Thanks to wildcrazythings for editing this chapter for me.

I don't own anything.

Chapter 1

A quiet convoy moved at a speed that was too slow for most, yet still too fast for those such as the mothers that carried weary children or the elderly that struggled with each step. Mostly though for the injured, that chose not the die on the battlefield or submit to their conquerors, were the ones that battled at the rear.

Many hundreds journeyed together. Mostly strangers to her that she had never laid eyes upon in her life, but now seemed as if they were her closest companions in this strange solitude that she found within the convoy.

It only took four days before she began to notice that the faces had become familiar. Then, just as soon as they became familiar, they gradually vanished.

Whether they had decided that this convoy would achieve nothing for them and turned off at one of the many crossroads that they had so far passed, or lied down to let misery and exposure claim them. She could not say.

They just left.

She felt the loss, but before that she could feel the doubt lingering heavily in her mind.

Idly, she would wonder when her time would come. Would the next cross road lead down the path of her salvation? Or would the chill of the night air and biting cold claim her resolve?

Overwhelming apathy kept such inclinations at bay. A new path would likely only lead to another battle. Death would only lead to her passing into another life. The thought of being born into the current era was enough for her to want to remain alive till this one ended.

If it ended.

By the sixth day she felt the blister on her foot burst. It was the large one that encompassed her entire left heel. The smaller ones she could manage, the sting if anything was a reminded that she still lived and could continue to do so.

Wincing with the pain, she struggled to put any weight at all on it. She slowly began to fall towards the back of the convoy. Frustration at the pace led to tears running down her dirt caked face. She knew that blood cemented the majority of the dirt to her face.

The back of the convoy was a world that she wanted no part of. The thought alone was enough to bring visible shame to her face, but she looked away. Those that fled had only been permitted to, as none were deemed useful or threatening to the new owners of their old home.

That thought alone stopped her from helping anyone. She glanced up at the rocky peaks that shadowed over them, knowing that they were still being watched and would continue to be watched till they passed well beyond the borders.

It would not be long before they passed the uncertain boundary of their territory, escaped from the high peaks of her home, down to the desert tundra of the neighbouring land. From there, a long walk would ensure till they would find rocky canyons, then the great forests of the central lands.

Refugees.

It was strange applying that title onto herself. She had a whole range of single words that could describe her, but refugee was a new one.

She heard it so much. How could you not when Clans raged war against each other for a Dominion on an almost daily basis? For that word to now suddenly define her existence… it left her numb. Well, not entirely numb, she still hobbled with the blisters, her increasingly stiff body bruised badly and she was convinced that she had fractured, or even broke, one of her ribs on her last fall.

Physical pain and mental numbness would be a better description. Her emotional state was not something anyone would want insight to.

Healing herself was out of the question while she remained within the mountains. Once out, rested and fed, she might be able of traverse the windy tundra in only a few days. But should she?

The convoy had no real destination asides from leaving these lands. Most would choose to remain on the border, not wanting to risk the tremulous lands of blinding white for as far as you could see.

Her masters words echoed in her mind as a quiet mantra. South till the earth dried out, then east till an endless forests and a fiery sun. Till a better option presented itself to her, she would follow those instructions.

The air became easier to breathe as they descended from the mountains, and for but a moment the exhaustion seemed that little less unbearable as she inhaled rich air. Having grown so used to the thin air of the high altitudes, this new enriched air was liberating.

The steep downhill climb left her knees aching and her hands scratched horribly after all the times she had to catch herself falling.

Eventually she fell. That was on the eight day, she leant against a dead tree in exhaustion and looked at her inflamed swollen feet. The urge to remove her shoes was overwhelming, but she knew the moment that she did, putting them back on would be that much harder.

She slept the entire night for the first time in the whole week that she had matched with the other refugees.

When she woke, she did so lethargically, head dizzy from almost too much sleep. The thought was laughable as she felt as if she had not rested at all. The early sunlight only blessed her with the faintest amount of vision, but enough to ready herself to continue on.

She laughed after a few minutes of searching, because if she hadn't, she would be crying into her dry frail hands.

