Kyle slept, and dreamed. He dreamed dark dreams of blood and steel and fire. Dreams of death, and ashes.<\/p>\n
But he woke slowly, and as the dreams faded their details melted like fog, and he could no longer remember them. His nightmares were replaced by reality, and that was almost more frightening than the dreams.<\/p>\n
He sat up slowly, the soreness in his muscles a reminder of yesterday, of running for his life. He groaned, and looked around. Dim light was filtering through roots that made up the entrance of the cave, morning light. Pocahontas was sitting with her back against the wall a few feet away. As far away as she could, actually. It was a small cave.<\/p>\n
\u201cGood dawn,\u201d she said. Another one of her weird phases. English, yes, just not quite right. Another world.\u00a0He shivered.<\/p>\n
\u201cGood morning,\u201d he croaked, and she tilted her head to the side. That must sound as strange to her as what she said does to me. Oh well.<\/p>\n
She tossed the water jug to him. It was almost empty, so he only took a sip.<\/p>\n
\u201cFinish it,\u201d she said. \u201cWe have another long walk ahead of us today, and it will do more good in your stomach.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hopefully it would be at a little slower pace this time or he might not survive. He swallowed the water.<\/p>\n
He set down the jug, and started brushing sand off his shirt. It had actually been rather comfortable, considering. \u201cHey,\u201d he said, \u201clast night you said you thought I was from the ‘south’, but I never asked about it. Where are we?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, I forgot that you don\u2019t know,\u201d she said. \u201cOf course you don\u2019t know. We are in one of the northern most areas of civilized habitation. It is only about a fortnight\u2019s walk north of here to the Icewall Mountains, and beyond them is the White Waste, where the snow doesn\u2019t melt, even in the summer. No one human lives there, that I know of, and only a few go hunting there in the summer.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWow. Okay, it certainly doesn\u2019t feel that cold. It\u2019s about the same as it was in the foothills of the Smokies, in October. I mean, it\u2019s not warm, and I\u2019m glad I have my hiking clothes, but it doesn\u2019t feel like the \u2018Frigid North\u2019.\u201d He wiggled his fingers in air-quotes.<\/p>\n
\u201cMidsummer was two days ago. This is as warm as it gets here. I don\u2019t know where your October is, but you are fortunate that you came here in the summer. In the winter you would have already frozen to death in those clothes.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGod, it feels like everything in this world wants to kill me. Orcs, rocks, the freakin\u2019 ground falling out, and now I avoided freezing to death by\u00a0being lucky enough to be wearing under-armor. Wonderful.\u201d<\/p>\n
She smiled. \u201cWell, I don\u2019t want to kill you. Yet.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cGee, thanks. I guess\u00a0I shouldn’t be surprised that if I am\u00a0in another world that\u00a0it could be a different time of year.\u00a0And October is a month, by the way. In the Fall. The Smoky Mountains are where I was hiking.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cInteresting. There is a Smoky Mountains here as well. They are far to the South and East of here, and are rather smaller than Icewall Mountains. My Uncle told me that they were so named because the morning fog never seems to go away. I wonder if yours are named for the same reason.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know. It makes sense, though.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou will have to tell me more of this October the Month, but first\u2026\u201d she tossed him the small bag she had unburied last night. \u201cCheese, and smoked venison, and bread. Well, hardtack, which is like bread but has the potential to break your teeth. And lasts forever, which is the primary reason for it. None of it is particularly tasty, but it will fill our stomachs, and there is enough there for a few days.\u201d<\/p>\n
She started crawling toward the entrance. \u201cNow, enough sitting. If we move quickly, we should be able to make it to my uncle\u2019s cottage almost before sunset. But we will have to eat while we walk.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kyle grabbed the bag, and his sword –\u00a0his sword.\u00a0It still sounded strange.<\/p>\n
He crawled out of the cave after her.<\/p>\n
The sun had just risen, and the light was still soft as it filtered though the huge trees. They seemed like some kind of pine or cyprus, but he wasn\u2019t sure. It was beautiful. He looked around for a moment, entranced. Llara had already started walking, and after a moment, he followed her.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey certainly are majestic, aren\u2019t they,\u201d she said, looking back at him.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re beautiful. What are they called?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe darrow tree. They are, all of them, much older than us. Some of them were probably alive at the fall of the Empire.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow,\u201d she said, \u201cwe need to be fairly quiet, but tell me more about this October the Month.\u201d<\/p>\n
He smiled, and told her.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Kyle slept, and dreamed. He dreamed dark dreams of blood and steel and fire. Dreams of death, and ashes. But he woke slowly, and as the dreams faded their details melted like fog, and he could no longer remember them. His nightmares were replaced by reality, and that was almost more frightening than the dreams. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/boa.emeraldfyre.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/boa.emeraldfyre.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/boa.emeraldfyre.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/boa.emeraldfyre.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/boa.emeraldfyre.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/boa.emeraldfyre.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35,"href":"https:\/\/boa.emeraldfyre.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32\/revisions\/35"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/boa.emeraldfyre.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/boa.emeraldfyre.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/boa.emeraldfyre.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}