Izo ran with the hungry astride his ice dragon with him into the dark night. Of all the people he worried would freeze on his dragon, the hungry woman was not one. She clung to its neck though, quivering in fright from their escape from the outpost. He felt his own fear deep inside of himself as well. He had just seen a hungry and pregnant woman. Surely no one could fault him for taking pity on her and feeding him. He had no idea that she was an ice maiden being hunted down for forbidden pregnancy. He knew of the ice maidens, but vaguely as Mother's friend, Yukina was one. He had not known they were man hating warrioresses who would hunt the hungry woman in front of him that would kill anyone who so much as touched her or helped her. Izo figured he had already touched her, fed her, and defended her, so he might as well flee south with her. She had saved the both of them as well when she froze Ocean Apprentice's water. A life for a life, so far they were even.
They ran through out the night, even though Izo felt the effort waning on him. He had been worn out when they had reached the outpost and had hardly slept when the hungry woman had woken him up trying to sneak out of the bedroom.
When the grayness of dawn was just beginning to creep up on them, Izo felt his spirit energy running dangerously low. He tapped the hungry woman on the shoulder. She looked back at him. "I can't keep the dragon going anymore," he told her. "We have to stop."
As he said it, he slowed the ice dragon to a halt and then summoned it away. The hungry woman gasped, surprised at the abrupt fall to the ground. Izo landed on his feet, naturally, yet so did the hungry woman, too. She looked ready to fight or run, in spite of her present state of being.
"Okay," he started. "Now I think it's time you tell me who are," he insisted, stepping towards her.
She looked at him, shaking her head. She put her hand on her throat, twisted it, and shook her head.
He felt frustration build up inside of him. He stepped over to her, placing his own hand on her neck, sending healing energy into it. She stared at him in disbelief as his cool energy flowed into her. He could sense that nothing was presently injured, but something was not right with her vocal cords. She really could not speak...
"Who did that to you?" he asked, trying to bit back his brewing temper.
She stepped back away from him, raising up her hand, showing three fingers.
"Three of your sisters?" he asked.
She snaked her head around, but landed on nodding her head.
"How long have you been running?" he asked her, hoping for a good answer.
She looked down at her hands, ticking fingers up. She held up both hands, flashing ten fingers once, and then flashing two fingers.
"Twelve days?" he asked.
She nodded.
"How many more days will they hunt you? How many more days do we need to run?"
She cocked her head to the side. She flashed ten fingers. Then eight fingers.
"Eighteen more days?" he pressed.
She shrugged.
"How do you not know?" he practically shouted.
She flinched away from him. She looked at her hands, bringing them to her face. She sighed, bringing her hands down in front of her. She mimicked two fingers running on one hand and two fingers running on another. They got both near and far apart from another. Then they got as far apart as she could move her arms. She brought her hands back in front of her and flashed ten fingers three times.
"You have to get far enough from them for thirty days?" he asked.
She nodded vigorously.
"So as long as you are far enough away for them not to track you for thirty days, then you're safe?" he rushed out.
She shrugged, but then nodded.
"You hope at least," he grumbled out. He ran his fingers through his bangs, brushing them off his face. "We go south then, as far as we can, as fast as we can."
She shook her head forlornly, putting her two hands next to each other and then spreading her arms out as far as they could go. She wanted him to leave him. She wanted them to run separately. Like the two of them would have a better chance of survival if they separated.
"You can't possibly expect me to do that," he thought out loud. "It's too late anyway, I've touched you. Your essence is on me, so your sisters will hunt me too, anyway. Besides, you won't survive on your own in your state," he ruled. "Besides, I think my parents would disowned me if I abandoned you now."
She stomped her foot on the ground. That was what she wanted, but also was not what she wanted. She brought her hands up to her face, wiping away at the tears forming before they could fall.
"Hey," he said stepping closer to her. He pulled her over to him, hugging her against his chest. She felt frail. "Try for no tears," he said. "I feel like they could track you with those."
