Chapter 28 part 1

Arachnis sighed when he saw the refugees flowing in through Petals' forest. He wasn't sure what they were about, but he was confident that Charlie Rivers and her friends had something to do with it. He seriously doubted that the others that Heathcliff had sent through the forest would have gotten involved in anything like that, let alone started such a flow.

However, it did intrigue him, so he followed the flow to where they came from and looked through the barrier between Petals' forest and this other world. The season was different from his own world as well as the world that he was helping establish a colony on, but it was a world that would be good for them to make a colony on as well. Part of him wondered if Charlie Rivers had thought of that herself.

He couldn't deny that there was a certain excitement inside him about seeing this other world, especially since he knew that this world had other creatures on it that they could try to work with. The world these refugees were heading to was fine and all, but as far as he could tell, it only had the unicorns and bicorns that were intelligent. Or at least intelligent enough to be able to do more than instinctual behavior.

He also wondered what else might be in this world that would be different from everything else that he'd know. However, he couldn't enter the world without disrupting the flow of refugees and he could see that the line was going to be continuing on for a while longer.

He pulled his head back in and settled on the ground. Eventually Charlie Rivers would have to come and explain what was going on, so he decided to wait. Largely so he would be able to learn that much sooner what she had in mind. He doubted he'd object o any of it, but he still wanted to know sooner rather than later what was going on.

He had learned a little of Charlie Rivers' language and could speak a little with her friends, but he was sure that this would require a better grasp of her language for one of her friends to explain it properly. Especially since with this large or a group, whatever she had in mind would need to be explained soon. Otherwise he wasn't sure what would happen, since the refugees wouldn't be able to settle properly where they were camping at the moment. That place was terrible if they wanted to try and grow any kind of crops, despite being by a good source of water.

Part of Arachnis wondered how his sister would react to this news. He wanted to rush to her and tell her, but he first wanted to find out all he could before doing that. This way he wouldn't have to worry about missing Charlie Rivers if she came through while he was gone. It certainly would be a possibility and he was determined to find out what was going on, even if he had to wait her for days.

Besides, everything was going well, he didn't have anything that needed reporting immediately, and while there was still quite a few refugees going through the unicorn's forest, he knew that, based on how many he'd seen in the greater bicorn's world, they were mostly through.

If Charlie Rivers hasn't shown up by then, Arachnis was determined to take a little look around this world. At the very least, it would let him see what kind of world this would be, and maybe even get an idea of what plans Charlie Rivers and her friends might have for this world.

_

Beth woke up early. Not really because she wanted to, but because the window that was covered, still let a beam of the morning sun through, right in her eyes. However, while she would have been able to go back to sleep just by turning over and getting the sun out of her eyes like that, the noise of someone moving around made that an impossible task.

While under normal circumstances, she would have been suspicious of whoever she saw, there was enough light for her to be sure it was Charlie who was making the noise. Not that she was being loud, it was just that it was so close to Beth.

She was clearly changing out of her nightgown and into some other clothes. Part of the noise she was creating was the rustling of fabric while other parts of it was the sounds of everything in her pack getting moves around, or even zipped open or closed.

"What're you doing?" Beth asked, quietly, not wanting to wake up Hannah or Amelia. Ralph, Tim, and Wes were sleeping in another hut, or room, or whatever the bear-kin called these.

"Just going to talk with the arachnoids to let them know what I was thinking about on this world," Charlie said, the fatigue clear in her blood-shot eyes.

"You're going to kill yourself if you keep this up," Beth warned.

"Maybe, but the sooner this gets started, the sooner the pronghorn-kin can return to this world," Charlie said.

Beth smiled. "What happened to the Charlie Rivers I used to know?" she asked in a teasing tone. "The same Charlie Rivers that avoided dealing with others?"

Charlie sighed. "Not sure, but I'm pretty sure whatever happened to her, you're partly to blame," Charlie replied, her smile making Beth chuckle.

"Not bad, short stuff," Beth said, struggling to hold in her laughter when Charlie scowled at her. "You're getting good at that."

"Anyway, I'll be back soon. I'm sure I'll be able to sleep more later."

"Be back soon," Beth said. "I want to get started on reading the book Amelia chose."

"What's the rush?" Charlie asked as she finished getting dressed.

"I'm sure all of us would like a day to just relax," Beth said. "Walking was one thing, but getting the pronghorn-kin to keep going was another pain."

"At least you got them here," Charlie reminded her.

