When Iris asked what he didn’t understand, Cas just stared at her. ‘All of it’ seemed like an appropriate response, but he could tell by the look on her face that responding argumentatively would just make things worse. So, he said nothing while she went on the reiterate her belief that every district outside the capital was suffering. At first, he didn’t engage much because he assumed she was just spouting the propaganda of the rebellion again, but the strain in her voice gave him pause. As hard as it was to believe, there was a small part of him that was starting to wonder if there was more going on than he knew about. They had walked for quite a while yesterday, yet all he’d seen for miles was old, dilapidated buildings and homeless people. At the very least, he had to concede that the percentage of poor citizens was much higher than he’d thought.

While she continued, he shifted away from the edge of the river and stretched out his legs, leaning back on the palms of his hands. A contemplative expression had settled over his face, and he listened a little more closely to what she was saying. He just couldn’t understand how it could be true. He’d looked at the numbers himself. Aspiria was well-off economically, so how could there be so many jobless people with no access to the most basic necessities? He wanted to believe she had been misled, but it was getting harder to hold onto that stance when everywhere he looked, he was surrounded by poverty. If they didn’t come across a single well-to-do family by the time he returned to the capital, he was going to have a lot of questions for his father.

[color=#b97703]“They won’t shoot me,”[/color] he disagreed with her assertion that the soldiers working border patrol would kill him. [color=#b97703]“I may not have any identification on me, but they know my face.”[/color] For better or for worse, everyone in the capital knew who he was. When he was there, it was sometimes frustrating because he couldn’t get away from all the people who wanted to talk to him or take pictures of him in public. Now that he was stranded in the middle of the twelfth district, however, he was glad that he was so easily recognizable. Every soldier in the kingdom of Aspiria knew who Atlas’s only son was.

When Iris trailed off, Cas glanced at her curiously, wondering what she had been about to say. Before he had a chance to ask though, she changed the subject. [color=#b97703]“Do you think we’ll be able to get back to the capital today?”[/color] he asked as he forced himself to stand up from the ground. Based on her comment about his wounds healing before he made it home, he had a feeling she was going to say no, but it was worth asking about anyway. At the very least, he hoped she could give him a timeline, so he’d have a better idea about how long it was going to take them to get to the inner-city border.

As they walked, he could tell she was setting a slow pace to help him keep up with her. Although no words were exchanged about the subject, he was silently appreciative of her effort. [color=#b97703]“So,”[/color] he mused, thinking of another question as he considered everything she’d said to him so far. [color=#b97703]“If you don’t have any money, and if there isn’t a grocery store nearby, where did the food and water you gave me last night come from?”[/color]