Quinn opened her eyes. She was in pain, lying on what felt like a bed of daggers, and someone was standing over her, speaking, but she heard no words. She blinked in confusion. The person knelt down beside her – a woman, terrified, panicking, and probably screaming too, but Quinn couldn't hear a thing. The woman was scaring her. The panic was almost contagious, and Quinn found herself needing to look away.

She saw a broken window above the counter in front of her, and realized why she was in so much pain – she had been thrown through a kitchen window, and was now resting on broken glass scattered across a hardwood floor.

And there was a very good reason to panic. She sat up in a single motion, but it was too quick and her vision faded momentarily. The woman put a hand on her shoulder, trying to force her back down.

'Don't move,' she was probably saying. 'You might make your injuries worse.' Quinn shrugged the arm off, and pulled herself up with the help of a nearby counter.

Her back was not broken, she told herself. She could stand, she could move, and she could breath, and even if that was all her body was allowing her to do, at the moment, it was enough.

She looked around the unfamiliar house. It was much like hers, but a little smaller, Ironically, she lived on her own, but here a family clearly lived. There were lots of doors, she saw, looking down the hallway.

Out the window, she could see smoke, and the smouldering remains of her own place. The roof was missing, and all her windows and her door and her walls. In fact, it couldn't be called a house any longer. Most structural beams had been snapped in half by the force of the explosion, the larger ones still dug into the ground but were burning. Planks of wood scattered the yard, burning like a tornado had whipped up a camp fire.

She couldn't see Lux or Valor, but panic was pushed aside with a different thought.

The landlord is going to be mad. What was his name?

Stumbling, she found the house's front door and struggled with it. The woman came up from behind her, undid the latch, and opened it for her. Maybe she wanted Quinn gone, after realizing Quinn wasn't willing to be an obedient patient. She was a mother and probably had her own problems to deal with.

A wave of heat immediately hit them, and the woman staggered back, but Quinn braced herself and stepped outside.

Magic explosives were terrifying things, because nobody could ever fully predict their effects, aside from their maker. They could distort gravity or time, explode with icy fragments capable of penetrating any shield, burn with the heat of a thousand suns, or turn the region into a vacuum, suffocating those within.

Magical bombs could stab every nerve in the body, inflicting incomparable pain without ever showing evidence on the outside, or it could simply stop a person's heart. Bystanders were never safe, either, because of side effects which manifested hours, days, or even weeks later.

So it left Quinn feeling simultaneously relieved, horrified, and confused when her instincts told her the explosion hadn't had a trace of magic within it. Relieved for obvious reasons, horrified because Lux's shield – meant to block magic – would have been practically worthless against it, and confused because she had been expecting, if anything, an assassin. A bomb was a completely different modus operandi, and Quinn couldn't even be sure if the one responsible for it was the same one who had had her attacked in the Demacian capital.

She stepped out onto the road, the wet, sticky feeling of blood running down her spine keeping her focused on the matter at hand, rather than drifting off to some semi-unconscious state where she wouldn't be of help to anyone.

"Lux?" she shouted, her ears barely hearing the muted sound.

She rapped the side of her head, as if the action would dislodge whatever was sabotaging her hearing, and then carefully picked her way forward. Her door was laying flat in the middle of the road, clearly blown off its hinges, and heavily charred. She stepped around it, a cough racking through her body as she inhaled the first wisps of smoke.

Her back was assaulted by more pain, and she gingerly ran a hand along it. It was a bad decision, because her hand came back cut and bloodied; glass was still embedded in her back.

She squinted into the wreckage and fumes, trying not to imagine what had become of Lux. Movement caught her eye, and before she could call out again, Valor flew out of the smoke. His feathers were ruffled, but he looked uninjured.

Throwing her thoughts back to the moment of the explosion, she couldn't remember where he had been. Certainly closer to the house than her, but perhaps he had had time to turn upwards, and take to the sky? The resulting shock wave must have caught him mid flight, but Quinn was thankful he hadn't been hurt beyond a few dishevelled feathers.

"Valor," she coughed. "Where is she?"

The Demacian eagle turned back and led her into the smoke. She paused only once, to take a deep breath of clean air.

Entering the smoke was like entering an entirely separate world. Her peripheral vision ceased to exist and she could only see a few meters ahead at any given time, and as she struggled to keep pace with Valor, avoiding debris on the ground, her eyes watered and she was forced to blink every second to try to keep focus. The world was small, the pain was at the forefront of her mind, and her lungs ached, but she was afraid to inhale.

