But which side of the corridor to follow? The convention for her would be to stay to the right and let Ricardo pass on the left, and Jessica decided R...cardo would think so too so she needed to reverse the logic. Or should she double reverse it and stay to the right? No. She pressed up against the wall on her left and walked as silently as she could, taking slow breaths and focusing her ears to the very limits of her abilities. Realistically she thought her odds for surviving the next hour were. Shrugging, the Tinker from the village, who had not yet offered his name, said "We aren't sure. There's a lot more about testing you and what will happen, but that is the prophesy part."Thinking about it I realised that it did indeed fore-tell my coming and what I was going to do. With 9 kids on the way, all who would be genetically dominant as Elendril/ L'Dangyi "elves" that apparently were here before, a new race certainly would return. I am young yet old, born years downtime and I did hope. We were sitting in it one day. We weren't doing anything, just enjoying the cool water. I had gotten used to being naked with my sister enough that I wasn't always hard. The phone rang in the house. Steph jumped out of the pool and ran to answer it. When she came back she said it had been Freddy, a guy from her class."We need to get dressed because he's coming over," she said."We're not supposed to have company when Mom and Dad are gone!" I reminded her. That wasn't completely true. They didn't. He groaned softly. But he would not give up the fight. We were locked together like this at some length, each seeking advantage, each collecting his strength and recovering breath.He's strong, I thought. A worthy opponent. Our stalemate-like, still locked together pause seemed to bother The Woman. She gave a pettish little whine, shuffled her feet in the sand. Impatient. She wanted us to get on with it. But we knew, as warriors, that battle - like love - takes time. Things would take their own.