The light shines even through Sol's closed eyes. He usually opens his eyes and wakes at the crack of dawn, but today it feels really hard for him to open them.
He can hear the wind blowing smoothly, the trickle of water from a river, the trees swaying gently.
"BARK! BARK! BARK!"
"ARRRRRROOOFFFF!! RRRRUUFFF!!!"
"WAN! WAN! WANWAN!!"
He forces his eyes open. His head is almost too heavy, like a ball of solid steel; it might be better to just roll it around than lift it with his neck.
The first thing he sees is the light, shining from the window right across from him. The window is open slightly, yet the light of the sun still slips through easily, as the wood used to make the window itself is cracked. One of the sunrays pricks him straight in the eye.
Ouch.
The next thing he notices is the roof. Wooden, made from a combination of strong boards and insulated with Longrass Hay. He moves his eyes to his right; there is still some room there. A table, quite small; on top of it are a couple of bowls and wooden spoons. Far beyond the table, on the other side of the room, is the kitchen, made from wood, stone, and clay. Something is still cooking; Sol can hear water boiling.
Someone's house?
He traces the kitchen with his eyes. To the left of it, there is a set of stairs, small, made from wood, not Steelpine, already quite old. There is a second story to this building, right above the kitchen.
He tries to sit.
A sharp sting on his chest and stomach. Almost his entire back also pulses with dull heat, the kind that forces someone to be awake at all times.
How can he be asleep with that kind of wound? How can he not be dead already? He doesn't know, and if he had to guess, it would be Nia.
…Nia!
He forces himself to stand. Everything stings with pain, but he makes it.
He looks down toward his body. Everything is bandaged. He is wearing very loose hemp trousers that fray near the feet, held by a long white strip of fabric that acts as a makeshift sash.
His clothes are nowhere to be found, and his dagger, or the blade rather, is gone.
He exhales again, glad that the Garm pups are no longer poisoned, and also safe from the Nhiven. At least he has paid what he owed to the bigger snow-white Garm. Hopefully they will move on soon.
"GRRRRR!!!"
"ARRRRRRRRROOOOOO!!"
"WAN! WAN!"
Everything still feels floaty to him. He can still hear the pups barking, even though he knows that they are still in the alcove inside the mountain.
He walks toward the window, each step a torture, and cracks it open a little to let the sunlight inside.
A white blur slams into his face from outside. A warm, soggy ball of fur.
Uh… what's this? Fur?
He peels it off and looks out. Five Garm pups freeze mid-frolic in the meadow and stare back. The biggest one bursts toward him, full of joy, and launches straight through the window, ramming him with not-so-pup weight.
"Ooooooooff… *coughs*, *wheeze*, I'm dying."
The pup sprawls on his chest, tongue lolling, ecstatic. His fur is damp.
"Wan!"
His tail sways vigorously, spraying water everywhere inside the house.
The other Garm pups also get closer to the house. Two of them look in through the window, and the other two use the door on his right side to get inside and circle him.
Wha? Garm pups? Wanwan?
"Oy! Big dogs! I'm not done bathin' you furry rascals!"
An unfamiliar voice can be heard from outside. It sounds old and... a bit crazy.
The man strides in and stops in the doorway, brows knitted. "You woke up, eh? 'Bout time."
Sol is confused about who the man is. He looks like he is in his hundreds from a human point of view; for a Geherrim, that might be closer to their six-hundreds.
The man's hair is no longer silver, it is fully white. Short, and he lets it stay messy on top of his balding head. His eyes are sharp. Almost like the Chief's, if the Chief had a long, full beard down to his chest. His horns are majestic; they stick out and then curl backward, creating a very intimidating visage. His muscles are wrinkled, but Sol knows this man was strong in his heyday.
"He been sleepin' fer a good ol' couple o' days. Don't bother 'im none! You white fur factories! Now go on! Git! Git, I say!"
The man shouts and stomps inside the house. A couple of the Garm pups go back outside to play; the pair at the window drop away. Wanwan stays. He licks Sol's face once.
"Ow. Rough tongue."
His body is still in so much pain, and he is confused as to how the pups got here. But he is relieved that they are fine.
The old man walks near and offers a hand.
"Take it, lad, ye'll need it. Yer body was near ripped to shreds, ye lost so much blood I thought ya was them-there mutts' dinner, hoo-wee."
Sol takes the hand, though Wanwan's bulk pins him a moment longer.
"Wan!"
"Oh, the big 'un likes ya! I bet the lass likes ya too. Jus' wait a minute while I control the sitchy-ation and find where that lass might be… I don't rightly know!"
The old man shoos Wanwan away. The pup stands with a whimper and helps Sol up. The man brings Sol to the dinner table and sits him there.
He opens some pots that are boiling slowly above a rock-clay stovetop heated with Steelpine charcoal. The smell of herbs and meat spreads through the air. Sol's stomach growls heavily with hunger.
