“Uhhhh…” It wasn’t a particularly manly sound. In fact, it was downright pathetic. Thankfully, Kitalia didn’t needle him for it. It was possible she hadn’t even heard it given their potential distance, even with her sharp hearing.
“Kre. Where are you? Keep speaking and I shall find you.”
He wasn’t sure if he was standing, sitting upright, or supine. The feeling he had was like that of when he would get thrown in the air during one of his fighting bouts with his friends. Every now and again, there were those moments when the throw was so perfectly timed, so expertly executed, that the person being thrown was left floating, hung in the air for what seemed like an eternity before slamming into the ground.
That’s where Kre was now… feeling like he was hung perfectly suspended between a perfect throw and waiting to be slammed to the ground.
“Kre. I just want you to know… I fully believe this is all your fault, but you need not worry that I will take it out on you…” There was still a directionless aspect to Kitalia’s voice, and it was still faint, as if she were far away.
“I’m just waiting to hit the ground,” he responded, his voice slightly calmer than he actually felt.
“You are already on the ground,” she replied back.
Kre paused and shifted his body a bit, “I don’t feel the ground.”
“I assure you it is there. I must believe that you are in shock.”
“I don’t think… I mean, I guess? I suppose I don’t know what that means.”
“Tell me what you think it means,” she replied calmly. Kre still couldn’t quite tell where her voice was coming from, but it seemed to be getting louder as they spoke. She was cleverly getting him to continue talking in order to locate him.
“One of our sheep got blasted by lightning once. I suppose that was a kind of shock, but I don’t remember lightning, just falling forever.”
Kitalia chuckled, “I suppose you ate well that night. Roasted mutton. What kind of sides do you prepare with a lightning-based entrée?”
“Oh, we didn’t eat her,” he said, sounding more than a little hurt. “Honestly, there wasn’t much left of her after the lightning blast. Just some singed wool. None of the other sheep would graze there for weeks. I tried to… OUCH!”
He snapped his hand back from where Kitalia’s foot had just stepped. “Stand up,” she said, poking at him with the foot she had just quickly had to pick back up, catching him in the side.
He considered laying there for some time longer, savoring the feeling of not feeling. The second poke from Kit’s foot was the sudden reminder that he actually could feel, and once that realization rushed to the forefront of his mind, he realized that he was lying face on a patch of very cold earth.
Aside from his and Kitalia’s breathing, there wasn’t any sound. In fact, there didn’t seem to be any movement of air whatsoever.
“Where are we?” he said, slowly sitting upright. “And why can’t I see you?”
“There is no light here,” Kitalia responded. Kre could picture the disapproving look that she wore at what she would consider an incredibly stupid question. “No light, no sight.”
“Is that one of those incredibly wise Ylveryan sayings?”
“No,” she replied curtly, “it is just common knowledge.”