Bornholm
Y87, Winter
In Mikkel Madsen’s view, the only good thing about how hard it was raining was that he wasn’t out in it. Aside from that, the rain only made standing watch worse, both by reducing the visibility down almost to the point where Mikkel could see clearly and by incentivizing anyone caught out in it to disregard all caution and run to the nearest shelter, unheeding of any warnings a sentry might shout at them.
Mikkel had protested against being put on watch, citing his known vision problems, but the Admiral would not budge. “EVERYONE ELSE STANDS WATCH IF THEY DID WHAT YOU DID, AND SO WILL YOU!”
Fortunately, a penal watch was, as the name implied, more for punishment than for any sort of actual security purposes. The worst that might happen would typically be if one of the higher ups tried to and succeeded in getting by Mikkel unobserved: Mikkel would then face a token period of stockade time, but no one else would get hurt. All Mikkel really needed to do was stay awake and at his post for another twelve hours or so, and everything would probably be fine.
Since this was Bornholm, they had managed to keep several old traditions alive that might have been fatal in the Cleansed Lands; one such was the crier who called out the hours as he made his rounds of the penal watch posts.
“8 o’clock and All’s Well!”
The call was sonorous and rather soporific; Mikkel had no doubt that over the years it had lured many in his same position to commit the worst possible offense: sleeping on watch. Whatever other flaws he possessed, Mikkel prided himself on never having fallen asleep when on watch.
One of the Grade A cats chased three small blue people wearing white pants and strange white hats across one of the more marginally sheltered parts of the yard; Mikkel ignored them, as he had the hookah-smoking caterpillar and the band of tambourine-wielding elephants. He definitely shouldn’t have made his own dinner before beginning the watch.
“Oh, hey, Mikkel! What are you doing out on a night like this?”
The words were in Icelandic, the voice young and curious but utterly unfamiliar. Mikkel deigned to examine this latest gastronomically induced apparition and saw a translucent blur topped with red; a smaller blur that had a canine feel to it stood beside the main blur. Something told Mikkel that the blur would happily chatter away at him whether or not he answered it, so he replied, “Oh, just standing watch.”
The blur snorted. “Someone put you on watch?”
For as much as Mikkel had protested against this duty, the suggestion that he wasn’t up to the task still rankled a bit. “It was supposed to be a punishment.”
“Ohhhhh,” the blur nodded sagely. “So who’s being punished by having you stand watch for them?”
Mikkel sighed heavily and looked at the sky. This was definitely going to be a long night.
“By the way, thanks again for letting me help with the camp chores today.” The blur seemed sincere enough, but Mikkel again had no idea to what it referred.
“8 o’clock and All’s Well!”
The blur contrived to look abashed. “Ooops. I gotta go. Bye!” And the blurs vanished, revealing a boy dressed in green floating perhaps a foot above the ground on the other side of the yard who was accompanied by a small yellow glow; the boy seemed to be looking for something.
Mikkel sighed heavily (again) and looked at the sky (also again). This was definitely going to be a long night…
