'You what now?' Auri stuttered and tried to keep her mouth from hanging open. He had to be fucking joking.
'I'll take you home. As payment-'
'Yes, I heard that, thank you very much. I told you I wanted to go alone. You'll be okay within two days. Get back to Redania and leave me alone.' Auri made to walk past him and leave him there but he grabbed her arm and whirled her around to face him.
'I still need coins, and to get coins I need monsters, you,' he pointed a finger at her face. 'Have proven to be very capable of finding them for me. So, I'll take you to the harbor and get your ungrateful backside on a ship.' he spat and the grip on her arm tightened.

Auri was fuming. The crackling fire in her chest howled. Before she knew better she had her dagger pointed to his throat and the former commander pushed up against the rough stone walls of the cave.
'Why the fuck am I so important to you, why are you here and why are you lying?' she snarled and pushed the tip of the dagger into his jaw to illustrate her point.
'I wouldn't do that if I were you,' he said and looked down at his own dagger pointed at the side of her stomach, he angled it up and grinned. 'Being stabbed hurts, being stabbed through the kidneys is unbearable. You couldn't hurt me even if you tried. So drop the fucking dagger. Now.'
'Why are you lying to me?' she pressed, still refusing to believe he wanted to go with her out of the goodness of his heart.
'Fine.' he admitted, still keeping the dagger where it was. 'I deserted the army. I am wanted. I need to flee. Skellige is my best bet.'

Auri lowered her dagger. Wanted. This was the stupidest situation she'd been in in a while. Dragging him along to Skellige was dangerous. If he was wanted and someone recognized him she'd be in trouble too, aiding a deserter-. She had to stay out of the major cities and her plan to go to Oxenfurt was dead in its tracks.
'Why did you flee?' she asked and sheathed her dagger.
'The fire. I was captured. I was tortured for months and I fled. I didn't know what else to do. Then I saw the bounty and decided against going back to Temeria to get my head cleaved neatly from my shoulders.' he said, staring at her. His knuckles whitened around the dagger-hilt.

'You single handedly just fucked up every plan I had to get home, you do realize that?' she questioned and raised a brow at him.
'I know. What was your plan?' he asked and finally sheathed the dagger.

Auri took a breath and sat down on the cold ground. She might as well tell him. She hadn't lied to him, she was better than that.
'I wanted to flee Skellige after my mother died. The same chaos that lives in me consumed her, but my father sent me to my grandmother to learn how to control it. She was at Aretuza when she was a girl. She thought she'd be able to help,' Auri stopped speaking. The pain on her grandmother's face still hurt her. She had called it hellfury. The fire in Auri burned hotter than anything she'd ever seen. The old woman had said she was cursed.
'Did she?' Mawr asked, his voice was softer now, almost concerned. 'Help?'
'She did her best. I learned to control it eventually, at Aretuza under Tissaia's watchful eye. I was sent to Aedirn as the King's court mage when the war broke out. I was meant to fight and go home. I was meant to go home-'
'What about the mages? Do they know you're still here?'
'I don't know. I haven't seen any of them. I assume King Foltest sent word the moment he saw me, but I haven't heard anything since. I figured now was my chance to go back to Ard Skellig, and then came the scouts.'
'And then me,' he added for her and winced when his arm hit the wall.

'My plan was to find the Sandpiper. He's helped elves in the past, I figured I'd pay him to get me on a ship to Skellige. I'm wanted too, and I don't think the Nilfgaardians will stop hunting me. Nilfgaard has no footing on Skellige as far as I know. I will be safe there until the war comes.' she finished and rubbed at her temples.
'The Sandpiper?'
'Do you know him?' Auri asked and noticed the flicker of recognition in his eyes.
'I know of him. He left Oxenfurt months ago. Last I heard he was in Brokilon. Your plan would have fallen apart even if you hadn't met me, Auri.'

Auri said nothing. What was she to do now? Follow the Yaruga all the way to Cintra, right in the middle of Nilfgaard's ever-expanding territory with a wanted deserter and hope she wouldn't get caught? Auri buried her hands in her hair and dragged her knees up under her chin. The ocean was weeks away, and to get there she'd have to fight off monsters, Nilfgaardians and whatever else the Gods threw her way. And now, him. With him she had to stay out of every city, on her own she'd only have to avoid Nilfgaard.
'So,' Mawr cleared his throat. 'You have to stay away from Nilfgaard, I have to stay away from the cities and we have to keep clear of monsters?'
'Yes, and thanks to you, Oxenfurt and Novigrad are out of the question.' she said indignantly and wrapped her arms around her knees.

'We'll go through Temeria, from there to Vizima and follow the roads to Gors Velen. It's a port city, and ruled by Foltest. Unless you further antagonize the King with your fire we'll be safe there. I know how to hide when I have to.' he said and walked away from her.
'Gors Velen is too close to Aretuza-'
'You're not wanted by Aretuza. You're wanted by Nilfgaard.' he finished and she heard him tie his bedroll to the back of his saddle.
'My life would have been so much easier if I had let the ghouls eat you first.' she said under her breath and rose from the floor.
'Likewise.' he said loudly and untied the reins from the stalagmite.

