you intending to go all the way to Darkveil City? Or is this where we part ways?"

"You should come with us to the city. Seems like you have lots to catch up on." 

The fellblood shoots the teen a warning look. "I am certain Mister Beistmild is very busy." 

"Oh yeah?" Shael replies with a challenging tone. "Is that true, big guy?"