Details become clearer as her eyes adjust to the light, and she can make out the square jaw, the bristling-short, dark hair on his head, the blazing cold blue of his familiar eyes, the hard set to his jaw where once wonder had lingered.  His full lips returned her smile, and he hoisted her to him-- under the armor, she can feel the familiar broad shoulders, more thickly layered from disciplined exertion, as if the clay of his youth had been fired to glaze in war's kiln.  He embraces her, holds her like he had before the spear-laden officers of the King's army had pointed him toward the column of young recruits on their slow march toward the coast, where he joined the ranks en route to the war.<br/><br/>"We have to go," he said softly, prolonging the embrace, holding her close as he whispers next to her ear, "we have to be on the road before the villagers get wind... you have any equipment?"  He looks over her, wildly blue eyes seeming to notice her sparse garb for the first time-- he doesn't blush, but his eyes smoothly avert.  "Let's get on the road fast."<br/><br/>He turns to the elders, steps toward them with such purpose that their rank cleaves into two for him.  At his hip, his following had... the hand she'd held to when he broke his arm back in their youngest days-- rests on the grip of a broad-bladed sword.  Urgency blazes in his gaze as he murmurs to her.  "I'll explain on the way... come on."<br/><br/>*<br/><br/>The ferry they'd managed to secure was piloted by a dusky-skinned youth, herself no older than Marius had been when he was signed into military service.  The grey, smooth skin of the river ripples past as they glided over the surface of the water.  He speaks to her in a hushed, steady tone, still stern in the shadow of the village's awareness at their leaving.  He explained that they'd kept most of his equipment-- saving it, he supposed, for the next war-- and pressed a wax-sealed writ and drawstring purse into his palm near the crossroads of the western trade route.<br/><br/>She already knows the next part of the story, can read it from the fine silver lines in his indigo irises-- their village, the place of their childhood, was but a shell now, left empty by the droughts, and there'd been little left but words, a few questions, a few families toughing out this spell of dust in the fear that they'd have worse luck elsewhere.  He'd left much of his coin behind, but still left with more than many would have held to... he heard tales of his compatriots going wild with no structure to guide them, no enemy to slay, and no coin left after a bender of whores and spirits.  Brigands were beginning to emerge everywhere, but-- luckily-- there was suddenly a surplus of hire-worthy sellswords to keep them at bay.<br/><br/>"I was close, I knew it, but wasn't certain that it was you from the tales.  Your... compatriots, were they?  their tales were a patchwork of hearsay and rumor, but the story of the execution--"  He shakes his head slowly, allowing a wry smile because of the certainty of her presence, the flesh and blood before him casting aside the horror of her brush with fate.  "I traveled all night, just in case... and I'm glad I did."  Smiling at her, he seemed to wish to hold her, but his arm stayed slack where they sat on the gunwales of the ferryman's craft, dawn light glistening their skin in tones of red and gold.  Something had changed-- after his initial warmth, the enthusiasm of his greeting, he seems to have remembered that years have passed, that constraints exist for those their age who could be married with children, like their playmates had become in the five years past.<br/><br/>"I knew you would never do... what they accused you of," he steadily intones, certainty there like stone.  "But what's become of you, Amara..?  I feared that you'd have a child at every apron string by now, and another on the way," he teases, leaning closer to nudge her arm with a glint of mischief--the same kind he'd radiated when he dared her to go skinny-dipping on the Brandscole's land if he beat her in a footrace to the east fields-- she'd won that day, and he'd had to filch one of goodwife Charlesta's plum pies as recompensation... the little rake.<br/><br/>The ferrier's eyes are inquisitive at them, barely masking her youthful curiosity, and perhaps an overly-healthy dose of interest in the features of the soldier.  When Amara catches her gaze, the dusky-skinned girl flushes and turns away, resumes poling at the riverbed with enthusiasm.<br/><br/>"What happened, Amara..?  If you can tell me of it, I'll listen."  Marius watches her, studies her, some inquisitive appreciation lingering in his eyes all the while...<em>by the gods, she's a woman alright... amazingly like I'd imagined her being, all those nights past...</em>