(A/N) Thanks, guys for all those reviews...especially for pointing out that I hadn't enabled my anonymous review thingy. /looks sheepish/. I hope this chapter wasn't too boring..I was trying to slow things a bit..And there's more Stubby this chapter, too :). He's my friend...Anyway...Enjoy!


Sabra was never an early riser, even on good days, so it surprised her when she woke up to the sound of a cockerel's crowing and the first of the sun's rays. Needless to say, she was a bit annoyed when she found that she could not go back to sleep. Cursing the cockerel, the sun and the fresh air, she pulled on some of Zack's wife's clothes, as the woman had confiscated all of her travelling clothes, holding them at arms length as she put them in what appeared to be a wash basket.

As she entered the kitchen, she noted grumpily that both her hosts were already up having breakfast. How she hated early risers. At least the children had a bit more normal time table. She envied the fact that they were probably still snuggled up in their warm blankets. As Nellie put a plate of pancakes in front of her, she asked of Tristan.

"Oh, he's outside playing with all the other village children." Zack replied, with his mouth full of pancakes and honey.

Sabra jabbed at her own breakfast. Tristan was hopeless, what kid would be up at this hour? All the children in the village, apparently. She polished off what was on her plate, savouring every bite, and then helped Nellie by washing the dishes. That in itself was a thorny mission; she had to fetch water from the well outside then wash the plates using what probably was a dried out sea sponge and some soap that, according to Nellie, was collected from a nearby riverbank. Compared to dishwashing liquids and scented soaps, the soap she was using for the dishes was pitiable, nothing more than a pulpy mess that foamed very slightly.

By the time she was done washing and drying, Zack had left to sell whatever he had killed yesterday to the village butcher, so Sabra decided to tail Nellie for the rest of the morning, helping her with things around the house when she had to tend to Camane. After lunch though, the woman turned her out of the house saying that she was a guest and was not supposed to be doing housework on the first day of her visit.

So she walked around the village taking in the daily activities of its inhabitants. She waved at Tristan, seeing him with a gaggle of boys and girls his age playing Narnian version of Tag. Briefly she wondered whether they had school. Maybe later on in the day.

She watched as the women beat carpets with sticks to get the dust out, and lay them in the sun. Some sat together, gossiping. If Sabra noticed a few pointing at her or staring at her, she gave no indication. The men were also getting on with their business; the woodcutter was just off to the forest; the Narnian equivalent of a grocer was setting up his wares; and the blacksmith was already attracting a crowd of interested teenagers looking for apprenticeship.

No one hailed her, nor challenged her being there. They didn't stop her to ask for directions, or to ask for her help in some menial task. She was an outsider and they knew it. Hell, she knew it. The only people she knew in this village were Zack and his family. Such a small village was obviously wary of anybody they didn't know. Her dark colouring only contributed to her foreignness. Besides, no one could be that accepting of a stranger. Could one imagine? Hello, you must be new. Would you like to help me clean the stables? It's fun, really!

Yes.

She finally decided to enter a tavern that was somewhere around the centre of the village. A hanging sign outside told her it was the 'Gold Coin'. The door was an unattractive shade of yellow, and was peeling. Quite obviously, that was where the tavern got its name from. How very clever.

As she found a seat in the corner at a small table, she realised that she had no money; even the few cents she kept in her pocket of her jeans would be no use to her, if she still wore them. But then again…she noticed that they only served some sort of alcoholic beverage that made her eyes water when a barmaid shoved one under her nose, and so politely declined with a shake of the head and a smile.

Instead she sat back and tried not to be noticed. Quite an easy feat in the dimness of the tavern that belied its name. Her eyes took in the group of males, both young and old, and not all human, hunched over their drinks.

"It ain't safe anymore…Tha' vile Servos, or whatever 'is name is, he's been stirrin' trouble with Narnia…"

One with an eye patch leaned forward eagerly and said, "My Father, he said that it's gonna be a war…much worse than the White Witch."

"Boy, your Father wasn't in tha' war. I was there, an' it was bad. She had them Giants, and they were merciless they were," Obviously a Narnian war veteran, the old faun took a gulp of his beverage.

The rest of the conversation continued in much the same vein, though Sabra did manage to salvage a few gems of information. She left the tavern as soon as it became a little too rowdy for her tastes; probably the Archenland happy hour. The cool night air embraced her as she closed the peeling yellow door behind her, and she was surprised at the amount of time she had spent eavesdropping.

Dinner consisted of some wonderfully baked bread and cold venison. ("It would have been hot if you had come home earlier, Sabra.") All in all it had been a good day, and she fell asleep on the extra cot Zack had set up for her the last night, dreaming wonderful dreams of Stubby, which had been promoted from 'Named Candle Stub' to 'Talking Named Candle Stub'. Though she couldn't for the life of her explain why.

The next day, again, she woke up excruciatingly early, and was greeted by the smell of singed bread. Obviously, Zack still remembered the wonderfulness of toast, although they had no modern-day toasters in Narnia. Obviously. Still, the slightly burnt bread tasted good with the jam Nellie had bought the day before, made of the nectar of some flower native to Archenland. Sabra hadn't really paid attention to Zack's long lecture about the flora and fauna of the place.

And, once again, when Nellie was tired of her puttering around the house, Sabra went back to the Gold Coin to gather information. This routine carried on for the next few days, broken by the occasional stint with Zack or a visit to the grocer's with Nellie, and she even made friends with one or two people around her age. Not too many, most of the village people were still wary of her.

She managed to find out that random Narnian soldiers had been appearing in the Village Square, and were asking for her. Thankfully, the villagers did not know the dark-skinned new girl was called Sabra, and those who did didn't divulge her whereabouts, for which she was grateful. Although it meant she would have to be a whole lot more careful about where she went. Just the last day she had almost been spotted by two Dwarfs and a Faun looking for drinks.

Servos' attacks also seemed on the rise. But he was not fool enough for a direct attack on Peter's army, nor Cair Paravel. Not yet, at any rate. There had been reports of a few of his men (men here not restricted to Sons of Adam) wandering around nearby, but this news went unconfirmed.

In the room she slept in, Sabra turned on her side and closed her eyes. Soon she would have to formulate a plan and stop intruding on Zack's hospitality. Maybe she'd go somewhere warm…and she drifted off to sleep and dreams of Stubby, the Talking Named Candle Stub.