Daria on the Trail:
The View Is Lovely, But

DISCLAIMER: This story is a Western based on an idea by Ultimate Paladin posted on another site. I changed the location of the interdimensional portal, backdated the time of the story to 1860, and went on from there. A Song of Ice and Fire was written by George RR Martin. Daria was created by Glen Eichler. I own neither property. George RR Martin owns A Song of Ice and Fire and MTV Viacom owns Daria. I seek no financial compensation for this story but I welcome review.

This story is based on my personal research on the Oregon Trail, not on the video game with the same name.

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Susana and I rested as we waited for the men to bring down the rest of our wagons, the Johnson Company's wagons, and the Rentons. Despite the fact that there was always something to do, we decided to take a real break while the guys were bringing down the other wagons. We wouldn't be at it long, but half an hour or so would be a welcome break.

I'd heard gossip that there were supposed to wonderful views nearby of the valley below us. I wondered if it was true. As Susana and I walked away from our wagon, we were greeted by Jessica Gaines.

"Come and see the view!" she said. "It's lovely!"

"I'd love to!" said Susana.

"So would I," I said. "Which way is it?"

"That way!" said Jessica. "It's like a first view of Canaan!"

"How long can we leave the oxen alone?" I said quietly to Susana.

"Don't you know already?" she replied.

"I know how long I can leave the Trouts' oxen to their devices, but I'm still not that acquainted with yours," I replied. "I'm a town girl, you know."

"We can leave them long enough to take a look," said Susana.

So we set off. Martin was playing with some of the other children: he was getting along with them better after Othar had been read the riot act a few more times.

We found the viewpoint a short time later. It was lovely. While it wasn't the vista that Major Lander might have seen the first time he came here, it was still looked like something I'd expect from pioneer times: a broad grassy valley stretching before us, bounded by hills and mountains on either side. Despite my now keeping an Emigrant woman's busy schedule, I decided to give myself a few minutes to enjoy it.

Still, there were things that I thought were a bit off when I looked at our surroundings. I looked at the grass on our summit and the path below us. and saw that something, or a herd of somethings, had done a lot of grazing. There should be more grass here, I thought. A lot more grass. A suspicion formed in my mind, but I dismissed it as nonsense.

A group of boys came running in our direction. I glanced at them and saw that most of them came from either from our wagon train or from the Johnson Company. Martin saw Susana and waved at her. The boys kept running, then one of them stumbled and fell on one of the grazed-over parts of the meadow.

"Oh, shit!" he yelled.

Susana and I looked at each other.

"Boys will be boys," I said.

"Ha, ha!" shouted one of the other boys to the boy who stumbled. "You got it all over your trousers!"

"It was one of the big ones!" shouted another boy.

The boy stood up, doing his hardest not to be seen crying in front of his peers or in front of any women.

I looked at his trousers and stared. That was an awful lot of dung for oxen or even buffalo. My horrid suspicion came back to me.

"You, boy, what's your name?" I asked.

"Phillip," said the boy with the soiled trousers. He was one of the Johnson Company kids.

"Could you show me to some of those other piles?" I said.

"Why?" he said.

"I don't want to step in them, I just want to look at them," I said.

"There's another one over here!" said one of the other Johnson boys. Silas, as I recalled.

"OK, Silas, show me," I said, and started walking over in his direction, stepping carefully to avoid any dung.

Silas walked back a ways, then grinned and pointed. That was a big one, bigger even than anything dropped by those Pleistocene buffalo we'd seen coming up on the Platte River Bridge. I stared at it, feeling the blood drain from my face as I did so. The smell was intense, even more so than some of the buffalo droppings I remembered from the not-so-distant past. An unbidden memory rose from my past, the time Benton and I had accompanied some of his younger cousins to a Medieval Fair and we got to see an even-tempered Indian elephant giving rides to some of the children.

I thanked Silas for showing me, then I walked back to where Susana was standing, careful not to step in any more dung.

"You look worried," said Susana.

"I am worried," I said. "I need to find either Mr. North or Mr. Parkhurst, and then I really need to talk to Captain Trout. I think the boys found a hazard that's not in the trail guide."

Author's Notes:

For those who clicked on this chapter without reading the rest of this story, this chapter occurs sometime in August, 1860. The portal connecting Westeros with North America has been open since 1853 on an alternate Earth, not our own. (The dimensional portal is way off in Kansas, not where this chapter is taking place (The summit of the Salt River Pass south of Wyoming's Star Valley). The combined Trout—Johnson wagon train is on the Lander Road, a federally built shortcut between central Wyoming and the main Overland Trail near present-day Soda Springs, Idaho.

The same tensions and political events that led to the Civil War in our universe are still building, but secession and the warfare has yet to break out.

The Daria in this story is not the teenager from the cartoon series. She's older, a graduate student at Raft University and has had more life experience than her teenaged counterpart.