As I woke, it hadn't yet occured to me what had happened. With my arms around Quinn, I only though of the heat of her body next to mine and went on drifting in and out of sleep. We must have both awoken when Bristle started rattling around outside.
I opened my eyes and found her looking back at me. She had a small, warm smile on her face as she kissed my forehead.
"Mornin'." She whispered.
"Mornin'."
I wasn't scared of last night anymore. I had never felt like this - it was as if my chest would burst if I wouldn't pull her closer. We snuggled for a few minutes and neither of us felt uncomfortable, as if we had known eachother for years. However, we soon realized that we needed to get going.
We grabbed something to eat, got ready and set off. Bristle had something to eat too and was restless for the journey ahead. He must have realized that we were going somewhere new.
We mounted and rode away. I looked back at the house that I had managed to build all on my own and couldn't help but feel a slight sense of nostalgia. Not regret though, I didn't regret leaving anything behind, but the sense that I was leaving my home for the first time in years struck my heart more than I thought it would.
Of course we had to be careful. Ashe would have troops looking for us everywhere. No one knew who Quinn was - she could be the first of my one thousand men army for all they knew. For clarity purposes, she was not. But if there was one thing that I had learnt from Ashe in the recent years is that her soldiers are always afraid to traverse the gorges that line Freljord - the cliffs enveloping them are icy and unstable at times. The heavy snow could collapse and cause an avalanche and the frozen water that rarely runs is just waiting to crack under our feet if we don't watch out step. Bristle and I know how to use them to our advantage and keep to the shores, but Ashe is too aware of the number of men she's lost to avalanches or falling rocks.
We didn't talk in the fear of being buried in snow so we leaned against eachother, swaying to Bristle's rhythm, to the music of his hooves against icy ground. He let out an occasional grunt and sniffed the air.
We stopped to rest for a few minutes, but not even then did we allow ourselves to make any noise. We would have been out of Freljord by dusk, if only they hadn't followed us.
We heard their voices at first, their echoes resonating on the walls that surrounded us. Their heavy strides came next. There was too many.
We had nothing to do other than mount Bristle and make a dash for it. His hooves sank into the ice deeply and he didn't slip, but the soldiers had heard us fleeing and ran after us. There was nowhere to go - just one long tunnel of cliffs and frozen water. It was a test of speed and endurance. For a while.
Their booming voices and sheer amount of footsteps made the cliffs on either side of us shake and tremble as if they could finally feel the cold that they radiate. I looked up and met the gaze of mounds of snow covering the dark sky. The booming was no longer coming from the soldiers but form the falling snow. Quinn hugged my waist tighter and I felt her body trembling against mine. I urged Bristle to move faster but the poor guy was going at his full speed.
I had lost track of time as I feared we would be trapped amidst the snow. I feared that the soldiers would get us. I feared that Ashe would finally get to torture Quinn before my eyes the same way she did to my family. But that wasn't the case. I wasn't going to stand still and do nothing for the second time.
An opening in one of the cliffs. It looked like a cave. I led Bristle right into it without thinking twice. I didn't know what it was, where it led, if it was safe, but it gave us a better chance. Once inside we felt the earth shake as a pile of snow covered the entry. The walls shook around us, before settling, and the noise diminishing. The sound of collapsing snow was gone, and with it the roar and shouts of the soldiers. Whether they were all gone or not I could not know.
In the darkness, Quinn was still trembling against me. I took her hand and held it to my chest for a few moments while we calmed down. I was just as scared as she was, but I refused to show it in any way.
We traipsed on further into the cave. It took me a while to get my lantern going as I couldn't see what I was doing, but once we got a bit of light we realized that it was less of a cave and more of tunnel.
"D'you know where we are?" Quinn whispered.
I shook my head. I had never been outside the Freljord alone, so I didn't really know the way out. I should have mentioned that to her earlier before she had trusted me to take her, but I paid no heed to it. We would find a way sooner or later.
I prayed that the tunnel wouldn't come to a dead end, and it didn't. Soon enough we saw light on the other side. We walked on out, and squinted at the sudden brightness of the outside world. Quinn let out a gasp.
"Finally!" She chuckled. "We're getting close."
All around us was a forest of pines. The snow was scarce and I was shocked to see so much green. I had been outside the Freljord before of course, but only when I was young. It had never occurred to me just how beautiful it was back then. Or maybe I just thought that because of Quinn's laughter and joy.
"Well, where to now?" I asked.
Quinn seemed to ponder for a moment. She looked around and at the sky to get a feel of where she was. "If we head on East we'll get to a place I know I think."
"You think?"
"Well I'm sorry. I'm not used to not having eyes in the sky."
We chuckled and traipsed on. The sun was nearly setting and the pines around us looked less like trees and more like menancing shadows. They waltzed in the approaching moonlight, a silent, mournful dance that took my breath away.
"We should stop soon." Quinn said, awakening me from whatever trance overcame me.
We stopped and lit a small fire and had something to eat out of the supplies we brought. All the while, I couldn't help but feel paranoid as though someone was still watching us. As though the avalanche had not been enough to lose Ashe's ugly spawn.
"What's that?" I asked.
Quinn followed my gaze to the fallen trunk of a tree.
"It's a tree dumbass."
"No! Under it."
She squinted and finally saw what I had. A small glowing light was pulsating under the rotting bark of the fallen pine.
"I... I don't know."
I went to pick it up and it was just the claw of a bear. But glowing. I took it back to Quinn for her to see it.
"I've never seen anything like it. Why is it so cold?" She said.
"I don't know."
"Well keep it."
"Why?"
"Maybe it'll bring you good luck."
I chuckled. "Yeah right."
I mocked the idea of luck, but slipped the claw into my pocket anyway. There was something about its frosty feeling and unusual glow that made me think that maybe it was worth keeping. Soon enough though, the glow had stopped and the darkness resumed. As I drifted off to sleep with Quinn in my arms, I had a feeling that everything had all been just a distant dream.
Part of me was afraid that I would wake up back home, not only confused and baffled, but without Quinn.
As she snuggled closer to me I felt her warm breath on my chest. She mumbled something before drifting to sleep, something about how she's glad she's out of the snow. And I couldn't bring myself to tell her that so was I.
