~ Unbroken ~

Lost Time

Maya let out a small gasp in her sleep and rolled over to get closer to her sister—then her eyes came open and she gasped again.

"Ash!" she called. "Ashley! Where are you?"

"I'm right here, you nonce."

Maya sat up and turned around—Ashley was standing by the drawers, tying her tunic closed.

"I had a dream," Maya said, "a really awful dream, you were really close to me but I couldn't talk to you! I couldn't even see you!"

"Why couldn't you see me, if I was close?" Ashley asked, as she sat on the edge of the bed and started putting her boots on. Maya stared at her, wide-eyed, then she cocked her head to the side.

"Huh?" she said. "Why couldn't I see you? I don't know, Ash! But it was really really scary!"

"Yeah, well, it was just a dream, right? Dreams can't hurt you. Now get up and go have a wash, if Princess is finished."

"You shouldn't call her that," Maya said, as she got out of bed. "I don't think she likes it."

"Tough for her."

"Ash, you should be nicer to Selene, I like her!"

"That's because you're, y'know, you. You like everyone—which is great," Ashley said, as Maya started to say something, "but one of us has to be looking out for trouble, right? Dunno ... soon as I saw that girl, I knew she was broken."

Maya frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Ah, forget it. Go and have a wash—they've got taps in this place, real fancy."

"Okay, Ash!"

Maya bounced out of the room, all of her bad dreams and difficult questions forgotten. Ashley watched her go, then she finished lacing up her boots and she followed her out. Fin was standing by the window, gazing out at nothing much at all.

"What's up, Finny?" Ashley asked, joining him at the window. He glanced at her, frowning, then returned his gaze to the street below.

"I wonder," he said. "I wonder if perhaps ... if perhaps I should have paid more attention to your counsel. I have been reflecting back on our journey so far—"

"Stop you there, Fin. You're about to go off on some weird little trip about mistakes and regrets and stuff, right? Forget it. That don't never help nothing. Can't keep looking back, yeah? Otherwise you don't see the guy with the knife waiting for you in the shadows."

"As usual, your advice is well-placed." Fin smiled at her. "Having you around has been good for me, you know. You're much more than the common thug you present yourself as, Miss Ashley."

Ashley laughed. "I really ain't. But whatever, thanks."

Both Fin and Ashley looked around as Selene came in, her long black hair damp. She gave Ashley a cool glance, then smiled at Fin.

"Everything's fine with the carriage," she said. "I'll be ready in just a few minutes."

"Selene," Fin said, "could you delay your preparations for a moment? I have something important you should hear. Ashley, you too. To put it bluntly, I don't think we should leave today."

"You crazy?" Ashley asked, before Selene could get a word in. "You wanna go look for your magic city, right?"

"I ... I agree," said Selene, as Fin smiled at 'magic city'. "The sooner we leave the sooner we'll find our home."

Fin sighed. "There was a woman I once knew," he said, "a friend and confidant. She liked to tell me that I had the greatest vision of anyone she'd ever met—but that I never saw anything until it was gone."

Selene stared at Fin, and Ashley crossed her arms.

"You going somewhere with this, Finny?"

"With the invisible, the intangible, the subtle and unseen threads of the world, I have no problem. But with what is solid, what is truly important, I sometimes feel..."

Fin trailed off. He reached up to adjust his hat minutely. He looked from Selene to Ashley, and then back to Selene.

"I was wrong to abandon the others," he said. "To let them go without even trying to find them. It's too late to go back. But we must give them a chance to catch us. I mentioned this place to Sophia, she may lead the others here."

"Could be wasting a lot of time for a maybe," Ashley muttered. Selene nodded.

"How long will we wait?" she asked. "Days? Weeks? For something that might not even happen? If Sophia manages to lead the others here, then she'll lead them further. You said that Home has an unusual energy—"

"The entire Desert of Ruins has an unusual energy," said Fin. "For those like Sophia and myself it can be a confusing place. No, it's better—"

"Hey." Ashley was looking at the map. "Gotta ask something, now that I'm looking—why the heck didn't we just go south from Pyre? Looks like we could've cut a couple of days off the trip."

