Kine had spent a long time wandering the forest. She had recovered from her immediate horror and panic days later, her heart had returned to its normal beat and after a very long time she had stopped shaking and jumping at every sound. However now the guilt had set in, what had she done? She could barely remember the events before her hurried exodus but she knew she had fled in fear and that shamed her to her very soul. What was worse was that she couldn't bring herself to return, she felt too guilty and too terrified of what might happen if she ever went back. Would they still want her to take her place as the Empress of Ruthad? Why would they want her, she would get them all killed, she wouldn't be able to cope, she wasn't strong enough for that. How could she have ever thought she could lead anyone, stupid ignorant foolish little girl. She hated herself so she wept and then she hated herself even more for her weakness. This was not the daughter her Mother or Father had brought her up to be, when had she become so pathetic. Farin had spent a long time snuffing at her and nudging her, worried about how silent and miserable his rider seemed. His fur was think and comforting at night but the dreams wouldn't stop. She would wake up screaming, still feeling the teeth of ghosts long dead embedded in her flesh. She had thought those dreams had stopped long ago, obviously not. In these times she missed Durgan, she missed him a great deal, it wasn't so hard waking up from nightmares when there was someone else there who cared for you... and she abandoned him. Another reason to hate herself she supposed.
Gradually though she had come accustomed to her hermit traveler lifestyle, she found solitude to be peaceful, she was so used to living amongst a hive of people in walls of stone. Now she had the world to escape to, once she had gotten over her agoraphobia that made it feel like she was going to fall into the sky. Eventually though, she decided she needed to start making her way in this new world, knowing she could not return to Ostorthond. She began entering towns and villages, keeping to herself but slowly gaining the confidence to walk amongst other people. She saw shrines and churchs to Morradin in her travels and they always gave her a stab of longing for home but she never approached them, she was too ashamed and she felt too dirty to think she had the right. Other than that though, her charisma and confidence came back to her naturally, being an inherent part of her character. Soon she was taking minor jobs, helping others for a small fee, she was surprised by how apathetic humans could seem to another's plight, Dwarves always being very neighbourly in general. She had found on her travels posters advertising a Mercenary band named the 'Red Iron' which sounded cheesy and not very promising at all but Kine didn't have much options and anyway, who was she to be picky? So she started off to the Capitol of Temerin.
It took a long journey and there were many times when she had to fight her way through bandits or other aggressors. At one point Farin was cornered by a pack of wolves while Kine had left to collect firewood. She had heard his bleets and rushed back to viciously slaughter them all but Farin had already taken quite some damage and so she halted her journey to find somewhere warm and dry to care for him. Another time he had been stolen from her by undesirables wanting a good meal and she had ruthlessly hunted them all down before freeing him just before they were about to eat him. All in all the trip had been quite eventful although she and Farin developed an even deeper and more trusting friendship which helped alot.
They both rode into the Red Iron's camp a few months later, looking quite fearsome and dangerous with their ruggishly torn clothes, bloodstained armour and wide variety of scars. Kine's permanent scowl was also exceedingly daunting to most everyone who laid eyes on her and mercenaries hurried to get out of her way as she entered. She spied a circle of previously laughing men, one of them battered into the mud, she assumed there had been some manner of brawl. On the outskirts of this group there stood an oddly out of place woman, tall and elegant, slightly too graceful for a human but different to the half elves Kine had previously met. She wore light leathers and cloth rather than the battered metal of the other mercenaries so Kine assumed she was some manner of assassin, or perhaps a mage? No she looked too angry for a mage, much to fierce, she was probably an assassin. In any case she rode past and found the tent made for whom she assumed was the leader, hopping from Farin's back and pushing in without knocking. The man was a bear, a massive hulk of muscle and fat, she briefly imagined that he killed all his enemies just by rolling on them. This gave her something to try and not laugh at while the man turned to look at her. He had a dull face which was backed up by his dull mouth, he didn't even ask her for credentials, he just leered at her, made her sign some paper and then gave her a badge of a red hammer. Then he turned his back on her. She exited the tent both annoyed and disgusted and began tending to the packs on Farin's back with irritation.
