The swelter of the midsummer day did not wane. The swordsman walked for what felt like an eternity under the sun, only passing clouds serving as a temporary respite from the oppressive heat. Sweat dripped from his chin; his clothes clung to his skin as if soaked by rainfall. When leaving the
Portal Stone, they passed through sparse woodland before reaching an expansive plain. To the west, mountains. North and south, however, the plain stretched beyond sight.
The reins in his hand,
Kishou led the steed and woman atop it through knee-high grasses without rest. Hours of walking and silence, only ever broken by singing cicadas. Even as the sun retreated over the horizon and marigold streaks and blue sky mingled into a beautiful, vibrant gradient of colors in the now-cloudless sky, the heat and humidity endured.
The night sky darkened by the second, painted blue on blue, one stroke at a time until the canvas of the day's sky washed into darker shades of night.
Only then, after a day of walking in the unforgiving heat, did they happen across a shelter. Sturdily built from clay but too small to be a home, it appeared to be an old, abandoned storehouse. Perhaps it stored rice for a village that once was, but was no more. The walls were nearly crumbling, and with every warm breeze, it felt as if the thatched ceiling would fall in on them.
It would have to suffice.
"Shelter,
Amore." The Forastero, if he could even appropriately be referred to as such in his own homeland, sounded tired. Weak, even.
"We should stop and eat. And sleep."
In the saddlebags were dried meats mostly and some bread that, given a day or two longer, would be stale. A skin of water dangled by the saddlebags. It lasted them the day, though it would not last long into the morning.
There was a small portico at the storeroom's entrance; wooden beams supported a thatched roof. Kishou hitched the horse to one of the beams and helped the Priestess off.
"How are you feeling?" he quietly asked.
