Raine dropped her pack and lay down at the base of a massive tree. The sun was setting rapidly and she had been awake for two days straight… she couldn't do this anymore. She didn't know if her Desian acquaintances had followed her out here, or if Ma'am was somehow on her trail, but at this point she didn't care. All she needed was sleep.

She curled up, wrapped the blanket around herself and Genis, and shivered herself into a comfortable position. It had gotten so cold so suddenly—she figured it was the altitude. Why she had chosen to go north instead of any other direction still baffled her. Maybe it was the knowledge that this was about as far from the ocean as she was going to get. Genis pressed up against her neck, trying to warm his face, and she pulled the ratty blanket tight around both of them. She hoped it would not rain that night. It would probably come down as snow.

"Wa…" Genis started.

"What?" Raine croaked, closing her eyes.

"Where's Etta? I want Etta. And Candle. I'm cold."

"Just stay close to me. You'll be fine."

"Where's Etta?" Genis started to cry. He sniffled and sobbed, but Raine was so tired the sounds of his suffering did not keep her awake. She merely held him close and passed out, and after a few minutes of crying, Genis fell asleep on top of her. The last thought she had before she slipped into unconsciousness was how merciful it would be if both of them died peacefully in their sleep.

To Raine's surprise (and to some degree, her dismay), she woke up the next morning. She awoke without frostbite stealing any of her fingers or toes, and Genis seemed fine. Apparently, however, their survival came at some sort of price, since as soon as she moved, she discovered she was in great pain. It felt like something was inside her stomach, poking at the walls of her abdomen. She sat up, and the pain only got worse. Genis stirred beside her, and she crawled to her knees, swaddling him in the blanket. He snored slightly, undisturbed. She stood, and had to bend over to relieve the pain. Raine had suffered hunger pangs before, but this kind of pain was different, it was in a different spot, it was more direct, like a stabbing, bright pain, rather than the dull ache of hunger.

Raine's stomach dropped and she lifted her dress. She reached under the hem of the skirt and had her worst fears confirmed when her hand came away bloody.

"Damn it," she hissed. Now was not the time. Couldn't her body have waited until she was in a little less precarious of a situation? Gods… she clutched her stomach and groaned. She had heard some horror stories from the other women at the Sea Witch about how much it could hurt, but she had never given very much thought to them.

"What's wrong?" Genis was sitting up, still bundled in the blanket, watching her groan and twist.

"Nothing… just a… tummy ache."

"Etta says when I have a tummy ache I need to curl into a little ball."

"It's not that kind of tummy ache, Genis."

She knelt, resting her head on her knees, and rubbed below her belly button, trying to get the sharp feeling of twisting pins to leave her muscles. She summoned up some healing magic and soaked her skin with light. Slowly, the pain dulled, and she stood up, ignoring the residual ache. She brushed dirt off her dress and started to dig through the bag.

"You're bleeding," Genis said, pointing to a small drip of blood that had made its way down to her ankle. She sighed. She didn't want to have to explain the complexities of adolescent biology to her tiny brother, especially at this point, when she needed to worry about finding food.

"It's just a little cut. Nothing to fret about."

"But you can heal it," Genis said, insistent.

"Genis. It's fine. Just shut up for a moment. Please."

She dug through her burlap bag and pulled out the half-eaten loaf of stale bread. She tossed it to Genis, who began to pick it apart deliberately, silently. She brought out the knife, set it next to the bag, and reached for the bar of soap. She scrubbed her legs clean, then carefully chopped a thin strip off the edge of the blanket. She figured she might want something to absorb her blood, unless she wanted to leave a dark trail of it behind her everywhere she went.

"I'm still hungry," Genis said, after he had eaten the bread.

"I'll find you something to eat later. Come on." She stood, stuffed the blanket back into the bag, hauled it over her shoulder and began to walk.

Genis trailed after her, occasionally whining, reaching out for her hand every once in a while. Sometimes he would stop and examine the trees, the leaves, the silver clouds above. He would ask Raine questions, mostly about Etta and Candle, but eventually stopped when Raine failed to answer any of them. As they trudged up further into the mountains, it grew colder and drier. Genis shivered and chattered his teeth regularly by mid-afternoon, so Raine invited him up on her back, where she fashioned a sling out of the blanket to hold him there. She reckoned carrying around a near-empty sack wouldn't do them good, so she pocketed the soap, tied the knife around her waist and left the bag near a trickling brook.

