I felt like I was in a pasta machine.
The breath was squeezed out of me, my bones felt like they were going to break while twisting like a pretzel. I closed my eyes before my head went through and I think I am glad. The light that went through my eyelids made me blind for close to an hour before I could see anything. My ears were worse off. I just lay in the grass until I could see the bright blue sky above me and could hear the wind through the grasses and not the metal on metal screeching and pounding that was still lingering after going through.
It smelled... O.k.. Since I could not see or hear, but I could feel my stuff that I had thrown through and could smell, that was what I had to go by. At first, I could smell the acrid stuff you get when something electronic gets really dead. But that passed quickly. I could smell the grasses and dirt and water. The grasses had been harvest golden through the table picture, but I could feel that they were soft and felt like it had rained recently.
The wind that was going over me as I lay there smelled of more than the grasses after a while. I was wondering if wherever this was had lilacs because I could smell something like that in the air over the wet dirt smell. I opened my eyes when I thought I heard an animal close to me over the ringing in my ears. Something like a deer was close to me, looking imperial as other things moved the grasses around me. I felt a snort behind me and jumped in my skin as the nose of one of the deer poked through and sniffed me before bolting away again.
It was almost comforting to see something like a deer. It was one of those almost normal things that nature lets us have to be able to tell that things are going to be o.k.. Animals and grasses and a bright sun, that was not as warm as I thought it might be.
It took me until the sun was almost directly above in the sky for me to gather myself and my stuff together. It was strange. I almost expected some sort of little window back into my room to be floating there. There was just more of the grasses over the field I was in. I saw some trees in the distance towards where the sun had risen while I was still trying to get my senses to work right.
In my blind panic, I had thrown a few things through that I hadn’t meant to. I found a place in the backpack for the skull bowl, and found most of my jewelry. I used a belt to rig up something to get my sleeping bag on the backpack. No ALICE clips for sleeping bags, it seems.
In some ways, it is good that I regularly wore the leathers and Conanesque stuff. It was colder than I expected, but with the leathers and the pirate shirt on over a t-shirt, I was comfortable temperature-wise. I had little problem strapping the sword on my back before hauling the pack on. I had stuffed one of the daggers into my riding boots and strapped a few other things to my legs over my leather pants.
Well, not really pants. They are a type of chaps that is used in rodeo competitions. I had modified them, read hated the fringe, and added a few decorations. They fit over the jeans, and I am glad that I had made sure they did in my first push to get things ready to run away. I usually wear tights under them. Yes, I know, tights are not ‘barbarian’, but they do make going into public just a little easier than having my butt hanging out.
The one thing I had not counted on was the walking. Even if I had staid... At home, I had worn the riding boots some, but with taking the bus, getting rides from people and just sitting around at school and at home, I don’t think I had really broken them in, yet. I had only been able to wear them to the stable once after the trip to the Grands’. The instructor liked them but did warn me to oil them up before doing too much with them.
I should have listened.
They were meant for in the stirrups, not over rough ground. They were slick on the bottom, except for a patch on the ball of the sole that was ridged to catch the stirrup. That meant that I was slipping sometimes and catching my foot on things sometimes. They started to get too tight, which just added to the pain in my shoulders and back with the pack weighing me down.
I stopped several times as I walked towards and then along the trees that bordered the golden grassed field. The second time, I figured out the waist belt for the pack and my shoulders were much better. I think the manual for the backpack is still in the bottom under everything. I really should have read it.
The bamboo staff helped. I could part the grasses as I walked, and it helped to keep me stable with the mass of my worldly goods, as Mom might say, on my back. It was heavy. But I had gone through the table thing and I had to accept what I had done and what I might have to do. As I said, I am too accepting on occasion.
Night came really fast. From a hint of the sun going down behind the trees to golden light making everything just glow to dark. And I mean DARK. Yes, there were stars, more than I ever had seen at once, but it was not enough to see anything by.
I had a small flashlight and knew it was too late to try to get a fire going. I found an energy bar in the pocket of the pack and made a mattress of leaves and grasses under one of the big trees as I chewed. I had just one bottle of water but the bar was so dry that I finished it without meaning to.
I used the pack as a pillow and bundled myself into my sleeping bag. I didn’t dare take my clothing off, except enough to use the wide open spaces to pee and stuff. I didn’t like leaving my boots on, but I didn’t know what I was going to find in the morning hiding in my boots if I left them out of the sleeping bag.
