I darted off the road to pick a flower and bring it back for Diane's inspection. It was an early spring flower. Diane smiled as her bright blue eyes flashed a bit in happiness, "That is a pretty flower. What are you going to do with it?"

With a grin, I ran to a large rock on the edge of the road and put the flower on it. I placed a smaller stone on the stem so it couldn't blow away. I jogged back to Diane's side as she jogged along at a slow pace for me.

I smiled at her cheerfully, "I left it on the rock to dry so that any who travel this way can see it."

She grinned at me and nodded. Her eyes went back to the map in her hands. Dave had originally helped her make that map, and Taver had added his knowledge to it. Each settlement seemed to be perfectly marked onto the piece of paper.

It had been several weeks since we left Toga Place, and we had stopped at several places already. None of them had our letter yet. We had encountered another difficulty though, my eyes were getting brighter at night and, for some reason, I couldn't dim my eyes like Diane could.

I had spent almost every night staring into a hand mirror trying to dim my eyes. Diane tried to coax me through it, but I couldn't quite sense the heat in my blood well enough to control it yet. A couple of times I had been reduced to tears of frustration and grief as Diane comforted me. She helped me sneak around at night so no one could see my shimmering eyes.

They weren't quite truly glowing yet, but it wasn't far off at this point. If I hadn't been trying to hide it for Diane's and my sake, I would have been delighted. I could see much better at night now, although from what Diane said, it was going to get clearer yet.

My stamina, speed and strength had also improved. The progress wasn't slowing down yet either. I could jog most of the day and not be exhausted. Tired, but not exhausted. I snuck a sideways glance at Diane, but she was looking in the other direction.

I took off full tilt towards the nearby trees, "Catch me if you can!"

A faint chuckle close behind me told me that Diane had been onto my ploy even before I had said anything. I couldn't even hear her footsteps even though I knew she was behind me, I really had to tie bells to her backpack or something. A glance back showed that she was right on my heels.

I squeaked and put on another burst of speed. A heat rose up in my blood, it wasn't the heat that came with the pain of inactivity, but a different type of heat. My speed went up a few notches and my sight became clearer as more details became readily obvious.

Diane scooped me up in her arms, "You have to be faster than that!"

She grinned down at me and I grinned back, "I felt the heat again!"

She blinked in surprise and smiled as she put me back on my feet, "That is good. I hope the afterburn doesn't hurt too badly."

I stretched my arms and legs before shaking my head, "Nope, a bit of a tiny ache, but it won't slow me down."

This wasn't my first encounter with the heat. I had pushed myself in our impromptu races a few times and felt it. Due to Diane's stories, I knew what it was and immediately slowed down to avoid that so-called 'afterburn'. The few brushes I had with it had been bad enough. The first time I hadn't quite realized what was going on and Diane had to carry me for a few hours. I was wiser after that.

The fact that the heat was appearing more and more often meant that the Heartfire virus was getting more established. The more I could push myself like this, with small brushes against my limits, the easier it would be in the future as my body learnt to handle the afterburn from the virus.

How Diane figured all of this out, and managed to get through it when she had no clue what was going on, was beyond my comprehension. She was the best support I could have ever hoped for. She had personally gone through all of this already. Now I just needed to catch up.

Diane unfolded her map again. I went back into the grassy ditch to see what I else I could find. Sometimes I could spook a rabbit or partridge, although we didn't really need the meat today. The grass was starting to grow and more plants were coming up. I recognized some edible ones.

I gently kicked a badly rusted piece of metal. It used to be a road sign, although someone had cut them all down. They had really rusted in the damp grass over the last two years. Most settlements were built away from the known towns since those places attracted zombies, but that meant that there really wasn't any good landmarks to find the scattered, and sometimes hidden, settlements. All I knew was that we were currently between Edmonton and Red Deer somewhere.

We were close to our next stop, a fairly large place called Fort Hope, it was home to about 200 people. Diane looked ahead as she slowed from a jog to a walk, "Fort Hope should be right around that bend and down the road a bit."

I grinned silently and skipped along beside her. As a kid, I was expected to have energy to burn. A kid skipping around would gain a lot less attention than an adult jogging or moving at a fast pace. Sometimes I thought that it was only because of my presence that some of these places even let Diane in. Her weapons tended to scare the smaller settlements quite a bit. The fact that we showed up on foot didn't help any.

We rounded the bend and Diane was proven to be correct. Tall wooden walls a few kilometers away marked a settlement. I could also see a dozen zombies scattered here and there, but that wasn't exactly anything new. We had been dodging zombies left, right, and center all week as we got closer to more towns. We continued walking closer.

I squinted and could just make out little blurs that were likely sentries on the distant wall. We had crossed about quarter of the distance before three riders on horses came out of the gate and headed in our direction. They led a fourth horse with an empty saddle. That was a gesture of welcome that I hadn't seen yet, although we were probably the first to arrive on foot.

Diane chuckled quietly, "That is quite a thoughtful gesture, although I somehow suspect that you could jog longer than that horse could keep up."

