"That's fine," he says, "I could also carry you, if you would rather go faster." He would love to be out of this area as quickly as he can move. 

"I'm trying not to get where I'm going too fast."

Hm. Alright. He lapses into silence as they walk, putting all his attention on the path before him. 

...Someone to talk to, she said. He makes himself focus.

".... You don't want to be there?" He asks.

"If I got there faster I'd have to get home faster, I think."

"Could you not just go somewhere else?" He asks. Given she's traveling through the wilderness on the own he can only assume she's capable. 

"My mom might replace me if I just left."

Ah. Fairies. How to reply?

"And this is worse than going back?" He asks. 

"I think so? I want to be my mom's heir."

He nods.

"What are you heir to?" He knows as little of fairy politics as most humans do. 

"The Court of Marigolds."

He blinks in surprise. 

...So he is knight to a fairy princess. Joy and rapture. Just like the stories. If she tears the heart from his chest he can't say he wasn't warned. 

"That does seem worth some inconvenience, I suppose," he agrees. 

"It usually is."

He goes fishing for another topic. He's running out of the mental energy for speaking, but he's going to stretch it as far as he can. 

"...What do you need to talk to this professor for?" 

It sounds more like a statement than a question, but at least he got it out. 

The girl seems perfectly capable of rambling for a while on the alignment of stars, and whether they could ever make a flying artifact, and how she wants to go to the moon, and she read a story about alien fairies and artifact ships flying between stars, but actually she's talking to the professor about funding, even if aliens would be super cool and September could talk to them -

She's very excitable, is this fairy. He listens, welcoming distraction from his thoughts for a few hours more. 

Eventually, night comes upon them. 

She... Does not really know any wilderness survival things whatsoever!

That's fine - he does.

He finds them a nice little alcove sheltered between some rocks and sets out his bedroll close to them, with room for her to put one beside it. 

Will she help if he offers directions? 

Very enthusiastically!

Then he directs her to gather thin, dry twigs from the ground near camp, along with a few small armfuls of leaves. Meanwhile, he clears away space for a fire, and finds some nice thick branches to break and debark. 

She asks a lot of questions about why this or why not that, but is a pretty efficient worker otherwise.

He will answer her questions. Leaves and twigs for kindling - as dry as possible, to allow the sparks from his flint to catch. Bark and then larger branches to feed it, and larger still to sit around it to ensure their dryness and feed it later on. 

Once the fire is going steadily, settles in front of it and pulls out some of his dry trail rations, and sets to eating, staring at the flames. 

She has her own food. It seems nicer, preserved to have more flavor, somehow, though it's possible the box she takes it out of is an artifact.

That's good - he wouldn't have wanted her to have to eat this, it's very bland and tough. 

After he finishes eating, he stays by the fire to fiddle with it until it burns low and even, so it'll stay lit longer without someone feeding it. 

"Do humans always eat stuff like that?" she asks.

He looks up in surprise at her question, having been getting somewhat mesmerised by the fire. "No," he says, "They make good travel rations, though, and most of the other food was gone."