Escaping the War (Sequel to Pardoned on the Peak)

One

October, 1770

        Morgan’s Peak, Rowan County, North Carolina

A lot can Change in twelve Years’ Time–more than one might imagine on a cold, Dark Night where one’s only real entertainment is telling storiesta one’s family, or reading one of the few books available at any given Time.

        No one’d to tell forty-nine-Year-old James Jamie Fraser that, among many other facts of Life he’d learned ever since he was essentially forced to become a man while still a wean. So many Changes’d taken place in his Life ever since meeting the ginger woman who became his wife in the Spring of 1743, it was more or less ridiculous. Even more Changes’d occurred twelve Years later when he’d met the brunette, English lass who’d become his second wife–the sister wife of that ginger woman. He’d never complain about any of those Changes, though, ’cuz he wouldn’t have been Blessed with one helluva family, if he hadn’t met either of his wives.

        With the first of his wives, Róisín Morgan-Fraser, he’d built a family that included six children–twenty-five-Year-old Egan, nineteen-Year-old Aisling, thirteen-Year-old twins Ciara and Conan, seven-Year-old Breácan, and four-month-old Niamh. Each and every one of them’d inherited the trait of having red hair, considering both parents were gingers, but their eyes were a different story. They’d a blue-eyed son and daughter, a green-eyed son and daughter, and the twins sported eyes that seemed to be more of a teal shade.

        On the other side of the coin, the ginger man’d built a family that consisted of three children with his second wife, Geneva Dunsany-Fraser. Their oldest was twelve-Year-old William, who’d been quickly followed by ten-Year-old Ginette before Spring’d even gotten a good start in the North Carolina Mountains, in 1760. After that daughter’d come a second son with his second wife–five-Year-old Reed, who shared having one of his own names incorporated in his with his older brother. Now, she was currently carrying their fourth child together–a child he and his ginger wife both swore was a girl since she wasn’t as good at reading Energy.

        But if Jamie was completely honest with everyone aside from himself, building such a large family–and with two wives, to boot–wasn’t even the absolute biggest Change of his Life. Neither was the first of those wives convincing him that the only way he’d survive another Year–before he’d been Transformed into an Elf, that is–wasta leave his homeland in the Scotch Highlands, and immigrate to the British Colonies. Again, if he were completely honest, the biggest Change he’d endured in the last twenty-seven Years was that aforementioned Transformation, which’d been the only thing to save him from the bite of a venomous snake. Following that, he’d have to say that his second wife also being Transformed into an Elf–to save her from a spiderbite, not a snakebite–was the biggest Change he’d endured.

        He honestly wouldn’t have it any other way, though–but regardless of whether he was human, Elvin, or a literal God, he well kent that there were more Changes still on the horizon.

        Jamie, up to the Central Tower wi’ ye, a bhalaich.

        Hearing the familiar voice of his Elvin father-in-law in his head wasn’t exactly an everyday occurrence, but it also wasn’t a total shock anymore, either. Aye, I’ll be there presently.

        Bring Willie wi’ ye as Geneva’s representative–Egan’s already on his way wi’ Corbin since he was helping him chop Wood this afternoon.

        Then I’ll take a few more minutesta get up there, the ginger man chuckled in his Thoughts. Ye ken Willie still doesna like the Transference.

        Aye, I ken that fine, a bhalaich, Lachlan Morgan laughed in response. But he’s a young Elf who hasna been taken into it nearly as much–we do it a lil more oft, and he’ll get used to it.