Rena's life had finally started to slow down to an even pace. Her days seemed more and more the way she wanted them to be.
She could do what she wanted, whenever she felt like it. And for the first time in a long while she felt like she was the one in control.
It made her feel happy. And safe. Safer than she was in the great cavern the bewilder beast had created for them.
She was sitting on a cliff, leaning on her dragon. The orchidian had its head lowered in her lap and was resting peacefully.
Rena finished sharpening the last of her precious knives and put them back in their place. She opened her satchel and took some of yesterday's baked boar. She ate it while watching the sun get closer to the horizon.
"It's so peaceful out here. Isn't it H?" She sighed. Her dragon grumbled in agreement. A few moments later, a loud thunder was heard.
Rena's head snapped up and Hope looked alarmed. They saw a huge, dark gray, almost black storm cloud. It was slowly moving in their direction.
"A storm's coming." Rena stated the obvious.
Hope looked at her almost as if saying 'You think?' Rena shrugged.
"I jinxed it." Hope let out a light huff, that sounded a little like a laugh. "Alright girl. Let's head back." Hope laid down, so the girl could reach her back. She hopped on her dragon and directed it into the sky.
They only flew for about three minutes when they reached their destination. Hope circled around the island underneath them until she spotted the familiar entrance to their cave.
She got closer and landed lightly on the stony ground. The cave was pretty simple. It wasn't very big, nor was it too small. It had a short almost hallway-like pass that led to a round space.
Because the cave wasn't directly next to the entrance it was always warm inside. As Hope laid down in the corner, Rena took the firewood she had ready and started readying the fireplace.
When she was finished, she looked at Hope. The dragon sent a light fire to the stacked wood and it lit.
Rena took one of the already burnt sticks and walked over to the wall. She drew a diagonal straight line that crossed four vertical lines. Those same signs were drawn all over that wall.
"375 days. That's how long it's been since we ran away." Rena said, walking over to Hope. She picked up a notebook from the floor. Then sat down and leaned on the dragon's warm side.
She opened the notebook. It was the only thing she had taken with her when she ran from home. She used to write in it. Like a diary. After she ran off, it became the notebook where she wrote down things she needed to know to survive.
When she first managed a fire, she wrote down how to do it. Recipes for different food choices, what is poisonous and so on. Everything she learned about the world.
"You ever think about how things would have been if we never ran away?" She looked up into Hope's enchanting blue eyes. Not really. Hope shook her head slightly.
"Yeah. I guess it is better to forget. But I can't help and think about how much everything has changed. I've changed." Rena's eyes ran across the surface of the notebook's oldest pages, until they slowly started to close. She only remembered the light touch of Hope's wings that embraced her small body, then her world faded to black.
She woke up to the bellowing thunder outside and the familiar warmth of her dragon was gone. She was only left with a warm blanket wrapped around her shivering body. Her notebook safely tucked away in her wooden box she made herself. Hope had covered her with a blanket and put away her book.
That really is an amazing dragon, she thought, getting up from the freezing ground. It was the time of year the flowers were hidden below the light layer of fluffy snow that could turn into a deadly blanket you don't want to be under.
The fire was re-made and re-lit and just as she was looking around for her friend, a woosh of air alerted her of Hope.
With a loud thud, the dragon placed a bucket of warm water from the hot springs outside and a dead rabbit onto the ground, staring at her for approval. Rena ran over to her beautiful dragon and hugged her tight as the dragon wrapped her head around Rena's neck.
This wasn't the first time she had done something like this. It was actually a normal occurrence when she awoke before her. Then her rider would wake up to a fresh warm fire, hot water and food.
Rena went to her big wooden box and took out a clay cup,a metal bowl and a little box. She walked over to the fire and placed the stuff on the floor. She reached for two metal sticks that she hung above the fire.
Inside the fireplace, on the walls she installed four metal hooks that could hold the rods in place so she could warm the water inside the metal pot and boil it. She did so and in the meantime, she opened the little wooden box and took out three leaves that she placed inside the clay cup. When the water came to a boil, she poured it inside the cup and waited for it to cool a little then she took out the leaves and threw them into the fire.
The beverage was her personal invention and it took months of recovery figuring out not all leaves could be made into this that she called tea.
When she was done and started to become hungry, she replaced the metal pot above the fire with a simple metal board. She skinned the rabbit and cut its meat into little pieces.
Once again, she walked to her wooden box and pulled out more little boxes, this time one was filled with salt, another with pepper, a third with mustard seeds and the last, a bigger one, with an assortment of fresh and dried herbs.
She mixed them all in a special bowl along with some melted butter and olive oil and slathered the mixture on the meat.
She bought all of these spices and components at the market on an island where all the merchants would gather and sell products they made, bought or stole. Although, a specialty was the olive oil and she didn't get that from the Nordic merchants but some further south.
She visited once and bought a lot of special ingredients she wouldn't normally get but she is actually running low on olive oil so she'll need to make a stop there soon.
"We have to go to the southern markets soon, Hope. We'll gather some food tomorrow." Rena told her dragon, and Hope gave a nod. Just as the meat was going onto the hot metal cooker, both of them heard footsteps on the other side of the wall.
Rena leapt for her knives which were safely hidden behind an empty space in the wall and covered with a perfectly sized rock, which took her weeks to find.
There was no time to lose and they hid in the shadows where the fire's illumination hadn't reached and waited for the inevitable.
