Babble - Beyond Dimensions

Chapter 25: The one where you find the old man

Sunlight trickled onto your nose and caused you to sneeze, which quickly woke you up enough to form coherent thoughts again. Blinking, you slowly sat up from within the sleeping bag your family and friends were nice enough to send you within all the pretty much useless stuff. Looking around you saw that it was still pretty early. Briefly you wondered why you had woken up so early, but then you figured with a shrug that that time travel must have messed with your sleeping schedule.

Figuring that there was no chance for you to catch another shut eye as long as the light was out, you instead opted to get up and start your daily routine. Quickly you rolled up your sleeping bag and let the air out of your inflatable camping mattress before stashing both of them away in your magic bag, for which you never had been more grateful for. 

Then you fished out a set of fresh clothes for the day, grabbed water, soap and other toiletries and sneaked away, but not before waving good morning to the wolf on guard, who greeted you with a tail waggle. Well, Twilight would probably tell the others where you went, so you figured if you took your time and someone woke up before you came back it would be fine.

A few minutes into the nearby forest you found a small and clean stream and used it to wash away sweat and grime from the last day, before slipping into fresh clothes for the day. Then you started brushing your teeth, relishing in the familiar taste of your toothpaste.

But suddenly you heard steps behind you and so you quickly whirled around, holding your toothbrush like one would a rapier into your maybe attacker’s face.

Turns out, there had been no need to be worried, it been just a simple old man. He gasped and stumbled back in fright, before loosing his footing and falling down.

Great, now you felt like an *ss.

Quickly you put the toothbrush back into your mouth and rushed to help the old man back to his feet, while grinning apologetic like an idiot and wracking your brain for the Hylian word for “sorry”.

But as it turned out, there was no need. The man was looking at you wide eyed, until his eyes found the toothbrush still in your mouth and he stated dumbfolded: “Is that a toothbrush?”

You blinked like an idiot a few times before your brain started to catch up.

English, he spoke English.

You could do English.

“Yes” you mumbled out, quickly spitting out the mouth of toothpaste to the side, your toothbrush now within your hand again. “Sorry for that.”

“It’s quite alright, child” he chuckled, humor within his eyes. Then his gaze hardened: “I wouldn’t have pegged you as someone who carries their toothbrush everywhere with them, though. Must be good for you now, to have had it with you on that bus with you. Did you come from a sleep over?”

What?

…

Okay, gimme a minute.

…

Oh.

OH.

…

“You’re that old man with the prothesis!” you gave out, your memory finally working properly again as you recalled who had been near you in that bus, before you all had been swallowed by that first fateful portal. “You sat next to that woman with her little screaming brat! What are you doing here?!”

“Well, probably the same with you, child, being dimensionally misplaced” the old man answered, shrugging.

“You landed here?” you questioned. He nodded: “Yes, I found one of the last locals who gave me shelter for now. You should come with me, I can explain more there.” He turned to walk away, but you paused.