@boriasmcgni.
It had became quite clear to Claire some time ago that she was not in Scotland anymore, however it was quite difficult to allow herself to accept that fact. She had walked up to the Standing Stones of Craigh na Dun and hours later woke up on the grass. She had remembered what it had felt like. The buzzing of the stones as though they were calling her to touch the cragged rock as the earth trembled beneath her feet and the sound of battle filled her ears. That could not have been a dream, it was far too real.
Her first instinct was to run back to the car down the hill, but the car wasn’t there, nor was gravelled road or the signposts. Instead she was greeted with miles of greenery, as though she had been plucked straight from her own time and transported through history, looking at Inverness before the modern world had taken course. But even to think she was in Inverness still was quite a large ask, because as she ran and ran, breathless and afraid of what she might find, the Scotland she was in seemed long gone. While this place resembled Scotland in many aspects, such as the mountains, the forests and the general countryside that surrounded her, something did not feel right.
Fear had gripped her first, then panic. Her frantic whiskey gaze searched and searched for any sign of something to indicate she had not gone mad. A signpost, a road, a street lamp but instead the longer she walked, the more she realised just how alone she was in this wilderness. Claire wondered for a time if she was the only living soul in this new world she had landed in, for it was nearing dusk and she’d not once laid eyes on another breathing soul and that thought terrified her. Emotions flooded her at first. She wanted to cry, then she wanted to scream and then she realised that no matter what she did, it wasn’t going to help. The best thing to do was to keep a level head and try to make sense of this mess she’d gotten herself into and find a way home.
In all her travelling though, her white shift dress was now tattered and filthy, while her feet and legs were covered in mud having trampled through grass recently touched by rain. Her chaotic curly hair was askew as it usually was in trying situations and overall Claire wagered she looked a sight, not that her appearance mattered to her right now. Though after some time she had managed to find a path, not something to be called a road by any means but some indication that people actually walked it. It gave her a small sense of hope, that this path might lead somewhere; to safety, to refuge.