"Maybe, but we'd still like a day in which we can just relax and not have to do anything. Which means we'll have plenty of time to start reading. At least once Amelia decides which book to choose."

"Any idea what she might pick?"

Beth shook her head. "Not really. I think she might have in mind Wizard's First Rule, The Witches of Eileanan, or maybe something smaller like Animal Farm."

"Maybe she'll pick Eragon?" Charlie commented.

"Doubt it. I think she's read the Inheritance Cycle four times already and the entire Wheel of Time Series five times," Beth replied.

"Five times?" Charlie asked.

"You have seen her when she gets into a book," Beth said. "Although, now that you mention it, if it was five time, that might make her more likely to choose it again."

Charlie shrugged. "Well, I'll try to be as fast as I can. Take care."

Beth didn't feel like doing anything as she watched Charlie disappear outside of the hut. She felt like she should have done something, but at the same time, she couldn't deny that this was something that Charlie needed to get done at some point. Sooner rather than later too.

Maybe she should have insisted on going with her, or maybe tried bumming that off on someone else, but she really didn't want to deal with that effort. Especially with how good it felt to just lay inside her sleeping bag and enjoy not having to do anything at the moment.

However, as she lay there, a need began making itself known that aggravated Beth. She couldn't very well lay in bed when she needed to go to the bathroom. Especially since she didn't care to use her magic to clean herself or her sleeping bag from what her body was telling her it needed to get rid of.

So, grudgingly, she got up and made her way over to what they had available for them to use. An outhouse. While it wasn't what Beth would have preferred, she had to admit that it at least wasn't as bad as it could have been.

Though, on her way back, she noticed Wes making his way over to the outhouse as well. He seemed more of a zombie at this time than Beth had felt, but usually it took Wes a while to wake up in the morning anyway. Even after he was already awake.

Beth didn't say anything as he passed her by. Part of her wondered if he was even aware that she was there or if he ignored everything around him that wasn't in his way.

Shrugging, Beth continued back to her sleeping bag. While she could try to get back to sleep, she was too much awake now to really care to try. Her bag as probably still warm enough that she could get back to sleep, but she figured that she should get dressed and ready for the day. She doubted that she would have gotten much more sleep anyway.

When she returned to where her things were, she saw Hannah and Amelia waking up, which told her that her hunch was right in that she'd have a hard time getting back to sleep anyway. Those two tended to not care how much noise they made when they were getting ready, even though they'd be quick to bite someone else's head off if they got woken up from that person making noise while they were still asleep.

"I see you're up early," Hannah remarked.

"Charlie woke me up when she was leaving," Beth replied, not seeing any point in trying to hide Charlie's departure.

"Why?" Amelia asked. "I was so ready to start on Wizard's First Rule."

"Apparently she wanted to talk with the arachnoids to explain to them what her ideas were," Beth answered. "She said she'd be right back, but who knows how long she'll be."

"Well, she does have to go down the slope and back up, so she'll probably be back around the afternoon if not this evening at the earliest," Amelia remarked.

"Unless she uses a mount of some kind," Beth said. "I mean, those raptors really got us up the mountain a lot faster than we could have gone."

"Yeah, that was fun," Amelia remarked.

"But not as great as seeing Emea's face while we were riding them," Hannah added.

"Well, get ready, we should at least get dressed before the bear-kin bring us breakfast," Beth commented as she opened her pack to get a change of clothing out.

"Did Charlie say what they sent her for breakfast yesterday?" Amelia asked.

"Not sure if she said what it was called, but I think she said that it was really good and rather filling," Hannah answered.

Beth didn't waste much time taking off of her pajamas before she started getting dressed. Though, she had barely gotten her jeans and shirt on before two little pronghorn-kin girls showed up. They looked around expectantly and said something that Beth couldn't understand.

"I'm sorry," Beth told them, even though she was sure they wouldn't be able to understand her either. "Charlie's not here. She left to take care of something."

The two girls didn't answer but they didn't leave either. Beth sighed as she could tell that she'd need to get Ralph to translate for her. Which she was well aware that Ralph wasn't going to be happy about that either.

Beth stepped out of the room and walked over to where Tim, Ralph, and Wes were housed. Knocking on the side of the doorway to announce her presence, she said, "Ralph? You awake?"

"Not willingly," Ralph replied, his voice telling Beth just how tired he still was.

"Well, Charlie left to take care of something and Aina and Bith are wanting to talk with Charlie, I think," Beth said.

