He didn't bother giving the Mahians a proper burial. The icy temperature would leave their bodies in good condition until another troop came along, and, while he would never admit this out loud, he detested remaining around the corpses of the dead. He never realized how much he hated hanging around them until a couple of years ago. Even if he didn't look at them, he could feel their dead eyes staring into nothingness. It always felt like they were staring at him in slack-jawed surprise, wondering why their imaginations of invulnerability were suddenly extinguished because he didn't have the patience to talk them out of a fight.

Rythar was icily quiet as Alec packed up his things, dumping handfuls of snow onto the fire until it sizzled out and then they began their trek, watching as the sun began to peek it's head out of the horizon. 

[i]Being that the sun is... well, all head, as it were, doesn't that mean that the sun would be peeking it's whole body over the horizon?[/i]

And he was back. Alec fought hard to restrain a grin. He wouldn't give the dead elf the pleasure. He would never hear the end of it otherwise. If Alec deigned to show any mirth at any of Rythar's jokes, it would mean that he would have to stand the whole day under the painful sway of hearing the weapon's awfully bad jokes, maybe more than one day, depending on how long it took Rythar to figure out that his jokes concerning the length of Elven reproductive organs and the supposed chastity of their females were not funny to a regular man.

[i]I saw that.[/i]

Alec kept a straight face and tilted his head, as if he was wondering what the ax was talking about," What was that?"

[i]You were mildly amused by my musins about the sun.[/i]

Alec raised an eyebrow and smirked," Oh really? And what put you under this erroneous impression?"

[i]I saw that smile. Just a moment of a smile, showing mirth, and then it was quickly hidden before I could see it.[/i]

Drat, Alec thought. Just how Rythar could see anything at all plagued Alec's mind as he trudged back onto the road, which hadn't been cleaned of the night's snowfall yet. He was a spirit bound to two weapons. It was said that a man's spirit could only be bound to one item, but with the more... elaborate psychic construction of an elven spirit, two items were required, or at least possible, anyways. It was clear that he did not see through his hosts, as Alec had already tried covering them up to no avail. Rythar had explained the process on the night that they had met, but Alec had never had a mind for magic or spiritual themes, and it had gone in one ear out and out the other, as they said. He just knew that there was an explanation that had seemed logical to Alec's untrained mind.

"A smile? Your mind must be slipping," Alec lied smoothly," It was a grimace. I was reminded that I needed to stand your blabbering all day long and that was the beginning of it."

Rythar didn't say anything for a few minutes, but, if it was possible, the specter gave off a smug sensation that irritated Alec to the point of a growl.

[i]Well, you wouldn't have to stand my voice for such a long time if we had gotten a horse at the beginning of this journey to start with. We would have been in this Esper town in half the time, and you could have left me in some deep and dark place until you figure out just what you were sent here for.[/i]

Alec smirked. He had thought the very same thing about horses. While he was an infantryman at heart, he had been called upon to ride more times than he could count and was well beyond the stage of bouncing around in a saddle like a sack of carrots. But he had, for some reason, wanted to walk among the trees in the autumn while they lasted, enjoying the view more, sure that he would be able to buy a horse from one of the homesteads that they passed. But, as it turned out in these parts, there were very few homesteads to be found, far between, and they weren't rich enough to own a horse, or if they were, it was a plowhorse, and thus irreplaceable. Alec could pay an exorbitant amount for one, but it didn't seem like a good bargain to pay twenty gold pieces for some old nag that probably would move as fast as he would walk anyways," Oh I think I saw some caves out back there, if you would rather stay there until my business here is completed."

[i]Too far away from you, should you need my services. We both of us know that you are all but useless in a real fight. You know, the Bladedancer back there wasn't all wrong. Your years fighting in a shield wall left you too stiff in the shoulders, waist and wrist. You walk around like a bear with it spine broken.[/i]

"You know what? I think I might just bury you here in the snow and come collect you in the spring, once it has all melted away, see if it won't chill those thoughts out of a head. Oh wait, you don't have a head anymore, do you?" Alec's tone bit cold as the north wind.

[i]You know full well that I do, in fact have a head. It's just buried under miles of molten rock underneath that volcano that you found these weapons in.[/i]

"That being as it is, fat lot of good it's doing you now."

And so on it went for the next few hours as Alec kept on walking at a brisk pace. Despite the cold, he moved well, quickly and easily. At some point a plowhorse came along pulling a plow that pushed the snow away from the road, opening the way for wagons to travel the road, making it easier on his trek towards Esper. In a few hours, with the sun climbing steadily but a little lopsidely upwards, He finally came in view of the city.

The walls looked as forbidding as a blizzard, scowling at him, telling him to keep his distance if he wasn't going to be turning around and leaving altogether.

"Inviting place, that..." Alec whispered under his breath before beginning to whistle, the sharp tune of a marching ditty sailing across the thin air.