Indeed, it had gone unheard--specifically because Eld had done two very specific things. Not only had he knocked the wind out of the guy, he had verbally stuck up for Kaze when the man was being exceptionally rude to her. Kaze only had two close friends that she could recall, and neither of them had really been around when she ran into trouble. She never really had anyone that stuck up for her . . .

"O-oh! Ummm, right!" Kaze exclaimed, a little embarrassed, as she gently pulled away from Eld.

It was at that time when she remembered the pain in her elbow, and stifled her wince to the best of her ability. It'd get better with time, but it always happened like this. Rarely a break or anything, because she never really got hit that hard or anything, just shoved or pushed or poked too hard, and then she was hurting for a little while.

Nonetheless, she pushed on, and alongside Eld, traversed the contents of Hillcrest Village! Eld knew all of these people, really. If he didn't know their names, he knew their faces--but they were all new to Kaze. She met some folk that weren't bad people, not like the man in the tavern.

Hours and hours passed, too. For someone that had been in Hillcrest his whole life, there might not have seemed like a lot to do--in fact, that was the whole appeal of Galaens to the girls. Hillcrest just wasn't that exciting to them. Kaze, however, seemed to enjoy herself quite a bit here. They may not have beeen getting anywhere, but they met and even had some conversations with a few nice people, and even sat down to take a break and eat dinner together.

Yet they still didn't get anywhere. They had the same luck as they did in the tavern; no one had seen a man with blue hair--specifically long hair, about shoulder length, and of a lighter blue, almost silver-ish sort of. Platinum, she had specific, a lot like hers, except with a defined blue tint.

Though, oddly, Kaze wasn't particularly disappointed by the time they had checked everywhere to check, as far as asking around went.

It was a long day with not much accomplished; no matter who they asked, no one had seen anyone matching Kaze's brother's description. It seemed unlikely that they'd forget him if he saw them, either--someone with shoulder length, silver blue hair wasn't exactly common. As brought up by the guy in the bar, Etsu's own hair was pretty outlandish in it's own right.

It made him sort of wonder if Mayako just wasn't social enough for people to remember her own unique hair, or if they were just used to it.

"Kaze, I hate to ask this, but...are you sure your brother was coming here?" He also wondered if she may have been mistaken on what he looked like, given her memory issues, but he thought suggested that might offend her.

Kaze? She thought for a moment as she looked to Eld with an inquisitive stare, head tilted to the side and everything, Oh! My name! Right!

"I'm positive he came here," Kaze replied with a nod. "My friends told me specifically that he was going to a place called Hillcrest."

Naturally, she had to look at Eld's forehead to remember the name of the town. That was why she'd written it on his forehead, after all! Without that, she definitely wasn't going to remember the name of the town.

But they were kind of running out of daylight, which wasn't good. The sun was progressively beginning to set, and in about an hour, it'd be dark out--or at least close enough to it! Then, there'd be no point in trying to look elsewhere, like out in the woods or anything. If they couldn't see Kaze's brother, they'd just wind up wasting their time trying to find him--or maybe even get lost.

"But . . . I don't know where he could have gone . . ." she trailed off to think about it some more. Where else could they possibly look in Hillcrest? This being the first day she'd been here in her life, Kaze hadn't the slightest idea. "Where else could we look?"

"W-Well..."

He thought for a moment, but was coming up blank--he didn't know much about this person, so looking for any place he'd like or gravitate to was impossible, and asking Kaze would no doubt prove futile. No one in the village center had seen him, though, which meant it was extremely unlikely he'd even passed through it.

This meant he was either staying at a farm and not venturing out, or more likely he wasn't in the town itself but in the woods nearby--the only problem was that he couldn't fathom why anyone would specifically come to Hillcrest at all, especially if they weren't going into the town.

A physical search was the only real option, but if they started this late they'd just be in the woods at dark, and Eld was only familiar with a few specific areas of it.

"Why don't we go up the big hill?" he asked, pointing. "I mean, it's kind of a longshot, but we might be able to spot him from there."

The big hill?

Kaze couldn't really see it that well from where she was. The way to get there had its share of trees, and one actually had to take a path that was sort of out of the way. While it was easy to see the entire village from the top of it, it was a little harder to spot when one wasn't familiar with Hillcrest.

