396. Beyond the sky, 4

(Zeslinry)

The weather is nice and clear.

Our small boat sails over the waves slowly, making me slightly nauseous.

Myls is fine. She's happy.

She suddenly gets all excited, asking me if I saw something in the distance.

M - Did you see it Zes? A whale!

Z - A whale? Here? Are you sure?

I see then the tail of it rising and splashing the water a moment later.

And then a head surfacing for a moment, and then another.

Whales, here...

That makes me laugh. Myls' happiness is contagious.

M - We should have come over ages ago.

Z - We needed you to finish growing first.

M - Now I can do anything.

So she says, juggling with her handgun, playing.

Z - Don't be too smug young one.

She makes a face, pulling her tongue to me. I smile. She's my spoiled brat.

~

In the distance, the shores we left behind are getting into that uncertain distance.

Whilst the shores of the continent are getting gradually closer.

It's been eleven years since I came the other way around...

The world has changed. I know I won't recognise it.

The lands behind this shore we see are shrouded in hollowness like everywhere else.

An entire new world for us.

All we know about it was what the resurrected Rose told us, which wasn't much.

But basically, the same things as over the British island await us out there.

It still is mostly the unknown.

We left the remaining roses behind.

Most of them can take care of themselves. And most of them are kind enough to take care of the few ones unable to live by themselves. They'll manage. We granted them our house while we travel.

Myls wanted to travel for so many years already.

Recently, the call was finally made. She only asked me to come along, if I wanted to travel with her.

Not asked if she could or should, only to tag along.

Z - My leg...

M - I'll be your legs if needs to be. I'm strong enough now.

Isn't that cute?

Her growth has ceased last year. She's adult now. And certainly stronger than me indeed.

We reach the shore. The boat stops over the wet sand.

I begin unpacking whilst she inspects the surrounding area. She returns after a short while.

Z - Anything to worry about?

M - No... We're on new land now. Is this what you called terra incognita?

Z - Ah, no, not quite. But close enough.

M - You have no regrets?

I look back at the sea.

We had a steady life on the other side for the most part. Until the wild roses took over our garden in a way.

I look now back at the old and new land. The first thing I see is Myls right in front of me. With her ponytail sideway. I smile.

I kind of remember when I sailed the other way around, many years ago, along with other refugees. It was different uncertainties and hopes back then.

Z - I'm happy to travel with you Myls. I have no regret.

She has a smug grin. We set the fishing lines ready before nightfall.

~

We camp in a lost truck container eaten by rust and barnacles.

Some species of mussels seem to survive on land now, given where they are.

That makes them easier for us to pick up and cook.

The skin around the end of my severed leg is itchy, so I remove my prosthetic leg. Myls is looking at the flesh, wondering.

M - If you had used the fountain of youth like Rose said, there might have been more Zeslinry as well now.

Z - Well, I'd rather stick with what I know better. Less rewarding, but less risky.

We've all experienced the new age differently.

Z - I only have one life.

Myls laughs. That's one of our recurring joke about Rose and the other roses. Rose is a cat in some aspects. In the legendary one mostly.

Every time we meet, she's different. Sometimes it's not exactly her even. And sometimes she's many.

We just laugh about it now.

Speaking of roses, we carry a pot of the species she gave us once. It's the only reliable one. The flower that slightly glows and emits a music note more or less regularly.

It's actually pretty handful, because like the canary in the mines, when this flower begins behaving oddly, we know something is happening nearby, or soon is over us.

So we carried a plant of it with us. We also have a pouch of seeds for where we will settle next.

Our plan is not to be nomads like our friend(s) Rose. We'll settle a new house somewhere in the middle of Europe.

And we'll explore the surroundings, like we did before.

Our current plan is to reach the Rhine river, and then the Danau. But it will probably change. We could settle somewhere nice before that.

We want to go around the old industrial area of western and central Europe, to see what we can find.

Maybe we'll settle around a bigger city if it's clean. We will see. We haven't decided because we need to assess everything carefully first.

Anyway, we will head East. If we keep roughly the same latitude, it will be easier to adjust ourselves.

I'm cautious about that because feeling a difference in daylight can lead to troubles I would not have thought possible before.

Changing of time zone might as well, so we plan to travel slowly until we're sure it's safe for us to proceed.

I remember that time we went too far north in Scotland.

Just being under the sun made me vomit. Myls is less affected by these things, but she can also feel her body behaving oddly as well.

Well, we know nature has changed in many ways and more than we thought, always. So we will travel carefully.

But happily.

I'm falling asleep. I can hear her snoring softly. Life is good.

~

We eat more boiled mussels. We pack up then.

Myls checks her guns a last time and we're going.

She inspects them twice a day, but it tells her a lot. A lot more than I could say.

Snakes smell the air with their tongue and know what's there and around. Myls does that with what sticks from the air onto her handguns. I've seen her more than once predict the weather from the smell of her weapons. Air can stick different smells, and differently, it seems.

And though it sounds ridiculous, as someone told me before, if it works it ain't stupid.

So it ain't.

I haven't developed much new senses like that, but she sure has.

She likes the smell of the wind around here.

We reach a fragmented road. A few wild cows run away as they see us.

Myls was actually about to pull out her pistol on them, spooked by the sight of such unusual monsters.

But noticing me looking happy and unconcerned, she understood they were a normal animal from the past, and not new monsters. She just never encountered cows before.

I'm brushing her hair with my hand as I laugh at her reactions. She pouts and pulls out her tongue again to me, making another childish face.

~