Kanin and Anika: What comes next

Night had fallen, and the two sat around a small pit fire, half buried in the ground. Serving to hide the fire and smoke more or less from view from the road, and to be hotter than a normal fire with as little kindling as they had. Hidden behind some brush. Anika was sitting on a log kicking her feet as she picked the insides of two hard loaves of round bread. Eating some of it, putting some on the lid to the pot Kanin was using to make something like a stew or a soup, she wasn’t sure. The stuff in it and the size told her it should be stew but it had too much liquid. It was always tasty but Kanin didn’t seem to know how to cook so much as getting lucky every time he tried.

Kanin was between sitting and crouching, stirring a pot of something vegetable heavy. Not because Kainin didn’t eat meat he did. But meat unless over salted spoils, vegetables would last the trip. He did drop the last of his ration jerky into the pot, he didn’t know what kind of meat it was, and hoped it would soften up enough to actually be eaten.

“Have you figured out who those men were?” Anika asked with a mouth half full of bread bits.

“Never seen them before.” Kanin answered, “And not just that. I’ve never seen their iconography or heard that name before. Lord Calabrix.” Kanin repeated the name like it had a strange taste. “It’s elven, but not from a house I’ve ever heard of.” He tapped the spoon off and put the round end in a small loop on the edge of the pot.

“Iconography?” Anika asked, the word ever so slightly mispronounced, though not enough to change it.

“Symbols.” he tapped the side of a shoulder on his arm, and the front where a cape would clasp to armor. “Symbols on armor to signify who they work for.” in the dim glow of the fire Kanin drew the symbol in the loose dirt, racking his brain for anything even remotely close. He came up mostly empty, the only thing he managed to figure out it was, was that it was old elven. The language was far clunkier than the simplified, more common version. Meaning one of two things. It was an old house, or the house was new, relatively speaking, and the head was pretentious and pompous and wanted to seem more important than he or she was.

Two loud gulps, and a swallow of the mouth stuffed with bread Anika spoke again. “What did you figure out?” she said looking at the odd symbol, puzzled as Kanin.

Kanin pulled his attention away from the symbol to stir the pot of stew soup, and answer the question. “I don’t think it's anything tangible yet.”

“Tangible?” Anika asked.

Brave as she was being and how well she spoke and formed her words Kanin had to remind himself she was just a child, “Tangible, like you can touch it. Or it has something that has form.”

Anika nodded understanding. “So it's a good idea?” She asked.

“Maybe.” he said, “Give me the paper the bread was wrapped in.” he told Anika. Kanin wrote down the symbol though the paper had been wadded into a ball and the wrinkles made the shape slightly misshapen it would do for identification. In the next town he’d have some questions.

“Is the food almost done?” Anika asked.

“You’ve eaten half of your bread bowl,” he commented.

“So?” she asked, putting her hands on her hips. “I’ve barely eaten all day.”

“You are a bottomless pit.” Kanin shook his head. “Fine. Hand me the bread bits you haven’t eaten.” he said. She passed them to him and he poured them in. After a bit of time and a bit of stirring the pieces dissolved into the broth making it thicken up. Making it more closer to a stew, even if Anika wasn’t convinced it actually was. Or at least it wouldn’t have passed for one in her household.

“Give me your bowl.” he said, and poured a ladle full into the hollowed out loaf of bread, with a crust that could break teeth. And handed her a wooden spoon from his pack. The girl barely waited for him to let go of the bowl before she was trying to eat it. “Wait a second,” he said. “It's hot. The last thing we need is you with blisters on your tongue.”

Reluctantly she listened to Kanin and ate slowly blowing on each spoonful before eating it. “What are we going to do now?” she asked. “A lot of bad men are following us.”

“I haven’t decided.” Kanin admitted. “I’m at a bit of a loss. At least with your uncle's men I know who’s after me.” he said, scratching his chin. “The new problem is…troublesome.” he said, taking a bite of his own food. “Do you have any other family?”

Anika thought for a moment. “Not that I know of…not anywhere near by any way.”

“What I was afraid of.” Kanin said. “Probably a bad idea anyway. It’s the most likely place you’d go.”

“Why…?” she asked.

Kanin sighed, not wanting to lie to the girl. “We need to figure out a place you can go and be safe. With me you have a target on your back.”

“You can’t just drop me off with strangers.” Anika demanded.

“I am a stranger.” Kanin said.

“But you are a hero.” Anika added.

Kanin hated that word…hero…no such thing. “I’m not a hero.”

“Sure you are.” Anika insisted.
“Fine. Fine. I wouldn’t leave you with strangers. I’d leave you with good people.” Kanin explained. “Like the church of The Fair Lady. They seem like good enough people from what I’ve seen, and every church or conclave or whatever they call them has some strong looking warriors. You’d be safe there.”

“I don’t want to be safe there.” she said.

“If those men keep attacking us, we might not have a choice,” he said.

“You can go with me.” Anika stated like it was just a matter of fact.

“Its not something we should worry about right now. Not much point until we reach the next town and find out who’s following us now.” Kanin shook his head.

Shortly the conversation dwindled, and Anika held her bread bowl out. At first Kanin thought she was about to ask for seconds. But she said “I’m full.” and of course she was, she ate half a loaf of bread before dinner, and a bunch of sweets earlier in the day. The bowl was still half full. “Can I go lie down?” Anika asked, excusing herself from the ‘table’ like a proper child of nobility.

“Yeah, you can go.” Kanin said.

Anika had barely even laid down before Kanin could hear her lower breathing of someone asleep. “Kids sure fall asleep fast,” he thought. And reluctantly forced himself to finish her portion of food on top of his. Eventually getting too tired to keep his eyes open he allowed sleep to take him. But his ears were ever open and on alert for danger.