<div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="background-color:#101010; border:1px solid black; margin:10px 10px; padding-left: 5px; padding-right: 5px;">"Maybe it doesn't seem that way right now," Jax replied needlessly to the rhetorical question. She didn't mind silence, far from it - if she were alone. With others, it was unbearable. She cast a sideways glance at the girl, faintly impressed with how she just kept going despite having suffered loss upon loss this day. One foot in front of the other, as stubborn as the mountains they were going to try to cross. Jax sighed. <span style="font-style: italic">The bloody mountains.</span> Crossing them from the other side had been hard, but not completely unbearable. She had had supplies then, but evidently, restocking had not been an option here on the other side, as she had hoped. If she remembered correctly, there were plenty of streams to drink from. Food was another matter entirely. She'd never learned how to shoot a bow, and if she had to set traps... They would be in the mountains for ages, trying to catch anything.<br/><br/>"You wouldn't happen to know anything that might help us get through the mountains faster, safer, and easier?" She asked, not in the least expecting anything even vaguely helpful. The girl was wearing a <span style="font-style: italic">sack</span>. What were the chances she had a bow somewhere underneath there? <br/><br/><ul>She blinked, clearly pulled from deep and dark thoughts. "What? No...at least..." She frowned, and then shivered as a cold draft wound down from the towering peaks. "The road we are on is the best one, or so the peddlers say. There is another pass...but this late in the year, it is probably s-snow bound." she continued in a low, tired voice.</ul><br/>"Well, if peddlers can make it, so can you!" Jax said with an optimism she did not feel at all. She was quiet for a while.<br/><br/>"So you've just - never left your town?" She asked incredulously. "Why not?"<br/><br/><ul>She was silent for a time, masking her discomfort at the question by concentrating on walking. She puffed a bit from the exertion, so it really wasn't much of a stretch. "Why would I?" she queried. "There is too much to do on a farm for me to just up and leave. I-" she broke off into a mild fit of coughing. The air was getting progressively thinner.<br/><br/>What was she supposed to do? Tell this woman - who didn't seem particularly nice - that she had no idea how old she was, and by her parents reckoning (a brief crumpling of that haggard face) she was only nineteen? She called them her parents but they had already told her that particular truth. "Besides, my...my parents say the world is dangerous."</ul><br/>"It can be," Jax replied grimly, folding her cloak back a little to reveal the handles of twin daggers at her sides. "There's a reason I carry these around. So, you're a farmer's girl. Good. You lot usually don't have the worst constitution." She wasn't breathing nearly as lightly as she had earlier. The beeches had given way to pine trees, tall and thin. <span style="font-style: italic">At least it's not as hot here,</span> Jax thought, trying to ignore the fact that she would probably lose all feeling in her toes and fingers within a week or so as they would inevitably climb higher.<br/><br/>Up ahead, a sharp plateau jutted out from the rock, creating a primitive sort of roof. Warm sunset colors swept around the rocks, making them shine in places. Jax let herself drop to the ground. "I dunno about you, but I am <span style="font-style: italic">done</span> walking for today," she said, eyes closed as she lay spreadeagled on the ground, allowing herself for a moment to forget that there was water and food and firewood to be found. Reality soon set in again, however. One eye slid open to watch the girl. "You any good with identifying edible things? Because we need those."</div></div><div style="text-align: right;"><span style="font-style: italic">Indented parts by Naive.</span></div>