The tartan blanket sprawled on the damp ground behind Claire, angel wings spread out on the ground. She lay there for a few moments, dazed and disorientated, desperately trying to make her head stop spinning. Her back ached from the impact, the collision still ringing through her spine. A voice sounded from the far side of the stone, a moan bubbling up through the grass and punctuated with a final muttered:
"Fuck," The owner of the voice rolled out from behind the stone, and came into view. The two women propped themselves up on to their elbows and stared at each other, aghast. Both rapidly tried to think where the other could have come from, but it was the other women that moved first. She hauled Claire upright, grasping her by the elbow. "Who're you?" She asked, her accent driving the question to a harshness Claire wasn't expecting. The woman was dressed bizarrely – not just the style, but also too warmly. It was the middle of summer, and a warm summer at that, and the woman in front of her stood wearing heavy duty boots, thick leggings and several thick layers appeared to be dressed for mid-winter. Claire stumbled to find a response to the bizarre apparition in front of her.
"Who are you?" Claire settled for, searching her surroundings for some discernible reason for why she was on the ground. "And what happened?"
The woman stared back at Claire, before kicking the stone with her black polished boots, leaving a scuff mark on them, and leaning against the rock itself.
"People call me 'Lise," The woman relinquished, "And last I remember, I was wading through a foot of snow, so any bets to what the hell has happened?"
The women moved alongside each other through the woodland which had blossomed since both of them had last seen it. Felled branched now floated high and lofty, leaves dripping from them like jewels. Claire's car no longer sat where she had parked it, and Lise's phone didn't get signal anymore. Claire had tried not to gawk at the small black rectangle, but out the corner of her eye she glanced at it, and tried to swallowed her curiosity.
"Have ye never seen a phone?" muttered Lise when she pulled it out her pocket for the third time. Claire's protest was cut off with a sharp crack of gunfire through the air. Both women ducked, Lise dropping behind a log, and peering between the branches that spewed from it, Claire merely crouched. Lise gestured for Claire to hide with her. Claire merely stared at the soldiers that ran along the top of the mini-valley she stood in. Claire stepped back, and rolled down the hill, her skirts muddying as she tumbled, hair ensnared in twigs and leaves. She found her feet, and ran.
Gunshots flew over her head as she ducked under the low-hanging branch.
Lise watched her tumble down the hill and swore under her breath. She waited for Claire to stand and begin her flee before heading off after her.
Lise caught up with the fleeing woman just as Jack Randall forcibly spun her and threw her against the tree, yanking her dress up to her waist. Lise's eyes narrowed and she pulled a knife out her boot. Throwing with alarming accuracy, the knife whistled through the air and landed solidly in Randall's hand, planting itself into the tree. The hilt pressed into the flesh of his skin, indenting his flesh and causing him to cry aloud in pain. Claire started and locked eyes with Lise, who strode over to Randall and tugged the knife out of his hand. He curled into a ball, clutching his hand to his chest. Lise once again grapped Claire's arm, and pulled the shocked woman away.
"Come on!" Lise hissed. "We've got to go! Now!" Lise spun and halted face to face with a Highlander's sword. The point grazed Lise's nose, releasing with a slight twang. Lise stood perfectly still, her arm still twisted behind her, fingers wrapped around Claire's wrist. The Highlander stared at her with equal suspicion, before leaping to life, whacking Randall on the head with the hilt. The man crumpled like a child's doll. The Highlander nodded his head to an area just behind him.
"Greas ort!" He said urgently, holding out his hand to Claire, and gesturing for her to follow him. "Greas ort!" His gaze flicked to Lise and more of the unfamiliar words tumbled from his lips. Lise was willing to move, and indeed, began to, but Claire was the one to grasp his hand and let herself be lead away by the Highlander.
Claire sat slumped on Murtagh's horse, held on by his strong arm, as Lise walked alongside. Her steps were confident and long, as though she hadn't been walking for miles prior, her words similarly confident. She spoke loudly, so loudly that she made Claire stir on the horse. She came to, and glanced across to the loud woman.
"Where are we?" Claire murmured, pushing her hair out of her face.
"We'll be there in an hour or so," Answered Murtagh cryptically. Lise rolled her eyes.
