Lauren--Part Fifty-Two

Splog # 198

Fifty-Two

 As their laughter faded away, they started to walk around the boulder, Mae and Nik to the right and Lauren and Austin to the left. As they reached the other side, Mae and Lauren were surprised to find that the view from beyond the rock didn't quite correspond with what it had seemed from the other side. Before they'd gotten this far, all they'd seen was rolling country leading to the wall of the next plateau. But now they were looking at a path that led to a series of bridges and finally to a small building that nestled against the cliff. Mae and Lauren, after a searching glance at the new vista before them, turned to each other.

 "Did you see - "

 "That wasn't there - "

 Having both started speaking at the same time, they both abruptly stopped. Realizing that their wonder was mutual, neither elaborated on their exclamations.

 "I wonder if that's the inn," Lauren pondered.

 "Only one way to find out," Mae offered.

 Without further preamble, they began following the path to the first bridge. It was only a few minutes' walk and they were soon there. The bridge was little more than a wooden span, without railing or ornament, that passed in a slight upward curve over a dry gully. As Mae and Nik were walking across, Lauren turned around to see if this bridge resembled the one they'd already crossed. Looking back, she found that Austin had remained beside the boulder which, incidentally, blocked the other bridge from sight, so she couldn't satisfy her curiosity. She raised her hand and opened her mouth to call Austin when she realized that the boulder also seemed quite different from this side. What had been a large rock of a nondescript color was now a white tower rising from a wide base and narrowing as it got higher. It shone brightly although there was no sun to lend it a gleam. There was a window about halfway up and in it she was fairly sure she could see a face. As if in a trance, Lauren slowly retraced her steps towards Austin and the tower. As she got closer, her head lowered from the face in the window to the base ahead of her, searching for an entrance.

 Mae was nearly halfway to the second bridge when the lack of any sounds following her, other than Nik's hooves, caused her to turn around. She saw Lauren headed back towards the boulder where Austin had obviously remained. Was she going to get the dog? Why not just call him? He seemed tractable enough. She watched curiously as Lauren approached the boulder and began to walk around it. Was she returning somewhere? Had she lost something? Shortly, she came back around the rock, walked off the path into the grass and, without any indication of harm, collapsed to the ground. As Mae ran back to her, Austin merely padded over to the prone form and stretched out beside her.

 Without knowing how she got there, Lauren found herself inside the tower. She was standing in a room that had toys scattered around it and a very comfortable looking bed. She was sorely tempted to crawl into it for just a short nap but, while she was gazing at it hungrily, she heard sounds coming from up above. She thought of calling out but didn't want to frighten whoever was up there. Glancing out a window as she moved to the stairs, she saw a wide plain basking in the sunshine with large lovely trees dotting the landscape. She slowly mounted the steps, being as quiet as possible. But when she reached the next room, she found it empty. Here she found another window with a deep, fleecy rug beneath it.