RuneScape Forum Archive | The Wild Girls (chapter story)

YuBiusk Ink

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“If I wanted to drug you, I have cadava pips in the drawer, but I would never do that.” Ken stooped down and wrapped her arms around Heather. Heather was, briefly, too startled to struggle. With a grunt, the girl hefted Heather up in her arms and set her back on the bed. “I gave you blood poppy seeds . It’s only a painkiller, Heather.”

Heather blinked several times. Her head was still spinning a bit, so it took a moment for those words to register.

“O-Oh. I…” Heather screwed her eyes shut for a moment, struggling to clear away the fuzz. It was happening now that she’d stopped moving, but very, very slowly. “But… I couldn’t stand.”

Ken pulled back and stooped to retrieve the cup, setting it on the desk. “The seeds could make you kind of dizzy, I guess, but so would trying to put weight on that leg right now at all! You were really badly hurt last night.”

Ken was pissed, Heather dimly realized. She reached up to rub her eyes as her mind finally started to settle again. It was hard to tell what she was pissed about, but that was… Heather guessed that was mainly because she’d given Ken a lot of reasons all of a sudden.

“R-Right.” Heather ducked her head. “I… yeah. Okay. Got it.” She firmly held back the ‘sorry’ dancing on her tongue.

“The ice is melting in a basin over one of the vents,” Ken said. She went and opened the oven door, and savory smells flooded the air. Heather’s mouth watered. Crap, she was hungry. “I can finish up dinner while it melts. You stay put .” She seemed to confirm something by poking whatever lay inside with a fork, then closed it up and turned back to Heather. She walked back over and put a hand on Heather’s shoulder, gently—but firmly—pushing Heather backwards onto the bed with an expression that permitted no objections. “I’m going to take care of you.”

Heather swallowed.

“Got it,” she muttered, trying to push down the warm, fluttering lightness still filling her head. It didn’t feel like it was from the poppyseeds.

02-Apr-2023 19:58:10 - Last edited on 02-Apr-2023 21:11:07 by YuBiusk Ink

YuBiusk Ink

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Thanks for your... can I say patience? Has anyone actually waited three years for an update? Well, anyhoo, I'm back, and I hope I can be back to stay! The new update schedule is Sundays and Thursdays, meaning that if I have a chapter ready, it will be posted on one of those two days.

Oh, and I just want to say, feedback is always welcome! Nothing but love and appreciation to you lurkers, but I do really like to know people are enjoying my work. It's huge for motivation. One comment from two years ago got me to come back, after all! ^_^

02-Apr-2023 20:02:29 - Last edited on 02-Apr-2023 20:13:20 by YuBiusk Ink

YuBiusk Ink

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CHAPTER SIX: DANGEROUS

“I’m sorry,” Ken said sheepishly as she dug into the mass of mashed potatoes and meat and dolloped it onto Heather’s plate. “I really wanted to put some cheese on top, but I used up the last of it last month, and the traders only come by so often. Not much of a shepherd’s pie.”

“Yeah.” Heather stopped staring at the intricate feathery blue patterns on the porcelain plate and breathed in the scent of thick mashed potatoes, slightly browned on top and laden upon fried, ground up meat that smelled of more flavors than she’d eaten in her life. Strange vegetables were scattered among the pieces of meat—some round, wrinkly little grape-like things and some sort of chopped up fried onion-like bulbs. “I’ll live. I guess.”

“I really would have rathered do turnovers,” Ken mumbled, sitting down. “But I haven’t been able to get to the Burning Mill since that group of yellowjackets took it over last year, and milling the acorns by hand takes so long I haven't been able to get around to it, so… I don’t have any flour.”

Heather had no idea what a turnover was. She had no idea what any of this was, aside from the rat meat and the potatoes. She grabbed her fork and took a bite.

Her breath caught.

Back at the Bandit Camp, there were three easy ways of flavoring a meal—salt, sugar and mammoth fat. Other herbs and spices, like black pepper and limpwurt, had to be traded for or harvested off of the dead.

This was delicious. This was incredible . It was criminal . The meat was spiced and salted to the extent that the rat’s gaminess was swept away on a wave of complex flavors. The little green vegetables popped with sweetness, and the chopped-up bulbs were just crunchy enough to add texture, caramelized in bacon fat, rich and peppery.

