It's a lot better than starting out soaked to the bone.

True enough. No one's had to strip naked.

That'd be a horror show.

At least with all the extra company. 

It wasn't all fun and games in the moment last time, either.

Better in retrospect, she guesses.

Sometimes things are, yeah.

Jesper's pretty sure this won't be one of them. 

There's still time for things to turn for the better.

Maybe once they hit the actual job. They can elide over this part in the retelling. 

"That's why you can never keep a girl longer than a fortnight, Jes, you always want to skip straight to the action."

"Hey! I've kept a boy for two fortnights before. Plenty of people like the action best."

"Doesn't exactly contradict my point, though."

...Hmmm...

"Well, I like the action best."

"And you don't complain too much about Jesper's presence, even after all this time..."

"He livens things up. Like an explosion."

"Girl knows what she wants. Fair enough."

"Knowing what I want is one of my best traits."

"Decisiveness is desirable, it's true."

"Kaz would know."

"Yes, I would."

She giggles.

(This isn't too bad, honestly... So long as the rest of their trek is like this, they should be fine.)

No wild beast attacks or suspicious army patrols.

They can avoid those. 

- But they don't avoid the smell of charred flesh two days later, carried on a low angry breeze alongside an icy fog and swirls of acrid smoke. They don't avoid the sight of three stakes driven into the ground at the edge of a cliff, nor the three bodies bound to them, nor the smoldering piles at their feet.