We left Xaolin with full of hopes and supplies like weapons and food unlike when we left home. Lee rode the cart, and we chose the ways which were cleared and avoided the deep ice places so that the horse could move better. Along the way I got to learn more about my best friend and all the things I never knew about before, Lee talked about his struggles with his father and how he wished he could just venture out in the world, but his father was always against it.
I found out how common our lives were, he was struggling and so was I and I guessed that's what made us very special and very close to each other.
"Where did you want to go then?" I asked him as we sat on the cart side by side together, leaving the horse to slowly walk us to our destination. It was already getting dark and freezing, I wanted to make sure we talk all the way to distract us from freezing.
"Well, just anywhere… I was tired of Xinjiang"
"Aren't we all? Stuck in one place sucks. I don't know how do others do it"
"Do what?"
"Be satisfied with sitting in one place. I believe there are others out there, a different kind of people with different life from ours. Perhaps we could learn a lot from them"
He chuckled softly, "Learn?" He asked.
"Yes, I want to learn"
"What do you want to learn?"
"Everything about the world. Explore it and just get lost in it"
"Getting lost sounds like a bad idea…"
"Not if you find what you are looking for and…" I said, but I was cut off when the horse stopped suddenly.
We were both startled by that and we looked at the horse. "What's wrong with it?" I asked, my nerves jumping off the roof. That usually happens to me every time I sense danger. Lee got out of the cart and walked to the horse, he started talking to it "Hey, hey what is it?" He said to it as the horse kept whining and its hooves pounding the ice.
"Something's wrong with it Lee"
"I know" He replied but didn't look at me as he kept surveying the horse, and then he turned his attention to me, "Let's make camp here. Poor animal is tired"
That's not the answer I was expecting, my eyes widened with amazement. "Here?" I asked.
"Yes"
"But ─ it's in the middle of nowhere." I said with a sort of panic in my voice, it was indeed in the middle of nowhere and freezing.
He didn't listen to me as he tied the horse to a tree nearby and walked to the cart, he took out two stones and four dry woods then he made fire. After that, he took a mat that was given to us by the Xaolin people and slept beside the fire pulling up his fur cloth further up and cover himself.
"Lee…" I said while trying to climb out of the cart.
"What is it princess?" he asked while his head was tucked inside the fur cloth.
"It's not safe here! We should keep moving"
"The horse is tired Mingzhu, and so am I. It's pitch dark, come sleep beside me" He said and smirked a little, I could tell he wasn't serious and perhaps he thought I was joking.
"You think this a joke? My father's men could find us"
"Mingzhu, for all I know, your father's men headed North or South perhaps. They will never catch us"
"How do you know?"
He looked sideways and smiled, "Because I say so" he said and slept again, holding himself closer to the fire and I envied how warm he could be feeling just by laying there so I joined him and slept opposite to him.
We looked at each other with a burning fire in the middle of us, I saw his eyes and how tired they were. But also at that moment, I noticed how animated he looked. How handsome he was and he was as beautiful as his soul and I was just in awe of him.
"What are you looking at?" He asked with his deep husky voice and I shrugged off and pretended to look away.
"Nothing"
"You are lying princess…"
"Are you accusing the royal princess of indiscretions?" I asked and as expected he laughed. This man would never take me as a princess serious, he never did. Even during our childhood days, he was always the resistance one, always the brave one to face me unlike others who feared me just because of a tittle on my head.
We talked that whole night about things at home and the uncertainties that we were facing going on to a place that we knew nothing about, but only carrying a hope. A hope that may dissolve to positive results or could be our downfall, and perhaps our death.
Talk of possibility that we could die hit us really hard and we grew silent. I never thought about it at first but during that moment is where it all hit hard and the feelings and emotions came flowing down like waterfalls on a river.
"We could really die!" I thought so to myself and it didn't necessary have to be us freezing to death but could also be a jaguar attacking us or just simply being ambushed by men with bad intentions. They could kidnap us and even do worse, I've heard of men who were cannibals from my grandfather's stories. He talked about a village where it's people hunted other people as if they were hunting bears for meat, especially outsiders.
My grandfather himself survived them after escaping with few of his men but the rest were all killed and roasted, and they never leave anything behind except for bones. So I slept with my eyes open as Lee fell into deep slumber, after all one had to keep an eye for any danger ahead.
At dawn we started our journey again and the horse was faster and more energetic than yesterday and I realized Lee was right, the horse was really tired last night but after a deep rest, it was all good to go. We dived into our packed up meat and ate as we laughed and made jokes along the way, I never counted how far we had travelled but as we kept going and going the cold decreased and we even passed a river which hadn't turned into ice although it's surrounding trees were all covered with snow.
"Look Lee, it's a river flowing…" I said with excitement and got out of the cart. I raced to it, knelt down in the river bank and pushed my fur coat aside.
Then I placed my hands inside it and took out a small collection of water in my hands and took a sip, I shut my eyes and felt every drop of it. I had never seen a river where we didn't have to break the ice to get water, the ice had melted and I figured it maybe because the cold had gone down. That could only mean one thing, that we were close to a warm land.
Lee just stood behind me in shock, his eyes glued to the river as I was. "Come…" I said and motioned him to join me. He tied the horse to a tree and raced to me.
"This is magic; may the gods have mercy on us" He said looking at me worried.
"It isn't magic Lee, take a sip"
"What? No... It could be poisoned princess. Or even worse… enchanted with magic"
I laughed at him and his nervous breakdown that he was experiencing, I thought he was courageous until at that moment. So I dipped my hands inside the river again and collected some water in my hands, then I told him to drink from it and he hesitated at first but then he indulged into it.
"Good?" I asked.
"It's warm, not exactly warmer but not as cold as compared to…"
"Xinjiang" I finished his sentence and he smiled. He went on to take another sip and another and we made camp right there when it got dark, just between the trees. We fed the horse and let it drink all the water it could take inside it's belly as we laid down with a burning fire beside us chewing on some wild fruits we picked along the way.
We were short of food since we finished all the supplies we were given from Xaolin and it had already been a fortnight since we departed from the village. The thing about going on a journey where you don't know when you'll reach your destination is that you are never aware of how many moons it would take, and hence you are never prepared. I didn't know when we would reach the warm lands, or if we were closer or far, although we did have something to hope for.
We found a warm river hence that meant we were on a right direction, but we just needed to keep going and going on the same way unaware of dangers and harm that could come to us, but of all dangers and harm. Hunger was the only one which we could contain and we agreed we would never let it be the one to demise us.