Stuck With You

Chapter 6 - Adair

Adair took the non-marked wrist and watched as the colors of Sol's hand blended into each other in an artistically pleasing way, crimson fading though amber into a brilliant sunshine yellow, then winding through chartreuse to forest green into deep indigo, and from indigo into violet and back into crimson.

(This chapter of Adair's would take place at the start of book 1 [Colorweaver], but is changed from canon slightly.)

Adair ran his hand over the purple wall that blocked his view. It was weathered wood that could use a fresh coat of paint, but more importantly he was pretty sure he'd just walked into it. He took a few steps back while he rubbed feeling back into his nose. The wall was attached to a wagon-home that hovered a few feet off the ground, which wasn't too unusual considering that plenty of people lived in these kinds of traveling houses. He and his master had lived in one temporarily when they traveled during Adair's apprenticeship. What was odd was one shouldn't be in his bedroom.

The cold sting of a gust of winter wind prodded his mind into realizing the obvious. He was outdoors. That made way more sense than a house appearing in his tiny rented room. He'd put too much time into his art this week and hadn't slept nearly enough-- he must have spaced out and wandered outside while half asleep. He reached to pull his cloak tighter against the chill only to discover that the only thing he wore was a pair of old cotton pajamas. Please, don't let this mean... he glanced down. Pajamas and the slippers with the ducky heads that quacked with every step. Well, his feet would be warm even if he was in the middle of a ... where was he, anyway?

His groggy mind caught up that maybe he should turn around, if just to check that no one was laughing at the idiot boy dressed in pajamas who, judging from how his face felt, had bumped into the wall more than once. With his fingers crossed for luck, he turned. No one was around, just parked wagons as far as he could see. He was pretty sure he wasn't dreaming-- shivers and a sore nose could attest to that-- but this wasn't anywhere he'd visited before. He would remember wagon-houses that were this garish and crowded together.

Sleepwalking. He must have sleepwalked away from his nice warm bed and into a transient town. He wasn't looking forward to asking for directions back to the inn, that was for sure. The slippers had been a funny idea when he bought them, but he hadn't expected anyone to see him wearing them. That was when it hit him what "transient town" meant: a carnival camp. Carnival performers were notoriously strict about keeping outsiders away from their caravan and he'd just wandered right into the middle of one. This night couldn't get any worse.

A hand grabbed him by the back of his shirt and Adair couldn't shake out of the grip. "I'm sorry! If you tell me how to get out of here, I'll leave. I didn't mean to be here, I swear!"

The grip loosened and Adair spun around, expecting to see some sort of guard ready to toss him out on his butt. The man was large and muscular and could certainly work security if not for the fact that he, too, was wearing pajamas. Probably wasn't on duty, then. Adair risked a glance down at pale toes peeking out of the hem of the man's pants. No slippers, though. He shivered at the thought of bare feet in the middle of winter.

The man was paler than any Adair had seen before, unless that was just the bright yellow and orange stripes of his nightclothes giving him the impression of being bleached out. He grinned a wide smile and caught Adair's wrist in a grip which Adair first thought was intended to drag him away but turned out to be some kind of greeting. "Hi! I'm Sol and I'm important!"

"I'm Adair?" He didn't mean it to sound like a question, but none of this made any sense. He almost wished he was still asleep because odd dreams were better than odd reality.