the beauty of stories ...

 [This is an ongoing chapter a week story that began with the first Words for Wednesday for 2025 on 1 January.  I'm hoping to continue it for the entire year.  To start from the beginning, click here to be taken back to 1 January 2025, and then look for chapters to appear weekly between Tu-W-Th ~ depending on how crazy my week was. 😁]

  Kael and Alexander had spent the next six hours talking over first one sandwich and then later another full course meal that Alexander prepared for the two of them while Kael continued to talk about life in the forest as a Wood Elf.  There also might have also been a few pints of ale enjoyed along the way.  Every so often Alexander would stop him to ask a question, but for the most part he simply nodded, or grunted in agreement with something Kael had said.

  Kael had been unusually cautious in the information he shared with Alexander.  Perhaps it was his recent encounter with the gnolls, but when he first started to share the intimate details of life in the forest, something caused him to pause.  Alexander had noticed his silence mid-sentence and asked if he was alright, to which Kael replied that yes, he'd only lost his thought.  Alexander had laughed and commented that it happened to him all the time.

Train Wallpaper sold by Wayfair.

  "The beauty of stories, Kael, is that when that thought train gets derailed, or you find yourself missing chunks of time, you can totally get yourself back on track.  Albeit in a roundabout fashion sometimes.   But it's my belief, that it is when the story wanders offtrack suddenly, it's because there is a better story just around the bend.  Do you understand that?"

  Kael nodded, although he wasn't sure how they got from discussing the forest to discussing trains, and he wasn't even positive he knew what a train was.  But he learned quickly that there was a lot about Alexander that made him feel that it wasn't safe to trust him.

  For the first time in his life, he found himself missing the green peace and quiet of his home, and the forest.  His eyes watered a little, and when he went to wipe them, Alexander noticed.

  "Oh, do you suffer from allergies, too?  I've found that roses don't hit me nearly as hard as some of the other garden flowers.  What a calamity it was the day one of my secretaries sent me a birthday bouquet of wildflowers for my birthday!  I nearly sneezed my head off in the three hours it took me to solve what I was sneezing about.  She'd snuck them through the house and hidden them in my office for me.  Ah, well, it's the thought that counts, and she wouldn't have known that I only use my office when I'm meeting fancy, rich clients."

  Kael nodded and grunted in agreement, as Alexander had done, but his thought train had taken a detour through a tunnel, and he was thinking of how he could find his way back to the forest.

It's another week of Words for Wednesday ~ prompts were given here.