They walked.
Cerise had run at first, with Marren chasing behind her, bursting far away from the Tower into the night across the fields to its north. But horses are made for sprints, not marathons, and eventually they had slowed to a steady pace, with him walking silently beside her as they continued to — well, nowhere. They had nowhere to go, and couldn’t go to any of the human towns or villages without causing a lot of trouble, so they just kept going north.
The fields slowly rolled by, and the moon came up. They neared a dense thicket of trees, and came to a stop.
“I’m really sorry,” said Cerise, trying not to look at Marren.
“Hey, it’s not your fault,” he said. “Let me gather some wood. I’ll make a fire. We can camp here for the night.”
“No, I’m *really* sorry,” said Cerise. “If I hadn’t said anything — ”
“Relax. Just stay put,” he said. He took her hands and squeezed them. “I’ll be back soon.”
She slumped down to the ground, and let him go about it. She didn’t have a thing to say. Every part of this was a mess. She looked up at the stars, trying hard to decide whether to be frustrated or angry or resigned or miserable or all of them. Her village was gone, and her people were gone, and she was lost who knew where now. And she was a freak, and he was a freak, and the Sorceress — was a monster, an awful evil monster who had ruined the both of them, and who deserved nothing less than — than the worst anyone ever could deserve. That Sorceress! The foul witch was worse than the orcs, worse than the king of the orcs, an inhuman demon in human skin, worse than —
Cerise blinked. Somewhere in her reverie, Marren had managed to gather stones and make a ring out of them, and some logs for firewood, and a little orange flame was already dancing in the dry straw at their base.
“Wow, you’re — good at that,” she said.
“I had to live on my own for a long time,” he said. “You learn a lot about how to survive.” He blew gently into the base, and the fire grew taller, and then again, and again, until at last it was consuming the stacked logs, illuminating the both of them in a flickering orange glow.
Cerise held out her hands, feeling the warmth. “I’m sorry I got you into this,” she said.
“What? No,” he said. “Listen, I swore to the Sorceress that I’d protect you.”
“But she turned you into a horse. Me into a horse. Both of us into a horse.”
“Well — I could be worse,” he said, shrugging. He blew gently into the fire, and smiled up at her. “No, seriously, this isn’t so bad. I never owned a horse before. I was always jealous of anyone who could afford one, and now I have one.”
She nodded. “I didn’t own one either. But we had them in our village, and my family rented them sometimes. I used to go riding. I even liked it.” She sighed, looking down at herself. “I don’t want to talk about horses, though.”
He nodded, poking at the fire. “Tell me about your village?”
“The orcs burned it to the ground,” she said. “I’m the only one that survived.”
“Geez.”
“How about you? How’d you end up in the dungeon?”
“I tried to steal some gold to buy food and a place to sleep for my sister,” he said. “We were desperate. She told me not to, and she was right.”
Cerise nodded. “Marren — I — I don’t know where we’re going,” she said, “or what we’re going to do. I just know I want to put as many miles between me and that Tower as I can. I told her I’d get even, but — I don’t want to get even. I don’t want to ever see her again, unless it’s her telling us she’ll change us back.”
Marren poked at the fire, causing it to blaze up. “I don’t think that’ll happen. She seems to like what she turned us into.”
Cerise sighed, and lay down in the grass. “I’m going to try to get some sleep,” she said.
Marren nodded. “I’ll watch the fire. You get your rest. In the morning, we can figure out what to do next.”
Cerise nodded, closed her eyes, and fell asleep.