13-Apr-2023 20:18:11

YuBiusk Ink

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Ken was talking, but Heather wasn’t listening. As she devoured her helping, she heard Ken mention things called ‘peas’ and ‘tarromin bulbs’. She didn’t care about the names. Not really.

She did care about how Ken had gotten hold of food like this. Did she eat like this every day?

Could the Bandit Camp…?

As Ken took the rest of the dish away to the icebox, Heather’s eyes narrowed with passing displeasure. She shoveled the last of the shepherd’s pie into her mouth and turned to retrieving the scraps that had spilled on her bedsheets, scooping them up in her fingers and eating those, too. She wasn’t wasting a scrap.

Only once the food was gone, and she was done licking her plate, did she register something odd. Something she should have noticed sooner. She looked up suspiciously as Ken took something from the icebox. “Why aren’t you eating?”

“Huh?” Ken glanced over. “Oh, I will later. But this has to last for a long time. Besides, I’m about to go take a… bath.”

Ken couldn’t conceal her distaste. Heather couldn’t conceal her laughter. “Okay, sure. Whatever.”

Ken had had plenty of chances to poison Heather if she’d wanted to, Heather supposed. She just couldn’t imagine someone having this kind of food in front of them and not eating as much of it as they could at once, while they could.

“Do you want dessert?”

“Do I want a what?”

Ken set a small bowl in Heather’s lap. Like the plate, the bowl was a beautifully-crafted ornament, pale porcelain decorated with images of bees buzzing from flower to flower. Inside it rested a block of dripping gold, a rectangle of thick, molten, gooey sap shimmering from within six-sided cells. Bright red berries peppered with tiny green seeds on the outside were scattered over the comb.

Heather stared at the bowl for a second, wordlessly accepting the spoon Catteken offered. She picked up one of the berries and examined it. “These are… strawberries, aren’t they?”

13-Apr-2023 20:19:59 - Last edited on 13-Apr-2023 20:20:36 by YuBiusk Ink

YuBiusk Ink

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Every now and then, Asher, one of the Camp’s three leaders, would surprise the trainees with a jar of strawberry jam. It was always an exquisite surprise to have the pizza dough rolled out, slathered in jam, and rolled up and cooked like that, dribbling with hot, sticky-sweet jelly that burned their tongues if you didn’t wait long enough for it to cool. But she’d never seen an actual fresh strawberry before. Keith and Donny would be so…

The sweetness placed before her bittered a little.

“How long am I going to be stuck here, anyways?” she said. It came out a little harsher than she’d meant it. She tossed a strawberry in her mouth and bit down. Despite her mood, the explosion of juicy tartness on her tongue made her mouth water, and she lunged for another one dripping with gold. The golden sap-like substance was sweet and familiar-tasting. It must have been what Ken had used to sweeten the tea.

“At least two more days.” Ken shifted, taking a seat at the chair by the bed. “Probably three.”

“‘Probably’?”

“Yeah. If I can walk you back to, um, wherever you’re from, I can probably take you back in two. Otherwise, three.”

Heather took a deep breath. The third strawberry tasted blander than the other two. She fought to steady herself as she felt that anxiety from earlier trying to make its return.

“That leg really needs time to heal, though,” Catteken added, frowning. “I mean, if it was up to me, you’d stay here another week.”

If it was up to me.

Heather’s eyes narrowed. “Is that right?”

“Yes. Traveling with a bad leg just isn’t safe in the Wildy.” Ken rubbed her shoulder. “Um, in my opinion, I mean. Even if we take the obelisk…”

Heather took another deep breath, fingers tapping against her knee. Calm down. Calm down. “Thank you for your opinion , Ken.”

Ken was silent for a moment. Heather could tell she was studying Heather, and she hated it.

13-Apr-2023 20:20:47

YuBiusk Ink

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“You’re upset,” the strange girl said at last.

“Oh, am I.”

“I think so.” Ken rubbed her palms together. “Um, yes. Did. Did I say something?”

Heather glared at her bowl and popped another strawberry into her mouth. She resented how delicious these tasted—almost as much as how that nervous quiver in Ken’s voice made her feel a need to reassure her. “No,” she said through a mouthful.

Don’t blow up. Calm. Calm.

