singillatim | Я вернулся в деревню

"Oh, well, we could possibly journey together?" she suggests. "It might be better with another person."

"It probably will be," he muses, with a little chuckle, "but I'd have to check with my housemate first. Bit rude to just up and leave without so much as a warning."

His 'housemate' aka his husband. But though Hickey knows more people here are accepting of that sort of thing, old habits die hard.

Sveta shakes her head. "Oh, of course!" she says, hand on her heart, sincerely apologetic. "Of course. I didn't think - " She drops her hand. "Well, I will be leaving in the next hour to hopefully have enough daylight to see. But I plan on returning."

"Well, when you return, I'll have to pick your brain for what's there," he nods. "After all, I plan on visiting that city eventually. Might as well see what you've picked up and learn from that."

Hickey gives Sveta a cavalier little shrug. No problem! This is totally normal and a nice conversation and he is a totally normal man!

She sees absolutely nothing wrong with this perfectly polite man.

"Yes. But - well, it is hardly a city..."

And she's gonna keep seeing nothing wrong, dammit.

"It's more of a city than this place!" he laughs. "But you're right. I don't think we'll ever get a proper city around here."

"A proper city? What is a proper city for you?"

She starts to walk again, but pauses to wait for him if he follows.

Having nothing better to do for the moment, Hickey follows.

"More than a hundred people, I'll tell you that." There's a moment before Hickey decides, "Pubs. A proper city has at least three or four different pubs. Odd metric, I know, but I was never one to measure in churches or the workforce."

"Oh, I would love a proper drink," she agrees. "It isn't so odd to think in those terms. In the places that make people happy and take their troubles away for a little while."

"Certainly gave me more happiness than most things in life did."

He never had any use for the church. Never had any use for the workforce. The pub was where he could relax, have a drink or two, find some poor bastard to fleece and leave his body in a ditch.

"Dunno why nobody here's started one up yet," he points out. "Yeah there's not much in the way of alcohol, but people have a brewing situation starting up. And besides, new cities, new locations, we'll probably find a stash or a bottle of something over there."

She shrugs, reaching her cabin and walking inside, opening the door for him. There's a small fire in the fireplace and she adds a few sticks to it.

"We will. Would you like me to look for some, Mr. - Uh."

"Hickey," he says, with a nod. "Cornelius Hickey. And you are?"

"Svetlana Nazarova," she answers. "It is good to meet you, Cornelius Hickey. Now - will you help me find another torch?"

Oh good Lord there is no way he'll be able to pronounce that name.

"Happily, Miss Nazarova." We're like 80% there, that's good for Mr. Microaggression over here. "Worst comes to worst, I know of an empty house not too far from here. Surely there's a piece of furniture in there we could repurpose."

She's used to it, but she does laugh and shake her head. "No, a - a torch." She pulls a flashlight from her bag. "This."

Hickey frowns at the flashlight before asking, "How's that work?"

Every day Hickey comes across a new piece of technology that he hasn't ever seen before. Today? It's flashlights.

"I found it," she mutters, showing him how to wind it up to make it work. "Have you - when are you from?"

"1843," he answers. "And don't worry, I've already gotten the 'welcome to a hundred years in the future, things are different' sort of talk."

She hands him the torch. "Well, this is the easier way to light our way now."

Hickey flicks the torch on then off then on then off again. He lets out a small chuckle before, "I'll be damned. Useful little thing, isn't it."

"It is. But it doesn't work when the aurora isn't in the sky," she tells him. "So - it's only sort of useful. Now. I'd still like to collect any that you might be able to find, just in case."

"Easy enough to keep an eye out for them," he nods. "I'll do that for you. Who knows, maybe we'll find one or two in whatever new part of this world we stumble into next."

"Perhaps. I can't imagine that the mine would be without them." She smiles. "They have the ones that attach to your forehead." She mimes wearing a headlamp.

"I doubt they work, but - perhaps they would be useful during the - the - " She gestures to the sky. "Auroras."

"Most things seem to be useful only during the Auroras," Hickey muses. "My time doesn't have all this electrical nonsense—but it seems like people here couldn't go without it."

There's a moment before he muses,

"Dunno if it was worth it in the end. After all, 's not like any of this stuff works."

"No, but - there's something comfortable and familiar in it," she smiles. "And there's no harm in it."

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