Motherless Child

[Frozen Smoke]

((Faith Clementine Marshal-Mackenzie continued from before the day is done, my prince is gonna come))

Faith's feet dragged in the sand as she kept walking. The energy to jog or power walk had left her a few miles back. Or a few hundred yards back, it wasn't like she was counting her footsteps, or had any reference points to tell how far she'd come. She'd just known she had to get away from what she'd seen, and towards the water, the edge of the island felt like the right direction.

Really, it was just a direction, with no right about it.

She cleared off a little patch of the sand from the black and brown seaweed that striped the white sands of the beach, and sat down, her back turned to the island. She'd been looking over her shoulder the whole time she'd been moving, but thankfully, it seemed she'd lost the trail of anyone involved in any of the various messes she'd been caught up in.

For now.

The ocean felt like it was mocking her though, as the blue water roiled up a few feet in front of her, wetting the sand into a darker brown before fading away. She swallowed, her throat feeling dry and itchy as she looked at that, realising she hadn't drunk anything since midday or so - Whenever Sierra and co had decided to rob her. She supposed she should probably be angry about that, but as she looked out towards the horizon, she couldn't even bring up the energy for that.

What was the point?

She slowly led back onto the sand, replacing the horizon with pure, dark grey sky - as the lack of light began to bleed the colour out of it. She let out a breath she hadn't realised she'd been holding, and it turned into a long, deep sigh. Faith could feel the cut under her eye stinging, and almost see the bruise around it swelling up, making her hope it didn't get infected. Not that that really mattered, she supposed - What were the chances she lived long enough for something like that to matter. Maybe she should have asked Dante for some of his medicine, but that felt like asking for food from the starving, given what had happened with his leg.

She hoped he was okay.

There was a dull realisation that she had no idea how to get back to the house she'd agreed to meet him at, but that was the kind of thing she could figure out, probably. It wasn't like the island was that big, all she'd have to do was find a tall place, but still - Maybe it was better if she didn't find him. It wasn't like she'd bring anything good with her. Just another person, with a hell of a lot more enemies than he had. The sun finally slipped the last few inches, or millions of miles depending on your perspective, below the horizon. The sky above her was brilliant, and she could see why people wanted to live here, a long time ago. Every star was so clear, without the light pollution of even nearby cities. It was almost like pressing your face against a thin piece of black cloth in a bright room, hundreds of specks of light bleeding through the darkness.

Faith began to feel cold.

It was weird, trying to sleep without a bed. She'd done it a few times before, but she'd had equipment, a sleep bag, a knife - Something to make it more comfortable than just lying down on the ground and waiting for sleep to come. She curled up, onto her side, hugging her knees up close to her chest. She closed her eyes for a while, then opened them, reaching up to move some more sea weed out from under her shoulder.

She closed her eyes again.

((Faith Clementine Marshal-Mackenzie continued in Day 2))