Her coat, bag, clothes, water and food. Stolen.

She carried on for no other reason that if she didn't, she would have die at the base of that dead tree. And if there was one things she had already decided, was that she did not want to be reborn into this world. This era.

This madness.

So she might as well live through it.

Removing the coat off a dead man was something that she knew was essential to her own survival, but a memory that she much rather forget.

All he had that would keep her warm was a scarf and coat, and the dropping temperatures had forced her to not care that the scarf carried the smell of sickness. Or that the long coat was speckled with blood. There was also the high probability that it wasn't even his blood, or his coat to begin with.

It was warm.

For now, she needed that to survive this icy tundra. That man had been frozen, which did not bode well for her, but he also had food and frozen water. She ate the food greedily as it had been a two days since she last had anything but the last drop of water. If she had been thinking straight she would have known to ration it, to keep her going, but in her desperation she just ate.

The food warmed her almost from the inside. She felt the surge of power through her that she could not last remember. It brought a weary smile to her face, her lips cracked with the strain but she did not care.

Against all her better judgement she would shove heaps of snow into her mouth, chilling her from the inside so that she may have some water to lessen the heavy thumps of pain that would not leave her head from the dehydration. This along with the endless licking of her lips left her lips pained and riddled with splits.

That was on her second day within the Land of Ice. By the third her left toes showed signs of frostbite, as well as the tips of her fingers. With no gloves she was forced to rip up her scarf to wrap around her fingers and feet for the extra warmth. This left her face and nose chillingly exposed, and only tucking her face into her coat aided her.

Before the end of the fifth she managed to escape the tundra onto much warmer climate that burned less.

As her masters words echoed once again into her ears, she knew with certainty. She was going to survive.

When she reached the rocky canyons she almost died with delight at discovering a fresh spring. Plunging her face into the reflection of the sky she let water flood into her mouth, drinking greedily.

Within seconds she had stripped down to nothing and torn up strips from her travelling cloak to clean her body.

A few hours of further wandering, she found a natural hot pool. Not wanting to risk being in the hot water for fear that she may faint she did not enter it, but everything felt warm as she dipped her feet and hands into the naturally heated water, and she smiled giddy with joy. The first one in days, and kept telling herself in her head that she never wanted to experience the cold again.

The tips of two fingers and one toe retained an unhealthy dark tint from the residue of her frostbite.

That was enough motivation to continue moving south. To warmer lands, to brighter suns.

She slept that night near the hot pools where the smell was unbearable, but the heat welcoming.

Waking in the morning was a blessing, for there was not a single night in which she was ever fully certain that death did not smile down on her in her sleep.

The large Canyon Country seemed to go on forever. But so did the tundra. Which didn't stop her, so neither would this. A new-found strength resided in her at the knowledge that she had survived that, this endless rocky canyon was only the next step. The next obstacle that she would pass through.

She met a traveller on the road. It was a strange exchange that involved no words, just a nod and smile, before she saw the blistering rash that climbed from beneath his shirt, up his neck and across his face.

She stopped him and began to heal it without any questions, when the rash faded she told of her abilities, and he thanked her graciously with food and water. But that was all he could spare, as the peddler still had a long journey.

Graciously accepting it, she knew that it would not come even close to compensating for the energy that she had expelled in aiding him. She was not one to look a gift horse in the mouth.

She ate well for the next two days, relatively well compared to how she had been eating till that point. This time around she was smart enough to restrain her hunger and ration it out. If there was one thing she was grateful for was the new holder for water, as such she drank much water constantly if only to put off the pangs of hunger. The day after she had finished the last shred of food the peddler had offered her for her serviced was gone, she went back to starving again.

It was not as bad as when she was crossing the tundra, at least this time there was life. Plants, although few and far between, sustained her when things began to become severely bad.

Starving was not fun. Neither was being a refugee.

But she was surviving.

The beehive was high in the tree. Not so high that she could not get up there without raising the awareness of the bees, but high enough that she would have to think wisely for a strategy so that she was not stung to death by the soon-to-be angry horde.