Sound was coming back to her, but she didn't appreciate the fact, for all she could hear was the crackling of fire, and the occasional snapping of wood as more pieces fell from the structure of her house.

Eventually, Valor slowed, and Quinn took the opportunity to drop to the ground to crawl forward like a toddler. The air was marginally better, and she risked taking another breath, fighting the coughing spree that threatened to follow.

The thought that she was potentially burning her lungs from inhaling the smoke was scary, but Lux's well-being scared her more.

At first, Quinn assumed what she saw was a pile of wood, but Valor landed next to it, and she realized it was otherwise.

"No." The intense heat and smoke around her made the word sound more like a dying gasp, than anything.

Everything beyond the smoke, in the other world, ceased to matter to Quinn. All the people who wanted her dead, and all the people who thought they could use her, and the few that actually respected her, none of them were of importance any longer, because Lux had been hurt.

It shouldn't have mattered, but it did. She shouldn't have cared about what happened to any Demacians, nobles, or mages – let alone someone who was all three – but Lux had approached her, and not for any silly reason like for killing an assassin, but simply because she wanted to be friends.

And now she was on the ground with her head resting on a burning wooden beam and her body partly obscured by debris. Though she was unmoving, it seemed her aura hadn't given up on fending off the fire, and Quinn watched as flames licked at her hair, igniting the golden strands momentarily before dying as they withered and crumpled brown, then black, and then into nothingness.

The explosion hadn't thrown her away – perhaps her shield had offered more protection than Quinn had initially thought – but it hadn't left her unscathed.

Quinn scrambled forward and began pulling away the burning wood. She hardly noticed the fire tickling at her own fingers.

Lux's left arm was bend at an awful angle and her skin pink and blistering in some parts, red and raw in others. Her clothing, much like her hair, had done its best to withstand the fire, but there were only scraps left, revealing bleeding wounds and, on her shoulder, a sickeningly white colour, where the skin had been thoroughly burned and transformed into a leathery texture.

Quinn closed her eyes for a moment, envisioning Lux from yesterday – from last night, with the innocent and bright smile on her face – and when she opened her eyes again, nothing changed.

What was she supposed to do?

Lifting Lux's head up as gently as possible, Quinn set it on her lap. Lux's neck had been relatively well protected, and the skin there was warm and smooth as Quinn searched for a pulse. Mercifully, she quickly found it.

Lux was alive.

Quinn breathed a sigh of relief, momentarily forgetting they were still sitting in a blazing inferno.

Now what?

There wasn't an enemy to plan against, nor any attack to prepare for, which she did best. As far as first aid went, she knew to bandage wounds, but fire was a completely different threat. Never once, in all her years of travelling, had she been caught in a forest fire. She had ran from them, and watched them afar, and walked in their aftermaths, but how were burn wounds supposed to be cared for?

No. Move, first.

Even if she was unable to think any further, she knew they needed to get out of the smoke and somewhere safe – a hospital, perhaps.

Finding her feet more unsteady than usual, she picked the girl up and stood. With Lux in her arms, she left the burning remains of the building behind. By the time they had cleared the smoke, a small gathering of people were on the road, watching.

They were dressed in ragged clothes, and it was easy to imagine they had been caught in the fringe of the blast, rather than living their everyday lives in such a state of disrepair. Someone stepped forward – a girl maybe Quinn's age – but a man put a hand on her shoulder, and she stopped, before slinking back into the crowd.

Mortals shouldn't mingle in the lives of champions.

Who had said that? Had she read it in a book somewhere? Nonetheless, those were the words she recalled, as she wished she could be one of the generic faces in the crowd, dealing with worries of food and shelter, instead of life and death.

Like she were some sort of deity, the people parted as Quinn stumbled down the road. Hundreds of onlooking eyes and silent mouths. Once through the gates and out of the slums, she faltered.

Where was she to go? There were choices – hospitals and healers all around – but the wrong decision could cost Lux's life. She closed her eyes for a second, mapping out what she knew of the city and its hospitals.

All the while, the weight in her arms, though in reality very light, felt like the entire weight of Runeterra itself.

When no immediate decision forced its way into her mind, she took a deep breath.

Life and death.

There was no situation in which hesitation or delay would be the correct choice, so even if she was wrong and added another mistake to her list, she had to at least try – to act even when it was so difficult to do so.

The closest hospital wouldn't work. The one closer to the Institute of War would be able to offer better care. That was a decision.

Opening her eyes again, she saw two people approaching. Demacians, she realized. Help.

