Weeks or months after the awful man of the dirt huts, Daniel traveled north over the plains and then through a forest that seemed to stretch on and on. The only sign that he made any progress at all were that the trees steadily changed from elms and white birch to maples and even a few pines. He still covered the hole of his eye with cloth, though the wound beneath had long since scarred over. What little baby fat had remained in his face and body were gone, and small but noticeable muscles packed his arms and legs, products of a rugged trek that he had felt sure would never end. The bronze caps of his staff had come off at some point and the ends of the oaken walking stick were now blunted.

Putting Gilead further and further behind him seemed to settle his mind to a degree, at least at first. When he initially passed among the trees and had spent a few days under their reaching, naked limbs, he had sensed some small resolve forming inside him. He tried to avoid thinking of his failures, though it was all too easy to remember the man in the strangely colored cloak whenever Daniel used the tools he had provided. To put his mind off of it, he focused more on what might await him in the future, or how he should spend his life now that

(I have forgotten the face of my father)

he was free in the wind.

Yet, there was a pit in his stomach that seemed to grow wider and deeper with each passing day. A quiet resentment that seemed to burn him even as he prepared shelter against the harsh cold each night. When he woke, the first thing his eye saw were trees that cluttered his vision, looming overhead and surrounding him. As each week was left behind he felt he may honestly hate these trees, that they were trying to drape over him and choke him.

He was usually able to snare a rabbit and gathered what shriveled, dying plant food he could find (though to his continued frustration it was usually an unpleasant, bitter weed he knew as snapegrass). especially as the season passed he knew it was not quite enough. Just as he was growing convinced that the forest really was endless, late one freezing afternoon he stumbled out into a clearing and found himself in a rotten place called Barstow.

Straddling the border between New Canaan and the Northern Barony, Barstow still saw some trade between the two territories (much reduced in recent years, thanks to the actions of the Good Man). Thusly it had managed to avoid some of the roughest downturns that assaulted most settlements anymore, though it was indisputably in a sorry state. Daniel wandered to the heart of the raggedy town on a road that was so much frozen, churned, and refrozen mud. He marked several buildings that seemed not only unoccupied, but in outright need of destruction. For every decent dwelling he passed, three more were rotting around it. Some foul chemical smell pervaded the air, which he eventually recognized as alcohol.

Sure enough, he found a saloon waiting for him. In comparison to the rundown, bug-infested places that littered Barstow, this was a veritable palace: it was connected directly to a distillery in the back, both buildings proudly displaying the name “Jackson and Sons” in swooping, colorful letters. The place was not spotless, but all the windows were intact and the paint was fresh enough not to warrant comment. There was a covered porch with horseposts next to it, and to his faint interest he saw that these did indeed have horses tied to them, each with a blanket to protect them from the winter chill.

There was still life in this place yet, it seemed.

He felt his stomach rumble angrily, making up his mind for him. Ignoring the tired looks from a couple men on the porch—covered in the grime of travel and nature as he was, they promptly went back to ignoring him—he elbowed open the door. His eye and ears were immediately assaulted by drunken revelry: after untold time spent alone, he found himself overwhelmed nigh instantly, trying to make sense of the shouting and laughing and the smell of soap thinly covering vomit.

Affixed all along the walls was a staggering array of hangings: nearer to the bar itself were old paintings, presumably of the owners or people affiliated thereof, including a larger spread of a kindly looking man with flowing blond locks and a full beard. Edging away to the opposite side of the establishment, the paintings became newer (and of decidedly lesser quality, as if the town’s resident artist had died and a hapless student had been forced to take his place). Further still, paintings disappeared entirely and were replaced by so much junk, such as old dirty bottles and glazed jugs. Much of the wall just opposite the bar and grill was taken up by a flat metal plate, unadorned except for the name of the saloon painted on in the same swooping colors as outside.

Jackson and Sons seemed fit to burst this particular day, near every seat at every table filled with the asses of people spraying their spit into the air as they jabberjawed at each other, trying to talk over the sounds of everyone else and steadily making the cacophony even worse.

Daniel allowed himself a moment to adjust near the door, refamiliarizing himself with the sights and sounds of civilization, resisting disorientation. Someone shoved him from behind: another native pushed him out of the way with a pleasant “Beat it, pipsqueak.” Stifling the heat that rose in his chest, he made his way over to the bar, hoping that they had anything edible that had not come from the gods forsaken forest.

