The journey began well enough.
For the first few days, everything seemed normal. The roads were quiet, the weather was pleasant, and there was little to trouble them beyond the occasional inconvenience of travel.
Sonder found herself enjoying it far more than she had expected.
She had traveled alone for so long that having Vell beside her again felt strange.
She had grown accustomed to silence and to making decisions on her own, without anyone to consult.
She did have Sireacht, but she couldn't talk, and Sonder thought she would be happy with whatever decision Sonder made.
But now she had Vell.
They walked together, saw the same sights, and talked.
Vell prodded Sonder to tell him about her journey: her experiences, the sights she had seen, and what she had thought of them.
Reliving some of those experiences wasn't easy, so she kept them to herself, perhaps to share another day.
She began at the beginning, which only made sense.
She told him about the House of Lustre and the Tears of the Goddess, but Vell kept pressing her for every detail, so it took a long time to tell the whole story.
It was simple. She liked it.
Maybe she even loved it.
Traveling with Vell was familiar, and she felt safe.
It reminded her of a time when things had seemed just a little brighter and a little easier.
She found herself thinking about those days more often than she had expected.
The past was the past. There was no point in wishing to return to it.
Besides, she thought, the future looked just as bright to her. And the present was not so bad, either.
She glanced at Vell as they walked along the road. He carried little with him, and his strength had not fully returned, but he seemed content enough.
Every so often, he would point out something along the way or make some passing remark about the countryside.
Sometimes he would tell her about a place he had visited long ago, only to stop halfway through when he realized that the place might not even exist in this world.
She enjoyed listening to him regardless.
Of course, things couldn't remain as they were forever, but change wasn't a bad thing.
It wasn't.
After a few days, the weather began to change.
At first, there was only a little wind.
Then came the rain, which started lightly enough but grew heavier as the day went on. By the following morning, the sky was covered in thick grey clouds, and the wind had become strong enough to make walking unpleasant.
They continued anyway.
The road was still passable, and there was no particular reason to stop. They had traveled in worse conditions before.
Neither of them was afraid of bad weather.
Unfortunately, the weather showed no sign of improving.
The rain followed them through the day and into the next. Sometimes it eased, only to return a short while later with renewed force. The wind blew cold against their faces, and the road became muddy beneath their feet.
At first, Vell enjoyed the light drizzle. Rain was one of the things he had missed, though he hadn't missed it quite this much.
On one particularly miserable afternoon, hail began to fall.
Sonder pulled her clothes tighter around herself and hurried beneath the shelter of a tree. Vell followed, looking up at the sky with an expression of mild displeasure.
The hail did not last long. It was followed by more rain and, later, even a brief fall of snow.
The snow melted almost as soon as it touched the ground.
Vell reached out a hand and caught a few flakes of snow. He turned his gaze back to the sky. There was little to see beyond the dark clouds and the rain falling between the trees.
"Is it almost winter? I'd rather like to know what season it is before we find ourselves caught in a blizzard."
"I do not know," Sonder said.
Vell glanced at her. "You don't know?"
"It is as I said in the tower of the Yellow Mage. It was hard to keep track of time."
He rubbed his chin. "You did say that. I suppose I shouldn't complain. And you've been remarkably patient with all my pestering about your journey. Let's just get to Seroti."