(Photo by Paul Knut)

Each morning was a bit easier than the one before it. As Nis sat on a log and wrote down the previous night’s dream about Mel and Tique she marveled at how they had survived their fall. Nis also wondered how much longer they could have survived with such injuries. Her own body ached with phantom pains, sometimes stronger, sometimes weaker, as she wrote down what all she could remember.

It was strange, Nis thought, that she had never heard about the fighting and things that Mel and Tique had been fleeing. Of course, not everything in her dreams showed up in the histories, but she would have expected such a major event like that to have been recorded. In a way, their absence reminded her of her past life, Quinn. There had been massive amounts of fighting and turmoil and yet no record of those events had survived either. Mel and Tique were more recent but they were still a few hundred years in the past.

Outside of the copse, the sounds of Skav moving about drew Nis’ attention. He didn’t seem to be stumbling as much as he had been doing the previous day. Was that a sign of him adjusting to being blind or was his vision returning? He didn’t seem like much of a talker, though, and for that Nis was grateful. Her own thoughts were enough of a distraction.

Upon finishing her entry into her journal, Nis set about working on the fishing basket. However, as she began to try bending the reeds, instead of curving easily they began to snap and splinter. They had dried out, Nis realized, and without the needed moisture they became stiff and brittle. The reeds were only workable if they had either been recently picked or were kept soaking in water.

Her gaze fell on the game trail and she felt as though a weight had just been dropped into her stomach. She had hoped not to have to go back out there today. Sure, she’d get thirsty but she wanted to stay away from Skav as much as possible. What she wouldn’t give to have an airship like the one Mel had had and be able to just fly away. For a moment she considered sneaking back into Duran to see if she could find an airship to commandeer. Controlling them never looked all that difficult to Nis, although she hadn’t yet dreamed of how to get them started or how to land them. Besides, she’d never actually seen any airships other than the ones in her dreams and so doubted very much that anyone in Duran actually had an airship in the first place.

“Um, hello miss?” Skav called through the brambles.

Nis considered not answering him but quickly thought better of it. She wanted to stay on his good side for as long as possible.

“I’m here,” she called back to him.

“I’m not meaning to rush you or anything,” Skav said, “but is there a plan for breakfast or something that I could help with?”

Nis looked down to her failed basket and a heavy sigh escaped her lips.

“Not really,” she told him. “We’ll eat around midday but other than that we’ll have to wait until I can get these fishing baskets made.”

“Oh,” came the disappointed reply. “It’s just that, I’m a pretty big guy and it takes a fair bit of food to keep me up and going, you know?”

“Well I wasn’t planning on feeding the two of us when I was packing so you’ll just have to make do for now.”

“And how long’s that going to take?” Skav was losing his patience now.

Nis held her breath for a moment and steadied her racing heart. She needed to keep him calm, keep him from turning on her. Blind or not, Skav was a large and powerfully built man and Nis didn’t want to become a focus for his wrath.

“I only have enough food for one more meal,” Nis finally managed to say. The fear in her own voice was palpable and she wondered whether that would make Skav more or less likely to try and attack her. “If you want to eat it now then I’ll bring it out to you. The fishing baskets take about a day to make and the…the interruptions I’ve had have kept me from being able to make one yet.”

“Hmph,” Skav grunted but gave no other response.

“I need to come out and gather more reeds,” Nis told him, “so if you want your food now, say so and I’ll bring it out with me.”

Regardless of whatever Skav was about to say, Nis planned on bringing everything with her just in case she needed to run for it.

“Yeah, I’ll eat now,” Skav said.

“Alright,” Nis replied. “Please sit down by the stream and I’ll bring it to you.”

Nis crawled out, making sure to locate where Skav was before going all the way out. Just as before, he was sitting on the bank of the stream, his arms and legs folded. However, his expression was dark and angry. Nis withdrew a few pieces of the dried meat and another bread roll. She crept over to him and placed the food down, keeping herself just out of arms reach. That done, she backed away and readied her sharpened stick, just in case.

“The food’s just a bit in front of you,” she said.

Skav leaned forward, feeling with his hands until they found the food. He made short work of them and then turned to the berry bush. Nis, meanwhile, moved upstream and began picking fresh reeds. Once again she sat down on top of the large rock to work. She wanted to return to the copse but she also wanted to stay close to the stream so she could gather more reeds as she needed them. Enough time had passed that she hoped Kyv wouldn’t be returning and that anyone else who may have been following her would be unlikely to find her here now. Still, she wasn’t confident enough yet to strike out in search of yet another hiding place.

While she wove, Skav finished eating and then sat facing her. He cocked his head at times as he listened to Nis work.

“You could teach me to do that,” he said after some time. “I’m sure I could pick it up. Always was a quick learner, especially when it came to handiwork. That way we’d have those done twice as fast.”

“Thanks, but I think it’d be better if I just hurry up and finish at least the first one before you try learning how to do it. It’s been…a while since I last made one and I want to make sure I remember it correctly.”

“You don’t think I can do it because I can’t see,” Skav grumbled.

“No,” Nis replied, “but teaching takes time and I don’t know that I’m even doing it right, yet.”

There was also, of course, the unspoken reason why she wasn’t going to teach him how to weave baskets and it was apparent that Skav knew it as well. Teaching him to weave a basket would require Nis to be dangerously close to Skav.

“Well, what if you just talk out loud about what you’re doing? I could maybe pick it up from that.”

That seemed like a fair enough compromise. Maybe Nis had misjudged Skav and he really did just want to help or at least have something to do.

“I started with five reeds,” she said, “and laid them out like spokes on a cart wheel. Then I took a sixth reed and began weaving it through them like a spiral, over and under, over and under, keeping the weave loose and leaving gaps here and there large enough for about two fingers to fit through but not any larger. That will allow the water to escape but not the fish.”

Skav felt around the bank by where he sat and pulled up some reeds. As Nis went on, explaining how to set each row of reeds so that they wouldn’t shift once the basket was made, Skav followed along. It didn’t look like his basket would be very functional but at least it was giving him something to do.

A busy mind is a safe mind.

Nis wasn’t sure where that thought had come from. One of her past lives, most likely, but the tone of it in her head made her feel uneasy. It wasn’t kindness that inspired such a sentiment, but rather a desire to control and manipulate others. Her main concern was that it might be the same past life that had taken control and tried to kill Kyneh, but she knew it could just as easily be from any number of other past lives. Quinn, whom she had been thinking about earlier that day, seemed just as likely to be responsible for the thought. Still, it was an unsettling reminder of why she was out here in the first place and helped solidify her resolve not to return to Duran.

Nis focused back on the weaving and allowed that to distract her from any further thoughts about her past lives. From time to time she looked up, checking on Skav, but needn’t have worried. He stayed where he was, dutifully trying to follow her spoken explanation of how to weave the basket and, mostly, failing. With luck the basket Nis was weaving would prove adequate for their needs in the short term. If it proved effective, then she’d be able to set it in the stream, anchored down with a few stones, and then she would be free to go in search of edible roots and such to fill out their diet. Skav could check the traps easily enough and Nis was fairly confident that even blind he’d be able to clean and prepare them. It all just came down to whether or not there were enough fish in the stream that the one trap would be sufficient to keep them fed and happy, particularly in Skav’s case.