The blackness didn’t just cloud my vision, it was over my whole body. I’d been under anesthesia before, but this was different. Like my soul had been put under.
And then I got hit with a table.
I groaned, rolled over, and after a brief moment got hit with a floor.
Stand. I had to stand and figure out what was happening. I could roll over and out of… Off of… Whatever. I wasn’t at home. This didn’t smell like home. That person screaming didn’t sound like anyone I knew. Terrific. Was I being robbed? Why would a robber be screaming?
“Wghflzl” I managed, one of my hands pushing me up with what felt like a few dozen lead weights in my pockets. Where were my friends? Last I remembered we were at my place, and-
Another scream, this one deeper, a man’s maybe. Why couldn’t I see? Reaching up to check my eyes, I found… a hat? When the hell did I put on a hat?
“Lukas.” I managed to croak. “Jon, Kendra, Sophie. Where are you?” I finally managed to figure out how to get my hat off my eyes and found we had somehow wound up in a Renn Faire? Someone kinda greenish looked blearily down at me. Not greenish like sea-sickness, but more like they’d decided to take up chlorophyll as a secondary nutrition source. Looked a bit like Lukas. “Nice costume dude” I managed, shakily climbing to my feet. My voice was six kinds of fucked up. I wouldn’t call myself a bass, but damn, I sounded more like my voice was made of bubble gum and homecoming cheers than anything.
“I, uh, I could say the same?” he replied before looking down at some kind of tool bag in his hand. I looked down at it and then looked down at myself.
“Huhn,” was all I could say. My shirt was incredibly loose. And maybe padded like armor, like I was gonna teach a boxer how to do chest shots? Sure. I’ll think about that one… later. Yup. Definitely have to think a lot about that one later. Or maybe not at all. Meantime. “Soph? Hey, where the fuck are you gu- aaaaAAAHH!” Yup, definitely my turn to scream as a bearded, not exactly clean guy in a very medieval getup came through the door with a massive club and started towards me.
In a flash, I had a cutlass out. That at least gave him pause as Probably Lukas and I shuffled back towards where I really hoped there was a back door, or at least a window we could scramble out of. “Jon, Kendra, Sophie, we’re getting the fuck out of here! Lukas, I hope to God that’s you, can you see who screamed?”
I jumped out of the way of the angry gentleman’s swing. The suspiciously worse-for-wear counter next to me wasn’t quite so mobile and splintered with a loud crack, which covered up his answer. Fortunately for me, an arrow lodged itself in the wall and pointed the way back to the person I was now assuming had screamed. No, it wasn’t an arrow. Too short and thick for an arrow. It was a bolt. Which meant it belonged to… A quick glance to the side, my long hair swishing (when did I get long hair?) showed a short-ish younger woman holding a crossbow and staring wide-eyed at me and my companion. And also at the guy trying to murder me.
Speaking of. He was clearly a little stunned at the damage he’d caused to the shop. I took the opportunity to punch him in the throat with the guard of my sword. He dropped the tree limb he had been holding so he could grab his throat, but based on the look in his eyes as he sank to his knees, that was a temporary state of affairs. I made it slightly less temporary by kicking his weapon away out of his reach and then stepping back. “Lukas! That is you, right?” I demanded, not looking around for him.
“Uh, yeah, I’m still me.”
“Great, find us a back door. And our friends if you have a spare moment.”
“That won’t be a problem,” said a double-bass voice coming from, yes, the back room. It looked like Jon. Well, more like Jon’s uncle probably. The foot-long beard was new. And the additional couple-three decades of age. The robes and book definitely weren’t his usual look either. But hey, the sartorial choices were just about normal right now.
“Great, you got Kendra and Sophie?”
“Yes, although there are some issues.”
“I bet. Out the back, then we’ll sort things out. Go!” Jon opened his mouth to say something when, of course, the other two entered from the back room at speed. Kendra I guessed was now about four feet tall and rail thin but still had the same manically dyed hair. She stumbled in, practically thrown judging from the landing, and then collapsed on the floor with a rapidly spreading stain on her vest. Funny thing about blood, the color is incredibly easy to pick out, and there was more of it to pick out on her than I was happy about.
