The days passed as the odd trio walked towards their destination, Anaphora blindly trusting that Sojourn would lead her to the sacred weapons. They slept in shifts and walked on alert, never letting their guard down, for neither knew when another attack might happen. Sojourn would occasionally lead them to a town to buy supplies, but they never stayed the night in an inn. Day by day, they made their way more and more north, the weather getting colder and colder.

“How much further,” Anaphora asked as she and Sojourn made camp. Snow crunched under her as she knelt to start a fire. Even though Sojourn had bought her a thick, fur-lined coat, leggings and boots, she felt the cold in her bones. While she had been travelling on her own for many years, she had never travelled this far north. By the way the sun was setting, she estimated it to be mid-autumn. “If things were cold now,” she thought to Cetus, “how much worse will this get?” Cetus shivered in reply.

“Just one more day of walking. By tomorrow we will be in my village. We will be able to warm and rest before making the trip to get those weapons for you, my dear,” Sojourn answered, pitching a tent. “I’ll take the first shift, Ana. The cold doesn’t bother me.”

Sojourn watched as Anaphora crawled into the tent, pausing only to remove her snow-laden boots. He sighed, absently poking the fire with a stick. They were almost at the end of the known journey. Once she had the weapons, he didn’t know what would happen. Would they continue to travel together and banish the shadows? Or was she going to slip back into old ways and disappear without a trace, leaving the world to fend for itself? He told himself it would be the latter. The runaway girl seemed to be retreating, revealing the champion she was always supposed to be. Sojourn wanted to be optimistic, but he knew that old habits die hard. The runaway may not be so far buried as he hoped.

Sojourn stopped poking the fire. He put the stick to the side and laid back in the snow, arms tucked behind his head. What would tomorrow bring?

***

The sun was breaking the horizon, glimmering through the trees that surrounded the group. Sunlight glinted off the snow, reflecting itself a thousand times. Anaphora went to the tent, pulling open the flap to tell Sojourn it was morning. A grumble came from within, followed shortly by a figure. Sometime during the night, Sojourn had woken Anaphora, nudging her away for her watch. With Sojourn rubbing sleep from his eyes, Anaphora sat back in the snow by the fire, stirring the last bit of food they had in a pot.

“Breakfast,” Anaphora asked, dumping a portion into a bowl and handing it to her partner.

He grunted in reply, collecting the outstretched meal. A moment later, Cetus was on his shoulder, chittering.

“He says he wants some,” came the translation.

Sojourn moved the bowl away, “well, he can have his own bowl. This bowl is mine, thank you very much.”

The squawl launched from the grump to Anaphora’s side, “He grumpy in morning. How strange.”

Anaphora dished out her breakfast before filling the ladle full and placing it out for Cetus with a smile. |The critter chittered happily and sprung from his perch. The rest of their breakfast was eaten in companionable silence.

Without a word to each other, they started packing up camp. The task went by smoothly as they had done it numerous times before; speech was not required. Hesitantly, Anaphora broke the silence, “So, we are going to reach your village today?”

A grunt of consent came in reply.

“Er, so, what should I expect?” She was nervous. It had been a long time since she was around a large group, let alone being required to socialize. Anaphora felt her pulse quicken just at the thought. There was no way to hide her features; the looks, the whispers they would be back. “Can we just slip in, grab what we need and leave?”

Sojourn stopped and turned confused to his companion. “You know they don’t bite, right? They are my people. I’ve not been back in too long a time, so no, there will be introductions, feasts and everything in between.” He turned his back to her in a way that made no doubt that the conversation was over. “It is that, or you will never see those blades.”