forums.rs

Forums

The Wild Girls (chapter story)

Quick find code: 49-50-787-66185523

of 7
YuBiusk Ink

YuBiusk Ink

Posts: 2,888 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Aw, thanks so much! I just saw I finally got a comment, and it's from the Clanfounder themselves! (This is Scribegoblin/Yenklet, by the way—I don't remember if we met under this name.)

I hit a bad burnout point and had to take a step back from some projects, including this story, but I hope to get back to it soon.

17-Dec-2020 20:22:44

StrawburyCat
Jul Member 2021

StrawburyCat

Posts: 130 Iron Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
YuBiusk!?? What happened to you? It all ended in 2020. Where did you go?
Are you ok? Alive? Did you just give up on the story?

WHERE ARE YOU?????????????????????????????!!!!!!!!!!????????????

Sorry. It is a very good story. I can really imagine the world and scenes with it taking place in the world of runescape. But it does make me worry, that you stopped 2 years ago.

Or so it seems. Strawburycat

14-Sep-2022 01:58:16 - Last edited on 14-Sep-2022 02:01:09 by StrawburyCat

YuBiusk Ink

YuBiusk Ink

Posts: 2,888 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Aw, thanks! I faded out a bit, but I do think about coming back to this story at times, and this is good encouragement for me to do so! <3

EDIT: And as an update, I've outlined the next two chapters!

31-Mar-2023 06:52:35 - Last edited on 01-Apr-2023 04:33:41 by YuBiusk Ink

YuBiusk Ink

YuBiusk Ink

Posts: 2,888 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
CHAPTER FIVE: LIGHTNESS

“... so it can be really very—it can be very hard to keep enough flowers to keep them happy, since all I have is—it’s just the garden and the blood poppies, and the blood poppies don’t—I don’t think they produce very much nectar. I think they—not to mention how—yes, and bringing up the soil is a real trick , because aside from the blood poppies, so little likes to grow up here in the local soil, so I have to—”

“Ken.” Heather’s hands were on her forehead, fingers gently massaging her scalp. She kept her voice low, and level, and calm. “This is all really cool and all, but all I asked was if you could untie me. Five minutes ago.” She flicked her head to her splinted leg, tied to the bedframe, with a meaningful stare.

“I. Oh!” Catteken blinked, then nodded rapidly. “Yes! Yes, of course, sorry!” She turned and sat against the bedframe, inches from Heather. “Just, um, hold your leg still on the bed there, and I’ll take care of you.”

“Great. Thanks.” Heather rolled her eyes, stretching her right leg out so the knot was easier to access. “That’s very kind of you.”

“It’s really no problem,” Catteken mumbled shyly, facing away from Heather as she set about delicately undoing the bindings. “I mean, I am the one who tied you up, so it’s only fair.”

Damn it, she was taking Heather literally. Heather had to suppress the urge to clarify. At least wait until you’re untied before picking fights with the weird girl, dumbass.

Ken’s fingers worked nimbly, delicately pulling the knot apart loop-by-loop. As the knot gradually loosened, she sat up straighter, until her left shoulder was brushing up against Heather’s right. “I’m, um, sorry if these knots were too tight. I was worried you'd jostle in your sleep, or...”

02-Apr-2023 19:54:06 - Last edited on 02-Apr-2023 20:07:18 by YuBiusk Ink

YuBiusk Ink

YuBiusk Ink

Posts: 2,888 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
“Yeah. Whatever.” Ken had gotten… very, very close all of a sudden. Heather wasn’t sure how that had happened. She tried not to think about it. She tried not to think about how she could almost… if she wanted to, which she didn’t, even though her neck was getting desperately sore from sitting so upright, she could… basically rest her chin right in the crook of Ken’s shoulder.

Heather dug her fingernails into the bedsheets. There were so many things to think about right now other than this strange girl’s proximity—how she was going to get home, that weird nutty aftertaste to the tea, the heat she could feel radiating off of Ken’s body as Ken scooted a little further onto the bed…

“D-Done!” Catteken blurted, dropping the loose twine and pushing away so fast she made the bed rock back and hit the wall.

