Rose was not dressed for travel by any means whatsoever. Maneuvering through the forest after the creature proved a difficult task as any. Fingers clutched at the fabric of her skirt while her heels wobbled and sunk into the uneven terrain, crunching the occasional autumn leaf beneath her. If that didn't make matters worse, the ground was damp and muddy from the obvious rain it had seen earlier that day or the night before. Between tripping and getting herself stuck countless times, her resolve to find the thief did not abate.

There was no possible way that she was certain to find the creature, but she most certainly couldn't lie there in the forest and wait for someone to return for her. She needed to get to Sanae, but she also needed to figure out where she was and plan her route from there.

There were occasional interludes of time where she thought she could see or hear movement among the leaves and trees which seemed to grow more clustered together the more she pushed forward. Rose was uncertain whether she was experiencing some sense of claustrophobia, or if she was getting further inside the forest and not further out.

Some time passed before she happened to spy the cottage in the clearing with it's sloping roof and the manner it was built. The construction of the brick and wood walls were more neat and obviously had taken a deal of time to put together. The roof on the other hand looked kind of sloppy, but that could very well have been due to the fact that using mud and hay as materials didn't leave much room for meticulous detail.

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Rose wasn't entirely sure whether the house was lived in or not since the exterior of the cottage didn't show the signs. It had been a long day full of travel and she was most positive that her feet would be covered in blisters when the court shoes were removed. All she wanted at that moment was to fix up a warm bath and get a decent meal. She was operating on an empty stomach and had never been so dirty in her entire life as far as she could remember. She could do with some rest too.

And so it was the assortment of needs that she felt she should tend to that caused her to step forward and approach the door to the cottage that so far, she figured to be deserted. That hand moved up and her fingers folded into her palm and then her knuckles rapped against the door. If someone did inhabit the cottage then the last thing she wanted was to just waltz in.

Something rose from one of the larger branches in the tree and still managed to blend in for the most part in the earthen hued attire that they adorned. The figure dropped down and two copper braids flew over her shoulders while she moved straight for Rose at a rather quick pace. The woman continued to work her way closer, causing Rose to back up against the exterior of the cottage.

The face came a couple of inches in front of her own and allowed her to get a quick study of the stranger. The other woman's face contained some kind of tribal marking, an inverted circle was inked into her visage. She also possessed a pair of green colored eyes that were unlike Rose's own. The woman's eyes were more of a sea foam color.

The voice that escaped the assailant was as exotic and wild as her appearance.

?Who sent you?? She queried, although the question was more of a demand than anything else.

?No one sent me,? she answered honestly. At that time, she did not have it in her to spout off any lies. That and she did not want to give the woman a reason to skin her either. She would not risk her life so foolishly, especially when she still had yet to reach Sanae.

?You should not have come here,? the woman admonished. ?If you have not been sent then why are you here??

?My husband,? she began and scratched at the nape of her neck. ?I believe he left here as some form of punishment.? She did not add that she may have been thought dead already. Were she to speak ill of her spouse then he was sure to find out and see to her about that as well as the fact that she had meandered from where he had left her.

?Some husband,? the stranger snorted. ?And his name??

?I don't see what,? Rose started.

?His name,? the woman repeated and cut her off.

?Brom DeGrey,? she informed her. It did not bode well to withdraw information no matter what her attacker asked because she didn't have the upper hand.

Rich and heavy laughter was the response she received.

?So you know him?? She asked dubiously.

?If Brom DeGrey left you here then he will come back for you,? the woman answered vaguely. ?I suggest you either return to where he left you or hope he does not find you.? There was a pause and a purse of lips, ?But you cannot possibly be a part of the other group because your husband does not associate with them so you are welcome to stay with me for now.?

Rose secretly wondered if this other group that she had spoken of knew of Brom DeGrey. If that was the case then the woman must have a natural instinct when it came to who to trust. Either that or she was easily tricked which Rose found doubtful for some reason.

?It would be greatly appreciated, but I must know where I am. I have to find my cousin.?

?I will give you the information on how to get wherever it is you plan to go, but I cannot help you get there. I cannot risk to leave the forest.?

?Very well... My name is Rosemarie DeGrey,? she told the other. She figured that she might as well introduce herself.

?And your maiden name??

She didn't know what that had to do with anything, but she answered regardless. ?Guthale.?

?Well, Miss Rosemarie. I would advise you to change your name if you plan to leave here.? The woman removed the arrow from the door and gave it a hard tug to free it. ?Your husband will hunt you and you will be easier to track down if you use your name and it would be ill advised of you to use your maiden name.?

?And what should I call you??

?Quendeu Zakhar.?

?Is that your true name??

A mischievous grin was Rose's answer.

