“Ready when you are,” Lyra answered simply, bags already packed and tossed over her shoulder. When Namir said that she still had to pack her own shit before they’d be able to leave, Lyra only nodded, still a bit too tired for actual words. She walked in silence following in Namir’s footsteps as she led the way back to the plot of dirt where they’d parked their tent the night before. Helped her pack her stuff and then put what was staying behind back where it belonged.
Once they’d finished, the pair worked their way back down the long, narrow column of the cave’s mouth to its designated entrance. They zipped up their coats, pulled up their hoods, and then were released back into the frigid cold by a fearsome twosome of guards who dispatched them with words of surprising kindness and good farewell despite their rough exteriors.
Lyra stuck close to Namir as they worked their way back into the cover of the forest, practically shoulder-to-shoulder despite being knee-deep in the snow. She was honestly beside herself with misery at how much her body seemed to be rejecting its return to such a high concentration of exposure to the elements so suddenly, that single night of respite spent under the cover of a warm, albeit slightly damp cave having apparently served no other purpose except to spoil her completely rotten.
“Y-y-you said it’s a t-two day journey to the next camp, right?” If her hands hadn’t been shoved so deep inside her pockets, Lyra would have likely grabbed her own jaw, clamped her mouth shut, and refused to speak again until the next time they settled in for the night someplace warm. It was so cold her teeth were chattering and her entire jaw ached with the sheer force at which her muscles were clenched. "S-so it's just... a whole lot of walking... fr-from here on out, then?" God, it sounded boring and miserable already.
