The Children of Shannara

Kel pulled the herb bundles out of his own bag and handed them to Fenris. Without paying much attention to either Arlios or the unconscious man, Kel pulled out the rag covered radio from his bag. Then some tools followed. One was a metal stick with a flat head while the other had a cross shaped head. Each of them had handles to hold onto. Then something that had two metal rods, joined at the center, each side having a handle, followed.

Unwrapping the radio, Kel pulled out a nearly empty journal. Which was surprising considering that earlier in the week he had a full one. Then he began to dismantle the radio, making sure to carefully document each piece and stage of deconstruction. His drawings were exquisite, but they all focused on the radio before, letting nothing else join.

His entire attention taken up, Kel didn't even notice when Cassie splashed some blood near him, as none of it touched his journal or his radio. The smell of food, though, was powerful enough to draw his attention away for just a moment. His progress only halfway done, and his journal already a quarter full. With eyes that seemed to be looking at something far away, his thoughts not quite in reality, Kel looked up. A small dribble of drool appearing from the corner of his mouth gave the attractive young man a cute appearance.
 
Fenris looked over to Arlios and nodded. "Good evening, Arlios. He seems to be recovering well now. It's only a matter of time before he wakes up." Taking the ingredients that Arl had given him over to his cabinets, he placed each in its own separate vial for later use. "These will come in handy, you have my thanks."

Cassie meanwhile, had gone about skinning the buck and began cooking up the meat. Taking her eyes off of it for a moment, she noticed Kel staring off into space with a little bit of drool on the corner of his mouth. She let out a sigh, sometimes she just didn't know what went on in that man's head. He seemed to always be nose deep in his journals and only interested in these relics of the past, despite all of her father's warnings to him. Fenris witnessed the end of the last age, so Cassie trusted him to know the dangers of this technology, but Kel was too stubborn to listen.

She looked over to the stranger resting in the bed. Silver white hair glistening as the sun began to set and orange rays peeked through the window. She hoped she could help the poor man, whatever led him to flee into the forest, it must be after him still, and if it came here, she'd face it head on. That's just the kind of person she was.

When the buck was finally ready, she called out to the others. "Papa, Arl, dinner's ready. Kel, you going to join us or keep ogling that piece of scrap?" She didn't mean to sound harsh, but Fenris had given up trying to dissuade Kel from messing with this old tech, it annoyed her how he seemed to forego common sense just to satisfy his curiosity, so she took up the mantle of voicing her disapproval instead.
 
"I expected nothing less from you, sir. I hope he'll be able to join us for dinner. There's enough buck there to make any man well." Arlios looked past Fenris to his patient. He looked not too far off Arlios' own age, with long silver hair and a boyish look to him. He was clean and crisp thanks to Fenris' care, and his handsome face was peaceful in its rest.
Something about him caught Arlios' attention. He scanned the straight lines and planes of his face, watched the way his chest rose and fell, and the way the sun bathed his pale skin in its glow. Perhaps it was that he was the first person Arlios had ever seen from outside Shady Vale, but to be honest, he didn't look that much different to any of them. If this was the hero to start them on their adventure, shouldn't he look less like a villager and more like...something else.
The stranger looked so peaceful, almost innocent. Arlios felt a connection. He was a stranger, but this odd man could have been Kel on that table. Something in Arlios wanted to protect him.
Shaking his head, Arlios moved his gaze away. No point concerning himself with the stranger until he was awake and talking. He watched Kel for a while instead, smelling the glorious scents of cooking meat and popping some berries into his mouth from a pouch on his belt. Kel was going through journal after journal. He probably knew as much about all that scrap as Fenris these days. Women, on the other hand, he wasn't so crash hot with. Drooling a little as the buck was being prepared, he glanced up, looking exactly like the lost little lamb he was.
Arlios grinned at Cassie snapping at him, but sprang up from his chair nonetheless to intercept. "I'll help you, Cassie. There's far less blood now and I fancy you didn't use enough thyme." He went and joined her in her half of the room, where the fantastic smells were coming from.
"Leave him to his fantasies, Cass. It's not like any of that old scrap can hurt him."
 
Kel's attention sharpened as he heard Cassie's voice. However after hearing what she said, his mood sank, pulling him ever deeper into his interests. "I'll join..." He mumbled as he pulled at a couple of wires.

Then, accidentally touching the exposed ends to each other, the radio blared to life. A loud static escaped from its tortured speakers. His reflexes fast, Kel pulled the two wires away from each other. As he did so, he was able to witness as a little blue spark traveled between them. Invigorated, Kel flipped the radio over.

He was excited. This was the first time something like this had happened. It worked. It really worked. He knew it was powered by something called a battery. Underneath a flap of plastic sat five different batteries. Pulling them out, Kel swiftly wrapped them in a piece of cloth, his pace almost feverish. Then, after slipping them into a small pouch, Kel placed the pouch into his bag.

Then, looking up at the others, his face full of joy and excitement, Kel spoke, "Did you hear that?" The young man was nearly breathless as he absently wiped the dribble from his mouth.
 
Cassie let out a huff at Arl's words. "You don't know that." She whispered looking away from Kel and back to the cooking stag. Only for her attention to be drawn immediately back to the radio in Kel's possession as it let out a screeching howl of anguish, at least that's how Cassie perceived it. Her face annoyed she grumbled. "Maybe it cant hurt him, but it definitely just hurt me."

Fenris on the other hand, regarded the outburst with shock. Moving over to Kel, he looked over the radio with a look of fascination on his face. "Centuries old with no maintenance and yet it can still operate. Congratulations, Kel. Your stubbornness has led you to rediscovering the concept of electric power. Don't expect to find anything once you get the thing fully functional though. Even if there were still transceivers still working out in the world, I suspect we're too far from the old cities to pick up a signal.

With a pat on the young man's shoulder, he moved towards his daughter and the bard. "Cassandra, that young man has a keen intellect." He whispered to his daughter. "Allow him peace to figure out the secrets of my time. I think he might even be able to do it." His smile was amused and Cassie couldn't help but smile back. "Ok, Papa." She nodded, before working with Arl to help carve the stag into five equal portions, one for their unconscious guest as well.
 
Arlios shrugged his shoulders at Cassie. "You heard him-if he gets too close to something dangerous, your father will surely stop him."
Carving the stag, he pulled off a thigh and placed it on Kel's plate. The squealing scrap had gone silent once more, and Kel had piled together whatever it was he hunted for in the mess of wiring. Fenris had said something about electricity and transceivers and all sorts of words Arlios had no intention of ever defining. He would leave all of the old world to Kel and the man who had lived it. He just hoped that Kel knew the further he slipped into the old world, the more distance he left between him and Cass. Honestly, who knew what went on in that boy's head sometimes.
"And who knows, maybe Kel will bring back some slice of the old world that means we can leave here."
 
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