We didn't talk in the approaching hours.

    Nor during the night that followed.

    Taurus seemed spooked and Aldyth was distant.

    I, myself couldn't get the screaming out of my head. The music returned to my ears shortly after the battle -- and I would have been glad to have it if the memories disappeared with their stead.

   For the longest time after the battle, I couldn't speak, just push Bethor forward in such a way that could have broken us both. Faster. Harder, in an attempt to outrun the carnage behind me.

    All I could see was faces. Faces crying. Faces bleeding. Faces learning to regret. And when I closed my eyes, I found myself right back on the battlefield, unable to stop.

    It wasn't until the next morning, that I noticed that Taurus had grabbed our bags for us, and had been carrying them all through the night. Suddenly he was carrying everything, and a tange of regret twitched in my chest. I took back my pack without a word.

    The morning felt crisper without the sun -- the frigid air bit at my skin despite the upturned hood. Moisture gathered in a cloud in front of my lips as I stared into the fire with my knees to my chest. For the first time we had left, the sky was blue and peaceful. But no birds sang, or rodents moved; the forest was motionless. Winter was here.

    Taurus sat across from me with a stretch of dark fabric laid across his lap. He had a sewing needle held carefully between his lips as he tugged at some sort of flaw that I couldn't see. Finally after the longest time, I looked up. "Where's Aldyth?"

    The elf dropped the needle at the sound of my voice. A look like relief flashed across his face before answering. "She went to go water the horses, try and find them something to eat."

    I nodded slowly. That made sense.

Taurus picked the needle up off the dirt and wiped it on his slacks. "Are you alright, Elias?"

I sighed and contemplated how to answer. A dozen different replies whipped through my mind, but finally I just with the shortest and easiest. "No."

    He looked tense as he looked back down to his needlework. His lips sucked inward slowly and his brow crunched a little, not a lot, just enough to notice. The thread flew dangerously around his hands, the movement almost blurring as each stitch set itself down into the fabric. His ears would twitch at the slightest noise, and there would be times that he'd pause and look around. Waiting. Watching. Guarding, like there was still danger to be met. And every now and then, when he thought I wasn't looking, he'd turn to me -- as if expecting words, or violence, or both.

    But I didn't say anything.

    I didn't move.

    I just sat and watched with my legs in my chest, afraid to close my eyes, or even to blink, because I knew the moment I did, all would sink to red, just the flute trills, the screaming, and the lost lives I'd never unsee.

    "Was this your first battle?" Taurus asked after what felt like an hour of silence.

    I started at the sound of his voice  before nodding and uncurling my legs.

    "Does it get any easier?" I asked quietly.

    "What?"

    "The faces," I whispered. The wind carried my voice. "The screaming."

    The needle fell from his fingers and bounced off into the underbrush. The elf stared in its general direction for a long while before answering. "No."

    He pushed his hand through the foliage and cursed loudly.

    "What's wrong?"

    "I hate sewing in the forest," he replied instead. "You lose more needles than a mercenary hunting shadows."

    "Why would a mercenary need needles?"

    "I meant the needles are like the mercenary's arrows and..." He sighed. "Never mind it. I'm too tired to be clever."

    Instead he held the large length of fabric up for me to see. Upon closer instection, I saw that the silk was composed of three different pieces, each stitched together to make one flag. It was unusual, made of a light fabric that would be sold cheaply at this time of year. A deep line of dark blue halved the triangular silk, making me think of lakes in the summer time -- or  night skies that didn't have atrixes flying in them.

    Despite all this, I still raised an eyebrow. "Didn't you say there was supposed to be four colors on it?"

    The elf squinted his eyes at me in annoyance. "Well since your girlfriend stole us horses --"

    "They were basically her horses anyway." I made a half attempt at rolling my eyes. "And you say girl friend like it means something. She's a girl and she's my friend."

He rolled his eyes. "Elf slang, translated into your language. Girlfriend...or boyfriend...A term used toward the person you are courting, but aren't engaged to be married with -- yet."

    "We're not courting," I glared at him pointedly.

    He scoffed. "Humans are constantly in denial about things. War. Love. I envy you sometimes."

    I continued to glare at him from under my lashes.

