'So, where do you plan to go from here on?' Kran asked. He was sitting on the ground, leaning against a tree. Nume was still holding the rope in her hand and the gseirut was grazing next to her.

'I don't know.' Nume admitted.

'That's great.' Kran said.

'What about you? After all, I'm not the only one to have spontaneously run away...'

'Well, I thought I'd follow you. You're usually the one of us who comes up with all the insane stuff.' he explained. Nume rolled her eyes and sighed. 'We could still go back, you know...' he added. Nume looked into his eyes.

'Would you want that? I mean, even if they did forgive us for our, well... behaviour, they'd still want us to get married...'

'I never said I wanted that.' he pointed out.

'But you mentioned it.'

'I did.'

'Why?'

'In case you wanted to.'

'I don't.' Nume assured him.

'Good.'

'Good.'

They looked at each other in silence for a while.

'I could never marry you.' Nume finally said.

'Never?'

'Never.'

'Good...' he said. 'I mean, I couldn't marry you either.'

'I know.'

'Do you?'

'Of course. I would never allow it.' she smiled provocatively.

'Well, I guess you've proven that...' he replied. 'But you did run away with me though.'

'No, I didn't.'

'Yes, you did.'

'No, I didn't. You ran away with me.' she insisted. Now he rolled his eyes.

'So,' he started after a while. 'Are we ever going to see another phraio? Or is it just you and me for the rest of our days?'

'Well, if we find any... I mean, there are other tribes so we should be able to find one of them.' Nume suggested.

'We can't do that!' Kran shouted.

'Why not?'

'Don't be stupid. I'm the grandson of our Great Leader, if I joined another tribe that would be worse than treason! All tribes would get to know somehow and the shame for our families would be unbearable...'

'Well, they have to tell the other tribes where you've gone to if they want to trade with them.' Nume said.

'They certainly won't tell them the truth.'

Nume laughed.

'What?' he asked. She couldn't stop laughing. 'What is it?'

'Imagine it... I mean...' she said once she'd gained control over herself again. 'Just imagine your grandfather saying: 'Oh, you know, my grandson abandoned his whole tribe to run away with the woman he was too scared to marry...'

'That's not funny! And I'm not scared!' Kran shouted.

'It is funny.' Nume smiled.

'No it's not.' he insisted.

'Yes, it is.'

'Maybe a little bit...' he admitted. Then they both burst into laughter. 'Alright, there's no way we're going back.' Kran said.

'What about finding another tribe then?'

'If we find one that hasn't met them yet and if they buy our fake identities...' he started.

'What fake identities?' Nume asked.

'Well, you know, the ones from our childhood...'

'You want to tell them that I'm Nunu and you're Krakra and we are actually ancient gods from a magical place called Me'dio? Really?'

'No... probably better not.'

'Yeah...' They burst into laughter once more. 'Although we could, you know...' Nume said. Kran just raised an eyebrow and shook his head slowly.

The two sat there talking all day. They talked about where they wanted to go and what they could do and how they'd get by on their supplies. When it got dark, they cuddled with the gseirut who, throughout the day, had gained trust in them. Nume had lit a fire earlier on and it was now slowly dying away so she got up again to feed it.

'Did you ever want to get married?' Kran suddenly asked while she was busy with the fire.

'Well...' Nume started. 'I never really was against it, I guess. I just never thought it was possible that my parents would want me to marry you.'

'But you did turn a few offers down already.'

'They were all just from parents who wanted a better connection with my family, it never had anything to do with me nor the guys...' Nume explained.

'And you never talked to me about marriage or anything of that sort.' Nume sat back down next to him again when he said that. She took her time to answer.

'Marriage, to me, always just meant loosing freedom.' she looked into Kran's eyes. 'And I thought, you know, if I were married, my husband wouldn't want me to meet the Great Leader's grandson all the time...'

'So you didn't get married so you could still be friends with me?' Nume nodded. Kran laughed. 'You really are a fool.'

'I know. But really, what is there in life if you can't even meet your one best friend anymore?'

'You would have had your husband.'

'Yeah, somebody from our tribe, a young guy who'd probably not have cared about me as a person anyway. Someone who would not have known me at all... Trust me, I've had a close look at everybody in our tribe, there's no one who could possibly replace our friendship.' The two looked at each other without saying anything for a moment.

'Now I get why everybody always believed we were a couple...'

'What?'

'You know, they're not us, they can't understand that we're just friends and because all they see is us being really close, they must assume there's something more going on...' he explained.

'Yes, I get that, but, did people really believe that?' Nume asked.

'Well, yes, didn't you know?'

'No!'

'But that's why father suggested to grandfather to make me marry you. He thought...' Kran blushed.

'No way!' Nume shouted. She shifted a little bit away from him as if somebody were watching.

'Yap...'

'He really thought we...?' she started. Kran nodded without looking at her. Nume swallowed. 'So my mother thought that, too?'

'Probably.'

'Oh.' Nume said. 'They could just have asked!' Kran looked at her with raised eyebrows. Then they both sighed at the same time.

After an uncomfortable silence, Nume shifted back over to him and rested her head on his left shoulder.

'I... Remember when I was with that guy?' she asked after a long time.

'Of course I remember.'

'I considered marrying him. Well, not back then, I was way too young, but in the future, you know...' Nume explained. 'I really was in love with him... but it's all so long ago...'

Kran didn't say anything so Nume went on to say: 'When I fell in love with him, I fell in love with a bard, someone who refused to be what his parents had planned for him... He just wanted to do what he liked and that impressed me... But, well, you know what happened...'

'Indeed, I do...' Kran looked down at her with pity in his eyes.

'But what I've never told you... Before... Before he broke my heart,' Nume's voice was but a whisper now. 'I already knew he was going to do that... Because he had changed so much... He'd given up on all of his dreams... He'd decided to follow in his father's steps... And the day he told me about that, I knew I'd lost him... Well, not him, but the guy I'd once fallen in love with. He was gone, forever.'

Kran didn't know what to say. They both stared into the flames for a while.

'Was there never anybody in your life?' Nume asked.

'Just somebody. A long time ago...' Kran whispered. 'But I realised that would never work. The two of us, you know, we'd have been a total mess...'

'Who was she?'

'A friend.'

'You don't have friends.'

'I know.'

They sat in silence.

'What about now then?' Nume wanted to know after a while.

'Well, I've just run away from marrying my best friend, with my best friend, leaving my whole family and tribe behind...' Kran said with a smile on his lips. 'And you?'

'Same.'

'So, what does that say about us then?'

'That we definitely don't want to marry each other?'

'Alright, I'm good with that.'

'Me too.'

'Shall we try to go to sleep?' Kran suggested.

'We probably should...' Nume answered.

They kept talking for about another hour.

//A friend of mine asked me to put a question in the end of this, so... what wasyour favourite line in this chapter?