The sun had just gotten up and the hut was awoken by the Guardians accompanying Nannade. They had allowed Nannade to see her teachers one last time before they would carry her off. Elissa, Garrett and Faan used it to impart a few more words of courage on her. The girl still wore her vial with her perfectly black, rejected blood inside, "as a reminder" she had said.
"Tell Carsten and Fiona at least that I'm sorry that I can't be there for the baby."
"We will."
She had a last embrace with the three of them, then she turned around to the Guardians and signalled them she was ready to go. Then they put her back into shackles and lifted her off into the sky, eastward.
Elissa, Garrett and Faan watched them disappear behind the treetops, then they tried to find something to return to.
The Guardians and Nannade had set foot down at a bridge over the river Trohr, a mighty stream marking most of the eastward border of Sturreland. Beyond it, the southernmost reaches of the country Nannade was once enslaved in. It was a sad reunion, but she had decided to do nothing but be driven forward. The Guardians accompanied Nannade through the toll gate, then they opened her shackles and returned her backpack to her. Everything had been searched so she may not take anything that she could use to her advantage on her coming tests with her. They also set Aaka on her shoulder. Then Nannade turned towards the road and walked, back to darker lands, having her first goal set for her.
The hut was silent. Noone had any schedule to keep up, spirits to keep away, brews to prepare or contracts to look for.
"I'll move out of your hair." Garrett eventually said, while mindlessly chewing on some dried meat. "Maybe I can find some work in Sturreland." He was still bitter about the two of them being kept as leverage to force Nannade to return after her year of banishment had passed.
"Maybe I will really pick up that teaching job. Just to be out of this empty hut." Elissa told him.
"How did you survive without her?"
"I have no idea." Elissa was trying to think back to her days before the girl arrived.
"I heard Black Surgeon had to send his spider along to keep contact, maybe we can squeeze some news about her out of him."
"If the high judges will let us speak to him."
"Eh, in our profession, we have our ways to relay information."
"You do your thing. You'll have to ask the highest circle for permission to move residence, by the way. Where would you go?"
"Sosken."
"Figures. At least it has a bit of the city flair, eh?" Elissa sat down at the table next to him.
"It's a nice place. It doesn't smell like shit all the time, so that's an advantage."
"And what do there? Didn't you say your savings ran dry a while ago?"
He finished the last piece of dried meat. "Maybe I'll let myself get hired as a private teacher. The Lodge will probably hand me a certificate that I graduated here."
"Yeah, probably. Just don't ask Loganna directly."
"I figured as much."
"Well, good luck with that."
A silence fell. All was dull and depressing.