Few settlements of note existed in the northern reaches of the Etherlands. It was why I visited the region, but it was also rather boring. I had a hard time matching an endless path trod in the dirt with the name "Leuthernia" but some king somewhere claimed the land as his and so he got the right to name it.

  My savior proceeded at a leisurely pace, so I was able to catch up to him before the sun hit its peak. He made no comment when I started walking alongside him; his only acknowledgment was a sidelong glance that I nearly missed. I took it as tacit approval of, or at least indifference towards, my company, and mark it now as the moment our journey together truly started.

  I tried a variety of conversation topics out: where he was going, what his goals were, how the weather was that day, et cetera, and in response I got nothing. His ability to ignore conversation was truly incredible.

  Of course, some of those answers were fairly obvious. The weather was miserable, cold and damp with just enough wind to make it all bite extra hard. We were heading west, which led to the only paved road I was aware of in Leuthernia, and that road would either take us north to the polar port town of Norport or south to the province of Beornia, which actually had a notable population. And trees.

  My notes from that period included many musings on the importance of trees for personal well-being, likely predicated on my deteriorating mental state from not seeing one for a month and being stuck following a man who may as well be a mute.

  We passed by the community hall of a hamlet later in the day, which a man outside informed me was called "piss off," and so I decided not to see whether anyone in the area had a spare bed or two for us. It did prompt a conversation topic I thought my companion might actually respond to, though: sleeping conditions.

  "You don't seem to have any camping equipment. Do you just sleep on the ground?"

  The man took his time responding, but eventually I finally got an answer out of him: "Yes."

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  My pride in myself was through the roof. Pulling a response from this stoic rock of a man felt like my greatest achievement, surpassing my graduation thesis or any research I had done in my years at Docet Barrington. In retrospect, I may have been unwell.

  In the late spring, with how far north we were, the sun stayed out quite late. My timepiece had run out of mana weeks earlier, but I guessed it was around ten in the evening when the sky finally started turning pink. This was when my companion finally slowed to a stop and looked around, evaluating the area as a resting site for the night.

  It was a terrible spot. Uneven, rocky ground covered with hard lichens. Scatterings of moss on the few larger stones - larger being a foot in diameter, nothing to write home about. I wanted to complain, but not only did my companion nod with unwarranted satisfaction, I also had not seen a better alternative for well over an hour. If I had been on my own I would have stopped for the night at that alternative when we passed it; alas, I was not the one leading the way anymore, and this man cared little for creature comforts such as an even sleeping surface.

  We set up camp. And by that I mean that I set up camp, and my nameless leader found a nice place to lie down. I was well practiced at this, at least, and had my tent up and a fire lit well before the sky fully darkened.

  Only one moon was in the sky that night, leaving our surroundings shrouded in darkness. I heated some water, some to turn into soup to soften my hardtack with and some to brew a pot of weak tea before bed. Normally I would have stopped much earlier to enjoy a few cups on my own, but now that I had a companion it still felt appropriate to brew a full pot. It was only courteous, especially since the man had saved my life.

  I had grown less enamored with him as the day went on, but that had more to do with boredom than anything else. His feats were impressive, but his personality could use a lot of work.

  Still, it wasn't all bad; when he smelled tea, the man came over and sat with me by the fire. I poured him a cup - I always travel with two just in case I find myself with a companion for a night - and we quietly bonded over my wildly mediocre tea.

  The fire burned down and we went to sleep. When we woke up I would pack my gear and my companion would practice swinging his sword. We would set out without a word and trudge along our westward path.

  We repeated this sort of routine day after day. My attempts at conversation changed, the people we ran into were unfriendly in different ways, but we continued on with minimal change for a bit over a week. At that point we hit the main road and my companion turned south towards Beornia, and thus civilization.