it would be three to four days' journey from akashingo.
germanicus was silent through the majority of his journey with
@Nephele. he had found traces of
@Crowfeather in lands adjacent to the mesa. but rain had come. and it had washed the shadow away.
and so the man had come to the sunspire, taking the route back where satsu had led them out of the mountains and to her pack.
this was unfamiliar terrain. he only traveled in a vague direction now, searching for any scent of the healer.
his spirit was filled with bile.
Nephele followed, as she always did, her ears swiveling as she kept her eyes on the area around her. Quiet was something she knew well, but this fervent ferociousness to the silence coated her already still tongue in ice.
What did Germanicus feel for the healer? Friends, or something else? Nephele did not question this, only followed, nose to the ground, eyes closing on the occasion.
It was quiet around them when she spoke.
Germanicus.
Her voice was soft, quiet. Rough with disuse.
What do we do if..
If they could not locate Crowfeather, either living or a corpse. What happened if they found the man dead? Or if he was taken in by the Saints? What then? What would they do, where would Germanicus go? Would Nephele follow?
"if he is dead by their hand then we move to war. it will be a third attack upon akashingo or ursus."
there was no other reason crowfeather might have gone. germanicus refused to entertain the idea that the shadow had somehow defected.
he set his nose to the ground and continued to search.
Nephele nodded, letting herself lapse into quiet. She did not point out the pinging in her head, the thought of betrayal sitting stark and pointed behind her clenched tight teeth. She would not allow it, would not burn herself in Germanicus’s eyes by suggesting it.
She did not speak. Her eyes closed, the monochrome woman drawing in a sharp breath.
It was a few minutes before she got the courage to speak once more.
When this war is done, where will you go?
nephele breathed and asked the eagle about the end of war. he found he could not study it for long. crowfeather filled his mind.
"i will go into the snow." the words rang empty. he could not imagine returning to the cloven stone without the boy.
germanicus ranged on and out, farther, searching for a y recognizable scent.
He would go into the snow.
Nephele did not know what she would do, what her life would become once the battle began to rage. She simply nodded, filed it away, and kept walking.
She did not speak again. Occasionally shot Germanicus worried glances, yes, but she did not speak. Worry did not burn through her like it did him, but she was a creature designed to worry about herself alone. That ever present devil on her shoulder.
She kept pace, and did not speak. Words did not matter, here in the search.
"why do you ask?" germanicus murmured at last.
nephele had stayed within her thoughts. but she was careful. thoughtful. there was a reason she had inquired so. and he wanted to know it, even in this turmoil.
he sniffed the side of a stone wall.
She was quiet, for a time. What was her answer? Her thought process behind asking the question? Was it idle curiosity? Some hope at having a friend stick by her side when none had stuck?
Perhaps that was it, then. Another deep seated insecurity that she would have to pry out of her mind like a barnacle from the side of a ship. Nephele pressed her lips together, tight.
Just wondering, I suppose.
Her eyes trailed to the sky, before she lowered her head to sniff the ground.
germanicus finally looked from his trailing toward nephele. "have you told another in akashingo your true name?" the question held his tongue whether or not he wished it.
the man looked toward the details of the forbidding sunspire.
Nephele pursed her lips.
No. I haven’t, not yet.
There was a degree of trust there that she did not share with them. She wasn’t even entirely sure she shared it with Germanicus. It was simple, really, hearing a name she defined herself as instead of Sabah, who was still pushing in her head.
She closed her eyes.
"why?" his voice was not heavy.
germanicus found what he felt might be a sign and moved forward. the path narrowed between towering boulders, forcing he and the guard of akashingo into a narrow tunnel.
the eagle persevered forward. "do you not wish to be known?"