She awakens sore and groggy from not getting enough sleep on the hard ground. Her mind is reeling from all that’s happened and everything she’s learned. As she’d suspected, what happened to Nicolai back then was all part of Queen Nola’s games. But why take him as a prisoner, just to have the man she’d sent tell her he’d had him executed? It made no sense, unless that man had just been so angry at her that he wanted to hurt her emotionally as well as physically. Obviously he’d never intended to let her get away, so he would have had to tell her the truth eventually. 

     It absolutely guts her that Nico’s life has been affected this way just because he loves her. Or use to love her. Does he still feel the same after these last four years? She doesn’t know if she’s brave enough to ask him. She knows she still loves him - always will. The truth is, even if he still feels the same about the girl he knew then, he might not feel that way about who she has become.  

     She remains still, watching as he boils a small pot of water over the fire he must have made while she was still asleep. She thinks he’s making tea. He knows how much she loves tea, because it’s something they used to enjoy together. It warms her heart to know that he still carries some in his pack. 

     Before falling asleep, they had talked for a long time. He explained that after he escaped from the cell in the Moon Marshes, he simply picked a direction and waded through the shallow water, hoping to find something - anything. Hoping to find his way to the coast and safe passage back across the ocean. With no idea who had brought him there or why they’d done it, he knew he couldn’t trust anyone he came across, but he also knew he had no choice other than to try. 

     With the enchanted food he’d eaten giving him strength, he was able to go two days under the Great Moon before he began looking for something to eat and clean water. He found water easily, pooled within the petals of large, beautiful flowers that bloomed all throughout the marsh. It was sweetened by the nectar within the colorful flora and quite pleasant. Food was harder to find. Everything was too wet to build a fire, so catching and cooking fish, frogs, or even birds was out of the question. Eventually Nicolai discovered a patch of long, thick grass he recognized, and he knew that the roots were starchy and edible. So, he dug up as many as he could carry in a makeshift pouch he’d made from a torn sleeve. 

     Provisioned as best as he could manage, he continued on, praying that he wouldn’t encounter any of the monsters rumored to lurk in the marshes. Eventually he came upon a small town - small but populated enough to have its own harbor, and though he was the kind of tired that weighs down your bones, he immediately began offering to work for passage to the Sun Lands. Ships crossing the ocean were common enough, as kingdoms on both sides were constantly trading goods. 

     Nicolai notices her watching him and smiles. For so long, she would have done anything to see that smile, believing that she never would again. She smiles back at him and gestures towards the pot. “Are you making tea?” she asks quietly. 

     “Yes,” he replies, “It’s a blend I purchased here in Felway recently. I haven’t tried it yet, but it smells really nice.”

     “You wouldn’t believe how much I’ve missed something so simple as having tea with you, Nico.” she whispers sadly, and then wonders out loud, “How long have you been here?” 

     “Only three days. I didn’t know if you’d still be here, or if maybe you’d continued heading South.” He shakes his head. “You didn’t make it easy to follow your trail.”

     She laughs softly, a little bitterly. “I didn’t know you’d be following me. Had I known, I would have turned around to find you.”

     Nicolai had been able to find a captain willing to let him sail on his ship in exchange for working in the kitchen, cooking meals for the crew. He wasn’t the best cook, but he figured the men wouldn’t mind mediocre meals as long as they were fed. So, for the seven days it took to sail at full speed from one continent to the other, he cooked breakfast, lunch, and dinner for twenty men. It was exhausting, but at least he got to eat for free, and he was going where he needed to go.

     As soon as the ship docked in the Sun Lands, at a port south of Tavedor, he began his journey north, hoping to find her and explain this absurd thing that had happened to him. He traveled as quickly as he could, only stopping to rest three times. When he finally arrived, he went first to his mother’s house to explain his absence. 

     She was overjoyed to see him, telling him he’d been missing for more than thirty days and she had feared the worst. She was very concerned about what had happened, but also knew he desperately wanted to find Kaeda. She told him she hadn’t seen her since his disappearance, and he went out to search for her. 

     He went looking in all of their usual spots, starting at the docks, not expecting her to be home during midsun. But she was not at the docks, or at the tavern where she worked as a barmaid. In fact, no one at the tavern had seen her recently. 

     After learning that she seemed to be missing, and fearing that she may have been taken just as he had, he rushed to the tiny shack of a house that was hers but may as well have been theirs. 

     It was ransacked and empty. The air inside smelled stale as if nothing had moved in there for some time. He saw her heavy iron pan on the floor, and the large bloodstain next to it. It was obvious to him that there had been a struggle here, and he prayed the blood wasn’t hers. 

     While looking around, he noticed some of her stuff was missing, along with a few of his things - things that she had taken with her, but he didn’t know that. 

     Nicolai pours fragrant tea into two small, stacking cups he pulled from his pack and hands one to her. They both take a deep breath, inhaling the floral steam, and smile. It feels like old times, and despite the fact that she is wearing nothing but an oversized tunic and covered in blood, she is happy to be here with him. She would be happy to be anywhere with him. 

     He is staring at her like he can hardly believe he is seeing her. She understands completely. She feels the same way. 

     “I have learned some bits and pieces about what happened to you, Kaeda,” he tells her, “but why don’t you start by telling me when and why you first left Tavedor?”