It did occur to Rose that she should have bothered the marked woman for a change of clothes before she left the cottage. She would look like she had come from the wilds if she hadn't or others would simply assume she was nothing more than a peasant. If lady luck bid her well at all then the latter would be the case. Either way, she had some coin and could afford to buy a dress or two when she was finished with Quendeu's errands if she had enough. She only hoped the woman would not mind too much.

When she approached the city walls, she finally allowed herself to pour over the list. Nothing scrawled on the parchment seemed to match what Rose had imagined she would be purchasing. There were odd items, probably ingredients for potions or some other related purpose. Her brows furrowed together and she stuffed the piece of paper into the coin purse only until after she was past the gate.

The entrance to the city had a guard flanked on either side. One was tall and lanky while the other was short and definitely had more meat on his bones. It was the stocky one that greeted her. "State your business in Omae."

Rose didn't know what the reason for having a city walled off with guards outside the place if it wasn't the capital of the kingdom. She assumed that it could have been one of the more populated locations in Florand. Either that or the place was secured more specifically because it was so close to the forest. She did realize that both guards were studying the mud covered dress with suspicion.

If her mother hadn't educated her better than she would have found herself unable to come up with a lie. It was hard for her to try and recall what cities were even in Florand, let alone the one closest to Omae. She had recently left the Tarna Forest, however. Similarly to Omae, Tarna bordered the woods...

"It's my mother," she fibbed and feigned an exasperated expression for added effect. "I would not have left the city, but the whole town seems to have gotten ill somehow and I fear for her life. The traders won't come through for another week or two now and I need to pick up some things or she might die. Please just let me through."

A cautious eye settled on Rose for a moment or two and then a nod and a grunt gave her permission to enter.

Rose had always been loathe to lie to anyone no matter the reason, but she couldn't deal with providing the truth. The truth would lead Brom back to her and probably find Quendeu in trouble. If she was going to get to Sanae, she had to plan her travels out better. First, she was going to have to get enough coin to get herself back to Lenore City or Lagoir. Sanae would probably be in one of those two places...

For the time being, she pushed ahead until she reached the portion of the city where the Market was located. Terrified to ask for directions, Rose took longer than she would have were she capable of mustering up the courage to have someone point her the right way. Her eyes swept the booths and buildings, inspecting the types of wares she could see.

After examining the list once more and scrutinizing each place, she finally approached the door to an apothecary. The elderly man behind the counter lifted his head accordingly and stared at her until she reached where he stood.

Her fingers unfolded the piece of parchment and she pushed it his way. Her fingers fidgeted with the ring around her finger and she removed it. She hadn't pawned the other pieces of jewelery yet, but she hoped that what coin there was in the pouch would cover the cost. It was the jewelry on her hand that reminded her and she was already making plans to sell it while she was in Omae.

The elder man did not seem to notice the ring, but he was not looking at her hands. His primary focus was the list that he was going over. Every moment or so, he would grab an item or two and set them on the counter. After a while, he finally began to add up the price on a separate piece of parchment. "I wonder," he said while he worked through the equation, "What would you need such odd ingredients for?"

"I am not sure," she admitted and then slipped into the lie, "My mother asked me to pick them up."

"Ahh..." He trailed off and fixed her with a skeptical look that told her he wasn't buying it. He turned the parchment with the equation her way.

Rose nodded and pulled out a couple coins for each item listed, she barely had enough without selling the jewelery. That would be her next stop. The ingredients that were laid out on the counter were bundled into a burlap bag the elder man offered when he realized she did not have one. After that, she moved outside the apothecary and headed for the second stop she had to make while still in Omae.

Having extracted herself from George's company, she purchased two dresses before making her way back to the cottage where Quendeu was. Rose was having a serious debate with herself over whether to meet up with George or not. She didn't plan on informing the exotic woman of the matter unless she chose to do so because she had a feeling that it would be strongly disapproved of. Still... if Quendeu did disapprove then she probably shouldn't even think about seeing him.

The sun was setting when she finally neared the cottage and it made her surroundings all that much harder to see. Her eyes just did not want to adjust accordingly with the forest.

Seeing as how she wasn't sure whether to enter the marked woman's home or knock, she engaged in the latter action. Her knuckles rapped against the wood until the door was open. The items were given to Quendeu along with what coin was left over.

"There's some stew on the stove," the woman told her.

With that said, Rose grabbed a bowl and spoon before making her way to the stove which was some cemented blocks stacked on top of one another with a slab of metal over the top of the fire with a kettle on top of it. The ladle in the pot was used to pour the mixture into her bowl and she seated herself at a table in the room. Other than the table and the stove, there was nothing else in that room.

Shortly after she had finished eating, she heard a rap on the door.

"Go into the bedroom with Rajan," Quendeu demanded of her.

Rose obediently entered the bedroom without question and seated herself on the edge of one of two beds while she waited for the woman to enter or call her out. She couldn't make out anything being said, just a man and woman's voice. The woman she knew, but the other one couldn't even be deciphered through the walls.