The man was recognizable as the person whom Prince Jarvan had said was in charge while he was out; Taric. The woman, though never someone Quinn thought could be a friend, was certainly a welcome sight at the moment. Fiora stared at them for a second, before rushing over.

"Merde," she swore. "Why is Lux – what happened?"

An explanation was beyond Quinn's ability. She didn't even remotely understand what had happened, herself.

"Help," she said, dropping to her knees and setting Lux on the ground.

Taric strode forward, and instinctively Quinn and Fiora backed off, giving him a wide berth to operate. He stopped a meter short of Lux, and rose his staff high into the air.

The staff was made of old wood – not of Demacian origin – and, locked into place atop the staff, was a single, polished gem. A perfect, cyan sphere which appeared to be burdened with a great mass of magic. For as long as Quinn could remember, Taric had walked around with the staff, as though the gem on top was the most prized gem in his entire collection and he couldn't let it out of his sight.

"Disassemble," he said.

It obeyed.

The large gem separated from the rod with a crack, and rose, while the rod itself silently broke apart into countless splinters of wood that drifted, forgotten, to the ground. Taric's eyes were locked on the gem. When it reached twice his height, it came to a stop, and silence pervaded the streets. Quinn wanted to say something – to tell him to hurry up – but she knew she couldn't interrupt.

"The Shattered Harbinger," Taric intoned, "the Protector, the Albatross, recognize my offering – as I recognize the cost – and grant thine powers unto this girl."

The gem turned white, and for a moment, nothing happened. Then, Quinn found herself staring into a larger than life snow-globe.

The dirt on the ground was drained of colour, until it was an ashen floor, like that following a volcanic eruption, and the blood on Lux's face and legs slowly lost their saturation, turning a grim, dark gray. Her skin turned a lighter gray, the lightest colour affected, and even as Lux's lips lost their colour, Quinn's fear dissipated.

The gem was gone, shattered into minuscule flakes – of stone, of jewel, or possibly of something else entirely – and there were many more than could have possibly been contained within the gem in the first place. The white flakes swirled around like snow caught in a blizzard. Helpless, aimless, chaotic. Gradually, the first ones began to settle on the ground, and on Lux, whom showed no signs of consciousness.

Quinn felt a calmness descend upon her as she put her trust in Taric's actions. There was no reason for her to have so much confidence in Taric, but she'd never resented him for his magic; perhaps because its power source was somewhere far away, not on Runeterra.

She could only stay hopeful, as the area around Lux lost all colour, turning into a drab, monochrome oil painting.

Taric took a quick step backwards, as though afraid to be touched by one of the snowflakes, and his taut expression revealed anxiety for a microsecond. Confidence just as quickly returned, and the three Demacians watched as the magical snow finished its descent.

"What did you do?" Quinn finally whispered, for speaking any louder felt like it would betray some unspoken rule.

"I did nothing," Taric said. "The Protector has intruded upon this world, to lend us his assistance. A stasis, it appears. Time. Time to assemble healers, and transport Lux to the hospital. Fiora, find Sona. Bring her to the hospital."

"She's at Blighton Hall?" Fiora said, after a moment spent regaining her wit. She, too, was apparently impressed by Taric's show of power.

"A likely prospect," Taric nodded. "I shall see Lux transported and make contact with Soraka."

Fiora left, starting at a quick walking pace, but decided better of it and began jogging away. Time was of the essence – a fact which Taric hadn't said, but communicated nonetheless.

Quinn struggled with herself for a moment. Lux looked like a silver statue, frozen in the act of dying, as though to be a message for all those who saw her. What was the message?

Stay away from Quinn.

She took a few steps back, watching as Lux was levitated off the ground and started to drift away from her.

Taric began moving in sync with the statue, but he heard Quinn's footsteps. "Quinn, tell me where you are going. You need medical assistance. Come to the hospital with us."

"I'm fine," she mumbled. "I have something to do. I need to go."

Taric looked between her and Lux, and silently made his decision. It wasn't worth it to argue with Quinn, and for that, she was thankful. He had his priorities straight. He would be able to save Lux.

There was nothing to do, and nowhere to go.

No one to kill.

Quinn had lied, and while she might not have been very convincing, she knew she needed to get away. It wasn't just her house, or Lux, she needed to get away from, but the entire city and everything and everyone inside of it.

She should consider the assassination attempt a punishment for her indecision. Wanting to leave the city, but fearing the unknown threats, she had stayed and ended up endangering Lux.

It had also been partly because of her wanting, for perhaps the first time, companionship beyond Valor.

