A/N: Yes, this is a short chapter, but I wanted to continue the story before I got even further behind! Please enjoy and please review!
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In all honesty, she had no idea where she was going or what she was going to do. She was a smart woman, but she had never truly been on her own and she understood that her family had been overprotective of her for a reason. The world was never kind to women of any class and she knew that people would seek to take advantage of her if she let them. It wasn't that she didn't believe that there were kind people in the world, but she knew that people were desperate due to the war.
She had wandered for two days, walking and eating the few provisions she had brought with her and plants she found along the way. She was always hungry and cold. She knew she was painfully thin by the way that her clothes hung loosely on her body and as she huddled in Mikhail's coat, the hem already in tatters from being dragged across the ground.
When she finally reached a small village she saw its small cottages as a heaven of sorts, but it quickly turned into a false paradise when she was turned away from each home, the inhabitants both weary of strangers or simply unwilling to share their meager resources.
It was at the last cottage that she came to that an old woman finally let her in. It was apparent that the old, withered woman had been trying to make it on her own, but there was very little firewood and the place was in a bit of disrepair. Yet, despite the old woman's sorry state, she willingly let Katarina into her home and fed her from her own paltry food store.
Katarina ate the bit of bread and stew hungrily and the old woman shuffled about, stoking the small fire and trying to make the tiny, one room cottage comfortable. "What is your name, child?" The woman asked in a withered voice.
"Katarina…Kate," she responded, not really knowing why she mentioned the nickname that her brother had recently given her, but the thought of him brought tears to her eyes.
The old woman noticed, but merely patted her shoulder. Times were hard on everyone and she knew that even the littlest thing could feel like a ton of grief had just been dropped on you. "My name is Anja. I am sorry I can offer you so little hospitality, but things have been difficult since my sons left to fight." She sat down across the old rickety table from Katarina, wincing as her bones creaked.
"Oh! No, ma'am. This is wonderful! Thank you so much for helping me," Katarina exclaimed in response.
They talked for a while, Katarina telling her about her family and about Mikhail. The old woman talked about her sons, Igor and Ivan, but she seemed to doze off mid-conversation, her wrinkled chin tucked against her chest.
Getting up quietly, Katarina cleaned up after herself and then went out to get some firewood for the woman, chopping it herself despite how weak she felt. At least the food she had in her stomach helped to give her a bit of strength and she felt she had to repay the old woman's kindness in whatever way that she could.
By the time that Anja woke up from her unexpected nap, the fire was big and cheerful and Katarina had cleaned up the place a bit. As Anja took in the scene, from the firewood stacked near the fireplace, to the scrubbed table and tidied up bed, she had tears in her eyes.
Katarina, exhausted from her journey as well as the work, was curled up on the floor in front of the fireplace, fast asleep. The old woman shuffled to the bed and took one of the tattered old quilts from there and laid it on the young girl's shoulders.
Anja had no idea what the future held for herself, this young woman, or the whole country for that matter, but for right now she knew that she and this girl that called herself by the English name Kate were meant to come together to help each other. She didn't know how long she would stay, but she was grateful and said a small prayer of thanks for the blessing that was now resting in front of the fireplace.