Step after weary step, the posh woman from hundreds of years ago and thousands of miles away plodded on.  Whenever dust-encrusted eyes looked up, she could see the rocky sandy ground that spread itself everywhere across the landscape ahead of her. Doggedly, her body walked on.

She could feel the smooth fur of the big happy dog strolling peacefully by her side. She was still amazed the animal was following her so intimately. Perhaps he was just waiting for her to die. But that didn't make sense. She had named him 'Waggi' in the end. She had a tendency of requiring a name to those within her vicinity, and Waggi seemed appropriate for his ferociously quick tail that seemed to swish like a super motor back and forth, back and forth; especially when the peculiar pair were striding on, and on. 

She could hear the rapidly repetitive rasps of Waggi's breathing. It was so much quicker than hers. That big body must require a lot of oxygen to stay afloat, she thought rather uselessly. 

It was the heat, however, that dominated. One beating furnace from the absurdly bright sun. Maybe she was growing accustomed to the climate, but still felt a victim; affected by its rays that not only burned away her pale skin, but also sizzled away almost all the moisture inside of her. 

Luckily though, she possessed  some semi-faring armour to defend herself. Passing plenty of clay rocks, and what looked like a small tributary stream, she had attempted(and consequently succeeded!) to make some minute bowls to store the water she so dearly needed. It was quite shocking how much she remembered from the more innocent moments of her childhood years, being taught the method of making bowls for storage, but just for fun. Of course the lords, the ladies and the knights all had superior storage methods. 

All that was required was to first crush the dried clay. She found a rock and had started banging away at the soft mud until nothing was left but crisp light grey powder. She then added water, and moulded the bowl into shape. She liked the dull smell of the substance too; it whisked her away to memories of colder times, away from the rudely hot burning oven. There was no need for decoration, water will do! She had no problems building a fire to heat up the bowl for it to harden. She was lucky she had been brought up by so many survival-friendly males. She could basically be Robin Hood and live in those thick brown woods of his with all the Wilderness Survival Knowledge she had secretly amassed. But still, some parts of the world remained that forced her to feel like a perfectly lost baby.

Alas, despite afterwards feeling like the clay bowls may shatter if dropped from a high height, she dangled her precious sources for life upon her walking stick. She experienced one warm whoosh of satisfaction. She was a survivor. There was no doubt about that.  Although the air may burn her face, the spiky winds may make a rag doll of her, and the menacingly endless road ahead may knock her tired body to the ground, she would find Salvo again. She would even crawl if that was necessary.

But fortune had not tossed her aside just yet.  She felt the soft plushness of grass beneath her feet as she re-emerged from one staggering revelry. Such a pleasant pain from piercing rocks, but... where were the footsteps? She collapsed to the ground, scrabbling and painfully searching to see some kind of outline, some kind of mark or piece of trampling that could present to her that she was still on the right path. 

But there was nothing. Nothing but wild grass staring back at her, stretching over the visible ground like cackling tendrils from some mocking beast. 

"AAHhh!" She whimpered, her stronghold breaking as the sobs she had suppressed came rushing forth like a dam smashed to destruction. On her knees, she just sat there, shaking, shivering away. The pain was  gone, it was just shaky tears; and the burning knowledge that Salvo was further away, always further away. The longer he was gone, the less real he became. Perhaps he truly was just a dream, a way of making sense of this nightmare. Waggi bent in closer, concerned. His nuzzling head couldn't even pull together a single minute drop of her attention. Perhaps the hound was a dream as well. Granted, her water didn't spill. She had been too careful back in more deliciously hopeful moments. 

It was a cooler breeze that stirred her. It seemed to whisper 'thou shalt not give up', 'thou shalt not give up' into her brain, and her eyes opened again. She saw trees, more grass, more rocks, and less sands, but at least there was more life ahead of her than before. At least she had crossed the mini wasteland. 

Waggi was standing ahead of her, head turned around and crooked to one side, inviting her to stand up. To rise again as a female knight of sorts. Despite all this hardship, the worry, the pain, the fatigue, she accepted the strong hound's inspiration, and stood again, swaying in sturdy rhythm. She couldn't even remember the taste of the last thing she ate. Some kind of bird... but her stomach was firm and resilient against the earlier pangs. All she was sensitive to was Salvo, and his life. She indeed was the daintiest and the sturdiest of all ladies.

Waggi was moving ahead now, sniffing the ground, his nose making a scuffling sucking sound as if talking to the earth with his nose. 