And this had been punishment for her cowardice and greed.

Decisiveness was necessary, now. It didn't matter what Karma's tasseomancy had discovered, or how many people wanted to kill her. She would leave, and ignore it all. She wouldn't get Lux involved, or anyone else, and in a way, it would be easier. There would be only herself to be responsible for.

She hadn't ever felt welcome in the Demacian capital, or Senta, but at least the forest never tried to kill her. Only occasionally did she run into a beast, or a beast into her, and in those situations, it never felt personal. They were always hungry, or territorial, sometimes both, but they couldn't have cared if she was human, deer, or bear.

Attacking her while she lay in bed, and blowing up her house, harming someone else in the process? Those were personal.

And if she was being honest with herself, deep down inside, hadn't she suspected there was danger about, in the moments before her house had exploded? Why else had she kept her distance, and watched? Curiosity was a feeble excuse, and she'd made Lux pay heavily for it.

A tree had fallen over, and was in the process of decaying. It was in Quinn's way, and she tried to jump over it but misjudged the height and instead barreled into it, causing a family of wood thrushes to dart away from where they'd been hiding in the nearby shrubbery.

She cursed the log, kicking it until the rotted wood broke apart, the soft chunks flying everywhere and revealing the bugs scurrying around inside. Satisfied it was no longer a threat to her, she moved around it and continued forward.

Deer droppings subconsciously drew her towards an animal trail, and she followed it, seamlessly switching into hunting mode, as though she'd been foraging in the forest and had been on the trail for days. Her hands went for her crossbow, but they found nothing on her back. Where had she left it? She wasn't so carefree as to forget it at a previous camp, and even if she was, Valor most definitely wasn't.

Exploded. Destroyed. Burned, gone, disintegrated.

She growled to herself, losing interest in the hunt, and instead pulled out her short sword, using it to swing at the branches that dared to get in her way. All deer within a hundred meters would hear her racket, but she wasn't hunting. She wasn't hungry – at least, not for food. It was weird to actually recognize the feeling of blood-lust, and she wondered if it was what Vladimir felt all the time.

If she stopped moving for even a second, she would be able to hear her blood thumping in her ears, and if she closed her eyes, she knew all too well what she would see, so she kept moving, struggling to break into a run but always slowed down by the trees, rocks, and uneven ground.

Instinct told her she was moving in a roughly southern direction, which would lead her towards the Great Barrier. Valor would find and join her eventually – he always did.

Where had he disappear to, anyways?

She broke into a small clearing. A crested serpent eagle was watching her from atop a lone, isolated tree. She stopped in her tracks, staring upwards for long seconds, momentarily forgetting what she was doing.

"Who are you looking at?" she shouted.

There was no response – the bird might have been a statue, for all it mattered.

"Damn you!"

She made a beeline for the tree, pulling out her short sword – the only weapon she had on hand – and kicking the trunk and swinging her sword at it. The bird flew off, squawking at her, rather inelegantly for an eagle, until he was too far away to be heard, and Quinn kicked the tree again, swearing.

The short sword was embedded several inches into the tree, and she couldn't pull it out. She hadn't thought that she had put that much force into the swing, but after a minute of fruitlessly wiggling the blade, she let go, stumbling back a few steps and looking around the forest.

There was nothing to see that she hadn't already seen a thousand times before, but perhaps that was why she was suddenly suspicious.

"Come at me!" Quinn shouted, thumping her fist against her chest. "I've had enough of these half-assed attempts!"

Her senses were working in overdrive, and she felt great. There simply was no other way to put it. Without either her crossbow or short sword in hand, she was light. With fists drawn, half bouncing on the balls of her feet already, she took a brawler's stance as she prepared for the enemy she knew was coming. It might have been the pain from the glass shards embedded in her body, but she couldn't remember a time when her awareness had been sharper.

Her eyes scanned the shadows, intuitively pinpointing locations from which an enemy might strike, and simultaneously she was aware of the bugs on the ground and the way the wind travelled through the clearing, rustling the leaves and grass.

Not the smallest of movements escaped her, and her hearing was equally as acute. The location of all the birds and rodents were so obvious to her, as they scurried around the forest.

There were no secrets left, except the location of her enemy. Whomever stepped forward to fight her would see her at her best, and their death would be inevitable.

Spinning around in circles, she faced all the trees of the forest in turn, looking for the enemy. Valor was late. He should have rejoined her already, but there was no need for him, today. She would fight on her own, and prove her own strength – not to anyone else, for there was nobody watching them, but to herself, so she wouldn't need to doubt her abilities.