The last of my friends I remembered being near entered quickly but, well, almost like she just happened to be moving quickly because that’s how things were, not like she was doing anything as gauche as hurrying. And she was doing it backwards. Her sword, held in both hands, made soft whooshing noises as it blocked several rocks flung at or past her and what looked like a couple of knives. The pattern changed as she stepped fully through the door, making sure she didn’t stop her movements by striking the door frame. Someone stumbled towards her and I saw the sword change angles to give him a rather permanent haircut and then… he wasn’t dead. He wasn’t even hurt that I could see, just stumbling backwards over his own feet.
“Sophie!” I shouted, and her head turned slightly, incredibly large and pointed ears now readily apparent. “How many?” I asked.
The wind was knocked out of me and I crashed to the floor again. Someone was on top of me. Not the last guy. Not the shopkeep. Someone new. Stupid, I hadn’t been paying attention to the front door and now someone was trying to beat my head into the floorboards. And had a grip on my sword arm. Well. That was just ducky.
I tried once or twice to yank my arm free. No dice. The panic was starting to rise in me, because this dude was strong and was rearing back for an overhand smash. Looked like a farmhand and absolutely smelled like one. Especially down here where I was.
Fortunately, it was right about then that I realized my other hand was free. Well, kind of free. This ox was straddling my waist and my other arm was basically pinned under his legs next to mine. Right near where I kept my dagger. If I pulled it out, I couldn’t stab him in the chest with it, not the way we were positioned, but he had plenty of tender flesh at hand. I decided to point this out to him.
After a brief moment, he had eagerly rolled off of me and was laying curled up on his side, gripping his red badge of courage and swearing rather voluminously. A quick glance back, and Sophie was still holding the doorway. It looked like a couple more had joined the crowd on the other side. They’d start around the front of the building before too long, and then we’d be hemmed in and cut down. Lukas had pulled Kendra to the side and seemed to be having a hard time choosing between weeping and a Hulk-level rage. “Lukas!” I managed to shout through a throat lined with sandpaper, keeping an eye on the front door. “Stabilize her if you can! Bind her wound and get ready to carry her. We’re leaving! Front door!”
Jon’s book closed with a clap that echoed like thunder in a valley. He said one word that sounded like a Klingon speaking Latin, and there were a half-dozen growls outside the front door. “Jon…” I said remarkably flatly, staring out the door. “What did you do?”
“Provided a distraction,” he rumbled. The growls grew to snarls, followed by very human screams. I shuffled over to the door and peeked out. A handful of wolves were taking off down the street, jumping on more than a few fleeing townsfolk. The wolves disappeared one by one. Not like they were magical, they just… stepped behind a box or down an alley and didn’t step back out. Were they still there? Who knew! This place was just full of adventure!
“Right, I think that’s our cue to exit. Jon, you and Lukas first with Kendra. Sophie. Sophie!” She winced at my shout. Right, right, not sure how I could have forgotten the hearing that would come with those ears. “Come on!”
Lukas was closing his toolbag. Box. Thing. I think I saw a hypodermic needle being slipped back in? Kendra was staring around wide-eyed as Lukas picked her up by her shirt and just carried her. Her hand went to her wound, pressed it, and she closed her eyes for a moment. Yeah, it probably hurt like hell. I hoped maybe Lukas had given her morphine as well as whatever stimulant had been loaded. You know, like a responsible medic. Instead, she also spoke what sounded like a single word and then… relaxed with a faint smile. While being football carried.
