(Untitled)

[uquars_gadget]

(from here)

Helen, chin held stiffly out and hair covering her face, is crossing the mud plains towards the inexorable come here tug that is leading her to the holy place.

She is trying to walk as if the wounds from her stoning are not paining her.

She is angry enough to pull it off.

Comments

[walksthebounds]

Jamie's only been on this swine of a world for a week, and it's fair to say that he's been cursing for most of it. It's certainly fair to say that he's never, ever been so happy to feel the call of the Bounds.

(Now he just has to reach it without being ambushed by one of the beastly bloody inhabitants of this beastly bloody world. Which is easier said than done.)

He's about half a mile away when the rain stops, for the first time since he's been there, and the sun comes out.

. . . of course, the mud dries right up and leaves the place a blinding, miserable desert. Of course.

Jamie says some more bad words, and then he can't even summon up the energy to do that. The call of the bounds is twisting sickeningly away at his insides, and the sun is beating down on his head so hot it hurts, and he can't walk through this bloody shifting sand, and he scrunches his eyes shut and stumbles into a sort of heap.

[uquars_gadget]

As the breath of the water clears away, Helen can see a boy ahead--burnt, and brown-blond, the sort of person she's seen no where except Milliways.

He's an exile too, not from her world, and probably knows more about the travelling than she does. A plan is forming in her mind when he stumbles, and falls, as if he doesn't know how to walk.

She's catching up on him quick, the feel of the tugging, twisting command making her even angrier.

"What are you waiting for?" Helen asks, as she passes him. "It's got to the hurry-hurry part."

[walksthebounds]

As soon as Jamie hears someone coming up behind him, he pushes himself around - you don't let anyone sneak up on you, in this world. Not that he can see very well, with the sun beating furiously down into his eyes, but enough to make out what seems to be the blue-black back of somebody's head going the other direction.

And then the back of the person's head snaps and marches on past him, and Jamie rubs his eyes and turns around, staring. The back of the head goes all the way around.

The person doesn't have a face.

. . . but face or not, whoever it is is no bigger than Jamie, and they're moving through the sand like it's a nice paved road. That, combined with the irritatingly superior tone in the other person's voice, is enough to get Jamie up and ploughing and hastening after them.

"You don't have to hurry when it says," he pants.

[uquars_gadget]

"I know I don't," she tells him. What does he think she is, completely unlearned?

She walks quicker, all the same.