Chapter 1

I am slow to wake, but there is an insistent voice in my ear, calling my name. "Nosis. wake up," she says, all high pitched and chipper. She pulls me out of my happy dream world.

Groaning, I roll over to try and escape the voice. She doesn't stop.

"Oh come on, you can't be that tired," Maggie laughs at me.

By the Universe, what did I do to deserve this. To be woken up by the teeny bober squad.

"Maggie, you have to the count of 3 to leave and never come back," I hiss blearily at her.

"It is day of the last harvest, everyone helps," she chirps brightly at me.

"What are we harvesting?" I admit it she has my interest. Food could be a good thing.

"Corn!" she screeches enthusiastically.

"Give me 5 minutes," I crack open an eye. Sadly it really is young Maggie standing there, she is holding hurricane lantern above my head. She also has a the biggest grin on her face. I wonder, unkindly, how often she gets to wake up the adults.

"Gwen said she left some clothes for you, cause the last ones were just too disgusting to even think about putting back on, even if you did clean them. She said that you were going to have a burn party. can I come, please," She gestures wildly as she keeps on talking, taking the light with her and causing me to see strange shadows on the walls around me.

I am not sure when was the last time I was around a teenager. Maybe the last time I was on this planet. Now I feel old compared to her energy and enthusiasm.

I sit up slowly taking in my bearings. I am in an underground bunker. I can taste the bleach in the air, from the near by laundry room. I look around for the promised clothes that Gwen sent. There, next to my only suit of clothes, a Tess'rea night gown, is some buckskin clothes in a neat little pile. I did not even hear Gwen stop by, This last week has been most trying.

Was Gwen a tanner or a weaver? I ask myself. I really should know if she is going to be my new patron. I stood and shake out the clothes. I look them over. A skirt long enough to cover my knees and a shirt, no more of a tank top really.

I had been, for the most part, ignoring Maggie's chatter as background noise till now, I tune back, in to hear her tell me whose clothing this was.

"That used to be Gwen's when she was my age. She said that it should fit you being that you are shorter then her and she didn't want to give you any more of the old storage stuff as you seem to be really rough on cloth fabrics."

I chuckle at Maggie's brand of story telling. She seems to have survived her captivity and death threat well. I wonder briefly if I am her new hero, as I slowly get dressed.

Maggie just keeps up her chatter while I strip and change. I am not used to animal hides, they were rare to get, and one was consider gouache if you flaunted this much hide on your persons. Gwen old duds fit well. A little tight in the chest, and lose in the hips.