Shredder 31
Gerard was mute. He had frozen solid at Merinde’s words. Then he snapped to his feet and moved away from her. He circled in tenuous figure eights a few times in thought, the rage of possibilities, of ramifications, burying him in an avalanche.
Merinde sat with her face in her hands, her breathing heavy with grief. She hadn’t moved since her proclamation, and Gerard’s gaze kept darting back to the flickering firelight on her bald pate. Guilt rose in him as he realized the severity of her plight, and here he was wondering after his internal accord.
“My apologies, Merinde,” he said, reclaiming a seat near the fire, “I’m coming about this poorly. We may simply be accustomed to different terminology. Let us explore the details a bit further.”
Merinde glanced up from her hands, a crescent of hope nestled within the layers of cynical disbelief. She shrugged, and shivered, hugging herself and drawing nearer the fire. “Explore all you like,” she said, “I’m tired and just trying to stay warm.”
The conversation was one sided, at least in the beginning. Questions sprung from Gerard’s mouth again and again as they navigated through geographic details of their homelands. A litany of names rolled between them, and there were only a pair of vague similarities which surfaced and then were dismissed as coincidence. The suns clinched it though.
“You have three suns that light Torival?” Gerard asked in disbelief. A shared disgust bounced between them at not having realized the importance of celestial bodies in just such a discussion.
“And two small moons,” Merinde answered, glancing at the deep darkness around them, “Which shine much brighter than yours. It never gets this dark on Torival, even during the Turnings of Shadow.”
Gerard was shaking his head, attention drifting deeper into his thoughts as the truth of it sunk home. “I’m at a little bit of a loss here, Merinde,” he offered in honest tones, “And I believe you. Nor do I wish to frighten you, but here, the beliefs of our world do not recognize the existence of any other world. In fact, to do so is blasphemy.”