After a while, I’d given up waiting for her and started exploring more seriously. I hadn’t visited the cave in a few weeks, but fortunately nothing had moved in while I was gone. This trip, I’d followed a river to where it joined a bigger river, and then on to where it finally emptied into a lake. Great place for a settlement, I thought, but apparently nobody on this world agreed. If there was anybody on this world; after ten years, I had serious doubts. The fish were a nice change of diet, at least.

I’d like to think that I had a reason for coming back to the cave, but it was really just reflex. I always came back, just like I always checked out the rock she’d left me on.

Which for the first time since my arrival was occupied. From here, all I could see was white skin and red hair, but I broke my personal record for the Hundred Yard Frantic Scramble getting down there, all the while wondering whether I was more interested in wringing her neck or begging for sex. At least one part of me had already voted for the latter.

It wasn’t her. I’d come up with a lot of scenarios over the years, some naughty, some nice, some dark and bloody, but I’d never thought I’d find a different redhead.

Worse, she looked about twelve.