Need can't get back to a run now. Letting Celehar walk on his own helps, but there's a grinding pain in her knees now, one worse than the other, and she's favoring that leg. Every other step comes with a splash. The arthritis, that painful joint-swelling that had irritated her in her last years, is making itself known, every bit as insistent as the voices. For the first time since her death, she wants that cane she'd used on bad days. Need sets her jaw, fixes her eyes ahead, and doesn't complain. At least they're not trailing behind so badly now. She's actually certain of the direction of the light, and it's not grayed out with effort or blurred too much to see.

She gets a stiff arm around Celehar's back, making sure she knows where he is. Probably a more familiar gesture than he'd like, he's a formal little thing, but - finding the humor in the situation, she grins, feels her lip split - dignity's already a hopeless mess. It can compose itself later.

"You didn't create this situation. These are circumstances we have to reckon with. Kindness is well and good but cosseting the children and pretending things are better than they are and they won't have to face - pain, or struggle, would be worse," she argues. She's operating based on the assumption that those who stay and don't manage to cross become wraiths. It's a bad thought that that might be happening to a handful of their fellows, but there's nothing for it. Neither of them are in a condition to turn back to look. "No one's shielded forever."