Picking up a stone from the ground, she flung it at the hive, making a solid impact that sent the hive crashing down onto the ground and a flurry of bees rushing out and searching for the threat. She dived for the hive and picked it up before dashing towards the river.

It was fifty paces before she reached it.

Jumping in a panic, she dived under the water with the hive in her arms. Swimming upstream from where she had jumped in, she surfaced once she was a good few meters away. Surfacing, she saw that the swarm of bees where flying around randomly and seemed to be paying no attention to her now. Pulling herself out of the river and only to bank she made through into the tree line and out of sight from bee and hopefully person.

A lack of familiarity with the plant life in this region mean that she would have to be using very old tradition for preventing infection in all the gashes and grazes that she had gotten through her journey through the woods.

And she had only been stung eight times.

As she broke away at the hive revealing the honey and wax inside, she lathered it over her lips and the open wounds that dotted her knees, legs, arms, feet and face. Healing herself would have been the easiest of choices, but with only shreds of energy and her starving body. This was the best she could do for herself. Whatever was left she ate. Not much, the sweet sticky food was not what she wanted to be eating when she was so starved, but the sugars would do her well.

Laying back against a tree sighing out loudly for the world to hear. The sun beamed down on her through the foliage and, for the first time since leaving her home, she felt warmth.

Slept must have kept its hold over her for the entire day and most of the night, as when she woke the honey was crusted horribly and she felt sticky all over. The ants crawling over her body made her awakening that much more unpleasant.

Washing herself slowly, the night chilled river doing little to put her off, she looked up at the full moon that beamed down on her. The honey all washed away after some time and she rose from the river naked. Looking down at protruding ribs and prominent hip bones she frowned in disappointment.

Her fingers appeared wiry and she must have looked at least twice her age.

Dressing slowly she ignored the cramping sensation in her ribs and joints. Her energy had been restored somewhat with a good amount of sleep. However, with the severe lack of nourishment that she had been enduring, she was not likely to recover any further.

She began walking again before it got light, wandered slowly through the forest, her stomach constantly reminding her of her endless hunger. When she found a bush that held a number of red berries she sat down and ate all the berries off the bush that did not look sodden. A sickness came over her some time past the darkest part of the night and she ended up vomiting the small content of her stomach out onto the forest floor.

Slumping against a tree, panting, she quickly dozed off. Drained from only a few hours of walking and the energy it took to empty her stomach.

Waking to the sound of birds and forest moments. While her body protested, she managed to pull herself back onto her feet with the aid of the tree she had been leaning against.

Stumbling slowly through the forest, she was cautious with the mount of noise that she made. Yet in the pitch darkness, with only the moon occasionally gifting her with a hints of light through the thick foliage, it was hard and more often than not she broke branches and trod on fallen leaves.

At some point she miserably concluded to herself that a herd of stampeding cattle would have likely been stealthier than she was at that moment.

A loud crack resonated from behind her.

Panting in the distance that was rapidly approaching her.

Something seized hold of her and she could not move. Ah, she remembered this. Fear.

Eyes widened in panic as she scanned the surrounding forest for any indication of where the attack might come from. Eyes too tired, too unfocused she felt as if she was looking down a long pipe till flaring pain ripped at her stomach and she looked down to see a medium sized dog had bit her.

The impact felt delayed, but that was likely on her mind playing tricks on her, and she was pulled to the ground and the dog tore at her as it violently shook its head. A scream was ripped from her and it responded loudly through the woods.

Arms spread wide she reached for anything that might help. One hand slapping aimlessly along the forest floor while the other grabbed hold of the scuff off the dogs neck.

The dogs reaction to this was instantly and it released her side to then snapped down on her forearm with a growl and repeated the same wild tearing at her skin. This time it felt as if it might rip her arm right off her. The material of her shirt tore and tears ran down her face as she silently cried.

A hard smack to the ground found her a rock that she grabbed tightly before swinging her hand right down on the dog's skull. A strength that she had never known flared through her arms as she crashed the rock down.

The impact resonated with a solid thump and the dog went silent. But it was not enough.

Her hand came down again, and again. Again.

The crunch of bone was not enough for her to stop.

