Extend the Story - Add a Room

You dismount near a cleared bit of road, tethering the mare to a tree. It's getting late, and you're tired. Montreal is not that much further, but you'd rather show up to town in daylight and rested, ready to begin looking for the employment you're seeking.

The horse grazes happily, and you remind yourself to lead her to the stream nearby before you go to sleep. Meanwhile, you unsaddle her, spreading the blanket out on the ground as a place for yourself to sit. It is excessively warm, and wet from equine sweat, but will keep your clothing relatively clean. No more travel-stained than they already are, at least.

You unwrap the bread, cheese, and dried meat your mother gave you. The meat is less than stellar; you would have preferred the fish that Etienne had asked Mother to smoke and dry, but she promised him she'd keep it for him, and not pass it on to you. She always favored him in such things.

Which leaves you with a wedge of rather hard cheese, some not-yet-stale bread, and dried venison. You eat silently, unhappily gnawing at the tough deer meat. Generally it's far better, but you're also not in the habit of eating jerky. You wish it was late enough in the year to begin on the sausage you know your parents will prepare, but you know you are growing too old to simply rely on them for everything.

And it will be a while before you're home again, anyway. You wonder how they'll get all the work done, as work has been hard even with both you and Etienne there, but you imagine that Etienne will become a more diligent worker once he must.

Etienne. Your daydreaming, absent-minded, excessively gentle and religious younger brother. He's not that much younger than you, but clearly Mother has raised him as the baby of the family. He's not an altogether bad sort, but you consider him overly sensitive and maybe a bit flighty. He's always had a tendency toward odd behavior, too--from early childhood he was a sleepwalker and a sleep-talker, and had the disconcerting habit of staring blankly into space for brief periods of time before suddenly returning to the present, apparently unaware that he had doing anything strange at all. You've long wondered if it isn't some sort of disease, but neither of your parents will hear of it. Father insists that you're both perfectly healthy young men, but you've never been quite so sure.

Rest for a moment.