He shivered in the heat of the sun.

"What...do you...do you think it was them?" he asked with an edge in his voice.

His tone cut her because she allowed her face to contort to a slight, quick frown.

She said nothing. In this case, he knew it meant that she was unsure. She never made a statement unless she was sure.

She had kept them off the roads, along the edges of the forested areas, and hid evidence of their passing. She had them trade watches during the night and kept their pace brisk. He had wondered if she was just paranoid. Who would really care if she or he left? Was she that important to the city that they would send their top scouters, the Antmen, to find her? The pull at the back of his head held the answer. If even he was wanted, of course the Stone-faced Queen of Death would be tenfold.

The smoke grew bigger and expanded as they watched it billow up into the sky like evil clouds invading the heavens. It grew wider as if the ground was releasing all its filth into the air. It turned blue.

“Uh….Ai…?" Eien started.

"Run," she said, and they ran in the opposite direction of the smoke and through the plain that stretched for a few miles, gradually lapsing into trees.

Eien felt the backpack chafing his sides as he ran, but the terror welling up inside squashed any physical pain.

Did they find them? Did they know where they were going? How did they find them? Was it really them who destroyed the town?

He did not know. He was not even sure there was a town over there since he was relying on Aino's memory and her innate talent for absorbing knowledge from the world around her. He did not know all about the Antmen, but he knew how vicious they could be. Afterall, they were the ones who routed out traitors who had escaped the city and came back with heads on pikes.

He faceplanted into the dirt. His ankle blasted a pain signal, and he struggled to get to his feet, briefly looking behind him.

The blue smoke billowed, closer, faster. And behind them, right at the road was a group of people.

People with guns.

He looked to Aino, and she grabbed his arm, pulling him forward. He swore briefly as his foot cracked, but he limped forward with her.

"Bag," she said. He unstrapped his bag immediately.

She looked through it briefly, pulling out the guns and ammo. She threw the bag at him, and he pulled it over his shoulder again.

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She pushed him down to the ground.

Standing tall, wind blowing in her hair, she aimed the rifle in the distance. He heard her mutter something, the wind stilled, and she pulled the trigger three times.

He heard nothing, but he felt a jolt in his lungs as if he couldn't breathe. She crouched quickly, took off her bag, and pushed his head down.

Then, she scurried away.

He tried to focus on steadying his breath. In. Out. In. Out. Slower. His ears rang with the sound of the wind. His chin rested on the dirt, feeling for his sword with his fingers. Earthy smells won out over the sweat and spoiling troll meat.

He wanted to look.

He wanted to see if she was okay, if they were dead, if he needed to run.

His heart thumped past seconds and minutes, making every moment an hour.

Where the fuck was she? She told him to stay down, to wait, in her own silent way, but why was he in the dirt while she took care of everything?

"Shit," he muttered under his breath. He pushed himself up to his knees.

Slowly rising, he peered out over the tall grass.

Aino was already ripping weapons from dead bodies. The blue smoke in the distance was expanding across the sky at an alarming rate. A wind picked up and stung his eyes.

He stood up fully and stumbled towards her position. His ankle was no good. This was bad. He cursed a few more times before she turned her head to face him.

She shook her head vigorously and waved her gun-free arm in wide arcs. He stopped and turned around quickly.

More smoke was curling up in the distance, right behind them. It was yellow this time. He turned back to Aino who was already heading to his position with a few more pieces on her shoulder.

“Fuck.” Blue smoke was horrifying. It meant they could be captured, tortured, raped, and starved but ultimately left alive. Yellow? Yellow was poison. Yellow meant vengeance. Yellow meant the government would kill you at any cost to themselves, even if in doing so, they killed the very land they lived on. It meant they were a threat. It meant Aino was a threat. Hell if they would do that for him. They were hunting her.

He felt the early signs of panic. He hit his leg with his hand as hard as he could and looked out in the direction of their salvation.

East.

If they ran for it, they would not get far due to his ankle. If they fought, they would die, even with Aino's battle prowess. There was no fighting poison. There was no place to hide out in the wild grasslands.

"Eien!" Aino shouted, using her commanding voice, "Can you run?"

"No!" he shouted. She ran to him and pushed him down to the ground.

She pulled out some fabric from her backpack and started pulling off his boot.

"We go south," she said as she started to wrap his ankle.

"What? They are there. The Antmen are obviously there!"

“They won’t look there."

"But you said the town was destroyed. You can’t tell me those soldiers you killed were the only ones in that direction!”

She pushed his boot back on, hesitated a moment, and then grasped his hand in an atypical display of personal touch. He almost let a scream of terror erupt.

She looked him in the eye, raised her eyebrows in an unusually earnest expression that had a hint of apathy. It was unnerving to see her face attempt to contort into something human.

"We go south, hide, and wait until nightfall. We go south and then east. We will get to the edge."

He felt so concurrently reassured and horrified; his body felt light and his head felt spacey.

"What if they are there, too?"

"Stay with me, Eien," she commanded, more as an instruction rather than a reassurance. She let go of him and lost her attempt at a sincere expression. Eien shivered a bit at the ease of her transition.

He realized that she was actually trying to reassure him. Of course, she manipulated her face in an obvious way, but she meant what she said.

He stood up and trekked after her towards the blue smoke.