Almost in Paradise

6. Night

I feel the wind moving my yellow hair back and forth as I am carried over the sky. He jumps from house to house and I can see people living their daily life in the villages. This is wonderful. But I'm surprised my dress stays in place along with my legs... and glad.

Yet, after a while I start to feel cold and a little sick in my stomach.

"Hey, Ban, mind if we take a break?" I quietly ask.

No reply. I ask the same thing again, but a little louder.

"Did ya say something back there?" he shouts. I move my head a little closer to his ear and once again asks if we could take a break.

"A break? You're not even doing anything!"

"No, but I'm starting to feel a little sick..." He sighs and lands on a field where he puts me down. I immediately start to search for a source of water. There's a small stream not so far away. After drinking at least a liter of water, I make my way back to Ban. He has found some berries that he happily shares with me. When we're done we continue our journey, but this time I ride on his back instead. It's a little harder to stay put then before, but it's more comfortable.

We make no more stops until the night falls and we checks in on an inn. There's only one bed and the floor can't be comfortable. But I guess it could work if it's for Ban...

"You take the bed" Ban says.

"What no, you take it."

"I've slept on the floor before, I'm used to it."

"Yeah but I've slept in a tree and-"

"So then your back probably hurts and the floor won't heal it. Besides, that bed is too small for me."

Two truths in one sentence. My back actually hurts a little, but thats how it always is for me, and I think it got worse not because of the tree I slept on over the night, but from the long time over his shoulder.

And that bed is too small for him. He's like two metres tall and I'm about as short as Meliodas. So I guess he has a point.

I walk across the room to the bed and sits down. It's obviously not as comfortable as my bed at home, but I'm not going to be picky.

"Are you sure about this?" I ask.

"Yeah yeah, just sleep already so that we can continue soon. The longer we wait, the further away are our targets." He lays down by the wall and closes his eyes.

I shouldn't just sit here and watch him, so I lay down as well and try to fall asleep. But it's not exactly easy. I have too much on my mind. This whole day has been so much more than I had predicted.

I thought I was gonna continue my normal day at school and then take the bus home, do some homework and play with my phone and watch animes and tv-shows for the rest of the time.

But instead I ran into the portal. Where did it come from anyways? And the other one too? It was the one behind me that skekLach came from, the disgusting creature from The Dark Crystal. If I had somehow ran past her and into that portal instead, would I have appeared in that universe then? It would've been cool, too.

But I would've been more scared than here. And to which time would I have come to? The time where the gelfling trusted the skeksis as their leaders or the time when there were only two gelfling left? Well, I'll never know.

But another question I have... did anyone else run into one of the portals? Maybe not mine, but the other one? It disappeared pretty soon after it appeared, but some stupid guy who thought he was cool and were close to it could easily have jumped in without thinking of the consequences.

Well... I'll never know.

Finally I fall asleep.
When I wake up, Ban is already done and tells me to hurry so that we can continue. Then we go out of the building and off once again to Camelot.