An elevated cushion seat seemed available, and as he hopped on he discovered that it was untaken probably because it was broken, slanting forward at a viciously uncomfortable angle. He had to rest his arms on the bar to keep steady. He tried to avoid looking strange, not wanting to attract any attention. He looked around for the keep or anyone who remotely looked like they worked, maybe one of Jackson’s vaunted sons, but in a scant few minutes the hunger and exhaustion set back in and he started to grow sour. There was a greasy, rusty grill set up against the back wall, so he knew there must be something to eat here.

Except, Daniel suddenly realized, he had no money.

This had never been a problem for him before, he thought soberly. Sure, he had never been one to fritter and waste away the small funds he was allowed as an apprentice, but for the first time it fully struck him that he was an indigent. He was of no house now, after all.

The thought of filling his belly with rabbit and snapegrass for the rest of his life did not particularly elate him.

Still, Daniel knew better than to expect charity in a place like this. He got off the barstool, relieved not to be balancing on its drunken seat anymore, and turned around to leave the all-too-loud taphouse.

Except that he found his way out blocked. A disheveled looking man had taken up residence immediately behind his stool—Daniel realized with some discomfort that this gross fellow must have been standing there the entire time, his oily, sort of gaunt face staring down at the top of his head.

“Excuse me,” he tried to say, but all that came out was a dry cough. He hadn’t talked to anyone in so long that he had almost forgotten what his voice sounded like.

The man didn’t react as if he had heard, anyway. His eyes were clouded with drink, and Daniel realized that he could smell booze roiling off of the man in waves.

“Excuse me, I need to get out of here,” Daniel said a bit louder this time.

The walking glass of ale seemed to dimly register the noise. “Wha?” he said insightfully.

Daniel gritted his teeth, his hand gripping the oaken staff tightening painfully. “I’m leaving, please get out of my way.” He moved to edge past the man, who either refused or was incapable of making way.

“Yoo not a,” he started up, “Yoo not a…” There was something that might have been a wet spark behind the man’s eyes. “You not from around heeeere,” he dragged that ‘here’ out for all it was worth, his poisonous breath spilling out into Daniel’s face.

“Speak sense or let me leave. I’m not in the mood for this.”

The raging drunkard laughed uproariously. “Ah, lookee tha’, the li’l redhead thinks he’s fuckin’ tough, don’t he? The one-eyed cove thinks he can…” but then he inexplicably cut off. “Shithead,” he finished after a second.

Daniel’s rage was reaching a pitch, bending his mind onto this misbegotten piece of filth. As every bare scrap of his concentration centered on the patron, that something that had appeared during his trial sprang again. It was slightly easier this time, and this time Daniel certainly did feel something happen.

One of the man’s dull blue eyes twitched, and he uttered a short groan as blood spurted from his nose. He felt it trickle into his mouth and reached up to touch at it gingerly. When he saw the bright red coating the tips of his fingers, his eyes widened with sudden perception.

Daniel, for his part, was just about to try shoving past this walking monument to alcoholism when he heard a deep voice lash out from behind the bar. “That’s enough Ryan, you fuckin’ disgrace. Get outta here, I’m gonna have words with Jacob about serving you past your limit again.”

Ryan, as he was apparently called, had the good grace to look cowed and turned to exit the bar of his own accord, suffering a few laughs from the other patrons as he did.

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Daniel turned around, figuring he ought to thank his rescuer before leaving. He was greeted by the visage of a tall, imposing woman, and his head tilted up slightly to see all of her. The woman’s hair was long, raven black and shiny, and she was so tanned that he almost took her to be from Garland. Her eyes smoldered at him, a brown so deep they were almost black. She wore a faintly smudged, dark blue dress that had the sleeves rolled up to her elbows, and was cut just deep enough at the chest as to invite tips, not hands. Strapped against her left forearm was a small knife in an undecorated sheath.

She was pointing a meaty finger rigidly at the door, waiting until the offending party was fully gone. The rest of her was just as bulky as her hands, and he had the oddest sensation deep inside him that he knew this woman could toss him around like a sack of grain. And she likely would, too, if he didn’t tread lightly.

