22 Summer 517, morning
Ashka crawled out of the tent into the early morning light and looked across the strip of beach to make sure that her canoe was still safe. She'd pulled it up as high as she could yesterday but she still didn't know the coast or the tides well enough to judge how high would be needed. The canoe was still there and she sighed with relief. A rummage through their supplies revealed that they had the makings for tea, but little else in the way of food. She had helped with offloading the ship cargo yesterday though, and a lot of had gone to what looked like a shop. She supposed she could go and buy some food to keep them fed until they had a chance to fish and gather their own.
Chaya chose that moment to poke her tousled head out of the tent, blink drowsily at Ashka, and ask, "Ash, I'm hungry. What's for breakfast?"
"Whatever we can get from the shop, or find," Ashka said, crouching to bring herself down to Chaya's level. "Do you want to come, or stay here and gather driftwood for the fire?" She would have bet on Chaya coming, rather than be left behind yet again. After everyone and everything else they knew had rapidly vanished, Chaya didn't seem to want to let Ashka out of her sight for fear that she would vanish too. Now she came scrambling out of the tent to join Ashka on the beach. "I'm coming!"
Ashka grinned and straightened. She tucked a purse with some mizas in it into her sash, stuffed an empty sack into her backpack, slung the backpack up onto her back, and finger-combed her hair back from her face. "All right. Let's go breakfast hunting... I think the Mercantile is this way." She started across the sand towards a building on stilts, hoping that she'd remembered correctly from the unloading.
Word countWords: 320
Running total: 1430