There was no need to command Axley to keep running; spending hours upon hours walking from place to place was not the ideal training for distance running, but it helped keep her at least moving. As she continued to weave through the slowly widening and separating roads as they approached the edge of town, Axley's calves began to scream at her, beg her for rest and remorse; they'd never had to work so hard in their entire lives, never had to be pushed beyond their limits as Axley was then. But she couldn't stop and give them rest. To give them rest would be to give her [i]eternal[/i] rest. She found herself having to drag Cilia away from various dropped items almost as much as Snow was. Cilia was one of the few people she recognized that she knew for a fact hadn't been killed, vaporized, or worse, and she damn well refused to have that number shrink any further.

She just had to keep running. Running, running, running, until she couldn't go on, and then just keep running a little bit longer. She could have sworn they'd been sprinting for an hour or more, and still the cries of the undead echoed in the distance, the slamming of mystical mortars still heard as plain as day. She still didn't feel safe. The last time she'd lost her home, she'd run so far she nearly left the town itself in her desperation to escape her own demise...had she gone even further this time? She didn't even have time to think about that. Movement was the only thing that could fill her head and drive her actions, or she'd falter and be lost to the void.

Finally, at long last, Fergus' body gave out long enough for everyone to be forced to take a break. Axley's steps slowed, but did not stop as her exhausted body found it too much to even stop her movement; instead, her foot caught on a stone and her body sprawled against the grassy earth, the only noise for the longest time her lungs' greedy gasps of air. She felt she never needed to run ever again and she'd still be caught up on exercise for the rest of her life.

She barely heard the barrister's words and suggestions. It took a moment before her oxygen-deprived mind put the words and meanings together and understood what he was saying. "F...fuck that...." Axley spat what little moisture she still had in her mouth before taking another deep gulp of air. "We...gotta keep moving. I won't feel even...temporarily safe...until the Ruins are gone from the horizon." Axley put forth her defiance; it wasn't safe to change course yet. They still needed to look out for themselves. Even as she spoke Axley's worn body was forcing itself up again, her drive to live far greater than her own body's weakness.