The light was so bright that I couldn’t see for a moment and it dimmed the world around me. I heard the sound of hooves striking against the hard floor, and vaguely I could make out Roderick caped figure riding forward into the bright light.

My own horse shook his head eager to go forward, and for a moment I wondered if I was making the right decision. My stomach still had completely settled from that unnerving complete darkness, and now it was time to face such insane brightness. How was Roderick able to ride so confidently out into the world?

Kevin reached over and gripped my hand ripping me from my indecision, “Ready to go Liv? Let’s do this at the same time. Count to three?”

I gulped and nodded. It was time to face the outside world. “One, two, three.” On three I nudged my horse forward and next to me Kevin’s horse also moved forward toward the edge of the box where the glaring sunlight shone in and where the books said a bright blue sky waited for me.

The edge of the box shifted out of view and soft blue sky filled my vision. As the horse moved forward, more of the dome of the sky became clear; a soft blue filling the rest of the world around me. I struggled to put words or description to it. It was simply the purest shade of light blue ever to grace anything in this world. “Why is the sky blue?” I asked no one in general and no one else was paying attention to answer. We were all fascinated with this beautiful world outside the wall. The bright light came from somewhere, but at the moment it seemed to be hidden by the giant wall behind us.

There was a city around us or at least the ruins of it. There were old houses left here to rot, but for some reason they hadn’t fully rotted. It looked… abandoned. I looked back and the gates of the wall were closed behind us. It was a solid gray Wall now reaching up to block out the sky, and above its insane heights. I couldn’t even see the pink dome that I knew covered the city. There was no going back into that Wall. We had to move forward.

I pulled out my compass and map and oriented myself. We were supposed to ride west out of the city. Roderick rode up beside me steering his poor creature next to mine, “Don’t worry about that. I already have figured out which way we need to head, how far it is, and all that fun stuff. I’m so excited to finally get to use the skills I learned in the wall!”

His voice was so different from the stiff formal teacher in the Wall, and I couldn’t help but smile at his excitement as he trotted forward bouncing in his saddle and heading almost parallel but slightly away from the wall.

I glanced over at Kevin and gave a wallish shrug, laughing a little internally, before pushing Kingston into a trot. It was stupid to name a creature that was going to die, but Kingston had come with the name. I might as well use his name instead of thinking of him as just “my horse”.

Roderick’s horse went back to a walk and our horses piled up behind. The little gray pinned it ears and whipped its head around with its teeth barred toward us. Roderick patted it’s neck and the horse settled a little.

Did the sudden transition back to walk after such excitement to be leaving the city have anything to do with how uncomfortable Roderick and the horse looked with Roderick bouncing along on its back? I wasn’t going to ask.

I wanted to ask Kevin about his time in the Wall. He had a brown stubble of facial hair that had grown over his face, and though I could still see the E burned into his skin, the hair was attempting to cover it its coarse curls. He looked more like a grizzled guard than a Most Honored now.

He was looking at the strange silent ruins of steel and rock and around us. I opened my mouth to speak, but I couldn’t bring myself to say anything. Not with Roderick so close.

Roderick who, if Lisa was to be believed, was here leading the way out of an obsession with me. And I was here out of some crazy desire for my own redemption. And Kevin. He was supposedly here because of some silly promise he made as a child. Was that the only reason?

We continued to travel in silence for a while. Everyone seemed lost in their own thoughts in this bright blue world with its forgotten ghosts lining either side of this road like the people who lined the road as we road from the City into the Wall.

The bright light that existed in this world outside the Wall became brighter, and the bright object providing light slowly appeared up above us in the sky. I tried to look at it, but the thing called the Sun in the books ate at my sight. I looked away and then glanced back trying to glimpse its beauty, but it was too painful. It was easier to just look ahead.

“Look, it’s a cloud!” Roderick’s black cloaked arm pointed at the edge of the sky dome. Vaguely I could see a white wisp marring the blue sky the way white specs showed up to mar the pink on fingernails.

“What a strange world this is.” I couldn’t draw my eyes away from that white slash in the sky.

Roderick’s hooded head nodded. “Yes. Clouds are made of water vapor, and sometimes they release the water back to the Earth.”

“Water vapor? What is that?” I had never heard the term used before.

“You know how hot water releases steam?”

“Yes,” I had seen hot water release steam before.

“Steam is water in its gas form, and clouds are steam.”

I looked at the cloud again. It didn’t really look like steam, but maybe that was because it was so far away. It was amazing the amount of knowledge that the wall people had archived about the world they never saw.

Roderick’s horse halted, and I could see he was trying to grab something from his saddle bags.

“What’s wrong,” I asked as I pulled my horse into a halt.

“Aha! I found it!” He proclaimed as he pulled out some sort of little square thing, “Its the radiation detector.”

He had mentioned something like that before. I watched as he stared intently at the device. What was he trying to figure out?