But it sounded nice. Even if they didn't find her brother there, the idea of a large hill sounded like a good one, really. They'd probably be able to see a lot; a real nice view, maybe! Yeah. Yeah, that was a really, really good idea!

"Sure!" she replied, sounding almost sort of excited about it, smiling as she stuck right next to Eld. "Lead the way."

Eld nodded, and began to do just that. The path was indeed slightly out of the way, and started not far from the clinic, winding a bit into the woods before halting across a moderate incline; it wasn't steep enough to be dangerous, but it was enough that if a person lost their balance they'd be sent tumbling unceremoniously to the bottom, and getting up there while injured, even with something like crutches, would prove impossible without assistance.

While it wasn't uncommon for Eld to go up there to enjoy the view, that wasn't why he was there, even the setting sun provided a very nice one. Putting his hand to his forehead to shield his eyes, he peered into the distance looking for a head of silver-blue hair.

Nothing. In the denser woods, it was harder to see, and thus impossible to tell if there was anyone in the deeper woods, and there didn't seem to be anyone with blue hair out on the fields.

No matter how pretty the sight was, Kaze did first focus on trying to spot her brother, but she came up short. She knew her brother was here, though. It just felt right, being here; it felt like he was here, somewhere, and it wasn't any sort of hopeful ignorance that guided such an idea, either. Kaze genuinely felt that her brother was here in Hillcrest somewhere. It was just a matter of finding him, but as the sun continued over the horizon, it was becoming harder and harder to find him. But what if they could pick it up later?

"Hey . . . Eld?" Kaze uttered to get his attention, "We can maybe keep looking a little later, can't we?"

It might have been asking a little too much, and she really hoped that wasn't the case. Eld had been really helpful today, and she would have liked it if he'd continue to be helpful tomorrow. Not only did he know Hillcrest like the back of his hand, he was extremely kind to her.

"Well if by later, you mean tomorrow, yeah," he replied. "We're running out of light anyway...it won't do us much good to bumble around in the dark." With a small sigh, he sat down facing outward. He was a bit tired after all the searching.

She must have been worried about her brother--he didn't have any real siblings, but he knew if Emma suddenly went off to some strange town with hardly a word, he'd be worried enough to go look for her.

He turned to Kaze and offered her an encouraging smile. "Don't worry, though--if he's here, I'm sure we'll find him," he said, trying his best to keep her spirits up.

Kaze looked down to Eld briefly after he sat down, before looking back to the sunset again. It was stunning, really. Where she came from, she never got to see things like this. This was so foreign; she was so accustomed the the gray of her home, that seeing something like this was breathtaking, while to someone like Eld or any of his friends, it might just be beautiful, but not quite as stunning as it was to Kaze, now that she was able to focus on it.

Without giving it much thought, she sat down next to Eld, with her legs out in front of her and her hands behind her, on the grass, so she could lean back slightly and watch the sunset.

"I know," replied Kaze with a confident smile.

She knew that they would, without a doubt in her heart--because she wasn't alone in the search. Eld was there with her. He was helping her out of the kindness of his heart, and as she knew just as well that her brother was here somewhere, there was no way they'd lose him. Eld allowed her to be confident. Without him, she might well have been completely lost in much more ways than one.

A moment passed in silence, as Kaze stared at the horizon and the village and how it was all bathed in a gorgeous orange light. She couldn't take her eyes off of it. For the moment, her thoughts had ceased to drift temporarily.

"It's beautiful up here," Kaze would remark after a moment, her voice sounding thoughtful and awed at the same time--confusing to her, but she didn't care this time.

"Mmhmm," Eld agreed with a nod. Again, he spent a little time simply staring out before responding. Even though lately a lot of bad things had happened up here, he still loved the spot; he never got tired of the view, of the quiet isolation he could feel when he came up here, either by himself or, more often than not now, with Etsu.

"This is actually my favorite spot in the village," he commented idly. "I come up here a lot; fortunately it serves as a good place to search from too."

"I can see why . . ." Kaze trailed off thoughtfully.

If she lived in a place like this . . . why, she'd always be up here! Every evening, when the sun started to go down, she'd be up here, watching it the whole time. And then maybe when the sun came up, too. Yeah! She'd wake up every morning, early enough for sunrise, and stay up on the hill until the sun was a bulb in the sky, way above the horizon. And maybe she'd watch it with someone, too.