"My my, you do have some good scents" she imagined Waggi telling the ground as he padded away from her. 

"Thank you. Ma' new jacket of the rain arrived the other day, so feeling good to grow, y'know?" she saw the grass reply. It made her laugh, such a silly voice. 

"Oooh, is that lavender?" 

"Yep, a flower dropped by the other day with it. She was nice, but weren't interested in a little blade like me" the grass said sadly, its green tip drooping a little. 

"Anything else you've seen cross this direction?" she saw the dog asking the blade, like a Baron interrogating his knights. 

"Nah sorry... oh! But wait wait wait. I did actually. I saw this giant human carrying a large man on its back. Crazy man, so big". 

"Ooohh" Waggi replied, and Maria followed the dog as he went further on, asking the ground for more advice and information about the giant and the large man. 

"Yeah man, anyways catch ya laters dowwg" the grass said, tipping its tip toward Waggi as it marched on, similar to all the blades of grass. Maria had no idea how grass could actually talk, but at least Salvo was the grand focus of the repertoire. 

"Gracious thanks to you". Despite looking more bedraggled than the underside of a horse's hoof, she smiled warmly at the grass.  But it ignored her completely. 

So now she was trailing her footsteps along with the dog, as it sniffed, and sniffed a lot more. 

"My unending gratitude..." she felt her lips sigh into the wind. They were back on track. 

The ground began to slope upward again, as she realized she had crossed a large sandy belly of a valley before finally touching the dare-said greener shoulders on the other side. 

She had trodded wearily for a long time since that shifty start at the side of the lagoon. The parts of Maria that still bore consciousness was very aware that fresh struggles were still hanging, like dangling forebodings, in the horizon of her mind. But as her shakily exhausted legs hauled themselves over yet another rock, she knew that she was strong. She had got this far. She had both Waggi and her hydrated, and ready for any battle ahead. She was resourceful, she knew that. Indeed, she certainly had faced more intimidating opponents in Castle Chambers with many high-born officials. Absolutely and utterly. 

She would have to commence with dabbling in her thin arms soon, if the slope continued to grow all the steeper. Never did she feel scared however. She had learned long ago that fear was just an item that could be stored away, and she had locked any flapping fears that lingers in the air like one of Waggi's foul farts. She was focused, taking one step after another, and only focusing upon the next step. If she did anything else, she would be lost to overwhelming exhaustion, and maybe even worse.

Her pale hand grabbed the rock above her, hauling her up with a strength she hadn't realized she still possessed. Her body slithered up, lean and hungry with Waggi leaping up the slope in front of her. She wanted to maintain the pace with the dog who was now having pleasant conversations with all rocks scattered across the sharp ground. They were complaining about their neighbours, and also about how rudely this humongous giant had kicked them out of their comfortable resting place, which they had nestled into for practically hundreds of years. It was outrageous to them! 

But they revealed a lot of interesting facts that Maria sucked up more quickly than she would to  a bowl of potato soup. The loyal companion and her reached the top of the slope, her neck craning around in many directions trying to ascertain the next step, since Waggi was not moving. He was just standing there, patiently panting with the traditional gusto, not even speaking to the ground anymore.

It couldn't be helped but to admire the wonderful views from such a point in the sky. Sweeping valleys and hills that stretched out to a glistening sparkling ocean beyond, telling her of the gap she had crossed in the past few days, probably further than she had ever voyaged by foot. This was quite the pilgrimage. 

She turned to look the other way when she noticed something, a gap in the rocks to her right. The right rocks? Gazing around suspiciously, she looked at the hound beneath her, who was looking at her and almost smiling, tongue lolling open. She fed the dog some water; he might require his strength too. She then began staggering towards the gap, like a person on the brink of death, with concentration fixed and rooted into her expression. She paused, a few metres away, unsure. If this was the ultimate destination of Salvo's kidnapping, there would  be a giant inside, waiting. She knew that. 

Where was the key to saving him? Did she have to have a weapon? She wondered these questions to herself. Her mind was a weapon no doubt. She had employed its skills many a time in Ludlow, but what about here thousands of miles away on a random hilltop in an alien world? All the weapons she could see were round and heavy. She thought about it some more. She could possibly...

But in that second, Waggi erupted into barks, shouting down the tunnel, and all action descended into the hyper tales and fantasies she had always read about but had never quite, until now, experienced.