His Polished Arrow
“Come on, Burnt Ire! We’ll never make it to Texas if you keep trudging behind!” Pink QT admonished.
“Sorry, guys; my feet are killing me! I shouldn’t have worn these flip flops.” Burnt Ire stopped and looked down at her worn flip flops in disgust.
“Well, I think I saw a billboard for a shopping mall back there. Maybe they’ll have a shoe store,” I suggested.
“Yeah, and maybe they’ll have Mountain Dew!!!” Suede Knight’s voice rose excitedly.
We walked on in the direction indicated by a brightly lit sign that promised an “exhilarating shopping experience”. As we finally approached the shopping mall, Linz pointed out a mall directory near the entrance. Everyone examined the directory until we found what we were looking for.
“Hey, look! They have a Payless!” Elisabeth exclaimed.
“And a food court; don’t forget the food court!” Suede added.
“Good, let’s go! I think I’ve put too many miles on these shoes,” Burnt Ire said with a grin.
Kris, Linz and Suede headed for the food court while the rest of us went into the Payless shoe store. After browsing through the store for about 20 minutes, Kris, Linz and Suede came to join us. I noticed they were empty handed.
“What happened to getting a Mountain Dew?” I asked.
“We couldn’t find any in the whole place!” Suede was flabbergasted.
“Yeah, I guess they just don’t believe in serving a drink with that much caffeine here.” Kris laughed.
“I think these shoes will work…” Burnt Ire held out a pair for us to examine.
“Oh, are you sure you don’t want to try these on?” Elisabeth came over carrying at least five more shoe boxes piled precariously in her arms.
“I think I only need one pair of shoes,” Burnt Ire giggled.
“Uhh, be careful, there, Elisabeth…those boxes don’t look like they’re going to stay stacked like that!” Linz warned. But alas, her warning came too late. Elisabeth stumbled into the next aisle right into a short girl with thick brown hair and beautiful gray blue eyes. Shoes flew in every direction.
“Ack! I’m sorry!” Elisabeth apologized to the girl who was rubbing her elbow from the collision.
“That’s okay…it was just an accident,” the girl replied. “Are you okay?”
All of us came rushing around the corner to see if we could be of assistance.
“That’s what you get for trying to carry so many shoes at once!” Pink QT scolded.
“Hey, let’s get these shoes cleaned out of the aisle. Burnt Ire already has a pair picked out…I’m ready to hit the road. I need some caffeine like now!” Suede Knight started directing the shoe clean up.
“Burnt Ire?” The short girl with blue eyes questioned, raising one eyebrow.
“Well that’s not really my name,” Burnt Ire replied. “That’s just what my friends here called me. It’s my screen name on this really cool forum called…”
“SetApartLife!” The girl finished.
“Hey, how’d you know?” I asked.
“I’m on that forum, too!” the girl exclaimed. “I’m HisReverentArcaneDaughter…and who are all of you?”
Kris quickly introduced everyone and explained, “We’re on our way to Texas to find some of the other forum members. Care to come along?”
“Okay! That sounds exciting! But we’d better get these shoes cleaned up first,” HRAD answered.
“Woohoo! Let us be going from this place then.” I said.
It took just a minute or two to clean up the shoe mess with all hands helping. Soon we had purchased a pair of shoes for Burnt Ire and we were on our way back to the highway.

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