Jon went with them and I saw them head to the right. Awesome. Time to follow suit. “Sophie, book it!” And on the word, she spun on one toe like a dancer and sprinted out the door, heading right after only a moment’s glance. Two down on the floor. The first guy seemed to be recovering a little. Couldn’t have him following us up. I introduced his ribs to my boot, while my skirt, which I was definitely not going to freak out about right now, definitely not a, a, a, a guy wearing a skirt, flowing a little. I turned to the shopkeep and realized I was holding my cutlass and a lightly bloodied knife. She seemed distressed for some reason. “Um. Sorry about the mess,” I said, then followed my friends out of the shop at a dead run since the folks streaming in the back door seemed to have twigged to Sophie being actually gone and were starting to clog the doorway again in their haste to try and hurt us.
The town wasn’t that big, maybe a couple hundred people at most, and we seemed to be near a gate. And since it was day time, the gate was open, so we ran through it out into the woods and kept running. Why? Well, there was what used to be called “a bit of a hue and cry” behind us. I started to understand how foxes felt. So we ran. At first on the road and then when the first of us, who shall remain totally nameless, started to flag we headed off the road until we were all exhausted.
Five minutes we were leaning against trees and looking back the way we had come, hands on weapons, sweat pouring down our bodies. It felt like we had run for a half hour. Knowing my general fitness, it was probably closer to ten, and on the lower side at that. But still. We were out of sight of the town. Ten minutes passed. Fifteen. Maybe. Probably. Almost definitely. I felt like I could talk without gasping at least. Turning around to look at everyone, I saw Jon and Sophie. No Lukas. No Kendra. I blinked a few times. I remembered them ahead of me when we turned off the path. “Where-” I began, before Jon replied “They’re comforting each other. About a hundred yards that way,” he said, gesturing towards a dip in the ground. Sophie was clearly blushing. “They’re spending time, um, agreeing with each other. A lot,” she added, running a finger along her eartip. Fan-fucking-tastic. Literally, it seemed.
“Well, we need to keep going a little, but I think we can walk. Let’s head further away and… and… and-” I crossed my legs and sneezed. Fucking pollen. I guess some things didn’t change. “And find a safe place to build a fire and spend the night. Somewhere hidden. We’ll regroup and figure out what’s going on from there.” The two of them nodded and we were just about to start walking before Sophie put a hand on my shoulder. “Let’s, um…” Right. Right.
“Alright, five minutes. Then I start tossing pebbles at them. Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em, I guess.” To my mild surprise, Jon produced a short pipe, packed it, muttered something that had more echo than was right, and a little fire appeared momentarily in the bowl. He puffed a little, gave a grunt of satisfaction, and sat down watching the way we’d come. Fine. If he was going to watch, I could check out my pack and see what I had. A polished steel mirror was in there along with a bunch of other stuff. Alright. Time to bite the bullet. I looked at myself. Long curly brown-red hair, maybe a little grey? I pulled some around to look at it. Alright, definitely some grey. Back to the mirror. Now look at my sword. Back to the mirror. Nope, still the same face looking back at me. The commercials had lied to me, then. Still. A few wrinkles, mainly crows feet. Shock. Looking down and… Yeah, that was definitely more of a shock. Those were, um, yeah, those were me. A brief and surreptitious examination and, yeah, it was time for us to get going and not think about that other thing, wasn’t it? One last glance at the mirror. Not an unattractive face looking back at me, especially when I wiped the shock off. One more glance. Alright alright alright, I can’t stare at myself in the mirror all day. Five minutes was up, even if it wasn’t. I stood and placed things back more or less where I’d found them and reslung my pack across my shoulders. Kendra and Lukas were just walking back to us, grinning and absolutely definitely not looking at each other. Sure, they’d been dating before, they could keep dating now, didn’t affect me.
We struck off further into the woods as the sun sank in what I really hoped was the west, made a small camp fire in a depression where it would hopefully be kind of hidden a bit better, unpacked our bed rolls, ate a little bit of hard tack and dried fruits and nuts, drank some water from water skins, and settled in for a night. I set the watch and tried to sleep for a little bit before giving up on that.
Now that things had stopped being quite so immediately life-threatening, I had a few things to think through.
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