The World Walkers: Taithmarin: Nerys: Arriving in Little Hill

[k_a_webb]

There had been a hunter. Nerys was certain of that. Otherwise she wouldn’t have been running for her life and that was what she had been doing. What she couldn’t work out was how she’d got from the woods she was running through, terrified that he would catch up with her, into a building she didn’t recognise. Carefully she took a couple of steps forward, wincing because the run had, unsurprisingly, hurt her paws, looking to make certain that the hunter hadn’t followed her. She didn’t think he had, but that didn’t mean she was right, because she hadn’t thought there was a hunter there in the first place. He’d come from nowhere, although being in the woods hadn’t been the best idea she’d ever have. It was just that her group was getting low on food and the only place she’d be certain she’d be able to find something for them was the very place she shouldn’t have gone.

‘It’s okay.’ The voice made Nerys jump, but it obviously belonged to a Nox, so she tried to stay calm. ‘You’re on another world, a safe world where no one will hunt you for your horn. Somehow you found a door that brought you here, to safety, and you’ll never have to go back there. I promise.’

A male Nox stepped through the door at the end of the hallway. ‘I don’t know how this happened,’ Nerys replied, letting the fear she felt into her voice.

‘That’s normal. The fear you’re feeling is normal. Trust me, I went through exactly the same thing when I first stepped through the door, but it does get easier. The longer you’re here the easier it gets to accept that life here is better than the life you led there, although I do still think of those I was forced to leave behind.’

‘Will they ever come through the door?’

‘Even though no one I knew has I know it’s possible, as Nox from other groups have had their friends and family step though the door before. I still keep hoping that the time will come when my sister steps through the door, but it might never happen, so that’s something I simply have to accept.’ He shrugged. ‘There are races here who just want to go home when they step onto Taithmarin, because they don’t know how lucky they are to find themselves on a world like this one, but I don’t blame them. It’s very different for them, Nerys. Leaving behind their world is something they were forced to do, while the Nox, and the Felis, feel this growing sense of relief with every safe day that passes. Having never been hunted they can’t know what it’s like for us to realise that we’re truly safe.’

‘Right now I don’t feel safe. At least there I had a place to stay and here…’

‘Don’t worry about that. We have a home ready for you. I’ll stay with you for two weeks to get you settled in.’

Mirrored from K. A. Webb Writing.

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