singillatim | Я вернулся в деревню

“Through the mines!” Despite having taken the original trip herself, Randvi is a little shocked. “A courageous prospect in this weather. You wish to visit Lakeside?”

"Visit sounds like a holiday." She manages a soft laugh. "This is - I need to bring supplies over. I need to check on Doctor Goodsir. I am - also a doctor. We work together," she explains, trying to find the right words.

“Oh, a healer!” It's honestly a bit of a relief, that's a woman’s job at home and she's been a bit nervous about potentially having to consult Goodsir or the other man advertising medical services at the hall.

“Yes, I made the initial crossing with his group. There is a medical office at the dam that they were very excited about.”

She smiles. "Yes, a healer." That sounds enough like doctor for her. "I cannot wait to see it."

She shifts her pack.

"My name is Svetlana Nazarova."

“Svetlana. That’s a beautiful name.” It reminds Randvi a bit of Svala, the healer she had known in Fornburg. A fitting name, then. “My name is Randvi.”

Even Goodsir had been a bit like a child after a raid in that place. “I am sure that if you're from a comparable time to this place you will find much of interest there.”

"Randvi," she repeats, tasting the word as she says it. So many here with such strange and fantastic names. She can hardly keep up! It's like reading a story.

"I am," she agrees. "At least, I believe I am. Nothing here, none of the technology, is anything different than what I'm used to. Is this new to you?"

“Oh yes, it's all new.” It’s fascinating, but it's a lot to get used to. “I had never even… you know the glass that men like Goodsir and Heartman wear on their faces? Before this I had never seen anything like that.”

"Oh! Yes, the glasses to see. I have those, actually." She reaches in her coat pocket and shows her. They're round and large, almost too big for her face, but she only wears them to read.

“Oh!” she says, eyes wide. “The glass is so thin and clear! Are these for scholars, then?”

"Oh, no, they're for people who can't see well," she giggles. "I use them when I'm reading something, or at night when my eyes are tired and don't see as well."

She replaces them in her pocket.

“It affects your vision?” Incredible. “Like a sunstone, then?”

There is a variety of transparent stone that Randvi’s people use to navigate, locating the sun even in the fog.

She keeps her finger on them so, at the question, she takes them back out, opens them, and holds them up for her.

"I'm not certain what a sunstone is, but the glasses change the way that you see. They will make your vision a little blurry if you look through them, but mine gets sharper."

Randvi handles the item very carefully - such a thing must be very valuable and difficult to replace - and marvels at the curve and quality of the glass, and the thin metal of the frames.

She holds them up to her eyes the way that she's seen the men wear them and gasps.

“Unbelievable! And to be able to do such fine work that it can correct individual deficiencies…”

Randvi hands the glass back carefully.

“What is the year for you at home?”

She takes them back and places them finally in her pocket again.

"Oh, 2004," she answers easily. "But that seems such a strange number compared to some of the other years I've heard. What is it for you, Randvi?"

She just enjoys saying her name.

It's a little bit surprising, such a futuristic thing would be old-fashioned in contemporary Milton.

“It is a strange number to me. The way you mark the years here, at home the year was 874.”

"874."

She says it with a hint of alarm, but mostly interest.

"What is life like for you? What do you do? Where do you live? Will you tell me while we walk?"

“The oldest you've yet seen,” Randvi says with a wry smile, falling into step next to the other woman. “It's all right to say so.”

Even people who think they're prepared tend to be a bit shocked.

“I grew up in Norway, but I've since travelled to England with an offshoot of the Raven Clan. We built our village in an abandoned war camp on the river Nene and have lived there for two winters.”

"You have traveled a long way," she mutters, trying to imagine doing that while not on a plane or a train. She's a little iffy about the distances in Europe, but Russia is a big enough place that she can try and imagine.

"Why did you leave Norway?"

“We have. It's a challenging life, but we can live freely.” Randvi’s dreams about life in England had not exactly come true, but it was still better than living as another king’s subject in Norway.

“There is a king in Norway, Harald Fairhair, who intends to unite the entire land under his own banner. Styrbjorn Jarl abdicated to him, and those of us who disagreed with the decision left for England under his son Sigurd.”

So many strange words, but she tries her best to keep up, understanding some of them to be titles and the others as names.

"You said you live freely so - so you made the right decision?" she wonders. "Two years later, you made the right choice?"

“I don't know.” Being in England with Basim had ignited a strange mania in Sigurd. Randvi had hoped to either settle alongside him or travel together, to get to know him, but instead he had left her behind again. On the other hand, she can't imagine having to live as Harald’s subject in Norway, watching Styrbjorn’s humiliation. “I hope so. The land is… unsettled. Conflict and bandits seem to be everywhere. But our village is a haven to all people, Norse, Saxon, or otherwise. It's a place that I'm proud of.”

"So this - a place like this - is familiar to you? People from all over, different places, in an unsettled land. Conflict and - well, I'm not certain that we can call them bandits, but - they are certainly adversarial."

She pauses at her little cabin, opening the door for them both. The fire has been going, providing a bit of warmth through the rooms.

Randvi doesn't feel the cold like she used to, thanks to her power, but the warmth of the fire still feels nice.

“A bit. The camp had been used by the Ragnarssons during the invasion to avenge their father's death, so the layout was familiar to us. It had since been ransacked by bandits, so if I can say one thing about this place compared to Ravensthorpe, we got our map in one piece instead of having to piece one together from scraps found in the latrine!”

Those early days really had been a trial.

"Scraps in the latrine!"

She shakes her head in disbelief, hiding a giggle behind her hand as she sets water to boil on the fire. "Who was the fortunate one who retrieved them from there?"

“My scout Norvid found most of them, but the village blacksmith also encountered one or two.” She smiles fondly. “I laugh as if I didn't have to piece them together. Things were so unsettled when we arrived that we needed to get our bearings quickly.”

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