I grinned up at her before turning back to watch the approaching group. My shyness was returning with the approaching strangers. It hadn't been quite as severe lately as it used to be and I wondered if the Heartfire virus was to blame.

That didn't stop me from halfway hiding behind Diane as the riders approached. It was a well-proven tactic to get them to slow down. I did feel kind of guilty for making them feel bad, but it made the strangers easier to deal with once they realized how shy I was.

The group predictably slowed down. Two of them stopped while an older lady led the spare horse forward, "Hello, I am Beth."

"Hello, I am Diane and this is Laura. I believe this is Fort Hope?"

The lady smiled and nodded, "Yes, this is Fort Hope. Can we offer you a room for the night?"

Diane returned the warm smile, "Thank you for your offer, we would love to accept it. Do you happen to know if Tom is around by chance?"

She tilted her head, "We have four Toms here, do you know the last name?"

Diane shook her head, "I know he usually handles letters that I send. I am hoping that he has one that we are looking for."

She grinned, "Ah, yes. I know which one you are referring to now. He is in. We brought a spare horse if you would like to ride back with us."

"Thank you."

Diane walked forward, and the lady passed her the horse's reins. Diane passed her glaive to me, and I held it carefully. She had never let anyone else hold it, and for her to casually pass me the deadly weapon, made me proud that she trusted me so much. Perhaps she just trusted that I wouldn't spin it upside down and stab my own foot with it.

Diane swung up into the saddle gracefully. I passed her the glaive and my backpack. She shifted the glaive to her other hand and reached her hand down. I grabbed her hand and jumped as she easily pulled me up into the saddle in front of her before any of the people could dismount to help me up. The stirrups were far too high for me to reach, but this method worked.

The horse merely snorted, but didn't move. It only took me a few seconds to get comfortable. Diane flicked the reins lightly and the horse ambled forward towards the group. Our horse walked beside the old lady's while the other walked on the other side of her.

"Where are you from? We were quite surprised to see someone on foot. Haven't seen that since the collapse."

"We came up from Toga Place. We originally had a bicycle with a trailer, but a couple of teens borrowed it without asking and let's say it wasn't going to be going anywhere after that. We don't have enough to trade for a horse, but we do well enough on foot. We can keep ahead of the zombies at any rate."

The guy looked surprised, "Those parents or guardians of those kids should have righted the damage they did. They shouldn't have left you without transportation. If a Swift were to come along..."

Beth interrupted, "So where are you headed in the end?"

Diane shrugged, "Probably back to Wainwright Fort. I am hoping to find that letter on the way."

Considering we had already discussed this, that was likely not the plan unless those letters held some great news. She nodded, "We will track down Tom as soon as we get in. Michael can unsaddle our horses since I saddled them all for him."

Michael huffed in response to her teasing tone.

I gazed at the walls as we entered the palisade. It was going to be tough to sneak out of this place tonight for our run. Hopefully some of these sentries went to bed during the night shift, otherwise I didn't see any way to manage, not with how my eyes sort of glowed at night.

We dismounted and I focused back on the building we were walking towards. I stuck close to Diane's side as I noticed a lot of people looking at us. Those motherly women were staring at me and whispering a lot more than I liked, in fact, it made the hair on my neck stand on end. It was that type that often tried to get me to stay.

The smell of soup, bread, and cooked meat made me peek around Diane as we entered a large building. It was a mess hall, or whatever they called it in this place. Diane was following Beth towards the far side of the room.

The four guys at the table looked up as the three of us approached. Beth nodded to them, "Hey Tom, this is Diane and Laura. They are hoping that you have a letter that is heading to her."

One guy sat up and regarded Diane, "I have several letters going to various places. Do you have anything to prove that it is supposed to be going to you?" This had to be Tom then. He was looking for proof.

"You have ferried several similar letters since autumn, so it is likely in the same type of envelope. It would be addressed to Paul just down the road. It will have several smaller letters inside and I can even tell you the names if you wanted to open and check. I believe I sent you some cold pills in the fall as payment for several letters."

Tom started chuckling, "Aye. Yes, it must be yours."

Diane perked up, "You have it then? We have checked every point between Toga Place and here just in case."

Tom nodded, "Yes, it is in my room. Why don't you grab a plate and eat and I will bring it right over?"

Diane nodded happily, "Thank you very much."

Beth gestured to the where the food sat on buffet tables, "Come on, I can keep you company until he returns."

My eyes gazed over the food as I grabbed a plate and followed Diane. Mmmm.... Soup, bread, greens, and what looked like venison in some sort of sauce. I took a big fluffy bun, Diane was excellent at making flatbread, but rarely attempted to bake things that needed time to rise.

The salad was rather plain. This place must not know of many wild edibles, although it was spring time and most hadn't sprouted yet. We were halfway through our meal when Tom came back. He handed the envelope to Diane. She thanked him and put it in her backpack. That was disappointing, I kind of wanted to know what it said, but I knew it would be rude to read it and ignore our company.