As I Walked Out Under The Night Sky, I Muttered A Prayer. It Wasn't Continuous But Mainly When Ever I

"Okay, you looking at me for this long is scaring me. Why are you staring?" I asked, snapping him out of his daze.

He shook his head like a spring breeze. "Sorry but your eyes are a beautiful brown color," he replied, shy about his statement.

"They're brown but not beautiful," I grumbled. I liked my eyes but there were times that I wished that I had a livelier color like blue.

"I'm sorry you don't see what I see. In your eyes," he cupped my cheek, "I see the essence of life itself."

"That's green," I returned as I took my head out of his hold.

"No, brown. Plants need soil to grow, all animals need plants, sand and rocks and other formations hold the oceans and seas in place. I see canyons, mountains, valleys, fertile soil. I see the base of life in your eyes."

Gävlebocken 26/12/23

Zombie goat!

"How did you find me?" I slurred, the cold freezing me from the inside out.

"I followed the trail you left," he answered before he gestured somewhere behind him. "Come here," he groaned as he picked me up.

I clung to him like burs on bark animals and other people wear. He wasn't much warmer than the elements we were stranded in but he was an improvement.

"Did you know that you are bleeding?" my stranger asked me, taking me somewhere.

My mind was too fuzzy to completely understand what he was talking about.

"But you're not bleeding," I blended my words together, after I have him a quick once over as best as I could. Why would he ask if I knew he was bleeding?

"Well, hypothetically if I was a mage like you, I thought you would know how to slow the blood loss down?"

My upper canopy hurt. Why was he asking such difficult questions?

"You would need something to slow it down," I mumbled as I tried to clear my thoughts. "Before that, clean the wound."

He settled me down on a fallen log and then started rummaging through his bag. When he faced me again, he had some white strips and a dirt colored bottle.

"Try not to scream, okay?" He looked back up at me with his cyan colored eyes. His scar on the lower part of his face were sharply contrasting from the fire's light.

Wait. Why was there a fire? Where was the fire?

The sharp jolt that assaulted my left limb was enough to make me cry out in surprise. He didn't let up, if anything, he pressed harder. The cloth he was using was starting to turn green, the color of my sap, at the edges.

I stayed quiet like he asked but when he was done, he pulled a mat made out of pine branches, covered it with some furs, placed me on the mat, and then covered me with the remaining furs.

"Don't worry, I'll keep watch. You rest," he answered when he saw me looking at him.

The last thing I felt was my stranger running his branches through my hair before I fell asleep.

Author's Note- I have never experienced either but I am trying to write a character who is suffering from at least enough hypothermia for the mental fog but not bad enough for a doctor and blood loss. But then again it might be mild hypothermia and the added blood loss might create the mental fog.

don't give up

I am a mosaic of everyone I have ever known and loved and touched and I find fragments of them in my playlists and how I make my tea. we may not know each other any more but we will stay connected like this. I hope a fragment of me is with you too.

"The day will be saved by it dying." - 13 hour clockwork soldier

“Lost things have a way of showing up when you need them most,” the king replied to the minister’s concern of a beloved object that belonged to the king’s disappearance. “What was lost will show up before you know it.” He lightly patted the minister’s shoulder before going off to face the festering crowd.

"Tell me something I don't know," I asked the strange man.

He looked up into the mostly cloudy sky and said, "All kids have magic. Some are allowed to keep it while others outgrow it."

"What makes those kids loose magic?" I scooted closer to him.

He looked... lost. "I don't know exactly why some don't keep the magic. Some say that they stop believing in the Elemental of the magic. Others say it depends on if their family had magic in it." His forget-me-not colored eyes bore into mine. "Then you get those like you. No one has come up with a rhyme or reason as to why you and other mages like you are here."

"I think they're meant to be here. All the mages and regular people. Everything wouldn't be the same without anyone missing."

"What about the disgraced king?"

"He is needed, too."

You know, it occurred to me that the whole "commit arson to burn the Gävle goat" vs "save the goat at any cost (to our taxpayers)" thing is basically a match of Yule themed Counter-Strike Sweden plays with itself every year, and every time they update the Wikipedia page to say TERRORISTS WIN the goat was destroyed, the whole world is like