New World Sasanaichs

Four

November, 1743

        Woolam’s Creek, North Carolina

Over the next three months, a small community made up of Morgans, Frasers, Murrays, and MacKenzies was slowly established one structure at a Time. The first one that’d been built was a cabin big enough for the Murray family, considering that Ian’d been crippled by grapeshot during his Time as a mercenary in France and the couple’d a small child with a bairn on the way. Everybody’d been in agreement that they needed more than bedrolls and Tree branchesta shelter under more than anyone else, the rest of them more than able to rough it out in comparison.

        It hadn’t taken Jamie long to bounce back from the seasickness that’d crippled him as much as his brother-in-law’s old injury crippled said brunette lad. At first, he’d been relegated to spending his Time with all the lasses except the group’s Healer, who’d gladly taken his place since she enjoyed the labor involved with building structures. He’d bided his Time by helping with the knitting more than anything, considering he wasn’t particularly fond of mending the clothing they already had and they’d need things like stockings and blankets once Winter set in. But once he’d regained his strength and put on most of the weight he’d lost ever since Returning from France, he’d thrown himself into helping with those structures head-first. In fact, he’d quickly started to worry his godfather and the aforementioned Healer, but his stubbornness wouldn’t let him lay around like an invalid when he wasn’t one.

        With the completion of Jenny and Ian’s cabin, the focus turned to splitting their Time between starting on one for his Aunt Jocasta and her daughter, Morna and stockpiling food for the Winter. Neither of them’d ever roughed it in the Wild, and they were growing weary of having to do just that like they were a pair of displaced soldiers. They did so with hardly any complaints, but the entire group could tell it was wearing them down–more so than worrying about whether Jocasta’s husband would come looking for them.

        After getting said aunt and cousin settled into their new home, those who still didn’t have an actual shelter banded together to throw together a communal hut that’d serve as such till Spring. That meant cramming the Morgans–who consisted of Lachlan, his wife Saoirse, and four of their six children–Murtagh, and the ginger lad into one relatively small Space. But one advantage to having so many bodies packed in so tightly–particularly at Night–was that they didn’t have to go through as much Wood to stay warm. They were able to snuggle so close that sharing body heat wasn’t a problem, especially since the Morgan males seemed to turn into living Wood stoves once they fell asleep.

        On one of the slowly-lengthening Nights after the Snow started to fly high up in the Mountains, the group was once again crammed into their meager shelter with few ways of entertaining themselves. For that reason, Jamie couldn’t help his urge to grab one of the few sheets of parchment they’d managed to acquire from the nearby settlement of Woolam’s Creek, which served as a trading outpost for the area. He’d a sorta vision starting to come to mind, but drawing it in the Dirt wasn’t exactly an option, if he wanted to remember what he drew later. Considering it was a start on what he wanted as a home for himself eventually, failing to commit the idea to something other than his own mind wasn’t an option for him. Not only that, but it was a distraction from the Beauty of the Healer to whom he was attracted beyond Sanity, yet was far outside his figurative reach. One more Night spent snuggled up to her for warmth might just be his undoing, if he didn’t find a way to get her off his mind for even a short while.

        “Could ye be using another Candle over here?”

        Glancing up from what he’d been working on, he was both surprised and not to see the one lass who’d been on his mind so much lately. “I can see weel enough, but another Candle never hurt.”