“Okay. Thank you.” Ken looked down at her hands. “Can I ask what it is?”

Heather popped another berry into her mouth. She didn’t want to risk saying anything right now.

“Are you worried about your family?”

Heather’s fingernails dug into her leg.

“I mean, you probably… you have somewhere to get back to, right? And you’re pretty young, so you… you probably have family looking for you, right?” Ken gave an uncertain smile. “Maybe they’ll find us first, and then you won’t have to—”

Heather gave a coarse laugh. “ I’m young.” Her head shot up. “And how old are you? Where’s your family, Ken ?”

Catteken’s smile cracked at the corners like thin ice. “I’m, well, I’m not sure how old I am, actually. But, um, going off the bees—”

“The—? Oh, for Zam’s sake.” Anger rose in her gut like a fire suddenly given air, finally given something it could burn. She gave Ken a vicious smile. “Maybe I’m upset because I don’t want to be stuck here for three days with an insane person who talks to her bees and stinks like used bandages.”

Ken blinked. Twice. “I… I, um…”

Heather couldn’t take that stupid look in Ken’s eyes, so she turned pointedly to the door. “Didn’t you have somewhere to be?”

Ken was quiet for a moment.

She heard Ken rise from her chair. The girl padded over to the door, opened it, and stepped out. “Be right back,” she called, and slammed the door.

Heather set the bowl aside and flopped back on the bed. She stared up at the rafters.

A hoarse laugh escaped her.

“Godsdamn it."

The laughter tasted bitter on her tongue.

13-Apr-2023 20:21:39 - Last edited on 13-Apr-2023 20:24:08 by YuBiusk Ink

YuBiusk Ink

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After a moment, she sat back up, took the bowl and shoveled the remaining strawberries into her mouth, ignoring an unpleasant ache from within. She licked dripping sap from the block of molten gold, trying to eat as quickly as possible.

Three days. Three days until she could get back to the camp. Three days with everyone thinking she was dead. The bandits didn’t waste time on sentiment. Would they give her things away? Would Keith finally get the top bunk he’d always fought with her over?

She moved to take the last strawberry and toss the bowl aside, but paused.

She was stuck here.

“I’m stuck here,” she said quietly to herself. Because she was, wasn’t she?"

For whatever reason, Catteken was insisting on pretending to be nice. Maybe it wasn’t an act, and the girl just really was touched. It didn’t matter.

Heather’s leg was broken. She had no idea what direction the Bandit Camp was in, nor how far away they were. She couldn’t get home on her own. Ken had all the power here, even if that made Heather’s stomach clench.

Whether that… insane girl really was the real deal or not wasn’t here or anywhere.

Heather needed to keep Ken happy with her. She needed to play Ken's game. That was the only way she was getting home. Otherwise, Ken could keep playing nice all she wanted, but sooner or later, if Heather kept pushing her, that mask would slip, and then where would Heather be?

Out in the ash.

She gripped the bowl tightly with both hands. Nobody at the camp would even know she’d survived if she died now.

You probably have family looking for you, right?

Heather’s teeth clenched.

She gripped the bedpost and carefully descended from the bed, using the bedpost to half-limp, half-climb over to the door to retrieve a wooden crutch she’d noticed earlier. Noticing a pile of wood shavings littering the floor around it almost stopped her still. Had Ken only just carved this today, while she’d had been unconscious?

13-Apr-2023 20:32:19 - Last edited on 13-Apr-2023 20:35:21 by YuBiusk Ink

YuBiusk Ink

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She used the crutch to fully stand. The dizziness returned, but much lighter now that she wasn’t trying to put weight on the leg.

So Ken made a crutch for her. It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter . She was doing this because she needed to keep her host—her captor—happy. That was all.

And this definitely, absolutely had nothing to do with guilt.

She kept reminding herself of that as she limped across the room, knelt down over the washbasin, and started on the dishes.

Guilt was useless.

The Wilderness wasn’t fairyland. It wasn’t a place where you could talk to your chickens or bees or whatever and frolic around picking strawberries and expect everything to be candied and sweet. She scrubbed hard at a plate caked with mold—when was the last time this hobgoblin of a girl had cleaned around here, anyways?—and chewed her lower lip. Guilt didn’t put food on the table. Guilt didn’t block a knife. Guilt didn’t light a fire. You did what you had to do. That was how you learned to breathe air choked with ash.