He swallowed, suddenly aware that his mouth was uncomfortably dry.

Once Ryan was gone, she lowered her hand and tossed her head angrily. “That one’s always causin’ trouble. I should just ban him and be done with it, honestly.” She looked down at him, and he felt his size a little more keenly than usual. “He didn’t put his hands on you, did he?”

“No, ma’am.” He realized that he had been gripping his staff way too tightly, and loosened his grasp.

“Well, have a drink on me anyway.” She pulled a shot glass out from under the counter and filled it with an amber liquid out of a plain ceramic jar. “Least I can do for your trouble.”

“No, that’s fine ma’am. I was just on my way out.”

“A polite one, eh? You talk far too well for any of this rabble,” she waved a plump hand over the rest of the bar. When he didn’t comment further, she gave a small smile. “Suit yourself,” she shrugged and downed the shot herself. “You sure I can’t entice you to stay?”

Daniel’s stomach stabbed with pain and gargled, making him wince. “Well, if you’ve got any food…”

“Ah, the way to any man’s heart.” She gave him a wink that set a strange, nervous feeling off in his stomach, but before he could say anything else she had set to scrounging noisily through the cabinets by the disused grill. “We’re out of meat for tonight, so I can’t make you anything hot, but we have some tack left over from dinner.”

He started salivating immediately

(crisp, warm bread and a whole roasted chicken)

but managed to restrain himself. “That would be fine, thanks.”

“Name’s Trish, by the way.”

He nodded at her. “Short for Tricia?”

“Not if you know what’s good for you.”

“Noted,” he laughed. “I’m Daniel.”

“Pleased to meet you, Daniel. Here,” she plopped a glass of water and a plate of cold rolls in front of him. “Eat up. I can tell you need it.”

He uttered a hurried thanks before wolfing the bread down. It was stale, but he barely registered each bite as the hollowness in him was filled.

She left him to it, moving about behind the bar with a sureness that spoke of many years in service to this dingy place. She yelled at a few miscreants getting just a tad too rowdy between bar glasses she was wiping down with a rag that was sort of clean. A fat, pale specimen was suddenly brandishing a glass shiv.

Trish sicked a grisly looking bouncer on him, a giant, horrible man whose face seemed more scar tissue than not, who promptly waved her off—he seemed more interested in staring at her breasts than anything. Her face turned an impressive shade of scarlet and she seemed about to pull her own knife out—whether on the rowdy patron or on her bouncer, Daniel could not tell—but before much could come of it, the fat man’s cohorts had beaten him senseless around the ears and were hauling him out by his legs.

Daniel drank all of this in, rolling the last bit of tack over his tongue before swallowing it. No one else in the bar batted an eye at the interruption, as far as he could tell.

“Is it usually like this?”

“Honestly? It’s usually worse,” she grimaced. “Not that it would matter to this son of a bitch either way,” she thumbed over at the bouncer, who seemed busy digging bits of brain out of his nose. “I could count the number of times he’s actually broken up a fight on one hand.”

“Why keep him around then?”

“A misplaced sense of hope, I suppose.” She peered down at him then. “You want his job?”

Daniel choked on his drink, spraying water out of his nose and down his dirt-strewn cloak. She allowed him a few seconds to cough, one eyebrow raised patiently. Heat rising in his cheeks, he finally found his breath. “You can’t be serious.”

“I am. The lout hasn’t been good for jack shit since I hired him. You, on the other hand, got that prick Ryan out of your face without laying nary a finger on him. Oh,” she leaned in dangerously, forcing Daniel to fight for a second not to be distracted by the canyon of her bosom, “never you doubt I saw…” she flicked her hand dismissively, “… that. These eyes don’t miss much, trust li’l miss Trish on that.”

Daniel eyed her warily, keeping his face blank. “You don’t think your patrons would be a little disturbed?”

She scoffed. “My patrons wouldn’t care if you had three heads, so long as you let the ones behaving finish their jacks. I guarantee most of them aren’t bright enough to notice, anyhow.”

Daniel cast his steel gray eye over the rest of the bar. The noise had settled down somewhat after the trio with the pale fat man had left, and the excitement was over (though the volume was still plentiful). It was starting to get on in the afternoon, but not too many more people had come in after Daniel. Indeed, more seemed to have left since. Everyone there seemed rough in one way or another: unclean, menacing, mentally absent, or any combination of the three.

