#OUTLANDERReadAlong #ABreathOfSnowAndAshes “Could I be a farmer, d’ye think? Surely folk still eat; someone must feed them.” “You could.” She looked round, taking fresh note of all the homely details of the place: the chickens scratching peaceably in the dirt; the soft, weathered boards of the stable; the thrown-up dirt near the foundation of the house where the white pig had burrowed in. “There are people then who still farm just this way; small places, way up in the mountains. It’s a hard life—” She saw him smile, and laughed in return. “All right, it’s not any harder than it is now—but it’s a lot easier in the cities.” She paused, thinking. “You wouldn’t have to fight,” she said finally. He seemed surprised at that. “No? But ye did say there are wars.” “There certainly are,” she said, needles of ice piercing her belly, as the images pierced her mind: fields of poppies, fields of white crosses—a man on fire, a naked child running with burned skin, the contorted face of a man in the instant before the bullet entered his brain. “But—but then it’s only the young men who fight. And not all of them; only some.” “Mmphm.” He thought for a bit, his brow furrowed, then looked up searching her face. “This world of yours, this America,” he said finally, matter-of-factly. “The freedom that ye go to. There will be a fearful price to be paid. Will it be worth it, do ye think?” It was her turn then to be silent and think. At last she put her hand on his arm—solid, warm, steady as iron. “Almost nothing would be worth losing you,” she whispered. “But maybe that comes close.”
Posted on: Mon, 28 Apr 2014 21:38:53 +0000
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