It took Heather a moment to register what had happened. Her eyes flitted to Ken, then to the twine falling to the floor, then back to Ken, who was taking another step back.

Heather felt something in her sink a little, and briefly let herself be pulled down along with it. Was Ken that repulsed by her?

Her gut clenched. Like she cared what some touched hermit freak thought of her. She pulled back as well. Her head was just in a weird place because of everything that was going on, all this insanity.

“Might wanna consider a bath,” she muttered under her breath, pulling her newly freed leg inward to sit crisscrossed on the bed.

“... What?”

Heather froze. Oh. She hadn’t meant… Catteken had good ears.

She swallowed the sparks of guilt before they could find tinder and met Ken’s eyes defiantly. “No offense. I’m just saying, when’s the last time you took one?”

02-Apr-2023 19:54:27

YuBiusk Ink

YuBiusk Ink

Posts: 2,888 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Ken stared at her for a moment, pulling her arms to her chest, her eyes glittering with indignation. “I do my laundry every week. The bees don’t mind how I smell.”

“Bees don’t mind how a corpse flower smells, either,” Heather shot back impulsively. She didn’t know what a corpse flower was, exactly, but she’d heard about them from a trader once.

“I smell perfectly fine.”

“Trust me, you don’t.”

Those words hung in the air for a moment.

Heather cleared her, trying to get ahold of herself, ahold of her tone. “I-I mean, I probably don’t smell amazing, either. And your clothes do smell nice.” She flushed, realizing how that sounded. “But you can’t just not ever bathe! That’s not even good for you. Like, physically and stuff.”

Ken rolled her eyes. “I don’t get sick.” It was almost refreshing to see her acting defensive and petty about something. Heather had started to wonder if she’d been abducted by some kind of unflappable wastelands nymph. “I never get sick.”

Heather folded her arms, trying hard to keep her voice mild, but firm. “Yeah, well, I will, unless you want to be sleeping on the floor tonight. You smell like blood and sweat and chicken poop, and I can survive maybe one of those, maybe two, but…”

She trailed off.

Catteken’s cheeks had gone the color of a sunrise.

“What’s your problem?”

It seemed to take Ken a moment to formulate a response. “Um,” she squeaked, “you… me on the floor, as opposed to, um…”

“As opposed to the bed.” Heather nodded patiently. It was a serious battle to not roll her eyes. “Unless that chicken lays mattresses instead of eggs, you’ve just got the one, right?”

02-Apr-2023 19:54:41

YuBiusk Ink

YuBiusk Ink

Posts: 2,888 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Ken gave a meek nod. She sidled over to the door. “Yes, um, right, but…”

“And I’m not taking the floor, that’s for sure.” Heather wanted to head off that possibility right away. She didn’t figure Ken would make her, but Ken was acting weird about this. “Definitely not. We’re on, what, Level 35? It’s freezing . That’s a stone floor.” She snorted. “But hey, if you want it, you can—”

“N-No, you’re—that’s to say, um—” Catteken raised a hand to shield her face, like Heather was shining with light too bright to look at. The bizarre girl grabbed her gray fur-trimmed coat from the hook and fumbled it on, then picked up an ice axe that rested next to the door, still not meeting Heather’s gaze. The ice axe flashed mithril-blue in the lamplight.

“Where are you going?”

“I—I need to go get ice from the glacier.” Ken was hefting up a large pail and elbowing the door open. “For the bathwater. I, um, I’ll be right back. Don’t… go anywhere.”

She stepped outside into long shadows—the sun was at her back—and closed the door behind her.

“Shouldn’t be a problem,” Heather said drily.

She leaned back against the wall and took a long sip of her tea.

The next few minutes passed in silence.

It was weird.

Silence should have been a welcome reprieve from Ken’s chatter. Ken hadn’t shut up since Heather had woken up. It should have been a relief. Heather supposed it was. It had to be.

But silence never felt welcome in the Wilderness. Not when you weren’t safe at home. And Ken’s chatter was… helpful, for filling the silence.

