2. Drifting memories

After three-quarters of an hour they reached the small village.
Shortly after that they also found the inn and entered right away.

In one corner of the dimly with candles and torches lit room a group of 4 musicians was playing a melancholic instrumental with flute, harp, hurdy-gurdy and bodhrán.
The few guests, who were there except them, turned around, eyeing them with blatant curiosity.

Uni expressed her discomfort with a soft bleat.
Bobby reached out for his little companion instinctively, silently stroking over her mane. That soothed her noticeably.

The innkeeper was standing behind his counter, being deep in conversation with a guest up until now.

His wife, a cheery beautiful woman with a Rubenesque figure and shoulder-length brown curls, washing up a few mead mugs beside her husband, now lowered one of the mugs back into the water again and approached the Young Ones with a warm-hearted smile upon her face, rubbing her hands dry with her apron.

"Good evening! You're more than welcome in our little tavern 'The Three Golden Moons'. How may I help you at so late an hour?"

"Um, we're... we're in search for a place to stay for tonight..." Hank answered, honestly surprised by this kind welcome.

"Then this is the right place to find it, my dears." the woman beamed at them. "I will show you the rooms right away."

She surveyed the group until her eyes fastened on the Barbarian. Her smile vanished.
"You all look exhausted, hungry and tired. You seem to have suffered a whole lot..." she assumed worriedly.

"Yeah, that's for sure! We were just coming from the Sea of Madness..." Diana remarked slowly, glancing over to Bobby, who was standing there wrapped up in Sheila's Cloak, dripping wet and slightly shivering from the cold.

The woman followed her gaze - and understood, suspected what might have taken place.
She had immediately thought that something must have happened to the young boy - apart from the quite obvious fact that he was soaked to the skin.

He had that certain 'something' all those poor souls get, who had been staring death in the face at the Sea of Madness - and were able to escape from its merciless grip again.
She knew this facial expression pretty well, they were living in close vicinity to this notorious sea after all.

So, this child wasn't the first surviving victim of the sea they've ever met - although the first for a considerable time.

Many of those grief-stricken poisoned ones - partly on their own, partly accompanied by friends and/or relatives - stopped at this place on their last rest before arriving at their final destination.
A few of them returned but most were never seen again...

"If you wish I can see to it that you get a hot meal as well." the innkeeper's wife offered instead without asking further questions about it.

"We'd really appreciate that but I'm afraid we don't have any gold. To be honest, we aren't even able to afford the rooms, actually..." the leader explained hesitantly.

"Oh, don't worry about that! You're welcome to stay overnight completely for free and you also don't have to pay for the meal. I daresay you had to go through more than enough. And I'm glad to be able to help you out a bit in this way."

"Thank you ever so much!" Sheila let out, looking fairly relieved.

"You're welcome, my dear." the wife replied. "And now, please follow me. I would like to show you the chambers so that you can refresh yourselves and rest a little before dinner. In addition, I will check if we've got a couple of dry garments for the boy. Under no circumstances, he ought to keep his wet clothes on and risk a severe influenza in doing so."

With that, they followed the woman upstairs.

"Unfortunately, I can only offer you double rooms with two single beds each. I hope this is all right with you."

"Of course! Anyway, we're more than grateful to have a safe place to stay for today." Hank assured.

The woman nodded and showed them the three double rooms she had chosen for the Young Ones.

There wasn't much inside their rooms apart from the two beds. It was quite appropriately and sparsely furnished but yet comfortable.

When entering, a sideboard was placed on the right of the heavy wooden door. A few towels, a bowl and a water pitcher with fresh water were on top of it
The two single beds, separated by a small table, were opposite the door and the sideboard.
There was a chair and a looking worn out bedside rug at the outside of each bed.
A wide window with a broad window sill was on the wall between one of the beds and the sideboard.

The friends agreed that the two girls were going to share one room, Eric and Presto the other one and Bobby was entrusted to Hank's care.

As promised, the innkeeper's wife brought something clean to wear for him: a plain linen shirt, though oversized, blackish leather pants and a pair of grey felt boots.
In a way, those clothes imparted an amazing resemblance with the Realms denizens to him more than ever...

Some time later the woman informed them of their meal being ready.

When the friends re-entered the lounge of the tavern most guests were already gone, except three elderly men and of course the couple owning the hostelry.

The musicians were gone to their bedrooms as well, their instruments were left behind in the now dark corner.

The Young Ones sat down at the table, where plates filled with steaming dishes were already waiting for them.

Bobby picked at his food halfheartedly.

