Chapter 5: We're in the Friggin' Boonies

Kira had given me some of her brother's clothes to wear since I only had the one outfit that I arrived in. They were a little loose and way too short but that was just fine for working out in. I spent the next morning going through the forms with my katana; I had the feeling that I was going to need to become a lot better, real soon, before I made a fatal mistake. Kira, after making breakfast for us, went and took care of the horses. I found out later that she had also washed our clothes, made all the meals, took care of the house, and a thousand other things that I took for granted. She also made time to stop and watch me practice. When she called me to lunch I was sweating lightly and needed a break. She had been quiet since the funeral last night.

"How far is it to your Grandma's farm from here if we ride the horses?"

She looked at me strangely, again, and quietly said that it was about four hours.

"We should go and tell them what happened don't you think?" She just nodded. I had absolutely no clue on how to talk to a girl that was medieval, teenaged, grieving, possibly infatuated, and I was probably missing a few others. I just told her that she would feel better when she could talk to her grandma. To which she just nodded and started to clean up lunch.

I filled the water barrel for her and then walked over to the barn to look over the horses; I was going to learn how to ride and figured that this was a good time. The first thing that I did was look at the horses and tried to figure out which was in the best shape of the ones that I captured. One was clearly in better shape than the others so I found a brush and slowly walked up to her. Before I entered the stall I started talking to her.

I hope I'm doing this correctly.

I placed my hand on her shoulder and then started brushing in the direction the hair grew, talking to her the whole time. Luckily for me, she did not have a problem with my presence. I then found a saddle and placed it on her back, I cinched the buckle that held it on when I heard a soft, "You're doing that wrong, Sir." I looked up and saw that Kira had a blanket in her hand "This is supposed to go on first." So I unbuckled the saddle and let her instruct me on the proper way to prepare the horse for riding.

"I've never ridden a horse before. I figured that I would get some practice in." She just nodded and continued with what she was doing. I asked her to tell me why she was doing something as she did it, this she did and actually started speaking a little louder as she progressed.

Mounting the horse wasn't that hard, granted she was still holding the reins and the horse was pretty calm. Kira gave me a couple of pointers with the repeated order to keep my heels down or I would regret it. I walked the horse for a while and then I tried to trot for about five minutes before the jarring got to me. Cantering was not bad even with Kira yelling at me to keep my heels down. I tried to but was not as successful as I thought. After about an hour of riding Daisy, named after my first dog, we went back to the barn and I dismounted with some difficulty. My thighs were stiffening and my ass was a little uncomfortable from the repeated bouncing on the saddle.

Kira came out and showed me how to properly take care of the horse. She showed what to look for, how to brush and how much food and water to give. When she was done I gave her a half-bow and a thank you. Even after just an hour I started to feel the soreness that I knew that was going to come from prolonged riding.

"Tomorrow morning we will go to your grandma's farm." She nodded and went back into the house.

I took out my first aid kit and filled up a bucket of water; I pulled off the bandage from my forearm and rinsed it liberally. It pulled at the hairs of my arm but didn't sting at all. That surprised me and with the cloth that I borrowed from Kira I lightly scrubbed the scab that formed and looked at the wound. It flecked off with the light scrubbing that I gave it.

What the!!!

The cut was healed! There wasn't even a bruise! It looked like it was weeks old instead a couple of days. I dried the wound, and looked at it in disbelief. There wasn't even a reason to bandage it again. I rinsed out the cloth and hung it on the clothesline to dry.

"Is there anything that I can do to help while you are doing that?" I naively asked Kira. She was working in the kitchen doing something; I just didn't know what that was. I figured that there was always something to do on a farm; I just had no clue what to do.

"There is always wood to be chopped."

"Show me the axe and I'll be happy to" which she did.

While I was chopping wood I thought about my quick healing and the amount of digging that I did yesterday. I knew that I was in excellent shape before, but now I seemed to have much greater powers of recovery. I really didn't think that I would have been able to dig the graves in one day when I was on old Earth without completely collapsing. Here I dug the graves one day and now I was getting ready to chop wood the next without worrying about overdoing it. I wondered what else my Patron had given me.

Much more information about this world was needed and hopefully Kira would talk to me at dinner and fill me in. I would see what she knew without giving up too much information about me coming from a different world.

I chopped, split and carried wood for the rest of the day until she called me for dinner. I didn't even realize how long I had been at it until then. My arms and back were a little sore but nothing more than what a good workout would have done. The sorest part of me was my hands from the rough shovel handle. I think that I recuperated faster today than I did yesterday and I think that I did the same amount of work.

Stranger and stranger.

"Sir, dinner is ready for you." She called. I cleaned up at the wash barrel and then went into the cabin.

"This looks and smells wonderful, Kira. Thank you."

She looked at me with hope in her eyes and said, "Thank you, Sir. I'm a good cook, you'll see."

"Tell me about this area. Are there any cities or towns nearby?"

"The closest is about two days from Gamma's farm."