The journey to Mokau's Eye was a long one. It took nearly three weeks to reach it on foot. At least it felt like that long to Rose. There was no way of marking the days that had passed and she couldn't be too sure. It very well could have been a shorter period of time or even a longer one for all she knew. The main goal was to gain distance through walking no matter how sore her legs were or how blistered her feet. She was able to stop and rest while Quendeu went out to prepare whatever was to be eaten while she kept a watchful eye on Rajan. The marked woman insisted that he not be let out of sight. He tried to get away a few times because he was completely full of energy or so it seemed.

Rose would be trying not to drift off and the next thing she knew, he would be bounding across the field at full speed. It was rare that she was able to catch him, but he always came when Quendeu called for him. Most of the time when they stopped for food, he would prefer to poke at her. Rajan was even more to try and pester her after she had dozed off. She could not count the number of times where the goblin had stuck a wet finger in her ear or up her nose. Still sometimes, she would wake to find him licking her chin and up the side of her face. The creature was a fowl one.

?Why does he treat me so?? She asked Quendeu one day after describing how she had awoken to find the goblin sticking a finger up both nostrils, an index and middle in either spot and stretching out the cartilage by wiggling them back and forth in the small holes. Her eyes hadn't opened yet and she moved her jaw to tell him to stop whatever nonsense he was up to. Before she was able to so much as get a sound out, the other hand was moving inside the crevices of her mouth and pulling her jaw down to the point that it wouldn't go any further without his using the strength required to break the connecting bones. She had bit him and he had left her alone after that, but Rose was doubtful he would stop whatever it was he had been doing.

?He likes you,? the marked woman insisted.

?It's bothersome and it sure doesn't seem like it,? she argued back.

?He'll grow on you if he hasn't yet.?

Rose left it at that. Quendeu seemed to know what she was talking to. It didn't take much for her to figure out that the marked woman tended to be right about most things and was rarely ever wrong if at all.

Eventually, the threesome made it to the edge of Mokau's Eye. Quendeu had told Rose and Rajan to stay put and they remained where they were for a good while. She had a tendency to listen to the other woman when orders were issued. She had kept her from Brom for a good while at that point so she found herself able to trust her. Sure enough, Quendeu came through on her end. A canoe paddled up to the shore with the marked woman already in it.

?Get in,? she had beckoned.

Rose and Rajan both climbed in eagerly and then they started their way for the isle.

The island was covered in forests. The nonsense that served as a shore stretched about ten feet before forming nothing except for clustered trees. It didn't take long in pursuing her female companion for Rose to realize that they were moving along a dirt path. The area was probably traversed often.

After a while, the reached a clearing. No one was in sight, but there was a large tree ahead with a door built into the trunk. Rose could only assume that the inside was hollowed out. She knew even before Quendeu continued thitherward that the tree was probably where they were headed. There were a couple paths leading off the clearing, but none of them near the tree in question.

The marked woman opened the door without question to a set of stairs that lead down. This was certainly different. It looked dark, but she and Rajan followed in silence. As much trouble as he was, he was surprisingly obedient upon reaching Mokau's Eye. He was always quiet for the most part. He made some random sounds, but that was the extent of his vocalization. Quendeu had said he could talk, but that he didn't like to for some reason regarding his past and that he rarely ever said a word to anyone other than herself. Rose had understood and left it at that. She spoke to him and he responded in grunts, but she never pressured him to speak. She guessed it would make him clam up more and Quendeu commended her for it.

Her mind wavered back to more immediate concerns. The door of the tree was shut behind them and everything was suddenly too dark for her to make out everything. Quendeu helped to ease her down the stairs. Rajaan didn't need such assistance. His eyes glowed brightly. In fact, the servant's bright yellow orbs were all she could see in the dark and reminded her two big lanterns.

The path down the stairs was a long one, but eventually there was a light below. Rose didn't look down so she didn't realize how far or close they truly were, but she had that thing about heights. If she looked down then she would probably freeze up where she stood and be rendered immobile. Her feet met solid ground and there was nowhere else to go so she allowed her eyes to adjust to the big room. They were underground. That much was obvious. If not for their walk down the stairs then for the walls that looked like dirt packed together. The area around her looked like it had taken a great deal of time to dig out. The room was massive in size. Cots were set up throughout the area with a large fire going in the middle and the smell of fresh game roasting over it. Was this where they would be staying during her training?

Quendeu answered her before she could whisper her query. "We will be staying at my cottage. The ones who stay here are those who never leave the island. You are welcome to come back and forth as you please, but you are not permitted to sleep here if you intend to ever leave Mokau's Eye."

