[Travel| Kou→The Plains]

The flicker of the candle light danced across Ayero’s face, highlighting her sharp features as her brow creased in concentration. The young warrioress was pouring over a map, too concerned with the details of her journey to bother admiring the precision of the hand drawn map. She hummed low in her throat, eyes tracing the path along paper that they would be taking for the hundredth time. She had memorized the route and researched it the best she could, seeking accounts from those who had traveled in the area, but did not learn anything new. It had been a while since she had set foot in the plains near Balbadd, and she wondered how well her memory would serve her.

The red head exhaled heavily, almost frustrated as the bittersweet memories came creeping back into her mind. She had traveled through the plains for nearly five years of her life with a merchant caravan, learning more about the outside world as she grew into a woman. It wasn’t an easy life, but she wouldn’t trade the experiences she had with them for anything in the world. It was a decent life—until it came to an end.

Red brows scrunched together as the more tumultuous memories took hold of her mind. He was tall, almost impossibly so, with crimson hair like her own. The thoughts of him made her heart flutter only for a moment, then they became tainted with what had followed after. Blood, regret, anger, confusion…so much confusion. Ayero bit the inside of her cheek. If she lingered on it too long, it would keep her away and she wouldn’t get a good night’s rest.

Rrriiiiiip.

An expression of mild surprise crossed her face as she looked down, pulled out of her thoughts for the moment. Surprise melted into irritation when she realized that she had torn the corner of the map, not even realizing that she was still holding onto it.

”Colonel?”

Ayero tensed and turned around, not expecting to hear a voice this late at night. I didn’t even hear anyone enter…

”Ah. Yael.” Ayero gave the Fanalis woman who just entered a nod of approval while she rolled the damaged map back up. The Colonel gave the other Fanalis a once-over, wondering what her reason for coming here so late could be.

Yael shifted her weight from one leg to the other, lifting an arm and pointing to the parchment in Ayero’s hand. ”Liutenant Hojo requests the map if you’re done with it, Colonel.” She gave the other woman a curious look, careful to reign in her expression so as to not offend.

Ayero grunted in affirmation, tossing the roll of paper to the other woman without a second thought. ”Get some rest after this. Even though we’re traveling by carpet, we don’t know for sure what dangers we’ll be facing on the way.”

Yael nodded and delivered a small salute before turning to leave Ayero’s tent. As an afterthought, the Colonel called out to her before she would leave completely. ”Tell him I’ll pay for a new one.”

Ayero didn’t turn around as Yael’s brows knit in confusion before she left to deliver the map to the Kou officer. Ayero waited until the footsteps outside her tent had disappeared before biting the inside of her cheek. She chewed for a moment before smothering the candles that were burning, letting the still darkness of the night touch every inch of the tent. There was no use in dwelling on the past now, anyways.

[588/400]