After a while we find ourselves at a river and she just plops down and takes big gulps of it. I almost instantly say “Ava don’t do that, it could be dirty!” and try to grab her but she keeps a strong grip to the ground and mutters “I don’t care, I have to be dehydrated from all this fighting, running, and walking.”

I just give up and sit down on a decent sized rock and let out a sigh while feeling my feet basically screaming out to give them a break. Heck, my whole body feels like that, since the adrenaline of escaping has worn off. 

The berries around here are so tempting, but I have no clue how to tell if they are even edible and I can’t just guess and take a chance like Ava. So I just close my eyes and take a deep breath to relish the fact I’m out of that place now. The fresh air and the birds chirping may be the small things, but I missed them.

“Those are edible!” Ava quietly yells over to me while excitedly walking over to me. 

“These?” I ask while pointing to the ones closest to me. 

She says “No, these.” while grabbing some from the other bush near this one and she hands me some and they look similar to blueberries. Instantly, after popping a couple into my mouth, the sour juice envelopes all of my taste buds. They are so good compared to the random shit that was given to me while in that cell. 

Ava hands me more and I don’t say anything. I just keep eating them without question and savoring every bite. While she was giving me mine, she was eating her fair share but after a while Ava says “We need to go quite a bit further to a town called Cable.” in her same quiet voice.

While looking at the direction we came from, I ask “Will they come for us?”

She shakes her head and says “They never gave us real slave crests, so we should be fine. If we did, we would be considered run-away slaves and most likely returned.”

Remembering the tattoo that was on Ava’s neck, I ask “Then what are these?” while gesturing to my neck.

Quietly she tells me, “I guess you haven’t noticed they are gone? They were something similar to a slave crest, but not a real one. An artifact gave the ones we had on us.”

I respond “Oh okay I guess that’s good.” then immediately ask her “Are we going any further today or camping here?”

She looks around and says, “We might be a little too close, so let’s go further for a bit.”

A nod felt like the only proper response to Ava. So that’s just what I did. Then I get off my rock and let Ava lead me in one direction again. Not much happened besides walking, but this time wasn’t nearly as long.

Ava finally finds a spot she says is good for camping out. As soon as I sit down feeling my entire body screaming for rest. Ava doesn’t do the same. She doesn’t rest; she grabs a bunch of dried leaves and twigs to make a little nest thing. As soon as she is done with that, she chants『Fire!』and a little wisp of fire shoots out of her finger into her little nest to make a campfire.

It wasn’t very cold, the actual issue is these clothes are made of extremely bad and thin materials. So every little breeze feels like it’s touching bare skin. The fire fixes that, and it’s a warmth I haven’t felt in a while…

The last time I felt this warmth, it was from a heater. Well, even when I was back in my world, I used to use my air conditioner year round and rarely used a heater, but I guess I just took things for granted.

Now that I think about it, there are a lot of things I took for granted… I miss my bed, my home, food, and clean water. My current situation is vastly different. I just escaped a slave trader and homeless with no means to survive besides what support Ava is giving me.

I just let out a sigh and sit close to the fire, thinking about our next move.