    "What I'm saying, is that we won't have much more than a day before we reach the North's southern border. We don't have the time to stay here and craft the entire flag. If I remember correctly, this is the flag of the North Cardinal. This alone will have to be good enough to get us through."

"If, you remember correctly," I growled in soft exclamation. All jabbings aside, I didn't miss the fact that he slipped that crucial bit of information in at a place in a place where I was bound to be distracted. "If? What do you mean, if?"

    Taurus paused for a moment, as if unsure what information was safe to tell me. "I haven't seen the flag of the north Cardinal in many, many, long years...and when I did, it was under...extreme...circumstances -- hardly what you would call sight seeing. My recollection may be a little... flawed."

"Flawed?" I repeated.

    He nodded slowly, his eyes growing so wide that they almost seemed to pulsate inside his skull.

"And what happens if your recollection did happen to be flawed and we raised the wrong flag to the border guards?"

    He turned toward the ground and started searching for the needle again.

     "Taurus!"

    "Look," he snapped. "This may be the only chance we'll get. The next leg of our journey will be the most difficult and we can't stop to ensure every detail of a flag that will work perfectly fine without."

    "But you said -- "

    "I know what I said! But the air is getting thinner, our bones are getting colder, and atrixes dwell in these parts! The wild ones. Even Easterners wouldn't be able to hold them back," he yelled loudly.

   "And what if they don't take it!" I yelled back in an equally loud voice. "What if you got something wrong? They'll kill us all. And then what? What was all this for, if we just end up dead?"

"They won't." Taurus sat straight and glared at me with his glowing elf eyes. His lips parted slightly, revealing a menacing flash of sharp ivory. "They'll let us in, but you need to trust me!"

    "And why should I?"

    "I led you this far, didn't I?"

    "Straight through a village that got attacked by Easterners the morning after we arrived," I bit. "We give you our alliance, and you disappear for a whole day with no word or wind of where you've been. Then you send us out and the next thing I know, red is spraying in the air like dragon blood raining down from the sky."

    "My business is my own," his face grew dark. "You have no right to it, but realize, no matter what you think now, that you are startled, and you are scared. I understand that, but, I have never steered you wrong."

I angrily rose to my feet and wrapped my scarf tightly around my neck. Taurus remained where he was as I hauled up my quiver with my bow and seven arrows. "There's no way to know," I sighed and strode away toward the woods. As I walked, my leg struck the side of his bag, sending the contents spilling out onto the ground. A small rectangular wooden case fell out by my foot, but I didn't stop to see what it was.

    "For all I know, you could be one of them. An Easterner. A savage. Maybe even an atrix. Magic can do anything."

    I caught one last glimpse on his face as I walked off into the woods. It read shock? Maybe hurt...or anger? But it didn't really matter, not in the long run. He was just an elf. And elves could never be trusted.

    Fire burned in my chest and I didn't know where I was going, just that I needed to run, to get away from the screaming in my head. The cold swept into me as soon as I stepped away from the fire. It was as if the world was battling against me in the littlest ways. The sharp wind in my face, the layer of sleet on my cloak, the way my back ached from too many hours of riding.

    Alone they would have been nothing, but together, it felt like me against the world.

    I pulled the padded leather gloves as far as I could up my hand, but couldn't help but think of where I got them from. There was no way to know if Hyde was even alive, or if Cwen had any family left. It wasn't fair.

    I followed the faint sound of water for a time, lost within my own head, and almost ran smack into Aldyth, who was leading the horses back from the stream. She wore her scarf wrapped around her head and her cheeks were kissed pink with frostbite.

    "Eli," she said as I hurried to her side.

    My heart hammered in my chest as I stepped up to her and pressed my lips against her cheek. I was cold but she was colder.

    Aldyth froze.

    "Do you still have that dagger I gave you?" I asked.

    She nodded with wide eyes.

    "Good," then I turned away to run, for nothing was certain. Not the past or present or future.

A/N
Oooooo I didn't plan that...I think they're all going insane now. Don't you? XD #CrazyEli or #PyschoAldyth?

So, is Eli justified or is he just on his man period?

*jumps arouond excitedly* WHOOOO!!! TWO MORE CHAPTERS AND WE'LL BE AT THE NORTHERN BORDER!

That flag up top is square, picture a triangular one with less color variation.