It was a convenient place for making camp, and it had been used by many people before them.  There was plenty of evidence of old cook fires close towards the alcove made by the overhang, and the overhanging rock was blackened with smoke.  The girl noted this, but even as the outlander dropped and took her ease, she remained standing, hanging and shivering on the staff she had brought with her.  Looking out over the valley before them, she could do little beyond think of what she was turning her back on, and what she was leaving behind.  That it was all fancies, all lies to herself, made it even worse.<br/><br/>She sighed, shivering in truth now. Despite feeling chilled to the bone, she also felt hot. "I was done walking before we started. The only way left is forward....but..." another weary sigh, punctuated by coughing. "I need some rest."  That was an understatement, of course.  She had been tired at the outset of the pathetic journey from the lowlands, but she could sleep a week, or more, now.  At least, that was how it felt.  Her body burned, and yet she was as cold as ice, aching in her joints and bones and muscles all together.<br/><br/>Stumbling a little, she managed to come under the overhang, feeling the frigid breeze from still higher up in th the mountains. "I...i k-know how to set snares and t-traps. I lived on a farm," she replied with a touch of sullen reproach, itself a remarkable achievement given that days events. "I k ow h-how to live off the l-land."  And by herself, would have no problem.  Except she was sick, and tired.  And numb, numb in her heart.<br/><br/><span style="color: #66ccff">Jax grinned; she couldn't help herself. Plaguerat was coming alive. "Fantastic," she said, rolling up into a sitting position and resting her elbows on her knees. She dug around in her satchel, finding several long, thin pieces of string and a knife. She handed them to the girl. "Can you make snares, too?"</span><br/><br/>The girl nodded.  She was versed in many such things.  It should have gone without saying, but she was beginning to get the feeling that this woman was not a farmer, or a villager.  Perhaps one of those fabled adventurers, wanderers ranging from town to town.  Or mercenaries.  Or any of a hundred other fables that had never really been a part of her quiet life in that secluded valley of Marin's Creek.  Marin's Creek...<br/><br/>Pushing aside all of those dangerous thoughts that seemed to well up like swamp gas, she nodded slowly. She could mourn properly, later, when she was safe. She wasn't sure she was safe right now. "Of course," she said a trifle irritably. What kind of country child couldn't do something like that? Well...she could...<br/><br/>She stomped on the thought before it had even formed.<br/><br/>"I can m-make them, b-but not set them. T-too weak." Her eyes were dark pits, bu her cheeks reddened a touch as if the admission was embarrassing. The paleness of her flesh made it more pronounced. "C-can you find s-sign? There m-might be some r-rabbits a bit further down..." She honestly didn't know how well versed in the woodsman's skills this stranger might be.  She couldn't have been too terrible, because she was here and not a part of a larger train of wagons, headed out to the outer rim of the world.  Unless she had carried all ofthe food she needed to get here...<br/><br/><span style="color: #66ccff">"Yeah, I thought you might make some while I go looking for water - and tracks," Jax said kindly, not missing the way the girl's hands shook. "I'll be right back." With that, she disappeared into the forest.</span><br/><br/>She took the materials, looking at what she had to work with.  It would do, and she settled down to her knees as Jax began to move back out of camp  and into the woods.  It was....pleasant work, really.  Something her hands could do, something she could put her mind to to keep other things from rearing their ugly heads.  She lost herself in it, for a time, tying knots and cutting string.  Hardly complex work, but she drew it out.<br/><br/>She had just set it aside, and was staring back over what had been her home, when Jax returned.<span style="color: #66ccff">She had muddy hands and a fine scrape on her cheek, but seemed very satisfied with herself. "Found both water and paw prints," she told the girl, disproportionately happy to be delivering good news to a stranger for once. "Aaand," she said, digging into her pack, "pinecones!" She held one aloft as if she had just invented it. "Oh, yeah, and also these," she said, fishing out a handful of black berries. "I tried one. They won't kill you - at least immediately," Jax teased.</span><br/><br/>She looked at the offered berries with no expression, forcibly pulling herself back to the here and now.  They were indeed blackberries, and not harmful at all (except for the seeds, which she had never really liked).  She accepted them, but did not immediately dig into them.  She was not really that hungry, despite days without food.  No, not hungry at all.  She carefully set the berries on a rock, and then reached for the snares she had made, offering them to the outlander.   "We need a fire for the pine cones. Its...better than I-I'd hoped."  She took the pinecones, and set them next to the rock.  There would be small seeds in them that they could eat for some nourishment.  Anything more substantial would take the entire night to procure, with the traps set and checked in the morning.  Strangely, the possibility of not eating didn't upset her at all.<br/><br/><span style="color: #66ccff">Jax accepted the snares and got up to set them, but didn't leave their little makeshift camp without sending Plaguerat a worried glance. "You should eat, y'know," she said matter-of-factly over her shoulder as she left for the woods again.</span>"I know, she replied, but it didn't sound as if she really cared.  She looked at the berries, but made no immediate move towards them.  Even though it felt like her guts were gnawing on her backbone, she still had no appetite to speak of.  Still, to appease the woman, she took a few of them and chewed them mechanically, and swallowed.  They tasted of ashes, but she doubted she would be left alone on this subject.<br/><br/>Instead, she went to work on a fire.  It was a simple enough task, though getting to her feet was troublesome at best.  She gathered enough wood to be sure they could keep a small fire going for a few hours, and then put together a fire bow.  Tiredness settled deep into her bones as she worked the thing, spending precious energy just to generte a single little ember, which she placed into a nest of shredded birch bark.  It took too much effort to blow it to life, so she had to do this twice before it finally caught.  The warmth was a blessed addition, of course, and she got close to the flames to bask in its radiance.<br/><br/><span style="color: #66ccff">"With any luck, we'll have something more substantial to eat in the morning," Jax said, feeling exhaustion set in as she looked at the small fire the girl had managed to build.</span>The girl hadn't heard her return to their meager camp, and she gave an involuntary start at the sudden voice.  She should have been keeping watch, anyway!  That self berating voice didn't have much power, though, all things considered.<span style="color: #66ccff">Jax tossed a pinecone on [the fire] for good measure. A good night's rest would do them both good. Jax looked at the neatly rolled blanket tied to her pack, then to the girl, then back to the pack.<br/><br/>"You're sure you're not infectious?" She asked, offering her the blanket. "I'd hate to have to burn this."</span><br/><br/>She looked up, hollow eyes taking in the blanket and the intent of the woman.  She shook her head slowly.  "No.  Its...n-not the p-plague.  I'd be dead by n-now if it was.  Like..." a cloud passed across her face, again.  Squeezing her eyes shut momentarily, she pressed on.  "I just need some rest.  Its bone w-weariness.  I-it'll pass."  At least she hoped it did.  But she couldn't come right out and say that, either.  SHe also couldn't come out and say that were she contagious, it was already far,<span style="font-style: italic">far</span>too late to worry about that.<br/><br/><span style="color: #66ccff">"As long as it won't stick to me, I'll manage," Jax replied. "You take this for the night. I have my cloak. You have a potato sack." She smiled then, just a small, kind curve of her mouth. "Sleep. I'll make sure the fire doesn't go out just yet."</span><br/><br/>The girl grimaced.  "Its not a sack.  I've...just lost a little weight."<span style="font-style: italic">A little?  Really</span>That traitorous voice in her head practically chortled at that.<span style="font-style: italic">You've lost at least fifty pounds, and you didn't have enough to start with!</span>She ignored it.  She didn't really care, rudderless as she was at that moment.<br/><br/>She glanced over the valley.  It lay in shadow now, most of its contents too dark to be made out as the sun settled on the horizon, dipping slowly behind the peaks further west.  She took the blanket and drew it around her tired body, and obediently stretched out on the stony ground.  As she lay there, she saw the first of the moons come into light, blazing a brilliant half-circle in the skies as stars began to appear, as the sun sank and became obscured in the west, the horizon lit with brilliant fire.<br/><br/>"Luna," she said sleepily, eyes half closed.  "That is what my name is.  Luna..."<br/><br/>Weariness pulling her down, she drifted off to sleep.<br/><br/>***<br/><br/>"Wake up!"<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">Troubled dreams.  She opened her eyes and blinked at the brilliant light that shone down on her, illuminating...illuminating something she had never seen before.  A globe, blue and white and green and brown, stretched out before her.  A beautiful gem set in a backdrop of darkness, the blackness pricked by millions of points of light that stretched in every direction.  Those cold points of light could do little to illuminate the darkness of this place.</span><br/><br/>"Wake up!"<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">Standing in a city, now.  She took a step back, her body not wishing to function properly.