Auri poured over the map he had tossed her way. It made most sense to go through Temeria, she agreed on that part. But Gors Velen made her nervous. The entire region was festering with monsters and scouts. It was the easiest way into Temeria, and Nilfgaard knew this too. If the Nilfgaardian scouts had all come from Cintra that was how they'd tracked her down in the first place.
'You're wanted by Temeria then?' she asked when Mawr stopped at her side.
'Temeria, Nilfgaard, take your pick. All I know is that I have to get off this continent before it ends me.'
'Fair enough.' She rose from the ground and handed him the map, but stopped with her hand halfway to his leather-clad chest. 'I still don't like you and I still don't trust you. Try anything and I'll hand you over to the next soldier we see.' She said and pushed the map into his chest. His look darkened and one corner of his lip tugged up.
'Put a dagger to my neck again and I'll kill you in your sleep.' he replied and she found no amusement on his face.
'As long as we're clear.' she tossed her grimy hair over one shoulder, tightened the grip on her bedroll and stomped across the small stream and into the woods.

The fucking nerve.

The sun crept higher in the skies above them, she begrudgingly allowed him to walk next to her. She'd tried to keep his horse between them but he had refused.
'You'll get used to me eventually,' he said when he noticed her scowling at him for the third time in fifteen minutes.
'I hope I won't have to. I liked you better when you were asleep.' she said and quickened her pace. 'Maybe you'll get caught in Velen. Then I can finally go about by myself and be rid of you and your smelly arm.'

Mawr simply chuckled, stopped walking and placed a foot in the stirrups.
'If you had been nice I would have let you ride with me. Enjoy the brisk walk, islander.' he said as he swung a leg over the saddle and kicked the horse into a trot.

He was serious, she realized when she spotted him again. He was waiting for her at the top of a steep hill on the borders between Lyria and Rivia at midday.
'I told you to be nice!' he shouted down the hill at her. She wished him vast amounts of pain and rolled her eyes. If he kept this up she'd slip a very neatly penned note into the hand of the next soldier they came across. If they ever met another person, that was. As of now she'd only seen a buck, three sheep and a pack of wolves hunting said sheep. The lowlands were crawling with wolves, luckily they were shy enough to stay in the outskirts of the woods, only bothering to move when soft bleating marred the eerie silence.

She liked this part of the continent a lot, it was less gray and dreary than the rest of it, and the farmers were always nicer to her here than further south. Partly because they knew she'd snuffed out the raiding Nilfaagardians, and partly because they were scared of her fire.
Auri was halfway up the hill when she realized what her new situation actually meant. She'd managed him fine for two days-
Now, the revelation that presented itself made her groan. Reaching the ocean would take weeks at best, she was forced to endure him for weeks.

They'd have to find taverns or inns to stay in too, because the probability of empty caves here and there were slim. He had his own coin, he could find his own place to sleep.
Her foot slipped in the mud and she caught herself by an arm before her face met with the slippery ground.
'See, I told you-'
'Keep your mouth shut if you value your neck, commander.' Auri snapped and tried to keep her footing up the rest of the hill. She heard him chuckle from above her and debated once again to rip him from the damned saddle and force him to his knees.
'If I had known you'd do this I would have burnt you along with the ghouls.' she spat as the sun heated her neck.
'Mhm.'

She watched him turn the stallion around and gallop down the hill. She kicked a rock down the hill after him and tried to keep her footing as the squelching mud swarmed over her ankles and into her boots.
Auri made her way down the hill and tried not to murder the commander flat out when she saw his lopsided smirk.
'Tired already?' he mused as he slid off his horse and stretched his legs.
'Fuck off, Mawr.' she spat and braced her arms on her aching thighs.

She grabbed the near-empty water-skin from her back and drank greedily. How she'd get from here to Gors Velen in one piece escaped her. She could be nice to him, if she did that he'd let her ride with him-
She shook her head. She had standards. Riding with a wanted ex-commander general who reeked of death, lies and deceit was not among the things she'd even consider-
'Get on the horse.' Mawr said and extended an arm for the water.
'Why?'
'Anything to keep you from whining.'
'I haven't whined!' she protested and kept the skin in her hand. He could find his own water.
'Not yet perhaps, but you will.' he pointed to the distance and Auri fumed. The fucking marshes. She'd forgotten about the marshes. The land between Rivia and Temeria were riddled with them, with the marshes came the corpses and with them came the monsters. If she didn't drown she'd be eaten-
'Back or front?' she asked Mawr and handed him the skin, eyes still scanning the lands for any sign of movement out of the ordinary.
'Front.'
'Fine.'