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 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 babe.”

“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. They put her back into shackles, then their ethereal wings sprouted from their feather-pauldrons and lifted them 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, the mighty stream marking most of the eastward border of Sturreland. Beyond it, the southernmost reaches of the country Nannade was once enslaved in, Southern Nisumski. It was a cruel return, but she had decided to do nothing but push on forward, for now she had to brave three tests to gain approval from three different people, to prove she was not abominable. The Guardians accompanied Nannade over the toll bridge, 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. They also set Aaka on her shoulder, she would make sure Nannade would be able to take these tests and report to Black Surgeon directly. Then Nannade turned east on the road and walked, back to darker lands, having her first goal set for her, the “Forest of Dreams”, whatever that may be.

The hut was silent. No one had any schedule to keep up, spirits to shoo 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; no use in keeping it around if he won’t be allowed to leave the country for a year anyway. “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 pass the tests and return to Sturreland.

“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. They were blurry at best, smearing and mixing into a smooth stretch of time.

“I heard Black Surgeon had to send his spider along to keep contact, maybe I can squeeze some news about her out of him.”

That gave Elissa little hope. “If the Trusted Judges will even let you speak to him.”

“Eh, in our profession, we have our ways to relay information.”

“You do your thing. You’ll have to ask the Arch-Druid's office 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 not quite a city. 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.