Episode 2: Already So Far From Home

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Sister Isobel also felt some of the wonder at the wide world that MacGregor did, although her wonder was tempered by some worry at the unknown dangers. Uther, on the other hand, had travelled much, and it wasn't an experience he cared for. He attempted to keep himself quite inebriated on the fine ales he had been given by Sam, and not entirely due to his simple passion for the brew; he had been dreading the passage over Silver Lake.

"But why don' we just go around it?" he had protested the day before. "We don' need to go over the bloody lake!"

Isobel sighed. "Do you remember what MacGregor and Ioan said?" she had asked him patiently. "Silver Lake is too large to go around to the North, and the rivers become too rapid to the South for easy passage. The Lake itself is as smooth as glass, MacGregor said, so it makes sense to cross there."

He had eyed her suspiciously. "MacGregor! He's nothin' but a boy! And I never put much stock in what fish had ter say!" he had growled. He didn't like water, but he was beginning to not like that amused look with which Isobel was regarding him much, either. At some level, he agreed with them all, and the worst part about it was that he knew that...

"What?!?" he had snapped at Isobel's giggling.

She blushed slightly. "It's just.. you said.. `fish stock'!" Her giggling had burst into a titter of laughter.

Uther tried not to grin, mostly unsuccessfully. Looking away from her into the woods ahead, he had just mumbled to himself. "Nothin' good ever comes when a dwarf crosses water, tha's all..."

And now he found himself staring out at it. It was big. Naw, it's huge, he thought to himself. This ain't gonna be fun..

Isobel rode ahead of them to speak with the dockworkers about passage. The rest took a break, MacGregor checking his horse's straps. Ioan had slipped off his horse's back and began removing his clothes.

"I'm going to swim!" he answered the strange looks from the others. "How could I pass this up?"

Clad in only his loincloth, Ioan hopped lightly toward the water, passing Isobel on the way. She answered his goofy grin with one of her own: the dockmaster had been a pleasantly jovial fellow, and his very thick Brittanian accent had quite a challenge to decipher. The language in the wild was definitely more complicated than the teacher at the Cloister had demonstrated, full of wonderful local colour.

She told the others that she had secured two barges to take them and their horses across the water. The price was considerable -- 150 talens -- but seemed reasonable to her.

"Reasonable!" grumbled Uther. "You call that reasonable!? That's a fortune! Highway robbery!" He was really working himself up, especially everytime his eye caught hold of the large, flat, unmoving, shimmering lake in front of them. "Ya can't trust these crooks! Did ya even bargain, girl?" He looked at her pleadingly.

"Well, I guess not --"

"Ya didn't even bargain! We can't afford 150 talens! We ain't made of money! We --"

"The money that my father gave me can cover it easily," Abby said.

Uther whirled on her, his eyes wide, clearly caught up in his ranting. "That's not the point!" he insisted. "Ya can't just go around taking the first price -- it's unsporting! Those thieves will take you for whatever they can, swindle ya out of house and home! And now, now they sees you as an easy mark, a victim to be picked clean of yer money and --"

"Actually, he seemed really nice to me," Isobel said, giggling slightly. Uther really didn't like water, and it was somewhat amusing to see him get worked up like this.

"NICE!" Uther bellowed. "NICE? THESE GOOD-FOR-NOTHING--"

MacGregor cleared his throat. Uther spun around to look at the person who dared interrupt his raving. "Um," MacGregor said, somewhat sheepishly, "We should probably start loading stuff onto the barges, or it will be dark before we get across." Uther stared at him dumbly, caught in mid-rant like a deer caught in a flash of lightning.

"He's right, Uther," added Isobel. "We don't want to cross the water in the dark."

Uther turned his face to her, and then his eyes widened when he realized what crossing the lake at night would be like. "Uh," he mumbled. "Well! What're you all standin' around fer! Get that stuff on them boats and let's get this over with!"

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