I did sleep. Not the best, but it was the type of rest that let me know that I really had walked that far after having been up all day partying with my friends. I cried when I thought of people.
I had seen a few small animals, a fox or large cat chasing mice and a few birds overhead while I walked. No sounds of engines. No larger animals. No people.
Yup. I really had run away from it all.
****
I sat there crying under that big tree as the day warmed up around me. It was not really the missing people, though that was a big part of it. It wasn’t that I was achy and wanted something hot to eat, though I am sure that pushed it. It was not having my brush.
I had put some hygene things in the pack when I had been actively planing on leaving before. It was a hodge-podge of kleenex and razors and bobby pins. I had a toothbrush, but no toothpaste. And nothing to deal with my hair. I like my hair and I hadn’t really paid attention to what I would need to keep it clean and tidy. I really didn’t want to use the razors to cut it off.
It just hit me how unprepared for everything I was. Not just leaping into the unknown, like one of the kidnapped women in the Gor books. Life in general. My life in specific.
So I sat there on the sleeping bag, crying my eyes out.
I came up for air and tried to use my fingers to get some of the knots and stuff out. I had to use a thong to tie it at the end of the rough braid I did. It didn’t want to stay and it slipped out several times until I put creases in my fingers from how hard I pulled on it as I tied it.
I found a bottle of vitamins and the last of my energy bars in the backpack. There was just enough water in the bottle to wet my mouth. The one pill I took went down hard and I had to force the bar in and down as I rolled my sleeping bag up. It was not the breakfast of champions, but it was what I had. I almost left the bottle as I slung the pack on. I carefully picked up the bottle and held it in the hand that was not holding the staff and I headed out again.
No roads. I started thinking of my social studies teacher. He would often go on about the infrastructure that every civilization needs to be able to advance forward. Like roads. And the wheel. And Elephants. I smiled when remembering a class where he brought in a stuffed elephant into class and little miniatures to show how Hannibal had outfitted the troops and elephants before he went over the mountains. I sort of felt like that elephant right then. And I wished I had been paying more attention to Mr. Lowell.
There was a small stream I came across after the sun had almost reached the trees. I sat for a while and drank several bottles of slightly cloudy water as I rested. I felt very crafty as I took some of the grasses and twisted them into a string to go around the bottle to keep it on the pack. It did take several attempts, like with the thong, but I was able to do two lengths twisted together and it did not fall apart.
I moved a little ways away from the stream and found another place to bed down for the night. I had time to find and gather wood and stuff, so I did so. I had a lighter(did you know that it is hard to buy those things if you are not over eighteen? I am not a smoker, my Mom isn’t either, and I had to buy a 5-pack of the things to get one. Stupid laws) and I was able to have an o.k. fire before the DARK came down. It was nice to have a fire. It went out when I was asleep, but it was light and heat and perhaps a little protection when it was going.
I think I saw eyes in the night on the other side of the fire a few times. I did not hear anything, like a wolf or anything, so I wasn’t really scared until I woke the next morning. There were some really big paw prints on the other side of the cleared grass from where I had been sleeping. Yup. And I couldn’t tell what it was.
You know, the stupidest thing happened right then. I took a picture of the paw print and tried to get onto the internet to find out what it was. The picture, not so stupid. Trying to use my phone to get onto a network that was planets away? Ya. Really stupid.
So I broke down and cried again. After turning my phone off to save what batteries I had left.
I took the opportunity of having water, cloudy as it was, to wash me a bit. I had rank socks by then and I am sure I killed something downstream when I rinsed them out. I had another pair, thank goodness, so I hung the socks off the pack when I started to put things away. No other bra, but I did have one of the leather halters. I put that on, and the shirt over it because I could feel that I was getting sun, so having the shirt was good.
I know I am putting lots of odd details in here. It is what happened and it is the details that kept me going. If I thought too much on the fact that I didn’t know where I was and no one else really did, either, I would start to cry. Some butch barbarian warrior that makes.
****
The morning after the third night I spent in the wilderness, I saw some animals. I think they were like pygmy goats. There were harnesses on them, and one had a bell. That meant people.
I did not run. My feet were in no condition, and my back was close to it, too. I went towards them and they moved. I followed them until I saw a horse.
