The Time Hopper

Stubbornness And Tenacity

"Thanks again for letting me stay." I said meekly to the Magi woman I had bumped into in the alley. After it had started to pour it down with rain and I realized that I wasn't going to be able to get in and save Sadie today, I figured that I needed to find somewhere safe to spend the night. In a move that even Sadie would have called stupid, I had returned to the hidden alley and lingered until the woman who had walled me up earlier returned. Upon seeing me standing there, wet through, shivering and miserable, she had snapped at me to follow her and led me back to her cottage. 

"Don't be, I haven't decided what to do with you yet, never mind if I'll even let you stay. And don't even think about asking me for help with your little suicide mission-" Morgan started to rant, even as she threw a towel at my head and set a bowl of stew down on the table in front of me. 

"Thank you anyway. I really appreciate this." I interrupted her quietly with a shy smile. Given how abrasive and headstrong Sadie was, I had developed a few social skills to try and deescalate situations she got us into. Morgan huffed and sat down, running a hand through her hair. 

"So, you haven't had any luck getting your girl back, then?" I grimaced and shook my head. 

"Not yet. And she isn't my girl, either. We're friends, is all." I told her, half distracted as my thoughts once again returned to rescuing Sadie. 

"As you say so. If she's the child of time, then you're definitely not from now, or the modern times, either. So when are you from?"

"Mid fourteenth century, Ireland." 

"A long way away from your family, then." 

"Aye." Morgan sighed, eyeing him. 

"Your name is Riley, right? Well then, boy, let me give you a piece of advice. I reckoned you had a few hours to get your friend out alive, and now she's out of time." I shook my head fiercely. 

"No, no, she isn't. You don't know Sadie as I do, she can't be dead. She wouldn't go down so easily." I denied. Morgan sighed and shook her head. 

"And you don't know Obsivian as I do. She'll be dead, or worse, by now. But I'm not trying to argue with you, I just want to warn you that if you keep poking around near him, he will have you killed. It's just- well, a boy your age, so far out of your own time, you won't last very long, my dear. I know of a few powerful mages, and I would be willing to bet that they can trace your origin and send you home. You'd like that, right?" She offered, but I felt no joy or relief at the prospect. The idea of going back to the farm, knowing that Sadie was gone... I didn't want that. 

"Oh, yeah. I guess. Right, cheers." I muttered, though I had already decided that I wasn't going anywhere. 

.

.

.

I was beginning to think that I wasn't going anywhere. After my face of with Obsivian, Felix had half dragged, half marched me back to the room I had awoken in and locked me back in. Naturally, I had thrown myself against the door, hitting and kicking and yelling like a banshee to be released until my voice gave out and my limbs began to ache fiercely. 

Then I went to my plan B, which was to start a fire. But I didn't have my lighter. However, I dimly remembered something about being able to make fire by rubbing two sticks together, not that I had them, either. But I did had a chair that I was able to smash into pieces by slamming it into a wall over and over, though I had half expected to be stopped. Luckily, me making as much noise as I could for as long as I could appeared to have annoyed any guards into going away. 

Once I'd broken the chair legs into fairly small pieces, I took two of them and made a bundle out of one of the frillier dresses in the closet for tinder. I didn't know how to do this, but I knew that friction was a good place to start because of a fire pyramid the doctor had told me about one time. I rubbed them together as fast as I could, for as long as I could, until my muscles were burning so fiercely I expected them to start sparking. But nothing from the wood.