The priestess didn't look anything close to a priestess that Rose had ever seen in her life. The woman's clothing was scarce to none, but slightly decent. Green armor covered the woman's feminine parts and trinkets adorned her entire body wherever it was possible to place one. The trinkets were of a more tribal nature, but were still there... and her body bore marks all over the flesh.

Rose really needed to ask Quendeu what the point of the mark was.

The encounter with the priestess wasn't anything more than an introduction and an announcement from Quendeu that she would be teaching Rose about Mokau.

After meeting with the priestess, she and her travel companion went up the steps that they had come down into the tree with and made there way outside. What a nice breath of fresh air it was and real sunlight too. It was nostalgic down in that tree and the only light had come from that large fire in the middle of it all. There were three paths, Rose realized. The one that they had come up on was straight ahead of the tree. There was also one to the left and one to the right. Upon exiting the tree, Quendeu took the left fork. The path was a long one and diverged into other paths as well. It was about an hour of trekking before they reached the cottage.

A river ran in front of the cottage with a washing mechanism located next to it. A wooden bridge was constructed to get to the cottage. The building in question was constructed of some kind of clay material by the looks of it with a balcony fashioned off to the right and a canoe set up close by.

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"We sleep for now," the marked woman told her. "Your lessons begin when we wake so take advantage of that sleep."

An obedient nod served as a response and the words heeded upon entrance of the cottage.

Rosemarie would have lost what body weight she had upon coming to the island, regardless of whether or not she was taking lessons from the marked woman on the hunt. She had already become more thin during the month or so it took to even reach the island. The first week spent on Mokau's Eye, Rose didn't even attempt to hunt. Instead, Quendeu helped her familiarize herself with a bow which was almost a moot point because she had such poor aim and was nigh impossible to teach.

The killing of small game was a start to the hunt. It was not the taking lives that ruined her appetite for her though. Along with learning how to hunt, she was taught how to skin the animals and gut them as well. Rose had worked at a bakery back in Lagoir, but never had she even handled meat. Were she to work with meat for whatever reason such as preparing dinner in her own home, the meat had already been skinned and cleaned.

It was hard to avoid her stomach clenching with the smell of the dead animals that she had managed to kill or that Quendeu had brought her to clean because she was so poor with a bow. The sight mixed with the scent was so putrid that she was not able to skin an animal without emptying her stomach half the time. Sometimes, her body seemed to want her to puke when she wasn't occupied with preparing the game for a meal and her thoughts were nowhere near it. She assumed her body was just getting used to it and that it would pass with time.

The first two months on Mokau's Eye were spent learning the most strenuous of the labor involved for a life on her own aside from cleaning meat. One could only spend so much time a day doing such a task.

The first major thing that Rose was taught was how to build a cottage which was not an easy task because it took just about every hour of every day during that first two minutes to finish. Once it was complete, Quendeu's teachings veered towards making a canoe. A tree that had fallen during a storm a few weeks past had been picked for the work. She and the marked woman hauled the thing all the way to the cottage from what felt like was the other side of the island. The pair hollowed out the canoe over the course of yet another two months. The cold of the fall did not hinder the marked woman from putting her to work. Winter was coming.

When Rose awoke, she was lying on her bed in Quendeu's cottage. Her eyes took some time to open with the light flooding in from the window. The lids opened slowly and she moved to sit up.

"Nairie?"

"Hmmm?" She murmured and rubbed her finger against her temple to massage it. Her head didn't really ache, but she felt light headed.

"You don't have much weight on you, darling..." Quendeu said and trailed off and her hand went to Rose's stomach.

What was this? Was the marked woman hitting on her? Was it her plan all along to bring her to the island and convert her to their religion and then try and make her a lesbian? Such was not happening. She would have nothing of it.

"Our priestess reads the stars of the followers when they receive the mark, Nairie... You should eat more and not do so much work." As though she hadn't been the one ordering her about.

"You confuse me," Rose groaned and leaned forward to place her head in her palms. One hand had moved to grab Quendeu's wrist and pry it away to push it off her completely. "Why do you always have to speak in such an odd manner, Quendeu. I can never tell what you are trying to say. Just be straight with me."

"Nairie," the woman whispered softly.

She kept saying the name a lot. If she didn't finish her thought soon then Rosemarie would be convinced that the woman was trying to profess some undying love for her. Blunt and straight to the point. "Are you attracted to me? Do you care for me?"

"It's not like that," the woman replied promptly. "I was just wondering why you didn't tell us you were pregnant. The priestess saw it when she read the stars for you."

"That's impossible," Rose scoffed.

"Surely you recognized the symptoms?"

"I don't know the first thing about birthing a baby," she countered easily. "I wouldn't have thought anything of any changes. My mother never had another child after me and I was never around anyone younger than I. My mother didn't exactly discuss those details with me either and I didn't think I could even carry child." Being with child certainly seemed strange when she had been with Brom for so long and never showed any signs.