Looking for the Landmark

Astra continued to follow the river. She did not see any human beings on the way, but the land was not lifeless. There were plenty of smaller animals such as squirrels and field mice. The largest animal that she saw was a fox trotting out of the underbrush. There was likely no human settlement due to the dragon that lived nearby until two days ago.

It is difficult to describe Astra's thoughts. She knew that she needed to get to her home, and plead for aid for those she had left behind. But while she did retain memories of who she had been before she had become a steingeweser, the way that she thought about them had changed. She was thinking less and less using words. She was now thinking far more visually. There seemed to be certain senses that she could not define as well, but knew. For lack of a better word, the steingeweser had an intuition about certain things that could not be put into words.

One example was the path the she was taking to getting home. Although Astra had not come this way to get to the mountains, she knew this was the right path back. She did not question it. She also knew that when she saw a certain field of rye grass, that she would know exactly where she was, and could make it back home. This would have surprised her two days ago, as she would have concluded that one stretch of grass looked just like another.

Thoughts that would have worried her a few days ago did not even concern her now. She was not intuitively concerned about how her people would react to her new form. The steingeweser had not been seen in Themyscira, but they had been described in fantastic tales, so the concept would not have been unknown to Aqualaria. Furthermore, Aqualarian public art did not shy away from an accurate representation of the human form, and she would look much like the stuatues in the Sacred Grove, except that she would not be painted as they were.

Astra did have at least three concerns, two of the body, and one of the mind. The heaviest person that she could remember in Aqualaria was Pinguis the Cook, who weighed sixteen stone, which seemed an especially appropriate measure, given her current condition. There was no way that she could tell how heavy she really was, but she imagined that it could up to four or five times as much. Some of the flimsier platforms and bridges might not bear her weight. She certainly could not float in water as a normal person would.

The second concern was that she did not know what her body needed to survive. Certainly water was good for it, as well as mud. She did not feel hungry or thirsty. And light seemed to be needed. But what might she be overlooking?

The third concern, of which she was quite aware, was that she had the mind of a human trapped in the body of a steingeweser. It was not a displeasing body, with its durability and strength. She could also see things in a way that she never had never seen before. But these enhanced senses, as well as diminished senses such as speech and smell, were disorienting. As the sun started to loom on the western horizon, she picked up a stick, and instinctively walked up a little hill. (If the river rose suddenly, then she did not want to risk waking up with water over her head.) She sat down cross-legged, and then used her stick to write in the sand.

Astra. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. Thomas. Fred. Dragon dead. She did this, writing the words that matched the pictures in her mind as a sort of discipline so that she would remember the language that the steingewesers apparently did not need, but that she most certainly would.

The last thing Astra remembered was staring toward the darkness of the east, and watching the first star come out.

The first thing Astra saw as she woke up was

1. a glow of orange on the eastern horizon, just before sunrise.
2. a completely overcast sky, with no hint of the sun. She had no idea of what time it could be.
3. the night sky, and a blazing bonfire nearby.

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