</span>Where is this place?<span style="font-style: italic"> she thought to herself, but the thought seemed somehow murky, distant and unreal.  She felt that she was drifting, even though she stood in place.<br/><br/>People moved about in an endless tide, people in their thouands.  She had never seen so many people in one place, or a village anywhere near so large.  It was...awe-striking to behold.  Criers shouting out to the crowds, trying to sell the wares arrayed on their tables before them, waving around trinkets, fruits, meat pies, and all manner of things in the pursuit of money.  Carriages moving along streets drawn by horses, coats gleaming like the laquerwork of the carriages themselves, embossed with sigils and coats of arms.  Amidst the crowd, men moved along, wearing steel in a manner she had never seen before.  Steel like great suits, with nothing visible of the men themselves beyond their eyes, peering from beyond narrow slits.  They had swords at their waists, and long pikes in their hands bearing tassels in red and green.<br/><br/>It was a place that must surely live only in myth, and yet Luna felt as though this was a real place.  Somewhere, there was a place like this...but that didn't make sense.  She had never left the valley of her birth, never seen anything so grand, so enormous, as this before.  How, then, could she be seeing it now?<br/><br/>She looked, and moved...but her feet moved forward even though she herself never left that one spot.  She stopped, shocked, but then, how could she be shocked?  This was without a doubt the strangest experience she had ever had in her life.  She just stood there, poleaxed...<br/><br/>Gradually, she became aware of something.  A certain...wrongness to this scene.  She glanced around, but could find nothing that would give that impression.  The people seemed to be living their lives, happily enough.  But...but there was a dark cast to their movements, to their expressions.  To the entire scene.<br/><br/>And suddenly, she saw it.  A woman, standing across the square from her.  She didn't move like the others, only sat there.  And looked at her.  Shorter than Luna herself, she had hair the color of polished silver and eyes like chips of amythest, and she wore no expression whatsoever.  She lifted a hand, and pointed at Luna, saying nothing, and she tried to take a step back.  And then turned to flee, suddenly terrified...<br/><br/>...and turned face to face with the most handsome man she had ever seen in her life, in a tight fitting coat and breeches worked with silver and gold.  His dark eyes widened a bit as she turned...and then his face broke into a grin.  It wasn't a very nice grin.<br/><br/>She opened her mouth, and screamed.</span><br/><br/>***<br/><br/>With a gasp, she sat bolt upright, blanket sliding down her chest to pool at her waist.  Her dress clung to her, soaked through with sweat, and she even had to push aside lank, sweat damp strands of hair from her eyes in order to see.  The sky held a faint grey light, the sun just beginning to rise somewhere below the eastern peaks.  It was twilight, when the world was still in that place between day and night, and as silent as could be had with the wind soughing through the trees overhead.<br/><br/>Luna felt.....remarkably better.  Looking at the sweat dampened sack of a dress she wore, she grimaced.  The fever had broken in the night, and with its loosing of her wits she could think more or less clearly again.  There were...areas that she did not wish to dwell on, but now that she had a day to seperte herself from that sorrowful mess, she could push it firmly aside.  It was not something that could be done indefinitely, but for now she could focus on surviving and leave her grief to rot.<br/><br/>Alas, she was still tired, and a little weak.  She sat there, shivering as the cold wind blew against her damp clothes and skin, and stared into the remnants of the fire.  It took considerable effort for her to rise, but she managed it with only a little swaying  There was still some firewood to be fed into the bed of coals that Jax had the foresight to bank in the night.  That worth still lay beneath her cloak, a peaceful expression on her face as she slept.<br/><br/>Something caught Luna's eyes as she fed pieces of wood into the flames, the first crackles of wood catching popping in the silence of the morning.  Something gleaming, much further on the road that they traveled on.  It became markedly more pronounced as the sun sent the leading rim of its brilliance over the tops of the peaks, casting the world in syrupy golden light.  Gleaming, winking, and moving.  She had no idea what it was, and no concern for it.<br/><br/>Before too long, she had the fire burning well, dispelling some of the nights chill.  She huddled in close to it, seekign to dry out her garments.  She would smell fairly bad before this journey was done, she reckoned, seeing as there would be no bath to wash the sour sweat of sickness and all the other filth from her body.<br/><br/>"Hey!  Wake up, sleepy head," she said, still sounding tired but with a noticeable lack of teeth chattering.