The Toils (Book Two)

III. Settled And Settler

"I lived with my husband, Joran, and his parents, Hector and Lenora", Asper started.
Thatcher closed her eyes, laying flat on her back.
"We had two kids, RJ and Kiara. Joran's parents, they were old enough to have been in the first wave of refugees from the Southern Wars... Both had suffered, they suffered so much... But they fled anyway, not wanting the violence anymore. There were hundreds of them, they couldn't go North for fear of getting caught up in the wars, so they went south, knowing that it was generally too cold for any settlement to establish themselves. 
But they did... Against all odds, they made it. They set up. Nothing fancy, a small community of a thousand on the edge of the water, where the snow hardly fell. It was still cold. People became cold. Fighting over food, over water, over everything. 
It was five years before the split. When a group decided to venture north. Hector and Lenora went with them, wanting a life for their baby, my husband. 
The people that took them, they were truly the most evil. But they were clever. They had a boat. 'Go North', they said, to the land of the sun. The thing was, it was occupied, as all lands are -- bar for the south. But these... monsters... they cared nothing for the people who lived there...
Hector and Lenora watched, as they tore children limb from limb... tore heads from shoulders... They knew that it wouldn't be long until they too faced that fate. Until Joran was killed in the same way. 
They did what they had to do, and stole the boat, and sailed back south to where they'd departed. But that same cancer they left the south to avoid, it was still there, still metastasizing. 
There were good people, but they were incredibly few and far between.
The community had split into three, four, different camps, all across this vast, snowy landmass.
I grew up in the mountains, eating goats and drinking melted snow. My parents, they were good people, just as Hector and Lenora were. But they didn't last long out of the comfort of Zedeylia. When it split into two, into Rebury and Zedeylia, they wanted to go north, to Rebury, to where the quote 'good men' lived. 
I was six when they decided to relocate. They were late to flee the fighting, you see. While Hector and Lenora got away unseen, my parents were traitors to the cause. They were the enemy, as far as both Rebury and Zedeylia was concerned. It didn't matter to them, they believed that they'd be welcomed into Rebury, as it was where the good of them ended up.
They'd believed in it, at first, but the violence was too much for them to deal with. But it seemed as if it were over, finally, with Rebury being an independent state...".
"If it's any consolation, the fighting between them was never over", Thatcher tried to sound reassuring but felt like she was merely interrupting.
"They died. Not by violence, but froze to death trying to cross a lake one night. So I carried on. Until Hector and Lenora found me. Joran was eight, I was six, they thought it was a good fit. We never grew up as siblings. They always treated me as a friend, merely on an extended sleepover. I had freedom, to grow, to live, to be myself. By the time I was eighteen, we'd been chased out of seven different villages by people stealing our food.
Every time we set up, they would come, and take it. So we held a vote - stay or fight.
The answer was to fight. We painted our legs to distinguish from one and other. We arranged a hierarchy so that it was never confusing on who you took orders from, and we fought them. Not once did we win. They were brutal, horrible people, and we were old, weak, or otherwise uninterested in anything other than living a peaceful life".
Thatcher licked her lips, absorbed in the yarn being spun, Asper took a deep breath.
"And that was our life, for the following dozen years".
"When did things change?", Thatcher asked intently, opening her eyes for a quick flash before snapping them shut once again. 
"Bout twenty-six months back".
Thatcher knew what was coming, how could she not? She hadn't seen Asper with children.

*

Asper woke with Jorans muscular arms wrapped tightly around her. The shack creaked under the weight of snow on the roof, growing particularly loud as the wind blustered through.
"Where'ya'garn?", Joran groaned as she wriggled out of his grip, not once did he open his eyes.
The crisp chill of the morning bit at Aspers' body as she pulled her ash stained black robes over her body. 
"I'll be back shortly", she whispered, "just going to get breakfast".
"Wait", he snapped upward, "I'll come with you".
"Relax", she pushed him back into bed, "the village has been quiet, I'll be fine on my own".
"You sure?", Joran looked Asper deep in the eye and asked.
"I've got my knife, I'll be safe".
With a peck on the lips, Asper bounced out the bedroom door and turned into a shabby little hallway.