On a map, it was a long walk for even long legs to get from the Snowed to the Calm, and even longer to get to Dazeska’s village. Of course, Naekit was in such good spirits that he didn’t have any idea how long he had been walking when he saw the village over the horizon. He felt the cold air give way to a warmer breeze, and he could hear the crunching of the underfoot snow yield to the whispery tickle of grass, but the passage of time did not affect Naekit.

Instead of getting tired or bored, Naekit relished the joy of successfully waking a sleeping bolt, and the excitement of being able to catch a bolt in a bottle to make a necklace with carried him along the way to the village. Sometimes this excitement was interrupted with a splash of fear and pride over driving off a Root Beast. That horrid rhythmic thumping would be stuck in his head for a while, but  the tide of joy would rise right back when he remembered exactly how he drove off that Root Beast.

The morning sun blanketed the shallowly descending elevation of the valley as Naekit happily made his way back to Dazeska’s village. Golden rays of warm light kissed Naekit’s face so intensely that he had to shield his eyes with his un-wounded hand. It was quite pleasant to feel something other than biting cold, especially on his feet. It was quite pleasant to be back in the plains of the Calm.

“Welcome back, we had a feeling you would take the long way back.” Dazeska stood up from her seat near the fire pit in the center of the village. Some of the less talkative villagers ambled about the fire pit, carrying woven baskets filled with those chalky berries.  “I know you don’t like our geldberries, but that doesn’t mean you have to make me wai-“ Dazeska’s comfortable stride over to Naekit turned into a swiftness that Naekit had never seen from her. “What happened to you, child? Did you fall along the ravine?”

“I was attacked by a Root Beast” Naekit said with cheerful confidence “but I fended it off.”

Dazeska’s eye widened. “H-how… you lie. This is not the time to jest, boy. We must tend to this wound.” She unwrapped his arm and produced a glass bottle not unlike the faintly glowing one that hung from her neck. Instead of a ball of lightning, this vial was filled with a greenish mash that smelled like minty dirt. She delicately took his arm with one of her hands; rough, calloused hands; hands that could only have become like this from years of hard work. Naekit was thankful that she was moving so quickly to help him; his arm did  hurt; but right now he was much more interested in regaling Dazeska about his journey.

The minty ointment stung as it touched Naekit’s wound, and Dazeska pulled one of those splinters from his arm with an unpleasant tug. It was then that she accepted the reality of this situation. “So you really did fend off a Root Beast…” her voice climbed from awed incredulity to a caring scold, “How in the moon were you able to do that? Why were you so far north?”

Naekit told her of his time in the Snowed. Of the Root Beast that was too far to the south, and his attempts to wake a sleeping bolt as a weapon to fight back from its attack. He told her of how he woke up the sleeping bolt at the last second before he was devoured by the creature.

He told her that he would like to make a necklace like hers, now that he could wake a sleeping bolt.

Dazeska shook her head and smiled. The incredulity in her voice returned. “Yes, you may make a lantern. I’ll give you the jar for free, on one condition.” Naekit curiously looked up at her. “You stay the night, the whole night, to sleep on the spare bed in my hut so you can heal that arm.” He nodded with some slight embarrassment.

Later that night, Naekit, who now carried his home in his mind and a light around his neck, slept as soundly as ever, on a bed of straw made by the woman who healed him.