Without thinking about it, Kaze's left hand, closest to Eld, moved a little on its own. It was subtle, especially since there was barely an inch of space between them, but it still happened: her left hand would find its way over his right hand, fingers slightly intertwined with his, but not enough that it could be considered absolutely intentional, but, at the very least, accidental with no thoughts of retraction. Not that it would matter, really. It was wholly innocent.

"Hey . . . um . . . I want to say, um . . . thanks . . ." Kaze began thoughtfully, pausing to collect her thoughts a bit, but not allowing that to derail her, "For today. We didn't find my brother, but . . . I-- I had a lot of fun. No one's ever taken me out like that. Not for any reason at all . . ."

Kaze turned her attention to him, smiling happily. Indeed, they didn't find her brother today, but that didn't make the day a disappointment in the slightest . . .

While Kaze may not have been conscious of it, Eld certainly was--it was the kind of nice, slightly intimate gesture he often performed up here, just with a different girl. She didn't seem to notice, so he simply shifted his posture, leaning forward and pulling his hand away from hers and into his lap.

"W-Well, Hillcrest isn't the most interesting place ever--" a statement that really needed to be amended because of recent events proving otherwise, but it was still true on a day to day basis most of the time, "--but I'm glad you enjoyed yourself, I suppose."

He really couldn't imagine it being all that great--I mean, he liked his home to be sure, but he also knew it wasn't exactly a prime tourist spot, either. "You would have seen a lot more interesting things if you'd stayed in Galaens longer," he noted. The market was always teeming with specialists as well as traveling merchants, so there was always something new to look at it.

She didn't notice when Eld withdrew his hand, as she hadn't noticed when she put her hand on his in the first place. Still, there was something in her that felt it, and there was a bit of disappointment involved. It was the same kind of silly disappointment as earlier, though, when she said something hoping that Eld would turn his head to her again, back when they were on a horse together.

Still, though, she focused almost all of her attention on what Eld had to say. He was wrong. Kaze didn't fault him for that, though! He just didn't know that much about her--about her preferences and all of that.

"No way . . ." Kaze remarked as she shook her head, "I get nervous around a lot of people. They could do any number of things, think any number of things . . ."

And that was one of her preferences right there. It might make sense to him then, too--some of her earlier reactions to crowds, that is. She was so nervous when they were in the crowds in Galaens, and whenever they were out in Hillcrest and there were a great many people, she became a little nervous again, and stuck by Eld kind of close. This especially applied to the tavern, where she actually had trouble speaking.

"I-- I mean it was a nice town and all, but everyone's so aggressive, and it's all so confusing," she continued, regarding Galaens, "Places like this are much nicer, I think."

Eld opened his mouth to argue, but then paused and thought better of it. He was forgetting that there was an important difference between them that affected the issue.

"I guess I can see why a pretty girl would want to avoid crowds like that," he conceded. As a guy, even if he was (as Sarah often reminded him) kind of girly looking he was generally not harassed by the Galaens crowds--he didn't really like big groups of people either, but they didn't bother him much unless he was the center of attention.

"It's a nice place, but...well, it might be best if you don't stay too long after you find your brother," he observed sadly. He hoped that there would be peace for some time, he really did. But one didn't have to really believe something would happen to hope it did...

"P-pretty . . .?" Kaze whispered under her breath.

Her cheeks flushed a bit of reddish color almost instantly. Eld had just called her . . . pretty? Really? Honestly? Seriously?! It felt almost like her heart had fluttered there for a second! She didn't get compliments like that, not from anyone other than her mother, but then again, her mother complimented just about everyone! And sometimes a little too much, maybe. But that didn't matter right now. All that mattered was that she had, in fact, been complimented with some degree of sincerity--which meant that Eld wasn't just lying to her or anything to make her happy. It meant he really did think she was pretty.

Kaze couldn't contain her smile.

"I-- I--" she started, but quickly lost her train of thought.

Just as the wind behind their backs was erratic and jumpy, so were her thoughts. She couldn't think of what to say or how to say it! She was happy and nervous at the same time; it was so confusing . . .

"I really like you, Eld," Kaze finally blurted out, but didn't even think to take it back. It was the truth. "You're a really sweet person."

But, of course, like could very easily be considered an innocent word, especially since it was Kaze saying it, and she looked like she were in her early twenties or so, despite acting like she were in her teens. Later teens, maybe? Nonetheless, the word had more intended connotations than Eld was likely to get.