NEVEREALM, DAY 23
A storm is building in the west, or at least what I’ve decided must be west in this place. I can feel the pressure building, and it’s colder this morning than it’s been since I arrived. Wind is blowing to the southeast, and it’s chilly. My campfire has been burning in one form or another since the first night, so I have warmth and a place to cook my food, but if it rains? Not looking forward to that.
I heard something howl earlier, somewhere to the south. It sounded almost like a wolf. Pack hunters? Let’s hope they don’t decide I’m food. The one thing Mr. Z didn’t let me bring was an artifact of any kind, and my access to pneuma and mana are both limited, so my defenses are relegated to the knife I brought with me, the spear I’ve crafted, and my wits. The first two are reliable, but I’m not convinced about the third.
Heaven help me.
Tabby closed her journal and tucked the pen into the loop sewn into the leather cover. She looked out over the the surface of Lake Michaels, watching it swell and retreat, the wind driving it in waves to lap farther up the shore, toward her camp.
The last there weeks had passed with a predictable cadence, each one bringing its own set of challenges, it’s own fears, its own triumphs. She’d followed her uncle’s instruction, gathering wood and leafy branches, sheets of bark and twisted willow vines, sand and mud, building a temporary shelter to guard her from the elements. Early mornings were spent up to her knees in the crystal waters of the lake, spear in hand, catching food for the day, and she filled her afternoons studying the local plant life and checking the small game traps she had set throughout the nearby woods.
She dipped her hand into a pouch at her waist, retrieving a small chunk of smoked fish – a bit of the prior day’s catch – which she popped into her mouth as she watched the clouds build on the horizon. The clouds, dark and threatening, trudged toward her, their shadows broken only by sparks and sheets of lightning crackling in their midst.
As the winds increased, the young woman began to prepare her camp, tightening the vines binding her shelter together, lashing the makeshift walls with sturdy fibrous cords, running new lines to tie the structure to three nearby trees. She piled more branches on the rooftop to ward off the oncoming deluge, then she crawled inside to wait.
The air grew heavy, pregnant with the promise of the oncoming storm, and wind whispered warnings as it whipped through the trees, whistling through the tiny gaps it found in Tabby’s refuge. Peering out, she saw her campfire gutter, it’s flickering flames failing. A blast of white hot light filled her vision as lightning arced from the sky to the surface of the lake, blinding her for a moment. A roaring peel of thunder, like the laughing of a malevolent god, followed, and Tabby huddled back, drawing her knees to her chest.
Then the sky fell and the tempest was upon her.
Fat drops tumbled from the clouds, striking the lake, the ground, the trees, and the shelter in an unsteady rhythm, increasing in tempo and force, pounding out its relentless fury with a deafening roar. Outside, the fire spluttered, drowning under the assault, but Tabby paid it little attention, her gaze running along the edges where the roof of her shelter met with the walls. With a loud CRACK! a corner of the roof tore free, and she lunged forward to grab hold of it, throwing her weight downward to tug it back into place, her free hand working to reinforce it with a length of willow vine.
Minutes stretched outward into hours as the storm raged, each minute its own panicked eternity as Tabby fought to hold on to hope and the bits of her refuge. She wore vigilance as a shield, and as the wind tore at the crude building, ripping branches away, she patched up the gaps with boughs from a pile she had stashed inside. But her supply of spare wood, limited by the size of her shelter, dwindled rapidly, and soon she fought a losing battle. Tears streaked her face and angry, frustrated sobs wracked her body, and she swore at the sky, at the clouds, at the rain. Then Mr. Zen’s words came to her unbidden, calm and gentle, torn from a lesson a dozen years in the past.
A storm reveals nothing but the truth. It tears away the falsehoods and leaves only what is real behind. That which survives the storm is true, and no lie can stand against it.
She let go of the branches and stepped to the center of her refuge. The roof, weakened by the storm’s implacable assault, was stripped from the walls and flung into the darkness by powerful winds. Tabby stood, looking up, arms outstretched, head tilted back; welcomed the storm and its judgment. Its acrimonious furor rose as sheeting rain drenched her, as the gale whipped debris around her. Lightning flashed. Thunder boomed.
Tabby’s mind, the mind of a librarian ever focused on words, dug up a quote from something she’d read when she was young. Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass… it’s about learning to dance in the rain.
So she danced – the rumble of the thunder, the slapping patter of the rain, the screaming of the wind, her music – until the storm reached its crescendo and then faded into its coda, and she let her body fall. A dozen small cuts marked her face, her hands, her arms, but she gave them no thought. She lay there, framed by the ruins of her shelter, staring up into the gentle drizzle, laughing giddily as the clouds thinned and parted, revealing a sliver of silver moonlight.