Without the weight of a sword bumping against her hip for each step her body feels light. Too light. Not grounded. Doa puts her heels down firmer and tries to switch the images in her mind with ones that aren't painted in red.

It's for the best. It's how it has to be. Isaku's fingers fills the emptiness in her hand since she left the blade behind and she squeezes them harder, trying to will her own palm to grow larger to fit him better.

"Doa," Isaku says. When Isaku says it, her name sounds beautiful. Loved. She turns her head up, and his face shades her view for the sun. "Now that you aint fighting no more, we could do that settling down. Grow those potatoes, maybe."

Her ears long for the sound of steel against bone just then. Doa tilts her head, so light without carrying an iron plate, and pushes the feeling away.

She pushes it away, but she can't replace it. The earth doesn't pull her like the blood did and does.

"Isaku," she says. When she takes his name in her mouth, it tastes like home. Doa isn't a liar, but she keeps her eyes on Isaku's face and tells him half a truth. "I don't like potatoes."

"Oh." There's surprise in his voice but no disbelief. Her thoughts are already straying toward other things when Isaku smiles. "Tha-that's alright. We can grow corn instead."

It's too hard. Isaku is too happy and the day is too sunny, and maybe once they reach the place Isaku is painting in green in his head he will have forgotten about potatoes and corn already. He will forget, Doa decides, squeezing his hand and walking forward, forward.

Her head is light; her feet are firmly on the ground.