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Kino opened her eyes slowly. Her vision was clear, but her head hurt terribly, especially when she moved her eyes, causing her to close them again. She heard a soft murmur, and realized she was not alone. With eyes still closed, she reached out with her lend, seeking the viewpoint of whomever it was that was nearby. As she focused, a blurry blob of light in her mind took shape. She saw herself, lying on a soft bed with silken, peach-colored linens. Her point of view was very low — she must have been seeing through the eyes of a small child, or someone who was sitting on a low chair.
One thing she had found frustrating about lend, since she had acquired the sense only two cycles ago upon hitting adolescence (like all Hundarian females), was that she was forced to look wherever the other person was looking. This inability to control the borrowed viewpoint was frustrating, disorienting, and hard to get used to.
Still, she was glad she had the lend, and she waited for the person to move or look around, so she could gain more information about where she was. She was too scared to open her eyes and look for herself — besides, opening her eyes had given her a headache and she didn’t want to try that again for a little while.
As she watched herself lay on the bed, she noted how soft the sheets were, and how comfortable the room temperature was. The air smelled faintly of something fermented. She could hear a strange, quiet rhythmic sound — tick-tock tick-tock tick-tock.
Then the person turned toward a door that was opening. A strange-looking man walked in and approached the bed. As his back turned toward the viewpoint, she could see that he had no wings! Shocked, she closed her lend, withdrawing into herself.
What was this creature?
Where was she?
What was going on?
Time and Again: A Collection of Crazy Chronology Page 30
