Caterpillar & Red Fish (Halfstreet Archives)- genre: YA steam fantasy/adventure

Caterpillar and Red Fish (Halfstreet Archives)- part the second*

Samora's breath came in ragged waves outside of the gridling's railcar. It's keeper could not be far behind. She couldn't remember being more frightened in her life. But how coolly she'd handled herself, like an old hat rapturing in the rush of adventure. Recovering her composure, she straightened to observe her surroundings, brow furrowing at the looming riddlebox before her, planted smack in the middle of a narrowly girthed hitch car. Samora swallowed apprehensively, bracing herself against the doubts that would surely come if deprived of redirection. She squeezed her eyes shut, pulling the memory map over her inner eye. Where were the stairs that were meant to be here?

The map spread itself lengthwise, in semi-transparency over her vision, flickering with *psilectric spasms, then finally with a very dramatic sound of crashing, sputtering out. A flat blue line replaced it.

Samora cursed, reaching behind her ear, to remove the lobe-cuff, then raising her shoe, grinded it to bits beneath the heel. That is exactly what she got for trusting a starving writeater, she reasoned, instantly regretting having given the deciever the mint edition intro to her Sixlee Swa collection.

Straightening, Samora recovered the bits of shattered cuff in her palm, and pocketed them in the sidemost red diamond flap of her yellow argyle dress. A shiver ran through her, accidentally brushing against the treeling's fruits. Hope burst her heart like a bloom reminded of them.

She steadied herself with logic, touching a hand to the dark ,wooly high-bun crowning her. How to get the most out of just one?

...and why three? Totaling 15 minutes of prescience? Was there a message here? Did the treeling hope to impart some further wisdom to her? Samora tapped the fruits, narrowing her eyes contemplatively, turning them to the riddlebox of gold-yellow wood just ahead of her, at the floor's middle. Thin, excitable rust-orange letters outlined in violet-blue covered it, connecting to form the word: Liminal Industries presents... wrapping 'round to the side she couldn't see from her position beside the entrance. She'd never been good with these. Always lost something in the bargain, but surveying the walls of the hitchcar, and finding no door, it had clearly become one of her lone two choices, and perhaps the most desirable considering her lack of tomboyish window climbing skills where still walls were concerned, nevermind moving locomotives.

Her legs decided for her in the end, and led her to the box, which towered over her, nearly kissing the ceiling. Cooperating with them, she reached out a hand, and knocked upon the wood.

A click of the lock announced swift acceptance of her. Samora swallowed visibly, with the sudden absence of adequate moisture in her throat, and pulled the gargantuan door open by the knob, lifting her right foot, and then her left onto the short stairwell leading inside. She quickly found herself standing before a misleadingly ornate seating arrangement of carved violet wood.

'Your name,' asked the box's blue head with lacked luster, now clearly protruding from a circular screen directly opposite her seat.

'Samora,' the child answered, thinking it wise to leave her surname out of inquiry's field, to whatever degree possible.

'Your goal?'

'To see the baker.'

'No one sees the baker without appointment.'

'I would like an appointment.'

'No one receives appointments because they ask.'

'I should like to be the exception.'

The head paused, clearly befuddled, his bulbous brown eyes, seeking the ground in calculation.

'There's no riddle you could answer that would grant more than protection on such a perilous journey.'