A Warmth in the Snow, CH:08

Nara left with three others. Their group, officially named Expedition 1 by Wyr, consisted of four strangely mismatched souls, bound by a common purpose. While the other three groups each had only three members, theirs was the largest, perhaps because they were the first, the spearhead of their community's new reach. She walked beside the eager Gon, who held his flame sword as if it were an extension of his soul; behind them were the one-eyed Kael, the old archer who moved with a threatening silence, his magic bow slung across his back; and Bruna, the silent giantess, her thunder axe resting comfortably on her shoulder, her presence like a walking mountain. They all carried heavy supply bags.

The entire valley seemed to have gathered to see them off. It was a strange sight, a sight that a few months ago Nara could never have imagined. People gathered in the wide open space in front of the newly completed town hall. The large wooden building stood proudly, its sloping roof and sturdy walls looking like a miracle in the midst of the sea of tattered hide tents that still housed most of them. The contrast was striking: a monument to a promising future standing beside the pathetic remnants of the past.

Some of them stared in awe at the new, gleaming weapons. Their eyes were fixed on Gon's sword or Bruna's axe.

However, no one looked at Nara that way.

She knew why. As a healer, she wasn't conspicuous. Her strength didn't lie in gleaming steel or thundering explosions. Her strength was hidden in small pouches, in the knowledge of leaves and roots. In the world of the Free Folk, it was a quiet strength, a strength often overlooked until it was desperately needed. So, while the children pointed at Gon's sword in amazement, they only glanced at Nara and her simple leather bag, as if she were just a baggage carrier. That feeling of being unseen was a familiar sting, but today, something was different. Inside that bag, she carried miracles. She knew it, even if they didn't. And that knowledge was a silent armor.

She saw Tormund in the crowd, leaning against the sturdy wall of the town hall with his usual arrogant posture. He said goodbye to her with only a lazy wave of his hand, a small gesture between the two of them. Tormund didn't wave back. He just nodded once, a stiff acknowledgment, before turning away. Nara knew it was his way of showing he cared.

Then, they began to walk. Leaving the crowd behind, they walked past the town hall, then past the rows of old tents. Nara felt the gentle spring breezes rustle through her hair and face for the last time. They had all put on their thick leather and fur clothing again, a preparation for the world they were about to enter. The clothes felt heavy and stifling in the warmth of the valley.

Before them, at the edge of the green meadow, lay the sight. It wasn't a wall or a gate. It was a line. An invisible yet absolute line, where the living green world met the endless white silence. It was the border between miracle and reality. They saw it: the first snowflakes drifting in the air, just across that invisible border.

With bated breath, Nara walked with the other three. As she took her last step on the grass and set her foot on the snow, the shock was so great she almost fell.

The temperature around them changed drastically. The warmth that had become a habit vanished, replaced by a piercing, biting cold that crept through every gap in her clothing. The sounds of life—the chirping of birds, the buzzing of insects, the rustling of wind in the leaves—died instantly, as if swallowed by a thick blanket of silence. All that remained was the crunch of their footsteps on the snow and the low, familiar howl of the wind. The familiar yet unwelcomed weather immediately took over, gripping her with an icy grasp.

For a moment, Nara felt like turning back. She felt an incredibly strong pull from the valley behind her, the pull of the warm grass, the safety of the sturdy town hall, the promise of a full belly. She wanted to run back there, throw herself on the grass, and never feel the cold again. But she kept going. She thought of the small boxes in her bag, the promise of power in her own hands. She tried to smile along with the others, though her lips felt stiff and frozen.

"This is easy," Gon said, his voice sounding a little too loud in the new silence. He swung his new sword, the dark red blade looking defiant against the white landscape. He was the youngest in their party, and his arrogance was a shield he wore against his fear. "We've faced this our whole lives. What's the problem?"

"The problem is you talk too much," Kael grumbled from behind them, his one eye sweeping the horizon with a hunter's vigilance. "Just move quickly. Being in that warm place has made you all slow."

"We're slow because we're afraid your back will hurt, old man," Gon retorted, not to be outdone.

Kael glanced at the young man, his gaze as cold as the ice around them. "Your mouth is quite adept at talking for a baby."

"Fuck you!"

Nara sighed, white vapor puffing from her lips. The bickering, like the cold, was something deeply familiar. In the valley, under Anderson's influence and The Fool's rules, such squabbles had subsided. But here, in the harsh wilderness, where there were no walls or laws but survival, their true natures re-emerged. They might carry magic weapons and a new faith, but they were still Free Folk to the bone.

