They left the overhang when the rain lightened, though that wasn’t saying much given how hard the rain was still coming down. Ai spent her time trudging through the suddenly muddy ground, her hair hanging around her face in wet tendrils.

She didn’t speak, instead she walked like a woman condemned. She hated the rain. Hate grew in her chest like a bubble of hot air, waiting to explode.

Jack and the goblin, however, were wise enough to avoid her so she found her outlet practicing fighting with her knife. She imagined that she was slicing the falling droplets in half. Needless to say, she wasn’t very effective.

After a while, the sound of rain was like a backdrop. Ai would never get use to walking through the damned stuff, but she slowly got used to being virtually senseless.

One night they stopped off in a cave, the air cool and musty. That was the one time that Ai actually saw Jack practice. Where she was clumsy, ineffective and panting, he was a controlled form of lethal grace. Ai hadn’t seen many people fight, despite having woken to such dire circumstances. Her experience was more in the non-human kind of fighting.

The Queen had been a great beast, crippled but still terrifying in her power. Ai thought she was pretty useless herself. Short of stabbing something – or someone in the back, she wasn’t actually confident in her fighting abilities at all. If she weren’t so good at dodging, and keeping quiet she didn’t think she would’ve even survived the fight with the Queen, or the ghouls.

Jack was different. His movements were sharp, quick and devastating. Ai was glad that he was on her side. She knew he could do a lot worse to her than he’d done to the hooligans that’d followed them, if he wished. She was glad he didn’t wish.

At dawn they were preparing to leave the cave when there was a noise outside. Loud enough to be heard over the rain, which was practically a miracle in itself. Even so, when she peered out into the rain and between the trees, she saw nothing.

“What is it?” She asked the goblin.

The goblin raised a scrawny finger to its lips, and gestured to keep looking outside.

Ai squinted, looking for something, anything. Outside the trees swayed in the wind, water falling off their leaves in streams. Each tree was big enough around that Ai would need three of herself to reach all the way around. It seemed even the sky was lost to the canopy, making the undergrowth seem darker than it actually was.

Light flashed, illuminating the trees in harsh shapes and angles. Ai blinked rapidly, trying to rid herself of the afterimage.

She had imagined the lightning beasts to be like buffalo. Great, lumbering beasts with horns of lightning and bellows of thunder. But the creatures that came with the rains came in many sizes, both great and small.

This one was decidedly small. In fact, it looked more like a storm cloud than anything else, the size of a football. There were no eyes or head to speak of, and it floated about a foot off the ground instead of walking. Ai thought she might have seen a shape, like a tail, coiled at its underbelly. It was hard to make out anything else, and Ai was cautious about keeping her distance. The hair on the back of her neck prickled as it drifted their way.

Ai stepped back, unsure of the danger it posed. Jack sat safely at the back of the cave, uninterested in any new curiosities that they might uncover.

“Is it a predator?” Ai swallowed. She felt odd, being intimidated by a floating ball of grey fluff.

“A scavenger. It can still give you a nasty zap though. It won’t come in here.”

“Why not?”

“It won’t leave the rain.”

“Are you two done playing with the little monsters?” Jack called. He was wringing out any moisture he could get from the clothes, and packing their stuff away.

In response to his voice the cloud crackled, potent light swelling within it, before it zoomed off quickly lost in the rain.

“You scared it away.” Ai frowned. She had wanted to get a closer look at it. How did it fly? Or eat, for that matter.

“We’re only a day away from the city. I can see it and you two want to stay here, looking at scavenging clouds and waiting for the skinny men.”

“I thought it was the goblins job to be the put down.” Ai muttered beneath her breath.

Said goblin stomped on her toes, before making big innocent eyes and apologising to her. Ai was mildly horrified to find that she was pouting.

Sighing she went to help Jack with their stuff. It seemed heavier and wetter every time she picked it up. She was pretty sure their furs were completely ruined, and smelt like damp mould. She had long since shed them, sleeping on the hard floor instead. It had made for some hellish sleep.

Thankfully, snuggling up with Jack and the goblin kept her warm. She had long since overcome her reservations about it (the first night, when she realised how toasty warm it was) and nobody had woken up in any odd positions. She had caught the goblins elbow once, and was sporting a split lip to prove it.

Ai felt like she had been on the road forever, and for not time at all. She longed for a real bed, dry clothes and a bath. At the same time, she wished they would stay on the road longer. Jack was only just starting to open up to her, and once they got to the city the goblin was sure to find someone to bond with.

They were her friends. The goblin was like a wise man and a child stuffed into one body, and Jack was a mystery and her ally. The only person like her, one who would defend her.

They had come a long way. Now there was only a day left before everything began to end.

Pausing her packing, Ai looked out at the pouring rain with dark eyes. As much as she might miss them, she couldn’t bring herself to beg. No, she would convince them instead. Surely Jack would see he couldn’t just shun everyone. It was no way to live. And the goblin – she didn’t know its plans beyond finding someone to bond with and see the world. But it could stick around, at least for a while.

She could come looking for it when she needed advice. She would ask its advice on a pet anyhow. She didn’t know anything about the native fauna. Or foreign for that matter.