Now that his belly had something to quell its aching, he consciously registered the cloying array of smells that filtered throughout the place. The odor of dried puke was at once sharper, but covered with the rich, bitter aromas of a dozen different ales, beers, and liquors. He felt his stomach flip, just a little bit, and forced himself to ignore the scents threatening to overpower him.

In all, it seemed a sorry place. Barstow was Daniel’s first glimpse of the wider world of humanity outside Gilead, and so far he found it wanting.

Then he thought of the cold outside, and the slow, steady trek that had brought him to this place. He could very easily go back to that… but perhaps a break from sleeping in his dirty cloak in front of a fire would be welcome. If it didn’t work out, he could just leave after all.

“Why not?” he said outwardly. “Are there any accommodations in town?”

Trish did not try very hard to contain her smile. “Those’ll be upstairs, hon.” She nodded to a staircase obscured behind the back wall of the bar, leading into the rear of the building. “Second door on the left. There’s a basin in the closet: get some of that muck off you, I’ll be up to check on you after last call.”

He nodded wordlessly, hopping off the stool. Trish lifted a divide in the bar for him to move past, and he shuffled up the creaking wooden stairs. At the top were three simple doors, two on the left and one on the right. He opened up the room he had been directed towards and was greeted with a faintly musty smell, calming after the chaos of the bar. Closing the door behind him, the noisome clatter of the bar immediately fell to a muffled din.

The interior was plain, with green wallpaper that was peeling in a few places along the baseboards. No pictures adorned the walls, although there was a mirror set up against the wall. At the far corner was a bed with red covers. By the fading light of day through the shuttered window, he saw an iron oil lamp on a bedside table, a box of matches next to it. A quick sniff told him that it was filled, though it was impossible to tell how long ago: the oil smelled bad. At first he wasn’t even sure that it would light, but after striking a match and setting it to the wick, it sputtered for a second and came to life.

With the renewed light, he saw the closet Trish had mentioned, and dragged a large wash basin of burnished copper out. Some further inspection revealed a small cubby in the wall opposite the bed that had a spigot and drain. He feared it would be an icy bath and fluffed the blankets while filling the tub, but to his pleasant surprise he found the water warm. Peeling off his clothes and bandage, he spent a while in relative luxury, scrubbing at soil and dead skin that seemed to cover every square inch of him.

Later, resting in his small clothes under the covers, Trish let herself in. None of the usual sounds of carousing followed after her; the bar must be empty, he thought absently.

“Settling in?” she called to him.

“Aye,” he replied, staring at the ceiling. “Thankee sai. It’s a nice change, after so long.”

“Good to hear,” she said softly. The tall, imposing woman stepped closer, her form casting half the room into shadow behind her. “You start tomorrow. Make sure you’re rested.”

“Aye,” he said absently. He could feel her stepping closer, the weight in her step reverberating through the floorboards and into his bed. “I’m not really sure how this works, you know.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she said. “No shame there: everyone’s had their first time.” He looked at her and, to his faint surprise, she was naked.

“That’s not really what I meant,” he started. She slipped under the covers with him with unexpected grace, and her sudden warmth made him feel as if he would sweat. His heart was beating faster in his chest, but her fluid motions offset the nervousness he thought he should be experiencing, but all he could think of was her heat; he felt his thoughts dulling around the edges. “What I did to that man, Ryan. I don’t know how to make it work, exactly.”

“I’m sure you’ll figure it out,” she replied offhandedly. She slipped a hand downward, sliding over his slim, toned belly. “I’d have thought you had at least a little experience.”

He felt his thoughts sliding back, back towards his teacher, who had shared that blunt expression of befuddlement. He shuddered a little bit. “Maybe. I don’t want to talk about it, I think.”

“That’s fine,” Trish replied, sitting up in the sheets. “We don’t have to talk about it,” she said, just a tad of breathiness in the words. She turned and straddled Daniel in one smooth motion, her warmth intensifying as Daniel felt himself trapped under her bulky, muscular girth.

For a second, he started to feel a tiny panic in the back of his mind. “Are you sure about this? We’ve just met, after all—”

“Be quiet, little Daniel,” she whispered into his face, and then she took him.