She was not crying, but simpering a little. She leaned her weight heavily against him. He felt the child inside of her kick against his torso. It felt warm against his skin as well.
He pulled away slightly. "How far along are you?" he asked, nodding down at her stomach.
She looked up at him, taking a step back. She looked at her hands, holding up eight fingers, but pulled one of them half way down.
"Seven and a half months?" he asked.
She nodded.
He sighed. Things seemed more and more impossible. "So we just need to run long enough to find you a place to have your child?" he asked rhetorically. "Great Mother," he muttered. He hoped she was up in the sky or where ever her realm was, looking down on him, ready to help him with the sudden and impossible mission.
They had hardly started running, but exhaustion felt like it was creeping up on him already. He coaxed her to climb up a high tree with him for them to sleep in, tying her to the tree first, himself seconded, so they would risk falling out of it in their sleep. She seemed to understand that bit at least.
They woke up mid morning, Izo feeling bone weary, craving his old bed back at Alaric Castle. He hardly had to help her out of the tree, even though she went slowly and cautiously at it. He summoned up his ice dragon at full size, hardly feeling like there was enough strength in him to maintain it for long. It was the fast way for them to flee though. The hungry woman hardly seemed fit enough in her condition to walk miles upon miles. Izo would just have to bear the brunt of the traveling. He helped up on top of it, wishing they had some food, or at least water to consume. He had fled from the outpost so last minute that he had not thought to grab themselves anything.
They traveled South, although he was not quite certain where they were, beyond the wilderness, frigid expanse of the North. He just knew to go as far south as South goes, which was what Rock Master had planned for the shinobi originally. The shinobi... Thinking of them and how he fled from them to save the hungry left a deep ache in his chest. He felt like he had abandoned them and they had abandoned him in tandem. He had not planned any of what happened, had not had time to think. Just reacted in the moments that he played over and over again in his mind as the two of them rode astride his ice dragon like fugitives.
It felt like hours had passed that they rode, with Izo feeling like he sunk into a daze. The hungry woman turned around, tapping him on the shoulder. He slowed the ice dragon down, relieved for a bit of respite. She was pointing over down the hill from where they were riding. A camp was set up down there, with a single tent. Next to it was an extinguished camp fire. Izo's stomach growled at the sight of it. Where there was a tent, there might have been food...
"I could hunt for us instead," he said, knowing he was not sure how to properly do such a thing. He was sure he could fight off an animal and kill it, but finding one and catching it seemed like an impossibility to him, especially with how weak he felt at the moment. Father could probably do it if pushed. He could track like a blood hound.
The hungry woman's stomach growled. He felt his resolve wane. She had to be much hungrier than he was. If he just snuck down there quickly, took something for her and ran...
He summoned away his ice dragon. "Wait here," he told her. She looked down at the ground and nodded.
He jogged stealthily down the hill, keeping his senses on high alert for any sign of anyone coming from any direction. It was too easy to get to the tent, spot a lone sitting in it, and snatch them up. He sprinted swiftly back to the hungry woman, summoned up his ice dragon, and had the two of them on the run again.
As they moved, he passed her the pack to have her rummaging it. She found a canteen full of water, which was good. With the snow powdering the ground, they would water at their beck and call. She found trail rations for food, as well as some clothing in her pack. He encouraged to eat and drink as they rode on South. She needed it more. He told to eat sparingly as he had no clue how long until her next meal. The thought made his stomach twist. They needed to flee for a month and find her somewhere to give birth. Great Mother this difficult dropped on to him was daunting on him.
As they ran, he looked around the area, it growing more familiar with it. He had been here before... He was almost certain if went East, they would hit the port the nomads often used as their meeting place in a matter of days... That just might work. They could hire a boat somehow and flee across the sea... He turned his ice dragon, heading in that direction, all the while talking to the hungry woman, explaining what he was planning and why. Talking to her was like speaking to his ice dragon, but out loud. It turned into almost a stream of consciousness, one sided conversation. Even as he talked, she listened, combing her fingers through her hair, trying to straighten out the shambles of tangles that it was.