"Come on, Bobby. You finally have to eat something to regain your strength." Sheila reminded her brother.

The Barbarian grimaced, eventually pushing away his entire plate. "But this tastes worse than lentil soup!" he moaned.

The host frowned at him disapprovingly.

"Bobby!"

"Uh-huh! How about fruits instead, sir? Plum-like berries are highly recommended today." Eric just couldn't miss a chance of mocking Bobby.

Since the boy was still weak due to the recently survived poisoning along with its side effects, he hadn't gotten back his usual argumentativeness yet. That's why he didn't bother to reply anything at all but only gave the older boy a very dirty look instead.

Sighs of relief were uttered all-around the two normally bickering boys.

Another argument really wasn't what they were looking for right now.

After dinner, they all were sitting together by the fireside, hunched over a map.

The last remaining guests had left the tavern a few moments ago, the Young Ones were alone now.
The two innkeepers were cleaning up their pub.

"All right. We're here and there's the other village, 'Green Mountains'. If we take this way we should be there by, um, early afternoon, I suppose." Hank told them, pointing at a path on the map.

"Aw, nuts! Why didn't anyone here ever come up with the idea to lay rails across the whole Realm? I mean, think about it! You would be way faster with train or at least shuttle bus." Eric scoffed.

"Ohh, you're forgetting airplanes. That would definitively be the fastest way from A to B." Diana teased, though serious-looking but way too serious to really mean it that way.

Presto sniggered about Diana's witty retort and the sore expression of his friend afterwards.

Every once in a while, Sheila was taking a peek at her brother, who hadn't taken any part in their conversation so far.
Instead of that he was silently staring into the fire, stroking Uni, who had snuggled up to him, nearly absentminded.

She shivered at this sight, which reminded her so much of those terrible moments inside Venger's castle when the youngest of their group was sitting huddled up in a cage, not being aware at all what was happening around him.

"Everything all right?" the Ranger questioned her softly.

But before the Thief could answer him, Bobby suddenly got up.

"I'm going to sleep. Good night." he declared.

He didn't even wait for their responses but turned around right away and left with his little unicorn in tow to go to his bedroom.

His sister and his friends watched him go with mixed feelings.

"I really hope we're gonna find the keeper of the portal soon. The sooner we get out of this world the better. I'm very worried about Bobby. Although the Protectors of the Sea had assured us that the poisoning was completely cured, he's changed a lot... I fear that the disease has worn him out pretty much - perhaps even more than we think..." Sheila expressed her concern.

"Maybe tomorrow at this time we'll be home again. There Bobby - all of us, in fact - can get over the things happened here in the Realms and forget about them." the Ranger tried to calm her.

"Yeah, Hank's right. It's very likely that Bobby will be his old self again real soon now. Just give him some time. He had to go through quite a lot after all - especially lately 'cause of his poisoning." Diana added.

In the meantime, Bobby was standing at his bedroom window, gazing into the starlit sky.

Sighing deeply, he turned away and went to bed.

Uni snuggled up to him, nudging him gently.

"Aww Uni, I'd like to tell the others so badly what's happened with me at this sea. But I can't.
They likely won't understand it or even believe me but rather think that I had imagined everything.
And Eric would only make fun of me again. The dumb Cavalier!
He then would persist in saying I'm gone insane.
But I ain't! I really did see it all. I was actually dead and a ghost!
I guess they would worry about me once again when they're gonna hear it. I don't want that, though! They've had way too much fuss recently 'cause of me. I don't wanna be another burden for them...
Nope, I can't and don't wanna tell them! They'll never know... even though I'd like to talk about it after all. I just can't.
But... I've gotta tell someone.
The memories of my experiences are tormenting me somehow, I can't help thinking about them all the time. They're bothering me and affecting me more than I've thought at first - much more than I'd ever admit towards the others..." the young Barbarian declared quietly and looked at his little friend who in turn watched him closely.

"But I'm gonna tell you. I know you won't think I'm nuts. I trust you. You'll never give me and my secret away. I'll share this secret with no one but you!"

He then leaned forward and whispered his encounter with the protector as a spirit into his loyal unicorn's ears, very confident that she would understand him and never betray him...

A/N:

I hope no one's offended by my description of the Innkeeper's wife.
Of course it wasn't intended as a discrimination since I resemble her appearance myself quite a bit ;)

I've created a picture with the help of the designer tool 'roomstyler. com' to visualize the Young Ones' tavern rooms (sorry, since ff. net doesn't support links inside posts you have to remove all the underlines in the link below to view it):

http:_/_/_roomstyler._com_/users/426362/rooms/8356688