She forced herself onward, occasionally stopping to pick some berries or to scrape some bark off a tree for Genis to chew in the meantime. As the climate grew colder, the fruit-bearing trees tapered off somewhat, and they were stuck eating dandelions for dinner. Raine wondered if any of this struggle was at all familiar to Genis, or if he could vaguely remember being in a situation just like this years before. Maybe he couldn't remember because he hadn't developed the capacity yet, but she could sense that he knew they were somehow degenerating back into their original state—lost, orphaned, starving children.

It was as if all those years of work and school and endurance had meant nothing.

Raine again began to entertain the thought that they may die up here, alone in the wilderness. She thought it would've been a little less cruel if they had died the first time they were lost; at least Genis was a baby and wouldn't have understood what was happening. She could sense that Genis understood at least a little of what was transpiring now, if only because Raine's desperate mood hinted at it.

So it wasn't a surprise that when they settled down for the night he asked what happened after you died. "I don't know, Genis," Raine said. She had never been this exhausted in her life. She didn't know if it was because she had not eaten in a day and a half, or if whatever nutrients she absorbed immediately came straight back out between her legs.

"Who does know?" Genis asked.

"The priests of Martel say they know, but they might be wrong. They say if you're good you get to go to paradise."

Genis looked up at her with sunken eyes. "Am I good?"

"Yes." Raine wrapped both of them up in the ratty blanket. She leaned against a stone and closed her eyes, listening to the weak rhythm of Genis' breathing.

When she awoke, it was to the violent sound of gagging. She bolted upright and saw Genis a few feet away, throwing up in the dirt. He clutched the grass like he was about to float away, and he wrenched forward every few seconds, dry heaving. Sometimes a little puff of white came out, sometimes it was a drip of saliva.

"Genis, what's wrong?" she scooted over to him and held his waist, easing him forward as he tried to vomit.

He didn't answer, he just coughed and hacked and cried and burped until the sun came up. It took Raine about five minutes to realize that he had eaten the soap.

As soon as light hit, Raine picked him up and put him on her back. She eyed a thin pass between two black, barren peaks, and started toward it, hoping there would be some green valley on the other side. By the time she found herself pinched between the twin hillsides, Genis had barfed himself into a stupor, and was now passed out, snoring on her back. Her stomach rumbled furiously, but at least she wasn't bleeding anymore. She thought maybe her body had had enough of this madness and was now preparing to shut down for good.

That night they found a cave on lee side of the mountain, and huddled close. It began to hail, just as the sun set.

"I'm cold," Genis said.

"Me too," Raine said. She figured she might be able to find some firewood and get a flame going in the mouth of the cave, as long as she got back here before everything was too wet. "Genis, stay here, stay inside the blanket."

"I'll be cold without you!" Genis cried.

"Rub your hands together, remember? Just like I taught you. I'm going to get some firewood and build us a fire. Then we'll be warm, okay?"

Genis let her go, reluctantly. She explored the forested area outside the cave, picking up sticks and kindling where she found them. A few elk passed by, and she wished she hadn't dropped her speargun back in Palmacosta. Maybe they would've been able to have some meat tonight. Instead she found a bush with some bluish berries, picked some mysterious nuts off a nearby tree, piled them all into her pockets, grabbed her kindling and headed back to the cave before she could get completely soaked.

When she got to the mouth of the cave, she dropped everything. "Genis! What in the goddess' name are you doing?"

He grinned up at her, holding a tiny spark of flame between his palms. "I rubbed my hands together like you told me, and look, it worked!" He held out the flame to her. "I made them warm!"

Raine sighed. Well, she knew he would grow into his magic sooner or later, if he had any. But why now? Why all these important changes now, when the biggest thing Raine had to worry about was whether or not the berries she picked were poisonous?

She smiled. "Wow, Genis. Good job." She was just happy he didn't seem to be afraid of his own fire. "Now just hold it there until I set up these sticks, then we can have a real fire."