Bruna, who walked beside Nara, said nothing. She just shifted the axe on her shoulder and kept walking, her steady, heavy steps unaffected by the bickering or the cold. Nara was grateful for her silent presence.

They kept walking, deeper and deeper into the white silence, leaving their green paradise further and further behind.

The silence that enveloped them as they walked deeper into the white landscape was heavier than any snow. Nara hadn't known these travel companions before. The Free Folk clans were vast and often hostile to one another; she had only joined the last group Gehrman and Wyr found just before they began to build the town hall. These people were as foreign to her as the magical spring they had just left.

So, she watched them, trying to read them as she used to read the signs in the wild.

Kael was the easiest to read, or so it seemed. He was the type of countless old warriors Nara had known: hard, bitter, and as sturdy as old stones. He had lost one of his eyes somehow, leaving a jagged scar and an empty socket covered with a patch of leather. Nara didn't ask. She didn't want to give the man another reason to grumble. Despite his advanced age, there was nothing weak about him. Wiry muscles still bulged on his arms and shoulders, and he carried his bow with the casual familiarity of a man who had carried a weapon his entire life. His long beard and hair had turned as white as the snow around them, but his remaining eye was as blue as ice in daylight, and that eye never stopped moving, scanning the horizon, checking every shadow.

Then there was Bruna. If Kael was a stone, Bruna was a mountain. She was probably around two meters tall, towering over them all, and her shoulders were as wide as a door. Her thick, wild hair was red, so bright it looked like a blazing fire in the midst of this pale world. She was like a giantess walking among them, each of her long, steady steps leaving a deep track in the snow. She carried her thunder axe as if it were a toy, and her face, which was covered in freckles and framed by her red braids, was usually expressionless, as if she kept her thoughts deep inside.

And Gon… Gon was just a young man. That was the first and last thing that came to Nara's mind when she looked at him. He had all the excessive energy and fragile arrogance of a young man desperate to prove himself. He was constantly adjusting the sword at his waist, touching the hilt as if to reassure himself it was still there. He walked with a slight swagger, trying to cover up the nervousness Nara saw in his eyes when he glanced at the lengthening shadows.

The four of them walked in silence for nearly an hour, the only sound the crunch of their footsteps and the sad sigh of the wind. The brief argument between Kael and Gon had faded, leaving an awkward emptiness. The silence began to gnaw at Nara. She was a healer; she was used to quiet conversations, to gentle questions aimed at finding the source of pain.

"So, why did you volunteer to leave that spring?" Nara finally decided to break the silence, her voice sounding small and thin in the vast expanse.

For a moment, she thought no one would answer. Then, a deep, booming voice replied, surprising her.

"Want to know?" Bruna answered, not turning her head. "The answer is simple. I don't want to become weak."

Nara frowned. "Weak? How could that place make you weak?"

Bruna finally glanced at her, her dark brown eyes amused. "You don't feel it? That warmth. The easy food. The nights without fear. It's all a sweet poison. It makes the muscles soft and the mind dull. I saw our warriors sitting around, patting their full bellies, and I saw the tips of their spears starting to rust. Winter may have been kept out of that valley, but winter is still in our blood. If we forget that, if we become too comfortable, we will die when the real winter returns."

She patted her large axe. "So I have to constantly train my strength. I have to remind myself of the biting cold and the deadly silence. I have to keep my spearhead sharp." She paused for a moment, then added, in a more pragmatic tone. "But at the same time, I also want to see that place finished sooner. I want those walls to stand, and those houses to be built. If recruiting more desperate people is the way to get more hands to work, then it's a pleasant choice. The faster we build, the faster we can be truly safe."

"Can't wait to sleep under a roof, huh?" Kael snorted from behind, his voice hoarse from disuse. "Be careful, big girl. Maybe that roof will collapse if you go inside."

Bruna stopped walking and turned around slowly, a threatening movement like an impending avalanche. She looked at Kael, and for the first time, Nara saw a smile on her face. It was not a friendly smile. "Collapse? Yes, collapsing a roof is easy. Especially if that roof is made of the bones of a frail old man."

Kael just stared back at her, his one eye unblinking. "You'd have to catch me first, giantess."