Quinn didn't care who revealed themselves. Whether it was a monster of the forest, an assassin, or whatever demon was hunting her – she didn't care.

"Cowards!"

Nothing responded, and Quinn stopped for a moment. She stopped turning around, and held her breath, waiting intently.

Her demands were answered in the most heart stopping way possible.

A firm hand settled on her shoulder, encasing her in a crushingly tight grip. With a sinking feeling in her stomach, Quinn turned her head fractionally. Bony fingers immediately justified her apprehension. Rather than ligament, magic held the finger joints together, and the bones were a faint grey colour, aged by the passage of time.

Her gut reaction was to twist away and free herself, but when she tried, the hand closed tighter on her shoulder, and she winced. Turning her head further, Quinn found an explanation that only forged a thousand more questions in her mind. Her assailant wasn't human, nor beast, but much, much worse.

And the reason her assailant had managed to sneak up on her wasn't because it was stealthy – far from it, in fact – but rather, it was because it had yet to take a step in their dimension. An Unwilling Passenger was leaning through a portal, its hand reaching out to hold onto her.

He was trying to pull her into his dimension.

The portal itself was like looking into a dark cave, through a stretch of waterfall – everything was blurred, and a constant stream of magic seemed to be pouring down from nowhere, and dissipating into nothingness when it hit the ground.

Unfortunately for Quinn, the Passenger was much taller than her, so she found herself staring into the empty chest cavity, where a human heart once beat. The smell was worse than she'd remembered – almost a debilitating stench which caused her to have to actively refrain from vomiting.

The Unwilling Passenger stared down into her eyes. The threads which were meant to clasp its mouth shut had unraveled, and its mouth was wide open, as though petrified mid-scream, blood dripping from the cracked lips down its chin. It made no sound, but it didn't need to. She could easily imagine what it was saying.

Come.

Quinn swore, yet despite her awkward position, she still managed to bring her fist up and give its jaw her strongest uppercut. The head shook violently, blood and spittle flying everywhere, but she knew she'd just done more damage to her own hand than to the Passenger.

"No," Quinn grunted, as a game of tug-o-war began between them.

Her dream was to go exploring other dimensions, but not in this way.

When her hand was pulled through the portal, she had a feeling she'd experienced something very similar before.

The moment when she had touched Thresh's lantern. A complete loss of sensation in the hand – no warm, no cold, no pain or pressure, yet she knew it was still attached to her body and could respond to her commands.

Both her train of thought, and the Passenger's attack, were interrupted by a screech, followed by a bird dive bombing them. Claws gashed the head, and Quinn took advantage of the slight opportunity to break free.

She had been doing a lot of stumbling and falling lately, but this time she was sure footed, and without even looking back, she ran.

Questions upon questions compounded themselves in Quinn's mind. There hadn't been any signs of a tornado going through the area, so how exactly had an Unwilling Passenger nearly open a portal on top of her, and why was it trying to drag her in, rather than outright kill her?

The answers couldn't be pleasant, so she kept running.

Quinn, far from the scene of the attack and out of breath ten minutes ago, stepped into a clearing, belatedly realizing it wasn't empty.

A few meters away, sitting in between the branches of a fallen tree, was a boy. He looked to be in the midst of his teenage years, and was holding a stick, whittling away at it with a knife. His posture was slumped, his coat overly large, and his shoes worn with age, its laces frayed at the ends. A bald patch on his head, just above his right ear, was the most distinguishing feature he had.

Quinn didn't see how he could pose a threat.

Watching for a minute, she came to a few conclusions. The way he looked behind himself every so often indicated he wasn't comfortable with his surroundings, yet he didn't look forward, probably because he didn't expect danger to approach from the front, where the clearing would give much warning.

He was trying to shape the stick, shaving off small bits of wood at a time, but he was struggling at the task. Resting beside him, against the log, was a large, wooden bow. It was much too large for the boy, and looked old and fragile – no longer suitable for hunting. If Quinn had to take a guess, he was from the city, the bow didn't belong to him, and he was trying to make an arrow.

He didn't appear to be too concerned about his situation, though.

People and conversation should have been the last thing on Runeterra that Quinn wanted, and she knew she should turn the other direction and walk away. Whatever the boy was doing, or thought he was doing, was stupid and pointless, and it didn't interest Quinn in the least.

She opted to stay and watch him.

You're insane, she told herself.