Genis watched her pile up the fuel for the fire, proudly toting his tiny flame. When she signaled to him, he bent down and held his hand up to the kindling until it lit up. When they had a decent fire going, he closed his tiny fist in a puff of smoke and leaned back onto Raine's lap.

This opened up a whole new world of problems for her. Even if they lived through this trek, she would have to find someone who could teach Genis to use his elemental magic. She'd heard stories of reckless children who couldn't control their own magic and ended up burning their own homes or blasting their siblings across town. But she couldn't teach him. She had no idea who could.

For now, we need to live through the night, she thought. That is all.

She hugged Genis close to her and listened to him crunch the wild nuts between his teeth. "I'm still cold," he said. The fire was small and didn't completely banish the freezing chill that had seeped into their bones constantly for the last couple of days.

Raine yawned. "You'll warm up."

They slept through the night with no interruptions, and the next morning they made it halfway up the next hill. It was mercifully lower than the previous ones, which Raine took as a positive sign they were almost on the other side of the mountain range. What they would do once they crossed the mountains, however, remained a mystery. She almost didn't want to know.

When she collapsed under the umbrageous branches of a fir tree that night, she was unsure if she would ever be able to get up again. Her stomach rumbled, she still suffered pangs of agony in her lower abdomen, and her limbs shook with effort every time she moved them.

Genis had to throw the blanket over the both of them that night. He cuddled up close to her. She closed her eyes, thinking to herself that she should go collect some firewood, but she couldn't move.

"I'm cold," Genis said.

"Yes."

"Where's Etta? I want Etta. I want Candle."

"Me too, Genis. But they're not here."

"Where are they?"

"I don't know."

They lay in dark silence for a moment. "Where are we going? Will we ever get there?"

Raine sighed, body relaxing. "We're going to Asgard, Genis. We're going to find a clan of witches."

"Witches?"

"Yeah. Tough, beautiful witches. They live underground and protect the summon spirits. They have fires down there that haven't gone out for a thousand years. We're going to sit in front of the fires and never be cold again. We're going to eat feasts with them every night, and we'll get to read all the books in their ancient library. They will sing songs with us and teach us their magic."

"Really?" Genis said. "I'm happy, then."

"Yes…" Raine found she didn't have the will to speak. Her last little story had drained all the remaining strength from her. Now all she wanted to do was sleep…

The next morning she couldn't get up. Genis tried to rouse her, tried to push her onto his weak little body, but she was limp. She could barely see. She couldn't speak. She wanted water, but couldn't get it… she was cold…

and then she was alone…

and Genis was gone

and so she slept

Her mother held her hair back and dabbed at her sweaty forehead, leaning down to give it a revitalizing kiss. Raine opened her eyes.

"There you are," her mother said. "I've been looking for you."

Raine tried to sit up but couldn't.

"You've been gone a long time," her mother said, smiling sadly. "I hope you weren't lost."

"I'm looking for the Asgard witches," Raine said weakly. "Have you seen them?"

"Dear, what do you need witches for? You're a fine witch yourself."

"Genis… he can… fire…"

"Oh, that's wonderful. Now at least our family won't be monochromatic. Black and white magic, how about that? Now if only one of us would learn to cook then we'll be golden."

Raine reached out a hand and lay it on her mother's bare arm. "Come with us."

"I'd love to, Raine, but I'm no good to you. Whatever healing I can do you already do better, love. I was never very good at it. Why do you think I went to engineering school? I was no good as a sorceress, not like my sisters. You and your brother must've gotten the good genes." She laughed. It was echoey, distant, unnerving.

"Mother," Raine whispered, suddenly afraid that this specter of a woman would disappear any moment and leave her utterly alone. "Don't go…"

"Don't worry, Raine. I'm not going anywhere. It's you that's got to go out and find your witches."

"Come with me…"

"Sorry, kid. No can do." She squeezed Raine's hand, touched her neck. "Don't die out there. Keep warm, wear your coat, look after your brother. Move on. Forget about me, please. I love you."

Raine choked back a sob. "I can't forget."

"Memory is impermanent. You will always forget, eventually. Forget me, forget your father. Focus on you, your brother… But always remember that you are loved."

"No…"

"Loved. Take care."

…

Goodbye