The sun was high above Anyia’s head when she awoke. Shaking her head and rubbing her eyes, she looked around for Jasper, and saw that he had gone off, but left her a nice plump, rabbit, along with a group of berries for her breakfast. Anyia smiled and wondered at her cat, which she’d found in the woods the day she was lost. She’d always loved cats, but this one seemed slightly smarter than other cats.
After she finished the berries she sat back down to rest, her mind cleared and it hit her. Reality that is. What was she supposed to do now? She had no more relatives, no money, nothing! She was lost again, stranded with her cat.
Thinking about this for a while, Anyia decided she had to find a village somewhere nearby. Then another thought hit her, like a ton of cows falling from the sky: Where exactly was she?
While pondering this idea, she heard a cart being drawn through the meadow she was in, the forest surrounding it. Well, she didn’t exactly hear the cart, or see it for that matter. Actually, she didn’t even know it was there until a rude voice blatted (is that even a word) out. “’Ey girl! What the heck you doin sittin here, me and my horse is tryin ta get to the stream, now will ya get up and move it!!!”
Anyia rolled her eyes, and got ready to yell right back at the old man, when she decided against it, “Tell me sir, can you tell me where the nearest village from here is?”
“The nearest village? Why, that’d be the village by Endless! Milica’s it’s name, it’s only bout a ‘alf a mile away from Endless, you know where that is don’t ya lass?” He asked, seeming not so cranky now that he was concentrating on something.
“Erm… not really. Just tell me, how far away is it from here, and in which direction?” Anyia tried to ask calmly, gritting her teeth.
“Oy! This here’s ‘bout a mile’n a half away from Endless, north ‘tis Endless, north I tell ya! Got that there lass? Good then, must be on my way, horse and I gotta get water, yup, from the stream, a fine stream it is too, been gittin’ water from it for…” The old man trailed off as he and his annoying horse and cart went clattering off into the distance.
“Alright then Jasper,” Anyia said to her cat, happy that the peasant was gone and had given her some advice. “So if it’s a mile and a half to Endless, whatever that is, and it’s a half a mile from Milica to Endless, then it should be only a mile to Milica!” She smiled happily at Jasper, waiting for his response, which was a sort of exasperated expression. Anyia just laughed and tore a piece out of one of her underskirts, wrapped the rabbit in it, picked Jasper up, twisted her rabbit package in her left hand, and merrily went on her way to Milica, now oblivious to what had happened in the past four years of her life.