As they journeyed, he wished she could speak back to him, wondering at why her sisters destroyed her voice box. Had it been a punishment for her falling pregnant? How had she fallen pregnant? Was it intentional or forced? How did she get down from her floating ice island in the sky? How many of her sisters were hunting her? How much longer could either of them go on like this?
It was an exhausting number of days for them to travel, but they finally reached the port. Izo felt like he could hardly summon up his ice dragon and stay awake at the same time. Hunger gnawed at his stomach, dissatisfied with only snow melt water to fill it. When the reached the port, he lead her walking carefully to the fort the woods demons had holed themselves up in. Each clan of demons traded off turns for holding down the fort and it was the woods demons turn. Surely they would help them, being a gentle, selfless sort of demons.
Or so he thought. The hungry woman next to him kept close to him, eyes shifting all around the unfamiliar area to her. He wondered if she had ever seen a port before, let alone a fort that was manned nearby it. They came up to the front of it, but the guards at the gate took one look at the hungry woman and ran from their posts. Izo frowned at that, especially when they shut the gate behind them.
Izo felt his frustration burning up within him. He knocked on the front gate. No answer. He pounded on it so hard his fists smarted. He needed food. The hungry woman needed food. They needed to find a ship for them to take passage on to overseas.
"Who goes there?" a voice called down from a top the front gate.
Izo backed up, seeing the leader of the woods demons, an older male demon. He racked his hunger addled brain to remember the man's name. "Hiroki," he called up. "It's me, Izo. Please, let us in."
Leader looked down at him for a little too long. The old man shook his head. "If you know what she is, you know we cannot do that. She's an ice maiden, a run away one by the looks of it. Her sisters will be hunting her. You're a dead man walking being with her. If one of us so much as touches either one of you now, it dooms us all."
Izo shook his head. "We've run from the sisters. For days and days. I myself have never set eyes on them yet. If you won't let us in, then supplies then, please. She's starving. We plan to make for the port and take a ship overseas. It'll be harder for her sisters to track her that way. She needs to evade from them long enough to find a safe place to have her child," he pleaded.
"Izo, we cannot help you lad," Leader answered down. "As for taking a ship and fleeing overseas, you'll not find one this time of year in the port. The sea is frozen over and won't thaw for weeks, if not months.
Izo felt his heart sink into the pit of his empty stomach. "No..." he mouthed. "You have to be wrong," he denied.
"I'm not, my lad," Leader answered, shaking his head. "We cannot take you in, either. The fact that you are at our doorstep puts us at risk of her sisters thinking we helped her and killing us for it."
Izo felt his temper flare. "My sister is the leader of this territory! I'm her representative up here! You cannot deny to help me! To help us!" The hungry woman stepped over to him, shaking her head. She grabbed his hand, trying to pull him away from the front gate. He shook her away, irked by himself and his impatience in its aftermath. "We saved you! My family and I! You can't deny us like that!"
The hungry woman wrapped her arms around his upper arm. He looked down at her, shooting him a pleading look. She shook her head and then laid her head down on his shoulder, nuzzling him. She was trying to calm him down and get him to walk away.
"You need more to eat," he told her. His own stomach growled at the mere thought of food. "Something!" he called up to Leader. "Anything!" he voiced cracked.
Leader shook his head. "We can't lad, we-" he stopped abruptly.
An unseen person came up next to leader. Izo could not get a clear look of them at all. The person chucked a bag down to the ground, even as Izo heard the Leader exclaim about it. Izo snatched up the bag, the smell of food wafting from it. The smell made him feel almost sick.
The hungry woman was next to him, seizing him by the hand and tugging him away from the fort.
"Where are we going?" he asked her.
She shook her head.
"I don't know either. Beyond South," he ruled.
Once more, he summoned up his ice dragon, draping himself and the hungry woman over it. As they rode, he looked back at the fort, feeling mixed feelings at the sight of it.