With a look of disinterest, the boy stabbed the knife into the wood beside him and threw away the stick. It landed next to Quinn, and the boy looked up, then back down to the grass. Doing a double take, he jumped to his feet, eyes comically wide as he stepped back, away from her, and tripped over the log he had been sitting on. He fell over backwards, momentarily lost out of view before climbing back to his feet, branches and leaves from the shrubbery caught in his hair and stuck in the zipper of his coat.

"Who are you? What do you want?" he said, his voice squeaking.

"No reason to be afraid," Quinn said, rising her hands in a placating gesture. "I'm not going to harm you."

He didn't relax, and instead stared at her hands distrustfully.

Quinn turned her hands inwards, looking at her palms before sighing. They were caked with blood. Lux's blood, her own, and possibly a few drops from the Unwilling Passenger. Not a pleasant combination, unless she was an alchemist with some evil concoction in mind.

"Okay," she said, "I realize I probably didn't do the best job of convincing you."

"No. You didn't."

"It's animal blood," she lied. If he knew it was human blood, things would probably become harder to handle. "I just haven't found a river to clean up, yet."

The boy climbed back over the log, still wary of her. "What do you want?"

"Nothing. I thought this clearing was empty, but I guess not." She knelt down, picking up the stick he had discarded. "You were trying to make an arrow?"

"Yes."

Balancing the stick on two fingers, she pressed down against it with her thumb. The arrow shaft snapped with a little effort.

"Hey!" the boy shouted, taking a couple steps forward.

"What? You tossed it."

"I wasn't done with it," he said.

She let one of the pieces fall to the ground, and pointed the other at him. "Do you know what this is?"

"A broken arrow," he whined, leaping forward and snatching it out of her hand with surprising agility.

"Softwood," she said, no longer paying attention to him as she walked along the circumference of the clearing. "A variant of the Demacian pine. You nock that arrow with even the smallest amount of force and it's going to snap on release, destroying the bow. With your weak arms, it will probably shatter your bones too. Stay away from pines. They aren't dense enough."

Quinn found what she was looking for. Reaching up, she snapped off a low hanging branch. She returned to the boy and handed it to him. "Now, I'm not saying softwoods are bad – you don't want to pass up a nice balsa wood arrow – but you need to go for something like this, if you're a complete newbie."

"This is?"

"Alder. Not an ironwood, but you aren't going to find any ironwoods in the forest around here."

The boy looked like he was debating something, and Quinn waited patiently. Finally, he spoke.

"No offense, miss, but you look like shit."

The contrast in vocabulary almost made Quinn smile. "I feel worse. I think."

She hadn't had enough time to exactly figure out how she felt, but retiring to work on a farm didn't sound all too bad, things considered. Treasure hunting and dimension exploring didn't sound so appealing as they did when she had woken up six hours ago.

"Are you dying?" the boy said suddenly. "Did you come out here to die?"

"What? No. Why would you say that?"

"Well... you smell like smoke, your hands and clothing are all bloody, and you look like a zombie."

"What exactly does a zombie look like?" Quinn asked, envisioning the Unwilling Passenger she had struggled against earlier.

"Well, sort of like Amumu, but without the bandages."

She paused. "Amumu?"

"The Yordle mummy in the League of Legends."

"Wait – how would you know what he looks like without bandages?"

"I don't, but I imagine he would look like a zombie."

Quinn sighed. "That doesn't help other people to know what a zombie looks like then, if it's all in your imagination."

"Hmm. I guess you're right."

He didn't seem too disturbed by the realization, and instead returned to his log and sat down. Quinn joined him, and she was hit by a wave of exhaustion.

She wasn't actually going to die, was she? Her body had only been making a bare minimal amount of complaints, and the recent bout of adrenaline had kept her ignoring anything and everything her body said.

Letting herself slump a little, she waited a few moments, expecting the boy to say something. He didn't.

"So," Quinn said. "Tell me. What are you doing out here?"

"I knew it," the boy said, glaring at her. "You adults are all the same."

"Fine, whatever," Quinn said. "I'm not here to get on your case. Really, I would have rathered you not be here at all – and no, it's not because I'm looking to die in peace. I suspect I'll be very far from peace, when I die. Now, here, hand me your knife."

He gave her a dubious stare.

"I promise I won't stab you with it."

It took two hands for him to pry the knife out of the log, and he passed it over to her a moment later.

"You're pretty trusting, you know," Quinn said.

"Whatever."

The knife was old, but of high quality. Its handle was wrapped in layers of brown leather, and the blade itself was sharp and twice the length of the handle. The first few inches of the metal were serrated, good for cutting through tougher material, and the rest of the blade was straight, only curving a little at the tip.

