“Are you alright”, he asked after several moments of uninterrupted silence. His eyes swept over her face, probing her, hoping to read the answer off her face. She made an effort not to visibly respond to it, instead keeping her usual poker face in place. Still, the Yludih figured her surprise hadn’t gone unnoticed.
“I’m fine,” Yana responded, not sounding as chipper as she would have liked. “Just… tired, is all.”
That at least wasn’t a lie. She felt drained, as if she hadn’t been sleeping for trials, and someone had forced her to run a marathon anyway. Yana wasn’t even sure when this feeling had snuck up on her, though she suspected this whole situation had finally claimed its toll. Things were catching up to her, and now there was no need to be focused and on edge anymore, her body had decided it was time for some relaxation.
Promise kept, bastards dealt with. Time to dust off her hands and walk away. Take a few trials to recuperate.
However, now was not yet the time to loosen up. They weren’t done yet.
Quiome pulled himself up, responding with a negative to her question. He fished a ring out of his pocket and handed it over. Yana frowned, holding the trinket up against the light, squinting to try and get a better look at it. It refracted the rays of sunlight filtering through the trees, shimmering quite brilliantly. The way the facets were carved was a bit crude, but that wasn’t what bothered her. This material was one she had seen before. The Yludih felt her anger rise, anger she’d not felt since the start of her quest. It poured out of her as if a dam had burst, and Yana had to close her eye and distract herself with the matter at hand to keep herself calm.
A sigh escaped. Yana noticed she’d clenched her fist around the ring so hard it felt difficult to unfurl her fingers. Quiome handed her a second ring, much akin to the first, though the color of the crystal was different. Her eye naturally shifted from the accessory to the mutilated hand when he raised it, and her jaw squared a little. She didn’t speak as she returned the trophies to him, but her hands were trembling.
She followed when he walked off, deciding now was not yet the time to be split up again, no matter how short a time it was for. Neither of them knew if the Watchers would come and when, but Yana recognized it would be a bad idea to leave the injured male Yludih to his own devices. If anything were to happen…
Yana stood on guard as her companion checked the other corpses one by one, keeping half an eye on him and half an eye on their surroundings. The wind rustled the leaves and pulled at branches, further in the forest she heard birds singing. Every now and then she thought she heard something snap a ways off, but she couldn’t be sure.
When they reached the last man, Quiome’s emotions seemed to be getting the better of him. Yana couldn’t blame him for feeling frustrated and upset. At first she didn’t know what had set it off, but upon seeing the dead man’s expression, she understood. Nothing more frustrating than to see a target of revenge accept his death rather than fight it and suffer. Perhaps the latter as much fulfilling in the long run as the former, but at least it gave some comfort for a brief while.
She didn’t speak. There was no use in talking. Perhaps if she’d known what to say, she might have tried lifting his spirits. Perhaps if she didn’t get why he felt the way he did, she would have even if she hadn’t the faintest idea of what was appropriate for this moment. Yana didn’t think there was anything that could dampen the sense of defeat surging through Quiome however, and kept her mouth shut.
She didn’t really say anything as he gave his version of the events she’d heard about from the man she’d tortured. He filled in the gaps in her information, answered any questions her victim hadn’t been able to, and gave her a pretty good idea of his mental state during the whole ordeal. She didn’t interrupt, believing that speaking of it would both distract him from the now, and perhaps help place it all in the past.
“Can’t say I was expecting to ask around for seasons without alarming other interested parties,” she responded, shrugging lightly. It hadn’t caused her trouble yet, and it wouldn’t as long as none of those spies connected her to the wanted notice from a couple arcs back. If they did, however, she still had an ace up her sleeve. Two, in fact, though one of them wasn’t too reliable.
She stopped for a moment to take a good look at his face, frowning slightly. Then, she shook her head. “Don’t worry about it. I’m not planning to stay for much longer. Not like this anyway.” A pause, and then she added: “This wouldn’t be the first time I vanished from this city after an incident.” She walked a couple steps without saying anything. “You’re forgetting who we are. It’s no trouble. My job here is done. I don’t need to play mercenary anymore.” She shrugged.
It took a while longer to get to a point where the gates were only a relatively short distance away, the trip slightly lengthened by a break taken near a stream. He’d thrown his shirt away, but Yana had collected it and cut it into ribbons, making attempts to bind his wounds to the best of her ability, if he’d let her. After that, they continued the trek, stopping only when Quiome made it quite clear he wanted to split up, obviously worried about causing further trouble, especially through his injuries. Yana pondered for a moment, though not about whether or not to leave him behind.
“I can pass for a huntress with my gear and my bow,” she stated. The shield would be a little difficult to explain, if it was visible however. “If you pretend to be unconscious, I can get us through.” She didn’t really wait for an answer before she prepared. She stuffed her eyepatch in a pocket, changed her hair color to a dirty blond, and gave her skin a more tanned hue. Lastly, she willed away that awful scar around her right eye. Minor changes, really, but ones that usually had quite a huge effect.
She fixed him a questioning glance then, silently offering him a choice, though she was ready to take action if he would turn it down.
