The brisk evening breeze rustled against millions of evergreen needles as two sets of feet softly crunched freshly fallen snow. Walking side by side through the wintertide landscape—a young girl and an old woman. The older of the two, dressed in nothing but a simple servant’s robe despite the weather, clutched her left side as she trudged forth, which was once damp with blood but was now a scarlet frozen mess.
“Jay,” the girl called out through her fluffy scarf, turning her big eyes up and to the right to stare directly at the woman, “we should rest. You’re tired.”
The woman—Jay—did not immediately respond, instead making a show of grandly sighing before bringing her free hand up to massage her wrinkly face.
“We’ve addressed this matter before.”
Jay peeked through a crack between her fingers at the girl to her left, whose expression did not change.
“We have. However, this time will be different because I will make an opportunity for you to rest.”
The little girl, against Jay’s previous behest, stopped in her tracks next to a slim pine tree.
Unamused, Jay stopped massaging her face and reached out to grab the girl. But too late.
“I’ve figured it out, Jay: like this, you can’t just carry me along when I stop.”
The little girl wrapped her arms around the thin tree, securing herself to it. A smug smile briefly flashed across her face before quickly being replaced by a pleading look.
“Just rest. Even for a few minutes. It’ll be good for you.”
Jay returned the little girl’s puppy dog eyes with a stern glare. Then, she lifted her free hand up and straightened her fingers, forming a knife hand.
“I’ll carry you and the tree.”
The girl’s expression filled with horror for a moment before she calmed down.
“Y-you wouldn’t… You shouldn’t aggravate your injured meridians like tha—”
Her words were cut off when Jay’s knife hand ignited in a hot burst of light. Now clad in a controlled flame, the old woman raised her arm, aiming for a spot on the tree above the girl’s head.
Yet the girl held on, figuring that her guardian was not so stubborn as to exacerbate her wound for the sake of walking an extra few minutes. Surely—
The woman fiercely swung her hand horizontally, completely bisecting the young pine tree with a flash of red. Then, with a pained grunt, she crouched and aimed her hand at the pine’s base below the girl’s feet.
“JAY!”
The little girl immediately unraveled her arms from around the tree and jumped into the woman’s embrace, careful not to irritate the wound.
“STOP! You need to rest! To heal! How do you expect to protect me if you’re hurt?!”
Tears spilled and froze as the girl dug her face into her guardian’s robes, all the while fluffy snow continued to fall all around the two.
The fire disappeared from Jay’s hand and she returned her nieces’ hug. They stood there for a moment until Jay broke the silence.
“They’re close to finding us while we’re close to our destination.” She ruffled the girl’s hair. “As long as I don’t overextend in another battle and we make it there in time, everything will be fine.”
Jay gently removed the girl from her embrace and placed her at arm’s length.
“It is vital that we continue moving. My injury—” She looked down at her ribs and the frozen bloody mess. “—is the only reason I’m even bothering to sleep at night. If I had carried you through the hours of darkness we might even have already arrived.”