"There are a number of reasons I came here first," said Fin. "Chiefly because there's a cliff running along the northern edge of the desert which would present severe difficulties to our carriage—"

"Please don't get distracted by her," said Selene, attracting a sour look from Ashley. "Fin, of course I want to reach Home as soon as possible. But if you think ... how long will we wait?"

"Perhaps two more nights. If there is no sign of the others after that, we'll set out alone."

Selene nodded, then turned to leave. "I'll be in my room, then. Please don't disturb me."

Ashley watched Selene go, then let out a low whistle as she turned back to Fin.

"Don't gotta be a mind-reader to know SHE ain't happy," she said. "Gonna do something about that, Finny?"

"If it becomes necessary." Fin was looking at the map again. "Although I doubt it will. What about you, Miss Ashley?"

"Am I happy, you asking? Hell, you know me. I ain't never happy. But I reckon this'll make Maya's day, so I'm good."

Fin didn't reply. His eyes were still fixed on the map, on the neat little 'x' that marked their destination.

Presently, he blinked.

The coach rumbled away down the road, the sun high and dull above, leaving four weary travellers standing alone in the barren landscape.

"Well then," said Sophia, making her voice bright. "At least we're a lot closer now than we were before. It's less than a day's walk to the edge of the desert, and then from there we'll soon reach The Place Nobody Goes—"

"I think we can just call it Home," said Ada. "When Mr Fin called it the place nobody goes I think he was mostly being poetic. And I'm not sure you understand how difficult it will be to navigate through a desert—"

"Well, do YOU?" Sophia countered. "You've never been outside of Rosanth and they CERTAINLY don't have deserts up there."

"I've read about them—"

"Well so have I," Sophia interrupted. "And you're forgetting about my abilities. Remember what Mr Fin said? 'A place more felt than found', I'm sure he meant that it has a unique energy. I'll be able to sense it!"

Ada looked at Sophia, worried. "About your 'abilities' ... are you sure it was okay—"

"You're going to say about the coach driver, aren't you," said Sophia. "I know it wasn't ideal, but it's not like I did any permanent damage to him. I just took his doubts and replaced them with positive thoughts towards us—he was already leaning towards helping us, it was just a tiny push. Really, I barely did anything at all."

"You sound very defensive," said Ada. "It just seems ... wrong, somehow, to mess around with someone's head like that."

"I think it's good that Sophia got us here at all," said Lina. "If we'd had to walk—"

"Yes, well, we're here now, so let's just focus on our goal," said Sophia. "As you'd expect there's no road leading into the desert, so let's just head south. Ada?"

Ada pointed.

"Good. Naz, are you all right? I don't think you've said a word all day."

Naz looked at Sophia, weary and lost and alone.

"Well, I'm sure you'll cheer up once we get where we're going—you'll like the others, for some reason I think you'd get on well with Selene, and Mr Fin is amazing, he can explain much better than me what his plan is—well, it's more of a 'dream' than a 'plan', but anyway, once we're there everything will be better."

Sophia smiled brightly as she led the others in the direction Ada had pointed, not letting any of the worry she felt show on her face. She'd tried, in a private moment, to force this worry from her, but this had only worked for a few minutes and left her exhausted—it's all to do with causes, she thought, as they walked over scrubby grass and pale earth. Like the difference between 'the heat of the moment' and 'deep-seated anger'. Just forcing out the worry I feel is only going to work until I remember why I was worried in the first place.

Still ... Sophia glanced back at Ada as they walked—the girl was gazing off at some trees in the distance, the birds flocking around them dark against a pale yellow sky. She has a point, Sophia admitted to herself. This is unknown territory I'm in, with these abilities. It's not like there's a Journal of Ethics about manipulating emotions. What little money we had we needed to spend on food and water flasks and other supplies, we couldn't afford a coach ride as well, but we were all so tired ... and the coach driver DID want to help us, I could feel that, he really did, it was just he had all that doubt as well, but now I'm avoiding the big problem with what I did; I took choice away from him.

Sophia suppressed a sigh as she walked along. No matter how I look at things, she thought, I can't think of that as right.