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The task of making it to the rear of the mine was slow and treacherous, the silence in the mine interrupted frequently by coughing. The dust may have cleared near the entrance, but it thickened quickly as they walked. After twenty minutes or so, Judah found himself up again a pile of boulders...

Jem squinted at him through slitted eyes that seemed to stare right through him. In truth, she couldn't really see anything at all anymore-- nor hear accurately enough to recognize words or voices. As Oswin hoisted her over his shoulder, she exhaled her brother's name "Chris...," softly before...

"Mmm," Piper mumbled quietly, suddenly reminded of her own parents. She wished that she had a mother to laugh about, even an annoying one. Both her parents died in a famine which had enveloped the lowlands about ten years ago, it nearly wiped out her whole family. "I'm sure its just because she...

"He is," Fern agreed readily, practically beaming at his compliment. "Almost talking too, they learn so fast, eh? Young'uns... " As Faolan had suspected, Piper had never been married. Maddox's father had left long before he had even been born, Piper wasn't even sure if he knew that he was a...

Piper accepted his thanks with a small smile and dip of her head. In contrast, the lowland people generally would not hesitate to pull someone out of the river and give them a meal. It was standard courtesy, and was never returned in pay. A lot of people didn't even have physical money as the...

"Grandmother, is there any breakfast left?" Piper grabbed a clay bowl that was resting on a makeshift counter and peered into a heavy iron pot hung across the fire. "Yes, yes... go ahead and take some. Here, Faolan you said your name was?" Fern put her hand behind his back and ushered him over...

Hannes took the third and last of the stand, a smaller tree in diameter than the others. This won't build many houses... he thought with a frown as he chopped it down. The folks downstream weren't going to be happy with the size of the last batch they had sent down.

"Ahhh, Alexis!" The woman smiled warmly, recognizing her by name rather than by sight. "Do come in, both of you... and err' Faolan Deon. Its nearly time for second breakfast, wouldn't you say?" Piper strode quickly over to her grandmother once the introductions were finished and leaned down to...

Piper quickly put her hand on his arm, preventing him from pulling out any gold while they were standing outside her door. "Not here," her voice was slightly hushed as she looked around to make sure nobody had seen or heard the gesture. There were some folks in Enden who didn't have it as well...

Piper didn't have anything more to say to Faolan until they reached Enden, about a mile and a half from the riverbank. Its small wooden houses and dirt streets were nothing compared to the kingdom of Gaoithe, which made the humble town look poverty stricken in comparison-- although the residents...

Piper's mouth was set in a hard line, her gaze averted to the ground as Faolan spoke. He made their world seem so frail and easy to break, but it didn't seem that way to her. Her entire life had been contained in a relatively small portion of the lowlands, and to think that in one battle it...

Piper watched the scene from a few paces in front of Alexis, her faced perplexed and bewildered. She couldn't deny what she had just seen, but she foreignness of it was making her very uncomfortable. What else could he do, she wondered without speaking up.

"Mhmm, follow me." Piper gestured with her arm for them to follow her as she began walking quickly into the forest, seeming to not be as friendly at his mention of the highlands. The road wasn't that far away from the river, they would reach it soon with him on horseback. From the road it was...

Hannes coughed, a result of the pipe he was currently smoking. "Well that's all fine and great." He rasped, somewhat sarcastically. "Some of us gotta work for a living though. Gunna be late already..." He turned away from the trio and continued walking down the river bank. The logging crew had...

Piper continued to look skeptical, eyeing Faolan with a cautious and weary expression. With his leather armour, he did look kind of scary to her. "Well... In any case, you really should get into some dry clothes before you catch a chill. Enden isn't far from here, and you can ride Alexis' horse...

Piper looked strangely at him, and not even Hannes had a smart comment to retort back... although he didn't have the same confused expression as Piper did. Neither of them were willing to call him a liar, given how he had shown up in the river dressed in armour, but it was the equivalent of...

"Only mountain lions and bears live up there!" Piper said in a scary voice, like she was telling a ghost story. "And the crazy people... criminals and the like. Nobody who goes up there ever comes back!"

Hannes nodded matter-of-factly at Alexis. "Got that right."

"Maybe you should see the town doctor?" Piper suggested. "He's got all sorts of fancy bottles in his house, there must be one in there that would help you. One time ol' Richie thought he seen his dead cow out in the fields and doc fixed him up no problem." -- "Richie never saw anything after...

Piper giggled at his question of witches and warlocks, her mind instantly thinking of the comical characters in stories that her Mother used to tell her. "Well, not particularly. Unless you count him," she tried to gesture to Hannes without him noticing, as he was partly faced away from them and...