Fiera didn’t give a damn who they were.

She swung down the carriage feet first landing on the individual who had eaten the door, and heard a satisfied crack. Commotion erupted behind her, and she gestured to Mist to get down. She had no idea who these people were, but there were around twenty people in her line of sight who’d reacted to the commotion and were starting to gather around hastily. It would escalate to a fight. And she didn’t want to risk a fight in the nearly-snowing setting.

“I don’t want to fight.” she muttered hastily helping the waitress down the stairs. “We are leaving.”

“Fiera -” Mist began, but the waitress held up a hand.

“Leave,” she said, “I don’t think these are robbers.”

Mist opened his mouth prepared to debate about what if they were in fact robbers who would harm the innocent people on the train but Fiera looped a hand around his arm before he could start and gave the waitress a small nod. There was no time to be writing speculative fiction now. She wasn’t sure where exactly they were. The scenery was barren, and they skidded dangerously down the slope towards more barren land. She could hear shouts behind her, and people jumping into their pursuit.

“We should have helped them!” Mist yelled although he sounded a bit out of breath.

The land was squishy with partially formed frost, and Fiera turned a sharp left. If there was at least some sign of what this place was, she would have a better sense of which direction to flee in.

“Fiera!”

And they tripped.

They rolled down the rest of the slope, hitting a few stones and sticks on the way and plummeted straight under a sharp rock that was jutting out, that hit Fiera right in her left shoulder, before landing in a heap under it. Mist crawled deeper into it’s shade and snuck his hands under her arms pulling her with him.

“Ow,” she flinched, and they fell quiet.

She had hidden her fire but since she wasn’t aware of the nature of the ‘robbers’ she held her breath trying to listen if they were still in pursuit. From their vantage point, all they could see continued to be barren land. She would have to get a map to look at. Although she remembered Mist saying Juru was about an hour away by train, she had no idea how they would get there on foot. Following the railway track was out of the question, seeing that those people seemed to be keeping a check.

“Are you hurt anywhere?” Mist asked.

She crouched a little forward, and felt a sharp sting at her shoulder. She dropped her bag and pointed at her shoulder. She adjusted her position so he could undo her shirt at her shoulder to take a look, and he got out his medical supplies.

“It’s just a bruise right?” she asked.

“Looks like it. But it’s blue already. Do you get bruised that easily? Or was the hit hard?”

“Both.” she muttered, “The rock hit me when we rolled down.”

“Shall I apply the pain relieving lotion then? We’ll get it properly looked at elsewhere.”

“Yeah, yeah. But can you tell the way to Juru from here?”

He uncorked the bottle and applied the pale yellow lotion across her shoulder.

“I don’t think so. Maybe we should have followed the track -”

“We can’t though.”

“It would be really convenient if there was someone we could ask around.”

“So we’ll have to explore this place then?”

He buttoned her shirt and she sat up, still feeling a little sore.

Fiera wondered why her sword couldn’t come up with an in-built map, or why some random godly being couldn’t walk past pointing them to the right direction right when they needed it the most.

“Are you injured anywhere?” she asked as he began packing up the supplies.

“Just sore. Did you see who those people were?”

“Fleeing was my first priority.”

“They were wearing the Royal Insignia.” Mist said, “You’re probably right. They were looking for you.”

“The Search.” she muttered.

She didn’t quite understand what The Crown would have against her though, considering she got along really well with Wind Practitioners - though she knew only one of them at an intimate level. But there isn’t usually much room to argue when your entire existence is something scholars and priests and military debate about for fun.

“What is our plan of action now?” Mist asked. He crawled carefully out the shadow of the rock to take a peek in the direction they had tumbled down from.

“They know which direction we ran in.” Fiera snuck her head out. “My eyesight sucks, can you see them?”

“Not really.” Mist muttered. “But I think it’s safe to assume they will send their people in this direction. To scour the grass.”

“And this, as everyone can see, is a good hiding spot.”

“So we move.”

They latched on to their backpacks - or whatever remained of it, and Fiera hunched as Mist scraped up the side to get a closer look. He slid down immediately landing with a foot down and motioned at her to begin moving. They scrambled across the side in the direction from which she assumed the train had been coming from - it was a long shot, but hopefully the people looking for her wouldn’t expect her to backtrack.

They were just about to get through a particularly dry set of land when she heard Mist draw a sharp breath followed by a curse and a thud. She instinctively hustled aside just as a sharp splinter of ice caught pierced from up the ground and struck her shin forcing her to crouch in pain. The frost on the land had gathered together, a genius Water Practitioner at work no doubt, to be able to manipulate ice as easily as water.

“They’re down!” A voice yelled from somewhere above and she exchanged glances with Mist.

Before they could move, the frost unfurled and curled around their ankles in an icy handcuff. She scraped it with her hands, summoning fireball after fireball to melt the ice off, but the ice would turn to water and vapour and back to ice again, restraining her to the ground.

“This is utterly insane,” Mist breathed. “Your fire is useless.”

“Maybe.” Fiera drew her sword from its wreath and struck it down on the ice scraping a bit of her skin. Then the air hit her, forcing her eyes closed and tossing her onto her back.