She made her way out of the village without any further problems. She neared the little cottage in the woods to find Sansa still sitting by the fire. She tried to straighten her gait to not show the bad limp she had gotten from the fight. She brushed the blood away from her split lip and turned her head to the side and let her curly hair fall forward to block off view of the injury from Sansa.
"Here you go Sansa." Krista said setting the bottles of tincture fluid down beside her.
"I'm kind of tired. I think I'm going to go lay down for a while. You can go ahead and start the cough medicine without me."
She turned toward the cottage, but Sansa's sudden grip on her arm stopped her. The grip on her arm pulled her back around and an aged finger lifted her chin up and brushed her red curls off to the side.
"Oh dear child not again! Look at what those hooligans have done to you! That's it! I'm going to town and having a talk with those boys' parents and…!"
"Sansa!"
Somewhat shocked at Krista's angry tone of voice Sansa stopped in mid sentence.
"Sansa, that would do no good and besides I'm a slave in their eyes! This is how slaves are treated! Things are never going to change!"
Krista gently pulled out of Sansa's grasp and limped over towards a small brook that ran past the cottage. She sat down on the cool grass and stretched out her sore leg as big tears welled up in her eyes. She brushed them away before they could slide down her cheeks. She never cried, for what good were tears anyway? They had never changed anything for her.
She hadn't noticed Sansa's approach until she sat down on a stump beside her, "Come here child."
With little protest Krista let Sansa pull her head over into her lap. Sansa started to brush the tangles out of her curly hair with her fingers as she had done for many years. Sansa had been more of a mother to her than her own mother had been.
"Krista?"
Krista looked up and met Sansa's gaze.
"One day things are going to change for you. For the better darling, of this I am certain."
"How do you know that? Has your God been talking with you again?"
Sansa didn't let Krista's caustic attitude affect her, but replied kindly, "Actually I was talking with Him the other day and He left me with the distinct feeling that after I'm gone you'll be taken care of and that you will know happiness as you have never known it before in life."