"He willnae tell me where we're going, as though I cannae tell what direction we're going and I dinnae ken basic geography," Lise laughed. "Go on, give us a clue, Murtagh." She swayed in her step, nudging the Highlander with her shoulder, colliding heavily with his leg. The horse barely faltered, and Murtagh only graced her with a single, dismissive look. Lise beamed broadly, as Claire merely watched the exchange somewhat alarmed. The connection the two women made seemed to share an understanding as Lise's eyes darkened for a fraction of a second and she nodded once at Claire. Then she continued her babbling – "Well, I didnae ken about you two, but I'm fucking starving. Hope there's food wherever you're taking us."
Claire did not speak for the remaining hour's journey, nor did Murtagh, except to tell Lise to 'wheest' every now and again. Initially Lise was outraged, spitting back at him:
"Wheest?! I willnae wheest, you fuckin' wheest yourself." Her scowl had not remained on her face for long, however, as she was soon back to commenting on everything she saw. Every step Lise took brought into view a new plant, or animal to comment on, and every word brought a heavy glower from Murtagh. Claire was relieved and terrified in equal measure when the small cottage loomed around the corner, smoke billowing out of its chimney. She had no idea what the men inside might do to her, and she could not understand Lise's ease at their situation. The cottage also caused Lise to fall quieter, and mutter something under her breath. Claire couldn't quite catch the words Lise said, but they did not sound like English to her, and Claire's fear bubbled up through her once again.
Murtagh banged the door out to the cottage violently, his hand grasping Claire's arm firmly. He grabbed Lise by the scruff of the neck, pushing her in ahead of them, before stomping in behind. The door swung shut behind them, stealing away the light that had flooded into the room, causing it to be awash with blinding light then plunged back into darkness. Claire squinted as she tried to make her eyes adjust faster, and make sense of the visual world around her, as words in a foreign dialect swam around her, threading through her ears and addling her mind. Lise was uncannily still, back to Claire, staring down one of the men in front of her. Her silence was uncharacteristic and disconcerting, until she cut across the chatter of the Highlanders.
"Boys, if you're gonna talk about the Sassenach like she's no here, at least have the common courtesy to do it in a language she understands," Lise scolded, before brushing aside and sitting on the table, her feet resting on the bench.
"And who might you be?" Dougal asked, nearing the woman, hand drifting towards the hilt of his sword. Lise watched his hand move to the hilt and smiled, a feral, daring smile.
"Lise. You don't get my surname," she answered, stretching out her legs and rolling her shoulder in its joint. "Anyway, I thought the debate was over whether or no she was a whore?" Claire's gaze snapped to her, and she finally spoke.
"I am not a whore." Her voice was clipped and cold. Words continued to fly around her in Gaelic.
"We could put her to the test," joked one of the Highlanders by the table. Dougal turned to scold him, but Lise moved faster. Pulling the knife from her boot once more, she pressed it to the man's thigh, sharp edge pointing inwards.
"You so much as look at her like a piece of meat, and I will cut your balls off," Lise hissed. She glowered at the man in front of her, holding her position for a long five seconds, before sheathing the knife again. She tapped the fearful man's face condescendingly. "There's a good lad."
Claire did not know what savage world she had stumbled into, nor who this bizarre, violent, loud-mouthed woman was, but she did know in her heart that she was far from home. This was not the 20th century, and escape back to Frank didn't seem like it would be a simple task. But she had seemed to have found herself a defender – why Lise reacted so violently was unknown, but Claire couldn't help but feel somewhat grateful to the woman. Claire had hoped to simply keep her head down and her mouth shut, but then seeing Jaime in such pain as the men moved to force his shoulder back into its joint… well, the outcry wasn't entirely conscious, merely habit. Her fixing of Jaime's shoulder seemed to secure her and Lise's status as part of the group, and caused her to be stuck to Jaime's side, his own personal nurse in the wild ride through the Scottish Highlands. Lise was less fortunate, lumped on a horse with Murtagh, the two of them bickered the entire ride through the night. Half way through the night, Lise insisted on moving up level with Jaime and Claire, and flung a fleece at her.
"I can see you shivering from back there, even with your man-candy's plaid wrapped around you," Lise grumbled, tugging her waterproof layer back over her head. "Didnae want you getting hyperthermia now, do we?"