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He has no idea what this town is called.
A little rat-spit village on the ass end of nowhere, crumpled up at the bottom of a heavily wooded hill like a pile of leaves still rotting away from an autumn past, it’s barely large enough to have an inn. It’s the kind of place he’d have trouble finding trouble in on his own, good for little other than a quick bath, a warm meal, and maybe a lead on the road ahead.
But he’s not on his own, is he? Ceitidh wobbles along next to him in her disintegrating shoes, barely holding the too-long cloak he’s lent her up out of the mud, and talking. About everything.
The sky is blue. The leaves are green. The village is charming and look - a real waterwheel! Someone’s planted daisies along one side of the muddy street! There might be a minstrel at the tavern! Or a kindly innkeeper with an exciting adventure to send them on! Endless possibilities! Best village ever!
It’s… cute. And annoying, if only because he hasn’t had a moment’s fucking peace since he stopped trying to pretend they weren’t travelling together - even in her sleep she makes noise. Ceitidh talks and talks and it hardly seems to matter whether or not he has a response; her enthusiasm is indefatigable.
Not that he wants to wear it out. Honestly it’s - well, it’s a break from the accusatory monopoly of his own thoughts and that’s - well, it’s not terrible. It’s not like he hasn’t been subjected to worse.
Anyway, it doesn’t matter whether or not he finds her endless prattle tolerable, that’s not the point. The point is that they need to head southerly before the season gets colder. He has a feeling Ceitidh won’t weather it well on the road, and anyway that’s the direction he was already headed, guided by the vaguest sense of direction toward a distant sea. He finds he misses it, and it’s always easier to find someone to carry his letters on the coast.
Not that it matters. He’s long given up on any hope of a reply and even if there was one, how would it find him now? It’s a private concern and not one he’s chosen to share with Ceitidh, who writes often in a cramped little journal but never sends the pages anywhere.
What matters is they need food, a proper pack for her things, and a few more things to put inside it. A cloak she can wear without it dragging on the ground, another set of blankets, some boots.
It makes him vaguely ill to think of the damage to her feet, the way her soft white skin cracks and blisters pink, but she seems to be able to ignore the pain the way she ignores his taciturnity and sullen moods, not to mention the continual headache of sobering him up, and he is reminded again of the breadth of his error, the depth of his assumptions once more proving to be wrong.
She isn’t weak. She’s brave. Braver than is fair, really. Certainly braver than smart.
It’s okay though. She has him now, sort of. He can fix it.
Maybe.
At least he can buy her some boots.