It was a beautiful horse. Small, like a Morgan, but broad and a gold hide with black mane and tail. And a saddle. I was ecstatic about seeing a horse with a saddle! That meant not just people, but people who had horses. To my credit, I think I was more than loopy from not eating more than a vitamin pill that morning.
I went towards the horse and didn’t react when I heard hoofbeats behind me. I was knocked down and tangled in a net. I struggled and tried to get it off of me as I also tried to stand up. The bamboo staff was both helping me get back up and getting tangled in the netting. I dropped the staff when I could and freed my arm enough to try to reach my sword.
I had turned towards the guy on the horse. I couldn’t really get to my sword with the net and the backpack both getting in the way. I could see him clearly though the net as I was backing away from him and trying to get something to defend myself with. You would think that something for fishing would be easy to get out of. Nope. The guy on the horse was wearing a long overcoat of a dark wool and had a leather helmet on. There was rope draped around his torso, like a baldric, and another net was over the horn of his horse’s saddle. Pouches and baskets of fish were on the horse. I saw that right before I was taken down from behind.
I had forgotten about the other horse. That meant someone else. Stupid.
One of them held my arms as the other dragged the net off of me. I tried to kick, but could not get near either of them. They stood me up and was able to get my backpack off of me. That felt good, but then they took my sword and I did not like that. I did not do anything about it, though. I was outnumbered and so tired and hungry that I know I would not have been able to do anything against them. At least not successfully.
I listened to them as they talked between themselves. I sat and just watched them. The one who had netted me looked at me directly for a moment and smiled. He said, “We caught ourselves an outlander woman.”
The other one was not so sure, until he came closer to me and could see some of my curves. “Are you from Jujune?”
I shook my head. I had no idea what they were talking about. I was having the horrible things from the Gor novels going through my head and I wanted to go home. I knew that I had to stand up for myself and protect myself.
They had not tied me in any way while they discussed me. I heard something and took a chance. They were trying to claim me. I did not want to be claimed.
I stood and started to stretch a little. They both went quiet and watched me. I motioned to my sword and the one who had been on the horse nodded to me. He pulled out my sword from it’s sheath and he handed it to me, after looking at it with a little nod. He pulled his sword, even with his friend trying to get him to step back.
I waited until he had dropped the rope from around him and had done a few stretches of his own. I think I even saw a little smile. I went into a good defensive posture, and waited.
It was not like being in class. I could not hear the encouraging calls from my classmates and friends. I had just myself, and even though I was scared, I was going to fight for myself.
He came towards me and I reacted wrong. I went backwards, but I was able to deflect his blows with my sword. It hurt. It went through my hands and elbows and hurt. I should have stood my ground, and I did the next time he came at me. I know that my eyes were everywhere because I did not trust that the other one would not come up behind me when I was fighting this man.
He rushed me again and I was able to do a hip-throw, landing him in the grass. I stepped back and waited for him to stand. The one not fighting was laughing, but I am not sure which one of us he was laughing at. There was a big smile on the man I was fighting when I saw him face me again.
It looked like Nathan when he was about to play some sort of trick on me. I don’t know if he saw the shock that sent through me, but I know he saw me drop my form slightly. He started to rush me again, but went around me and hit my shoulder with the flat of his blade right before pushing me sideways.
I stumbled. I could not regain my footing. I dropped the sword and landed hard and tried to roll. Over half of Judo is knowing how to deal with not winning. That is not how they put it, but it is the truth. And I was not winning. I rolled and pushed myself up. Not in time.
He was on top of me and pulled my arms in back of me, tying them with slightly damp rope. I was beaten, and beaten by him. It was not what I wanted, but he had to fight to claim me.
He pulled me up and looked at me. He smiled as he looked into my eyes. I tried to keep a calm face, but I didn’t. I sighed and bowed my head once to him. He laughed and nodded to me.
“Feisty!” He looked at the other man and said, “I’ll take her to camp.” He turned back to me and said, “I need to let our leader figure out what to do with you, Feisty.”
I pulled on the rope and shook my head, which made him laugh more. The other one started to put my stuff on the horse, almost taking my sword for himself. I jerked towards him and the one who had beaten me saw what I was suddenly angry about.
They talked. There was some argument. It was decided that the other one would stay and continue to hunt and fish as the one who had beaten me would take what they had killed and cleaned back, along with their unexpected treasure, me.
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