Heather’s eyes drifted to the chicken, Belle, who was already settled into its little nest. The chicken stared back at her, mute as a stone.

She finished her tea and set the cup aside, smacking her lips to process that weird aftertaste.

“I don’t see what the big deal is,” she said aloud to fill the silence.

02-Apr-2023 19:54:56

YuBiusk Ink

YuBiusk Ink

Posts: 2,888 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
The bandits always shared beds. Wilderness nights could be brutal, brutal enough even to get vicious cutthroats to briefly put their knives aside and cuddle up. It wasn’t some sort of… whatever Ken seemed to read it as.

She firmly brushed the earlier incident with the knot-untying aside. It wasn’t the same. When you were sleeping next to someone, you weren’t people. You were just… a pair of warm bodies. And on the bad nights, warm bodies were all that mattered. Skin and blood and bone that needed to hold onto that heat until morning at all costs.

She pulled the blankets around her and shivered. Tonight felt like one of those nights. It would be dark soon, and it was already a bit chilly, even with the woodstove crackling nearby.

It would be dark soon.

It would be dark soon.

It would… be…

Heather slowly blinked.

“Oh, ash ,” she hissed. She spun and pressed her face up against the boarded-up window.

Dark out. It was getting dark out. But they’d arrived at the crevice—the crevasse , she corrected herself with an unpleasant eating feeling in her chest—around dusk.

It had been a full day.

Everything in her sank into the floor. She drew back from the window, blinking rapidly.

It had been a full day, and she hadn’t made it back. Maybe Donny and Keith hadn’t, either. She’d been gone—missing—for a night and a day.

Nobody survived a night and a day in the Wilderness on their own. Not without shelter. Not without a weapon. The cold would get you, the ash storms, the yellowjackets, the revs, the wandering beasts, the quiet . There was nowhere to run to.

The Camp thought she was dead.

Everything in her head stopped working right. Her heart started pounding. She had to go. She had to go now . She turned and grasped the bedpost. She had to get back. She had to find the Camp. She had to go. Now.

02-Apr-2023 19:55:06

YuBiusk Ink

YuBiusk Ink

Posts: 2,888 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Standing was excruciating. She groaned in pain, even clutching the bedpost for support. There was a walking stick by the door. She just needed to grab that. Grab some provisions. She had to. She had to…

Heather managed to force herself to her feet. She stood triumphant for a moment, breathing heavily, and turned toward the door.

And her head spun like someone had shoved it in a whirlpool.

Her body gave a dull thud as it hit the tile floor. She heard the chicken give a startled croak.

Heather lay there. Everything was swimming in sap, pulsing in and out of darkness as her mind floated in shimmering lightness. She struggled to her hands and knees, breathing heavily. She couldn’t see right. Her mind felt light, fuzzy, fluttering. She fumbled for the nightstand, fumbled around, and the empty tin cup fell to the floor with a clatter. Droplets of tea struck her cheek.

She stared at the fallen cup.

Poison .

The realization hit her like a blow to the stomach. She’d been poisoned.

She blinked rapidly, forcing her eyes to stay open, forcing the darkness back to the corners. She was in danger. She had to get out of here. She started to crawl, head pounding with panic through the pale fuzzy mist.

She’d known that girl was some sort of freak. She’d been taught every day of her life not to trust strangers, and she’d drunk that tea like a complete idiot. How could she have been stupid enough to think—

The door opened.

“What are you doing?”

Heather started, eyes shooting up to meet Ken’s, large and pretty and innocent-seeming as ever. “You poisoned me,” she gasped. “You… I… I can’t…” Her head buzzed as she tried to rise, and she fell back down with a groan.

“You shouldn’t be up.” Ken scowled, setting the ice axe aside and hurrying over. “I told you not to go anywhere.”

“You t-tricked me.”

“What?” Ken looked at Heather, then at the fallen cup. “No, I didn’t.”

“M-My head… drugged…”

02-Apr-2023 19:55:21

Quick find code: 49-50-787-66185523 Back to Top