"What's she taking care of?" Ralph asked, but with the movement inside the hut, Beth could tell that he was getting up rather than trying to go back to sleep.

"Something about the arachnoids and letting them know what her thoughts are about this world or something," Beth answered. "Not really sure what she has in mind, but she did say she'd be right back."

"What're we supposed to do while we wait, then?" Ralph asked.

A thought came to Beth and it was something that would be necessary for them to do anyway before they left this world. "We could see if we can find where the next gate is," Beth suggested.

"Yeah, that would be something useful, but if we find it, wouldn't we then head straight through it as soon as Charlie got back?" Ralph asked.

"Well, with all that's gone on, I think we should take an entire day to relax. Otherwise who knows what we'll see on the other side of that gate that could add more stress for us?" Beth returned.

"Fair point," Ralph sighed. "Well, I'll be over in a minute. I'll talk with them when I get there."

Beth nodded and started to walk back to the hut she had her things in. She thought she might as well let Amelia and Hannah know what she had just suggested. After all, if they take care of that while Charlie is away, at least then they can have that taken care of, possibly, before Charlie got back. Even if they didn't get it done, they could at least have more of it done, so that there would be less for them to do about it when Charlie was done with what she had to take care of.

When she got back Aina and Bith immediately started clamoring for her attention as soon as they saw her, saying something that Beth wasn't able to understand. She merely smiled and patted their heads as she passed by.

"Let me guess," Hannah said. "He was asleep."

"He was," Beth confirmed. "But he said he'd be over in a minute."

"Well, that aside, what're we going to do today?" Amelia asked.

"I was thinking that maybe we could begin looking for the first gate in our expedition," Beth answered.

"How long will that take?" Amelia asked, yawning.

"Couldn't say," Beth replied. "Though, it give us something to do while we wait for Charlie to finish and then whatever we get done, will still be done during that time."

"Would at least keep us from being bored," Hannah said.

"Maybe, but I was really looking forward to not doing anything today," Amelia complained.

"Well, once Charlie's back, we could have a day to relax," Beth commented. "That way we still get time to take it easy without getting bored. After all, we can't start reading without Charlie here."

"Maybe we should have started reading before we started to investigate the smoke that was from the pronghorn-kin's village," Amelia groused.

"Like we knew what season it was then," Hannah retorted. "Come on, you know as well as I do that it wasn't until we encountered Aina and Bith that we found out it was spring here."

"Maybe, but I could still have chosen a book then that we could have started," Amelia insisted.

"You could have, but It's not like we would have known who would have had the choice," Hannah replied.

Fortunately for Beth, she saw Ralph approach. Which meant that she could leave Amelia's complaints to Hannah. While she enjoyed being around Amelia, when she started to have complaints about something, she tended to be difficult to be around.

"So, what do we have here?" Ralph asked, drawing Aina and Bith's attention.

Aina and Bith immediately started talking, their attention focused on Ralph. Beth was amused with the annoyed expression she briefly saw on Ralph's face. She could imagine this was one of the reasons he'd rather others not believe he could understand what was being said. He didn't care do handle kids when he didn't have to. Which made Beth wonder what he'd do if he had kids in the future, or if he even planned on having kids of his own someday.

"Slow down, okay?" Ralph asked the girls and they quickly complied.

Ralph nodded as he listened to them. "Okay, well, Beth told me that she said she had to take care of something and that she'll be right back," Ralph replied to the girls.

The girls didn't look happy with his response, but they didn't say anything more. They merely walked off, Beth wondered what they'd do once Charlie got back.

"So, should we see if Tim's ready to see where we should go to find the gate?" Beth asked Ralph.

"Are Hannah and Amelia ready?"

"Sort of," Beth replied. "Amelia's complaining about not being able to start on her book choice until Charlie gets back, so she's being Amelia right now. Hannah's dealing with that."

"I hate when she gets like that," Ralph sighs.

"Yeah, so I figured I should let Hannah deal with that. She always seems to know what to say to get her off of that shtick," Beth said, starting to walk towards where she was pretty sure Tim was.

"Hopefully it'll be over when they finish getting ready," Ralph replied as he followed Beth.

"Even if she isn't, let's at least hope she's not still going on about that."

Ralph didn't say anything to that and Beth was happy to leave the conversation at that. So, they continued the rest of the way to where Ralph, Tim, and Wes were staying in silence, enjoying the noises from the bear-kin getting up themselves as well as the various noises from animals that they were able to catch occasional glimpses of.