"Right," Gon interjected quickly, stepping to stand slightly beside Bruna. He looked at Kael with a contemptuous glare. "You look strong," he said to Bruna, his voice filled with a boy's admiration. "You could crush this old man anytime."

Bruna turned her attention from Kael to Gon, her sharp gaze softening into something akin to curiosity. She looked the young man up and down, sizing him up. "You," she said, "what makes you so interested in being here, in the middle of this nothingness? You could have stayed in the valley and tried to woo the girls with your shiny new sword."

If he stayed there, that sword wouldn't be in his hands, Nara thought.

Gon's face turned red. He looked flustered for a moment, clearly not expecting the question to be directed at him. He thought for a moment, and his answer came a little too late, as if he were searching for the most impressive response. "I... I want to destroy the Walkers!" he exclaimed, his voice sounding a little too loud, a little too forced.

Bruna looked at him for a long moment, then she nodded slowly. "A noble ambition," she said, and Nara couldn't be sure if there was a hint of sarcasm in her voice. "Good luck with that. You have a good weapon. We'll try it out when we meet them." She turned and started walking again, as if the conversation was over.

Kael chuckled softly, a hoarse, dry sound. "'Destroy the Walkers,'" he muttered, loud enough for everyone to hear. "This boy thinks he's a hero in a song."

"And what's your reason, Kael?" Nara asked quickly, wanting to divert attention from the now-embarrassed Gon. "Why are you here? You could have been teaching the young ones how to shoot a bow in the valley."

The old archer walked in silence for several steps before answering. "Because I don't trust it," he said quietly.

"Don't trust what?" Nara asked. "Gehrman's magic?"

"I saw it with my own eye," Kael grumbled. "It's hard not to believe in spring when you're standing in the middle of it. No. I don't believe it will last." He sighed, white vapor puffing from his lips. "I'm old, little girl. I've seen many things. I've seen calm winters turn so cold that the rivers froze to the bottom. Nothing is eternal, especially magic."

He looked at the endless white horizon before them. "That place… that valley… it feels like a dream. And I've learned that sooner or later, you have to wake up. I'm here because I need to know that I can still survive when I wake up. I need to feel the snow under my feet and the wind on my face. I need to remind myself of the real world, so I won't be surprised when the dream ends."

His grim words enveloped them in a chill deeper than the cold around them. Nara thought about that. The idea that the valley could disappear was as frightening as the Walkers themselves.

"And you?" Bruna's booming voice broke the silence. "You're not a warrior. You hate the cold. Why did you leave the safest place in the world?"

All three pairs of eyes were now on her. Nara felt their gazes, Bruna's sharp judgment, Gon's sudden curiosity, and Kael's cynical scrutiny. Her heart pounded. In her head, the truth screamed: Because I'm tired of being weak! Because I'm afraid of being useless! Because I want to be someone important!

But those words would never leave her lips. To admit that here, in front of these warriors, was tantamount to baring her neck and inviting the knife. So, she did what she had always done. She hid. She built a wall of words, a lie woven from the only thing they respected: pride.

She stopped walking and turned to face them, lifting her chin slightly. She let a hint of cold anger into her voice. "Because I heard some people in the valley whispering," she said, each word carefully articulated. "They said that when the houses are built, only the strong warriors and hunters will get the best spots near the fire. They said that people like me, the healers and gatherers, will have to be content with the leftovers."

She looked straight into Bruna's eyes. "They think we're weak, that we're a burden the warriors have to carry. I'm here to prove them wrong." The lie felt natural, shaped by years of real feelings of inadequacy. "I will return to that valley with more survivors than you can count. I will prove that this bag of medicines is as valuable as any sword or axe. I will make sure that when that city stands, everyone knows that a healer is not someone to be protected, but a force to be reckoned with."

Silence fell over them again, but this time, it was a different kind of silence. It was no longer the silence of strangers. It was a silence filled with sharp judgment.

Gon looked at her with a new expression, wonder replacing his usual arrogance. The fire in Nara seemed to have ignited something in him. Bruna wasn't smiling, but Nara saw a flicker of respect in her eyes. Defiance was a language the giantess understood.

And Kael, from the back, just let out a low grunt. "Hmph. Good spirit." He spat on the snow. "But talk is cheap. Let's see if you can keep it warm when the blizzard comes."

And in the world of the Free Folk, that was acceptance. They continued to walk, four very different figures, now bound by more than just a purpose. They were bound by a respected lie, and the hard truths they all understood.