It was well past dark when they could hear the rushing waters of the river. Known to the Tehynshins as the Red River, this was one of the two major water features that cut through the Milo region. Both rivers were fed from the same source high up in the mountains to the southwest, but they split shortly before exiting the mountains. Where they split, the Red River stayed above ground while the Gind River went underneath the mountains and hills of the area, before it eventually emerged in a deep gorge that ran all the way to the ocean.
Kitalia, of course, called the rivers by different names, and Kre struggled to pronounce them as she did so as to avoid any need for her to needle him about his people appropriating her people’s culture and legacy, whatever that meant.
Still, the sound of the water reminded Kre about the mud on his arms that had long since dried nearly to rock. The climbs up and down the hills hadn’t been easy either and, without full range of his arms, Kre found himself off balance more often than not. Thankfully, Kitalia was almost always there to help him out and help him regain his footing.
She claimed that she only did it because the few times she didn’t, Kre had rolled most of the way down the hill before he could stop himself and try to climb back up. She hated losing the time, she had said, so she kept helping him after that.
Still, the entire time they walked and talked, Kre noticed that she evaded more questions about her own life than she answered and, even when she did answer, she was never very specific about her past. So far as Kre knew, Kitalia was probably an only child and was raised primarily by her father, who was an herbalist of some kind. She had used a different word for his vocation, but Kre couldn’t pronounce it let alone remember it, so they agreed that herbalist was probably the closest thing Kre could conceive of and left it at that.
Kre ended up doing most of the talking, much as he had on their initial flight from the two Rangers and his two chaperones. He was pretty certain that he was repeating some of his stories, but Kitalia never seemed to mind. Sometimes, Kre wondered if she were even listening or if she was just keeping him talking so that she wouldn’t have to. He had tried changing a few details here and there about his friends and the things they did, but Kitalia always called him out on it, proving that she was in fact listening to every word.
Since neither of them was sleepy, only physically tired, and since Kre still wanted very much to wash the mud from his arms, they pressed on until they finally reached the water’s edge around midnight.
“Ah,” Kre sighed, “the Rose Gone River.”
“Rosengan,” Kitalia corrected offhandedly.
“The Rosengan River,” he muttered back. “That’s what I said.”
“It is just Rosengan. The ‘gan’ suffix means river. It would be like saying this is the Red River River in your language.”
Kre nodded as if he already knew that, then he started to look around for a place to drop their bags and set up a camp.
Kitalia pointed a bit down river. “There. We should camp there near that shelf of rocks and under the tree.”
Again, Kre nodded as if he had come to the same conclusion. In truth, it irked him to no end that she simply took charge of every little detail of their trip. Even the things that she seemed to make his responsibility, like picking a direction to travel, were already preordained by her and she was just letting him reach the same conclusion she did. Still, she was right pretty much every time so there wasn’t too much to be upset about. He supposed he just wished he could be more useful.