Or the splat of blood and likely brain.

Its hold on her arm went slack and she could suddenly feel pooling wetness reach the hand still holding the rock. A staggered breath as she pried the dogs jaw open and collapsed onto the ground crying.

An hour could have passed and she would have been none the wiser as she lay there, her mind focusing intently on the pain that left her shuddering and weak.

Dragging herself across the ground towards a large oak, she leant up against it and assessed the damage to her body. Undoing the thin worn sash around her hip, she opened up her top, exposing her fragile torso to the air. With trembling finger she felt around the afflicted area. Warm blood was oozing its way out of her body quickly.

In panic at the feeling of so much blood she shut the robe, as if to hide it from herself. Her teeth gritted together tighter as she heaved herself up a little more against the tree. Breathing was becoming labored and she knew that she was on the verge of a possible self-induced panic attack.

Breathe.

That one word flared in her mind and she knew she needed to use it. Breathe.

In. A large gulp of air that had her lungs filling painfully to the brim. Out. All if then left. In. She took on all the air she could. Out. In. Out. In.

A minute in and her head had calmed, a minute after that and she was back to her fragile mind. Her hand returned to the wound and laid flat over it.

Cool and sharp. She felt it against her neck, and the air that she had been so conscious about only minutes ago left her. This time in a slow and controlled manner. She could not risk panicking.

"Woman. Who are you? What is your purpose on these lands?"

Had she the energy, she might have jumped at the sudden intrusion on her personal space. As well as having a sharp looking knife held up against her jugular. In the darkness of the trees with only faint moonlight seeping through she could make out dark featured and the sharp angles of a face.

She tried to speak, but the it had been days since she had last done so and she wasn't too sure if she could. Her voice cracked with the disuse and sounded unfamiliar to her ears as she responded with. "Just. Passing."

The blood loss had become a problem as she swore that she was looking at the eyes of a demon. Her head felt heavy and cold was rushing through her. The fingers of the hand placed over the abdominal wound twitched. Chakra flamed through her fingers in a greenish tint. As it seeped through her clothing and skin she felt the blood begin to ease from gushing out of her.

"You're a healer." He stated, sounding surprised at his own statement. In the darkness, she could not confirm if this surprise reflected on the rest of him. "Aren't you?" It must have, if he felt the need to actually confirm with her.

Her technique eased off as she examined the now slightly sealed wound. It did not feel as if she had made any progress in accelerating the healing, and as she looked down she could still vaguely see the oozing blood.

"What does it matter now?" She hadn't even asked it as a question, the words just slipped out of her mouth. Her head rested against the tree as exhaustion really set in. She should not have done that, using up the small amount of chakra that she had been building up for days now. Entirely drained, even holding up her own head was too much.

"It could mean a lot for you." He responded. Words sounding distant. "Could be the difference between you living or dying, right here." The pressure of his blade eased up on her neck, and another was removed entirely. Which she only just noticed that was aimed to go right under her rib cage. Pointed at her heart.

She laughed dryly that came out as a dry cough. "I've been dying for weeks." A minor exaggeration, but that's how it felt. The drawn out endless challenge she faced day after day. Water. Food. Warmth. Shelter. Water. Food. Warmth. Shelter. Water. Foo… over and over and over again till she felt that her whole life was aimlessly living for the sake of not dying.

"Yeah. Medic. I'm one of them." She responded. Not caring any more. The fine line between living and not seemed to vanish in an instant after having the first human contact in weeks. What she was doing was not living. It was surviving. For a time it seemed important.

Now?

She couldn't say.

Short start to what should kick of as a long fic.

Okay so I had planned to have nearly the whole fic finished before I started posting. But I said this before my final uni year began and I hadn't quite expected the workload that was waiting for me.

So for now I have just about half of the fic done. But I have kept this on hold for too long now so I am now going to start posting the chapters till the midway point when I'll take a break to finish off the second half. The second half at the moment is just a mix of uncompleted segments that need to be brought together to make whole chapters. It's so time consuming but I promise to finish the fic. Best chance is in the summer I'll have loads of time to finish it then.