Turning it around in her hand, she had the fleeting thought of stabbing the boy, and the knife fell from her grip, landing in the grass at her feet. She stared at it in shock.

Oblivious to her thoughts, the boy gave her a sidelong stare, but apparently wasn't curious enough to start a conversation.

Taking a deep breath, she picked the knife up again.

The act of whittling an arrow was a unique experience. Books – pages upon pages of mystery or action or romance – offered escapism and a way to pass idle time and rest her mind, but when she truly needed something to clear her mind, and didn't want her thoughts to be wrapped up in the actions and emotions of a story's protagonist, nothing beat making arrows.

The knife in hand was strangely comforting, even though she'd never used it before, and the bark peeled away with ease, revealing the paler insides of the branch, which she could pear away like it were a fruit.

With each strip of wood falling to the ground, she could process a single thought, and with this manner of working, the minutes passed in silence.

Individual minutes didn't matter in the forest. The only thing that mattered was the sun – or moon's – position in the sky. It was for this reason that she didn't know how long they sat in silence, before the boy finally spoke.

"So why are you out here? What are you doing that you can stop and sit and fletch arrows?"

Ignoring the fact that she wasn't actually fletching, she thought for a moment. She was tempted to bring up the hypocrisy in the question, but it wouldn't have brought the conversation far, so she refrained. "I always have time to hone my skills."

"That's not answering my question," he needled.

"I ran away." Was it supposed to be cathartic, to admit it? Was that why she hadn't left as soon as she saw someone else in the clearing? It didn't seem like a solution her mind would come up with on its own, but here she was.

The boy stifled a laugh. "That's my line."

"Is it? Maybe that's a popular line. Though I think I have a rather good reason to run."

"What's your reason? You a criminal? A murderer?"

He seemed excited at the prospects, and Quinn shook her head, lying on both accounts. "You first. What's your story?"

"My sister sucks and my mom is completely unfair."

"What about your dad?"

"Dead."

"Okay."

The boy glared at her. "What do you mean, 'okay'?"

"I mean, 'okay'. You haven't given me your reason for running away yet. I'm waiting for the rest."

"I just told you!" he said with a stomp of his foot.

Quinn hid an amused smile. "No you didn't. You think hating your family warrants abandoning them and running away?"

"I don't hate my mom. She's just unfair."

"So you decide to steal your father's bow and run into the woods?"

"How'd you know it belonged my father?" he said, picking it up and holding it close against his chest.

"I think anyone could figure it out. You really should go home. Running away from your troubles isn't a fix. Especially if it involves trying to live in the forest with no survival skills. In fact, I'm thinking you're a little worse off than you were before."

"Quit judging me. You ran away too. Maybe you should go home."

"Nah," Quinn sighed. "That would be dangerous. Someone tried to kill me and I'm really sick of having to worry about it all."

"Why don't you just not run from them? If they're your problem, quit being a hypocrite and face them like you tell me to do to my problems."

Quinn considered his words. Wasn't he supposed to be the hypocrite? In either case, his bossiness and nasally voice were annoying. And there was nothing wrong with being a hypocrite. It was perfectly fine.

"Maybe I would," Quinn said. "If I knew who tried to kill me."

"You're not stupid, are you?"

Quinn couldn't tell if he was being serious or not, but she was beginning to regret choosing conversation. "No."

"Then face everyone."

"What?" Though it clearly wasn't what he meant, the possibility that everyone was trying to kill her ran through her mind.

"Face everyone. If you face everyone, then you're also facing whoever wanted to kill you. Then, once you see them trying to kill you, kill them first!"

"It's kind of worrisome that I can't immediately refute your logic."

He grinned, looking excited at the prospect of killing. "Haha, I win!"

"Oh? Was this a competition? Because I'm pretty sure having people out to kill me is worse than having an unfair mother and mean sister."

"Fine. I get it. I'm going home, anyways. It's no fun out here."

It rarely was.

True to his word, the boy stood up and left the clearing, without even saying a goodbye. Quinn didn't mind. It wasn't like they would ever see each other again.

"I'm better now, Valor. Sorry."

Valor gave her a doubtful stare as they came to a stop.

"Better, I said. Not perfect. I probably owe you more than turtle or two, for putting up with me, so cheer up."

Quinn had returned to the edge of the first clearing, where she'd been attacked by the Unwilling Passenger. It had been on Valor's suggestion, and she had wanted to retrieve her sword. Besides, she had a feeling the Passengers wouldn't make another attempt on her again so soon. Or at least, she hoped so, and Valor felt similarly.