“We are good on radiation for a while longer. We’ll need to take a pill tonight with dinner at the current radiation, I think. And no, I don’t know if we will need our three pills at equal length.” He turned toward me, and I could see a touch of a smile within the folds of his hood. Then the hood covered his face again and his horse was walking forward again.

I pulled out some of my travel food and chewed on a stick of extremely chewy meet. One bite of this stuff would last almost an hour it seemed. Small bits stuck in my mouth. I’d been warned to not let myself drink too much as water was limited, so I took a sip, and swished it around in parched mouth. It was getting quite hot out here and this water felt so good. How was Roderick able to stand this heat in his dark cloak? He didn’t look bothered, but it was hard to tell under his cloak.

I could see sweat dripping of Kevin’s face, but he just brushed it away and didn’t seem too bothered by it. He hadn’t said a single word since we left the Wall. Was he angry? He glanced over at me, and I pulled on my horses reins, slowing the large beast down, and motioning for Kevin to slow down as well.

He obliged, and I let Roderick get a little ahead of us.

“What’s up?” He finally asked, breaking the silence between us.

I looked down at my horse’s think black neck. “Did you ever try to come see me while we were in the Wall?”

Why had I asked that. I’d meant to ask what he had learned in the Wall, but I had blurted out the question that was really bothering me.

“No. Did you try to come see me?” His response felt like slap.

“No. Why not? Why didn’t you want to see me?” I hated myself for asking, but I couldn’t stop myself.

“Liv, sometimes I think we all need space. You are like an annoying little sister who is constantly getting into trouble and dragging me into it. I’d mostly been following along, unsure of what I was doing. You weren’t coming to see me, and I appreciated the space to think. Why did you not come to see me? I thought it was because you realized I needed space.”

His response stung. I knew he didn’t have romantic feelings for me, but it hurt to hear it. I couldn’t tell him of my own fear.

“What realization did you come to in that time? You are still here following me?”

He smiled at me, his grey eyes lit to an almost blue color by the sun sparkling on them, “I realized even if you aren’t my sister by blood, you are the only family I have left.” His smile disappeared and he looked down at his own horse, “I realized there is no going back. We are exiled now, and I will never see my father or brother again.”

He looked back at me with a much more somber look, “Liv, I left the Wall because I would have gone crazy in that silent place. I know you think exile to be this grand adventure out beyond the Wall and then you will go back and regain your honor or something like that, but I don’t plan on going back. If we find somewhere where we can safely live, I want to explore that place. I want to die out here beyond the confines of the Wall. This is my death sentence whether we die from the radiation and lack of food, or if we one day die of old age.”

“And what if I chose to go back and you are left alone? Didn’t you just say you see me as family?”

He sighed, “Do I have to spell it out for you? You might be what is left of my family, but I am done with that place. I’m not going back. You might be like a sister, but if you chose to go back I’m not following you further.”

“I like you! I always have.” I blurted out unable to contain my own anguish.

“I know.” He looked away at the horizon. “Maybe I should say I figured. I’ve never felt that way towards you, and I think your own feelings are more of a savior complex towards me because I helped you out when you were Dishonored and I made that promise.”

How could he brush off my feelings like that!? “How dare you!” I yelled at him and kicked Kingston forward into a trot, my posting like an ungainly child’s attempt to move with the horse, but it was better than staying near Kevin. At least right now.

I passed Roderick whose horse started trotting as well. He flopped around like a ragdoll on his horse, and I slowed back down to walk. If he fell off he could get injured, and we needed his radiation readings.

Even though I hadn’t wanted to drag him along on this exile, without him we would probably die out here. Even with him we might die, but at least we had more of a chance.

If the whole place had too much of this radiation stuff for us to survive anywhere out here, we would still all die. He was simply giving us more time before we slowly died.

I looked back at Kevin who had just very thoroughly told me his reasons for being here. And that he had no interest in me at all. Was I wrong to be so focused on him for so long?

Lisa said a similar thing about Roderick. Were he and I similar in our fixation on a single person? His sister did seem quite young, and maybe it was just her own take. Maybe Roderick wasn’t as silly as me. I didn’t actually know him super well.

“Everything ok?” Roderick’s voice cut into my thoughts.

“Yeah, just- ” I had almost said something about getting my feelings hurt. He didn’t need to know that. I was going to be in the company of Kevin and Roderick for a while, and I didn’t need to make things any more awkward than I had just made them. I forced myself to smile as I wiped beads of sweat on my face with my hand.

“I just need some time with my own thoughts.” I needed to time to fight back the tears stabbing the corners of my eyes. The buzz in my throat threatening to tell everyone how I felt. I needed to to get my self together and forge ahead. There was no turning back. Not yet for me. Not ever for Kevin, and I had no idea what Roderick’s thoughts were on the matter. One day I might ask him. One of these days I should get to know more about him and why he came with us. But not today. Not with the ants crawling in my throat.

His black hood moved up and down in a nod, and I felt grateful for his silence. If something could be said about the wall people, it was that they were not afraid to embrace silence. Silence normally felt so scary and full of tension, but now it was calming and supportive.