Sampson kicked Kyus boot “why make a bed if you sleep in the doorway?”

Kyu groggy as ever looked up and smiled “I made sausages” 

Sampson dumbed a bag in Kyus lap “how do they taste?”  then noticed Kyu hadn’t moved.

“You know i don’t know, I haven’t eaten.”

Sampson took a big step over Kyu and surprised that again this house had transformed. he walked in to the “storage room’ got some sausages and the cast iron pan besides them. set a fire in the pit again and made some food for them tossing some apples by the fire to roast Kyu slowly made their way to sit by the fire bringing plats and forks. Sampson handed the food to Kyu “what happened here?”

Groggily Kyu answer the best they could remember “After I saw you and you left the doe, I kept thinking about all the craziness and i just got more and more wound up. then before I knew it I was making sausages, all night! and fixing the house it was like my brian was trying to claw out of my head every time i stoped working. so i finish cleaning and smocking then just felt so empty and a bit lost. i didn’t think you were coming back and i was so tired all i could do was wait..

“I forget you still are morning the clam. most of us call that moon sickness you could run for days, defeat any army, clim a mountain. then if you try and do any of that you run out of adrenaline and your body crashes. so all told you mostly tried to kill your self with exhaustion, you need to eat.”  

the sausages were smoky and meaty but with out salt they were a bit flat the apples helped but it was much the same food they had been eating and Kyu wanted variety!

“can you explain about Rook, that was rook right?"

Sampson considered for a moment “Rook is a true Yokia or spirt no pesky human blood to slow him down that” Sampson pointed “this is his mountain as long as it has, so too he has. as long as it stands he will be. he is Ooooold, so old he likes to act like a child to get attention, we have a truce of sorts.”

“Huh this needs salt” Kyu set his fork down unable to take another bit and still to tired to make much sense of what Sampson said 

Sampson nodded “We should unpack the supply’s. there is salt, potatoes and some other things in those crates.”

at that Kyu perked up but still drained forced themselves to eat the rest of the food so they would have better food later.

“I’m going to start a garden” there were some old seed packs in the dresser i doubt anything is going to grow but it’s worth a try and if we are here till spring there are some options for keeping them going.

Sampson nodded happy that the kid kept themselves busy 

Kyu asked “Cypher is likely to only answer one question at a time what do you want to ask him?”

“I don’t need answers. the question is yours to ask.”

 “hmm I’ll think it over. can you show me around this place, like fruit trees and hot springs any resources. I’ve stayed close because I was working but I’d like to know this area better and I can still get lost coming back from the river.”

Kyu dug through the pack and plugged the flip phone in to the solar charger. setting it out to power up.

Sampson looked around “no hot springs closes but it’d be good to restock the apples before winter sets in so I can show you the patch.”

the phone blinked on and Kyu grabbed it up checking for messages not finding any, thought back to what Cypher and said “if you need to contact make it short the message has to bounce half way around the world before getting picked up and held for a time by a real person before typed into another phone and sent my way so don’t put anything you don’t want half a dozen strangers to see.”

Kyu thought how smart it was to have real people disrupt the digital trail so made the question short it was the only real question on Kyus hart “is mom still alive?” once sent they sighed heavily “do you need sleep or can we go?” Kyu new better than to wait by the phone checking every five minutes for a reply so was ready for another task. 

Sampson stood walking to the cart “to the apples then”