There was very little furnishing; a lot of ceramic jars and containers, some cooking utensils, a stack of kindling for the fires, and a bed which was much like a sleeping bag off against one side of the steep wall. It was almost disappointing. While I didn’t want a new fire, she seemed to spite me by lighting one with a little tool. Her gaze was on me the whole time, as if examining me to my core, and was appropriately unsettling. The woman herself… was she young or old? Slender or withered? Wise or a bit insane? Good, or evil? She seemed to be a little of everything. How very Zen. “Sit,” she ordered, beckoning at the ground opposite her and the fire.
“Oh! Yeah, sorry,” I muttered in apology, dropping to the spot. She seemed mildly amused. And then it struck me what I was looking at. I had seen her kind before, a few times. I was losing my edge. “Are you… a Traveler?” I asked in a wondrous tone. Wouldn’t that be amazing.
She scoffed at my question. “As if I look to have traveled. But are you a Traveler?” Her gaze somehow became more piercing. “Or something more?”
I gasped in astonishment, sensing that she knew far more than I could ever hope to guess. “I am! I mean… yes, but… I hardly remember a thing! Can you help me remember?”
She threw something into the fire - a powder? - and the flames roared to life with all kinds of strange colors. A strong aroma filled the place, and then I was stunned to see the boundaries of the tent receeding away, ever farther, ever faster, until all but the circle of fire near us was utter darkness. I knew that reality was a construct in our minds, more or less what we perceived, but there was a certain amount of fudging which was made to provide something we could handle in this quantum realm. Colors, tones, flavors… all were some sort of veneer our minds pasted over everything we experienced, like computer graphic textures, to help us make sense of everything. But this… was it from a drug which was messing with my mind, sending me on some sort of wild trip? Or drawing back the curtains our brains cloaked over this world, to reveal the Truth which lay beyond?
(Sorry this took a while, but this chapter is… immense, so I split it at the best break point that still made for a good adventure - and it’s still immense! I also wrote some things that were kind of painful, so I’m rewriting them, which some of it to come means a lot of rewriting.
A late Happy Anniversary! to our beloved alternate reality!) 