Morning all and welcome to the Fifteen Minute Novel. Here I take the start of a story idea and work on it for fifteen minutes a day. I started with an old writing prompt that interested me, cleaned it up a bit to fit the basic outline of the story I want to write and then set aside fifteen minutes each week day to see it grow. Each morning’s writing starts with the last sentence of the day before. And so now we have the story of Kasca…
Day 85: If she could lose herself in one of the cities there would be enough people that she might not stand out.
If she could lose herself in one of the cities there would be enough people that she might not stand out. The cities too presented problems but they were different sorts. She might be able to lose herself but trade was different. She could not trade her services as a healer for a place to sleep as she could in the smaller villages. It might work at some of the traveler’s inns along the way but there were more than likely things she would have to pay coin for.
Kasca again thought of the collection wagons. Some of them would have coin stored in them. Taking from the collection wagons seemed less like stealing from the dead than taking from any other sources. Deciding that might be her best option, Kasca scried out the location of the nearest collection wagon to her. It wasn’t that far.
She marked the location and ended he scrying for the day. Her shelter today was an old barn. The hay was fresh enough and she guessed put up at that autumn. There were no animals around, nor people. She climbed into the loft and finding it dry and empty of all but hay, she climbed up to wait out the rain storm. It was still raining and she was staying the night. She kept her shields up and hid herself away from easy view, more out of habit than the expectation of anyone finding her.
As she lay there, she heard only the rain as it fell. So sounds beyond. She closed her eyes and dreamed of the city, of once again seeing people moving around in the world. In her dreams the city was crowded. Animals bellowed, dogs barked and cats yowled. In her dreams some people were pleasant, others angy and yelling. They weren’t all happy joyful people, they were just people being people. Kasca awoke and found a slight amusement in her dream as she got ready for her day.
The rain stopped but the ground was soaked. She stuck to the grassy pathways somehow not wanting to leave muddy footprints. She ate as she walked eager to be on her way. As she walked, Kasca turned over the dream. She had never been much of a people person. She was always more of a loner. She spent a great deal of her free time on her own. A lot of that was expected. She needed to go into the wild to collect plants, berries, leaves and other oddments in the wild that wouldn’t grow in a settled garden.
Often she took longer gathering them than was strictly necessary just to have more time to herself. It was a strange feeling to dream of others and long for the sight of people. ‘I guess even I have my limits on alone time,’ she thought.
She smiled. ‘At least my scrying showed there were still people in the cities.’
She reached the abandoned collection wagon shortly before midday. Kasca stood at the edge of the road and stared at it for what seemed like an eternity. The wagon was pulled off to the side if the road in a small clearing and simply abandoned. The reigns were cut and the animals allowed to run off somewhere.
Ten til Midnight 