*COMPLETE* "People don't believe in us anymore. They don't believe that in the end we will do what is right. We can't let them down. We can't let Ben win."
Decisions made on top of the lonely, wind-swept cliff of Lethinor reverberate around the five...
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This is not what Hiran had thought his life would look like two days after infiltrating a Jarles stronghold. He had imagined something a lot more dignified—being on horseback, for instance—and he had imagined he would have six lucid traveling companions instead of one.
Well, technically he has three fellow travelers, but Hiran doesn't count the two wet, unconscious slabs of baggage as companions. Particularly when he has to slog them through waist-high snow.
Yes, this is not how Hiran imagined things.
If Hiran has to be honest with himself—and he is not entirely certain he should be—things are going rather poorly. And, if Hiran has to be honest with himself once more, that last kernel of truth was a bit of an understatement.
The temperature is plummeting, and both his and Tara's pants and boots are soaked through, any kind of known shelter is hours away, they have no Smith-caller, and they have no means to make a fire.
They're probably going to die out here.
When Hiran imagined his death it wasn't by freezing in some arctic Jarles backwoods while dragging along the unconscious body of a man whose name he doesn't even know. There are many things wrong with this picture, the first being the rather banal but slow and torturous method of death, the second being, of course, him saving a complete stranger. This is the kind of stupid thing Lei or Fae does, and there's not even any glory in it as it seems very likely that no one here will live to tell the tale.
He's definitely thought about just dumping the body, but somehow he thinks that Tara, who is shouldering Finn's small, limp form, wouldn't think too highly of this.
It's Hiran's fault anyway: he had just kind of grabbed the kid without thinking. Tara was carrying Finn so Hiran could Skill at anyone who followed and the whole place was coming down around them—there were explosions to the south and Hiran remembers hoping it was the sounds of Allayria and Lei escaping, not dying, when the kid had kind of stumbled across their path. Hiran hasn't a clue how he got out of his manacles, but the kid was swaying on his feet, his long, teenage frame nothing but skin and bones and... Well, Hiran just hauled him over his shoulder. The escapee must have passed out sometime between then and when Hiran and Tara had stopped, hours later, to rest.
The two of them had commented on this as they had eaten a very filling dinner of snow. They had assumed both he and Finn would wake up at least by the following morning, but no luck.
After a breakfast of more snow, they had agreed to set off toward Eastwatch.
"It's where the Jarles will assume we're all going, of course," Tara had admitted, her cheeks already stained from exertion and cold, "but I don't think these two are going to make it if we don't get them somewhere warm soon."
Now, a morning later, Hiran wonders if she had privately included the two of them in this death assessment. He rather thinks she did—she's much better about this survivalist stuff than he is, and he'd probably come across as a bit of an idiot now if he voices any suspicion of their imminent deaths.
