Sofie walked along the well-trodden path that led up to Kauppa-kohta, Karhu walking alongside her. She traveled with a small group of people, Lossoths who had left the comforts of Sûri-kylä to travel down to the trade point, the last village in the snow before Forochel gave way to another land, somewhere Sofie had never been before. Iska walked beside her, her black hair pulled tightly into a tsiiyéé, wrapped with a blue ribbon. "Your parents are here, aren't they?" her friend whispered to her, and Sofie only nodded, gaze set ahead.
The reunion with her parents was brief and some might would even call it cold. Sofie did not hide that she did not want to be there, and her parents did not pretend to not notice. The dinner they all shared together, Iska and Sofie sitting side by side, knee to knee, was awkward and the conversation stilted. She declined to sleep in the hut that night, instead choosing to sleep in one of the makeshift tents that the group had brought with them from Sûri-kylä. Iska slept soundly on her right, Karhu laying over their legs.
Without rousing her friend, Sofie quietly dressed in her outer furs and layers, pulling her boots on and slipping out of the tent, her bag slung over her shoulder. It was quiet, the fire was dwindling, and she did not see anyone left outside. The sun was only barely beginning to rise and she tossed another piece of firewood into the dying fire. Pulling her hood over her head, Karhu silently followed at her heels as she left the trading village, heading through the unfamiliar woods, following the path that would take her to Evendim.
