064

Gregor awoke as he was uncerimonioulsy pulled from the back of the horse he had been sleeping on. He was groggy for a moment, almost unsure of where he was, but then the aches and pains in his body reminded him of where he was. Next it was the stinging rope burn around his wrists. He was dropped to the earth on the banks of a wide creek.

The creek was shallow and clear. He could see the multi-coloured rocks and sand at it's bottom. The centre was broken by a large sandbar of dark grey sand. The horses were lazily drinking from the stream and swishing their tails back and forth. There were long prarie grasses here where the forest broke around the creek and made room for the sun. They swayed in the sun and showed full seed pods that were ready to drop when the winter winds turned the grass into hay.

Someone kicked Gregor gently in his boot to get his attention. Gregor looked up, still feeling the fatigue of just having woken up, to look at the tattooed man. The man handed Gregor a full water skin, from which Gregor drank deeply. The man watched Gregor drink, and when Gregor finished the tattooed man took the skin from him and walked away with a nod.

Gregor was stunned for a moment with the way the world carried on, despite his life being turned upside down. The grass didn't care and neither did the forest of the sun. His role in all of this was nothing. Then for the first time since being captured Gregor thought about his family. It was like a trickle of emotion that slowly made it's way through him.

"Lana..." He said out loud softly. She has no idea. It would be weeks before Gregor and his Lictor's absence would be enough to be noticed. Anything shorter then that would be ascribed to weather or possible injury along the road. The Electorate would send a search party out for him, but when would Lana learn of his fate? It would be months before she would find out, and during that time she wouldn't even know that anything was amiss. At least there was that.