"Nothing," Quinn said, watching from the bushes.

Valor entered the clearing first, flying a loop around the lonely tree in the center, before landing on the same branch the serpent crested eagle had been on earlier. Quinn entered the clearing a moment later, and immediately saw why he had insisted they return.

In the grass, below where the portal had opened, was the only sign there had been an attack. A bone hand and accompanying arm. She nudged it with her foot. Had the portal closed on the arm, lopping it off? Quinn didn't know, but she also didn't want to touch it any further. More importantly, what was she supposed to do with the arm?

It would feel wrong, to leave it there. Burying it didn't feel right either. It was silly, but she could effortlessly imagine it growing, like a tree, until the arm had an entire body and it uprooted itself and went hunting for her.

Her short sword was still embedded horizontally in the tree, and she watched it from a distance for a moment. It looked like an incomplete ritual, with the drops of blood on the grass, an abandoned bone arm, and her sword stuck in an isolated tree at the center of a clearing.

When she went to retrieve her sword, it came out with minimal effort, and she half stumbled backwards, unprepared for the lack of opposition. How bad of a state had she been in, before, if she hadn't even been able to accomplish such an easy task?

"What do we do with the arm?" Quinn asked.

Valor flew down from his perch, and ruffled his feathers.

"You're not a dog."

He hopped over, grabbing it with his claws.

"Fine. Take it, but I don't ever want to see it again."

He would add it to his junk collection. Quinn had never seen any of his collections herself – he made a new one in every region they visited, finding somewhere inaccessible to humans to store the items – but she knew he collected abandoned and lost items in the forest all the time. Any spare money she had was also handed over to him to store.

"I know what's after me, now," Quinn said. "The Unwilling Passengers. They aren't as much of a threat when I'm expecting them. Valor, we could leave. I could fight them off, if they ever tried to attack me again. The Mogron Pass is a three, maybe four day hike south. Isn't it about time we go south of the Great Barrier? Explore Shurima, see if maybe we can get access to Bandle City, and catch a boat to Ionia?"

Valor gave his response by taking to the skies, laden with the weight of the arm, and becoming a speck among the clouds in the distance. Quinn stared in the direction he left in and sighed.

"Is that what you want, or what's best for me?" she said to the empty clearing.

But she already knew the answer – it was both. Demacian eagles were selfless creatures. She began to trudge after him.

At the very least, Irelia and Janna would be able to offer her more insight into the Unwilling Passengers.

Valor still had the Passenger's arm with him, so he didn't descend for their hike back to the city. At the outer gates, Quinn found herself proven wrong. She ran into the boy from the forest. He'd apparently taken his time finding his way back to the city, because Quinn had taken a large detour and made it back at the same time as he did.

When he heard her footsteps and looked behind himself, he didn't look too pleased.

"Are you following me, making sure I go home or something?"

"No," Quinn said.

"You'd better not be." He eyed her short sword, which she hadn't had when they first met.

Initially, Quinn thought they would head separate ways once inside the walls, but they both made an immediate left, into the slums. Again, he gave her a displeased glare.

She shrugged. "It's a coincidence. Quit being so conceited – I don't care about you."

Still together, they turned onto the road Quinn's house had been on. When the house remains entered their view, the kid picked up his pace.

"The window!" he shouted, once they were closer. Quinn completely forgotten, he ran to the house opposite of hers and threw the door open, running inside. "Mom? Are you okay?"

Quinn watched as the door closed, and then she was left standing in the middle of the street. Her house was still smoking, but the fires had died. She didn't know why she wanted to pass by her house, but she regretted doing so. There was nothing to see. It had been her home for all of two days, and she hadn't moved in any possessions – aside from her crossbow – so there wasn't much loss to mourn.

Only once she began moving again did she realize she was wrong.

There was something to hear, so there had to be something to see. The sound of someone rummaging through debris caught her attention. She crossed the street, picking her steps carefully as she tiptoed onto the lawn. The shuffling sound became louder, and reluctantly, she stepped through the threshold of what had once been her house. In her wall-less room, a pile of rubble, which might have once been part of her bed, shifted.

Cautiously, she approached it.

To her amazement, she could hear the muffled sound of a whiny, panicked voice.

"No fuse. No fuse, is this a ruse? The fuse, don't confuse! Where's the fuse? A fuse, any fuse to accuse!"

A/N: I fixed some grammar mistakes in the opening of the first chapter. If you have the time and notice silly mistakes, send me a PM so I can fix them.