"Woo-hoo-hoo, young'uns and their easily empty stomachs. No worries, ye li'l shite, I'll grab my doohickey and pour some soup, and y'all'll be right on yer way to flavor-town!"
He stirs vigorously. Wanwan edges closer and waits at the old man's side.
"Wanwan, you magnificent rug, quit lollin' yer tongue. I need both legs for survivin'."
Li'l shite? Doohickey?
"Uh, sir, I'm sorry to interrupt your… um, business. But where are we? I see the Garm pups are okay and they are playing here, but… where's the girl?"
The old man tugs his beard and does a jittery shuffle before looking at him with one eye opened more than the other.
"The lass? I don't rightly know! She's slicker'n an otter on soap and hotter'n a goat in a pepper patch! The lass'll be right-on-back, right-on-soon!"
He puts a big wooden bowl near the pot and starts pouring a portion of semi-thick meaty herb soup.
Then he shuffles toward Sol's chair, sets the bowl right in front of him, does a simple jig, then spits in his hand and grabs Sol's right hand.
"The name's Ol' Ra… a… a… aw shucks, I forgot! Lots o' folks come through here call me all sorts o' funny names. Some calls me 'Ol' Crazy,' some calls me 'Ye Daft Bastard,' some calls me 'Father,' but all of 'em's wrong! Yeeee-haw! I'm Ol' Ra-somethin' the Rowdy! The strongest around! The greatest! The one what understands that a non-Euclidean pressure differential in the siphon's gonna go HECKIN' KA-BOOM if the heat ain't bled off pronto! I GOTTA GO FETCH YER DRINKY-MAJIG, SON! STAY PUT!"
He leaves Sol just like that, slamming the door behind him. A bowl of hot soup sits on the table, a wooden spoon floating in it, and Sol's right hand is full of spit.
"Uh…"
Sol just sits there, still in shock.
"Thank you, I guess…"
Wanwan settles near his chair and sniffs what he is eating, checking for danger.
sniff, sniff, sniff…
"Are you allowed to even eat this?"
The Garm looks at him, lolls his tongue out, and licks his left cheek once, before sitting back by the chair to wait, seemingly satisfied that the bowl of soup is not poisoned, unlike the deer carcass.
Oh. He doesn't want the soup, he just wants to check.
"THE DRINKY-MAJIG FLOATED DOWN THE RIVER, SON, GONNA TAKE A BIT LONGER! A-DIDDLE-DOODLE-OO!!"
Ol' Crazy pops in, hollers, and runs out as fast as he came, slamming the door on his way.
Sol looks outside from the window, at the four Garm pups having a mock fight. This is the lower part of Dalmas; which part exactly, Sol doesn't know. But he thinks if he follows the river upstream, he will reach Elm, perhaps with one or two days of walking.
The siphon from the lake actually took them far down the mountain. He is lucky he isn't dead. Now that he thinks about it again, all that Kaiyo told him about swimming techniques and the shortcut toward the foot of the mountain was likely best suited only for Kaiyo himself.
The first time Sol actually tried one of his tips, he ended up almost getting ground down inside the dark tunnel of the siphon.
He takes his wooden bowl with both hands and blows gently. Wanwan follows close. He walks toward the door.
Outside, the vista steals his breath. He has never seen something like this before in his short fifteen years. The river holds the mountain's snow like a mirror, the edges rippling near the small rocks and stones.
The pines around them wear a very thin crust of snow, only their tips are needled with frost.
The air does not feel suffocating. It feels crisp, yet a bit warmer than before.
He looks up. Some light breaks through a low bundle of clouds, cool and clean, and the peak of the Stake takes it first. The sky, even though it is a bit grey, is still clear enough for him to see that today will not be full of snow.
The river, Dalmas, goes slow. A silver, glossy braid of water through moss and meadow.All around him, hills roll like sleeping backs of green giants beneath a very thin shawl of mist.
The wind blows toward him, the grasses move with it. He closes his eyes for a spell.
He is safe.
The pups are safe.
He just has to see Nia, and finally, he can release the tight knot in his chest.
His body aches, his ribs are broken, his arms are fractured, his back shaved without mercy. But none of that pain matters to him anymore.
He opens his eyes. A familiar white figure stands far from where he stands. She is barefoot near the cold, calm flow of the river. Her left hand holds a small wicker basket with a couple of fish inside. Two of the four Garm pups run toward her, welcoming her.
Like a massive weight has been lifted from both his shoulders, he exhales.
Nia stands there for a bit and smiles, the same bright smile as before, right after the avalanche.
The vista steals his breath, sure. But Nia gives it back to him.
Sol can't see it, but Wanwan can see his cheeks flushed a bit.
She is even more beautiful than the vale.
Wanwan lolls his tongue and smiles wider.