Kirima filled herself a small cup of 'stew'. She sat drinking it with her back to the fire, watching the forest around them. She felt tired, and wished she had thought to catch some sleep after returning from the town. Drinking her soup, she used water from the pail to wash it out.
Picking up the empty pail, Kirima went to refill it from the stream. As she left she heard Kandel and Soran speaking.
'So Soran, what are ye thinkin' about this town defending itself? I myself thought it a fools errand before, but you should have seen the meeting. The Rangers fueled them with a great anger. They think it possible to drive us out like we've been before.'
She continued walking, rolling the words through her mind. She understood that the townsfolk were not evil people, but to be driven out again? Reaching the stream she clambered far down the bank until she came to the shallow rivulet at the bottom. She filled the pail and began to trudge back to camp.
To be driven out again was to return to defeat, she reminded herself. There might be children in this town, but there were children camped at Weather Hill as well. If they were driven out again, those children would starve. She thought of the small stream, it's dry banks a clear statement of the land's troubles. Kirima thought of the angry words she had heard at the meeting of the townfolk. She paused and set the bucket down, drawing the foraging knife in her wrist sheath. She tried to imagine striking someone with it, actually ending a life. The image of her daughter lying pale and unmoving in her cradle rose in her mind and she quickly put the knife away. Then she remembered the gaunt, sad faces of the children at Weather Hill and resolved to fight however she could to win the town.
She picked up the pail and returned to camp, setting her load by the fire. She pulled her cloak around her, shivering even in the warm sunlight. Exhaustion and sadness overcame her and she slept, dreaming of her family.
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