Chapter 124: Shibatsu

When Abby woke up, she was in a scratchy straw bed wearing strange clothes. They looked like something a serving wench from a period drama might wear.

Dizzy and disoriented, she looked around the room. It was small and shabby, barely managing to fit the bed and a small dresser with an oil lamp sitting on it. This was not her apartment. Had her stupid, desperate idea actually worked?

She tried to get up and look around some more but did it too quickly. Waves of vertigo crashed over her and she would have hit the floor if not for the strong arms that came out of nowhere to catch her.

"Easy there, Miss. You're in no condition to be running about," a kindly voice stated.

Abby strained to look up at the person holding her and discovered a middle-aged man with silver hair and shockingly purple eyes. The silver hair was one thing but purple eyes?

She vaguely remembered that Queen Mariela, her sister's friend, had the same coloring and she was from a distant land called Shibatsu. Was that where she had ended up? How far from her destination was she exactly?

"Excuse me…but where am I?" she asked.

"Have you lost your memories?" the man clucked sympathetically. "You're in a farming village on the northeastern side of the kingdom of Shibatsu. My son fished you out of the river. The clothes you were wearing are hanging out to dry right now; my wife let you borrow one of her dresses."

"Only my recent ones," Abby said. She remembered everything except how exactly she had ended up here. "I am not sure how I ended up in the river but be sure to thank your son for me."

"Why don't you thank him yourself? He should be home from his training soon. My wife is making dinner right now. You should join us and regain your strength. Where are you from, anyway? I've never seen clothes like yours before."

She flushed. She had been wearing a pair of high-waisted reddish orange capris with a black and white striped tee shirt tucked into them and no shoes because she had been at home.

"…nowhere around here, I can tell you that much. But I have family in the Kanta region. How would I get there from here?" Abby asked.

A new male voice scoffed from the doorway. "You don't look Kanta. What family could you possibly have in that forsaken part of the world?"

A tall, muscular young man with Shibatsu's signature eyes and hair leaned against the doorframe. Her breath caught in her throat. He was probably the most handsome man she had ever seen even though his hair and forehead glistened with sweat.

This must be the man who saved her. His father reprimanded him by swatting his arm. "Don't be rude to our guest, Hugo! She is still weak from nearly drowning."

Hugo rolled his eyes but gave Abby some sort of strange salute that looked like it was supposed to be a respectful greeting. "Well you already know my name. Nice to meet you Miss River Rat."

She huffed. River Rat? That was really the best thing he could come up with? She took back her earlier appreciation of his looks. This guy was a total jerk.

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"My name is Abby, not River Rat. I'm looking for my older sister; I heard she married a member of the Kanta clan."

Hugo merely shrugged off her words. "Those mountains are not an easy place to get to. First you would have to sail all the way to Annalaias, which takes weeks if not months, and then you would have to travel to the mountains on foot.

"After a certain point the terrain becomes too difficult for carriages to travel through. You didn't have any money on you so I doubt you can afford a horse or donkey to take you up there. I hope you're up for some mountaineering."

Abby grimaced. Money. She hadn't even thought of that! It wasn't like she could simply send a letter to the Kanta region explaining who she was and asking someone to come get her either.

Katie's identity was that of Catherine du Pont in this world. Who already had a family that people knew about. Nobody would believe a random stranger lost in Shibatsu was her sister. She couldn't count on any help from the Kanta clan to get there.

"How did you end up so far away from your sister anyhow?" Hugo asked disinterestedly. "You're about as far from there as you can get without ending up in the barbarian countries of the far north. Annalaias is on the far western end of civilization. You should know that, River Rat. You look like you're from there."

Did she? The novel mentioned that the people of Annalaias tended to have lighter hair and eyes. Abby's hair was only a shade or two darker brown than Katie's mouse brown had been and she had cornflower blue eyes.

How could she explain all of the inconsistencies about herself without revealing the truth and sounding absolutely insane? She didn't know anything about Annalaias that she hadn't read in that novel.

Katie's soul ended up in the body of a noble so the only part of the country she knew anything about was the capital where she met her husband. Even then the descriptions of where everything was were fairly vague.

"…I'm not," Abby confessed. "You won't find where I'm from on any map. But I really do need to find my sister. How can I get to a ship? I'll do anything to pay for my passage; clean or cook or—"

Hugo held up a hand to silence her. "Good luck with that. Merchants and emissaries around here don't trust strangers. You'll need a reference to even set foot on a ship headed to Annalaias."

She wanted to ask more about what she needed to do but was interrupted by a plump but still pretty middle aged woman who couldn't be anyone but Hugo's mother. With a smile on her face, she announced that dinner was ready and told her son to go wash up before he came to the table. He went away grumbling but did as she asked.

It was a very simple meal, consisting of some sort of rock-hard sourdough bread that was meant to be dunked in a stew filled with carrots and some other vegetables she didn't recognize to soften it. Abby followed everyone else's lead on how to eat it after nearly cracking a tooth.

During the course of the meal she discovered that Hugo's parents were named Florian and Abella and that they were farmers. Hugo was trying to change their fortunes by training to become a member of the Warrior class.

That rang a dim bell. Abby was fairly certain Mariela had mentioned that at least once in the novel. The Warrior class was made up of commoners but they were an important part of Shibatsu's political workings.

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