You were on your own. Even with the other bandits, sometimes.

She thought of Keith and Donny running off and leaving her for dead. Especially with the other bandits. Nobody was gonna stick their neck out for you. It wasn’t even fair to expect them to, really. You weren’t gonna do it for them. Anyone who thought of the Wilderness as anything but a free-for-all was delusional.

She popped the last strawberry into her mouth.

“Delusional,” she mumbled through chewing as she started on her own bowl. She laughed. Nothing today made any sense. Maybe she was delusional herself, and this was all a shadow she’d been caught in, a ghost that had died long ago.

The door opened; a rush of cold air swept in.

Catteken’s curly hair was drenched and deflated, and her clothes had the look of someone who’d gotten dressed before they’d had the chance to fully dry. She was shivering, but still managed to look irritated as her eyes met Heather’s. “What are you doing up?”

13-Apr-2023 20:43:00

YuBiusk Ink

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“Your dishes.” Heather held up the dusty old scrub brush. “Someone’s gotta.”

Briefly, Ken seemed at a loss for words. She looked between the brush and Heather, blinking rapidly. “You’re…”

“You’re welcome,” Heather murmured, turning back to her work.

A warm, calloused hand grasped her wrist.

Heather stiffened. She spun, her other hand reflexively forming a fist—

“Heather,” Ken said, giving Heather’s hand a squeeze, “I… thank you. This is very nice of you.”

She was pretending not to notice the fist. Heather could see the tension in those big brown eyes as they fought not to look.

Heather’s own gaze drifted down to the hand holding her wrist. She felt her cheeks heat up slightly, and she made her hand go limp. “Reflex,” she muttered to herself without thinking.

“It’s okay. I understand.”

Heather’s cheeks burned. She was talking to herself a lot tonight. That was not a good habit to let herself form.

“Thank you, Heather,” Catteken said softly. “But maybe, um, you should do these in the morning. It’s late, and you need your rest.”

Heather hesitated, then nodded. “Right. Fine.”

“Do you need help getting back in bed?”

“I got it,” Heather snapped. She grimaced at how that sounded. “I… got it,” she repeated, forcing what she hoped was gentleness into her voice.

She grabbed her crutch and struggled upright to make her way back to the bed.

She couldn’t help a grateful sigh of relief as her head touched the feather-down pillow. How was everything in this cottage so soft ?.

Heather lay there a moment, facing the wall. What a day. What a strange, strange day.

She squeezed her eyes shut. She had to put it out of her head. Ken was right about one thing: Heather needed her rest, or she was never getting home alive. She reached down and pulled up the blankets, shuddering at how cold they’d gotten.

“Are you coming?” she called back. “Or are you sleeping in the icebox?”

13-Apr-2023 20:43:24

YuBiusk Ink

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“Right,” she heard Ken squeak. “Um, yes. I mean, um, no, I—I’ll take the bed. Just for the heat. If you’re sure it’s alright.”

“Right.” Heather rolled her eyes. “Get on with it, then. It’s freezing.”

After a pause, she felt the bed rustle and shift, and she felt Ken’s body join hers under the covers. The girl was at the very edge of the bed, practically falling over the side as near as Heather could gauge, but at least she was all the way under the blankets and sharing some body heat.

Anyways, Heather wasn’t about to scoot away to make more room. This was Ken’s dumb hangup, not hers. They were just bodies.

Heather heard Ken fumbling with something. She realized it was the lantern when the cabin went dark.

All was still.

There were a lot of frightening things in the Wilderness. Silence was one of the worst. Silence could be deadly. But this silence, with the only sounds being Ken shifting under the covers, felt like something else. It felt weird. Almost… intimate.

The darkness seemed to have given Ken some courage, because Heather felt the girl shifting a little further from the edge, felt her scoot in a little closer.

About time, Heather thought. It was silly for Ken to have all these hangups. They were just bodies. Besides, they were both girls, so there was nothing…

Catteken’s foot brushed Heather’s ankle.

Heather’s breath fluttered and failed in her chest.

Oh.

This. This.

She swallowed.

This felt…

As subtly as she could, she scooted a little toward the far side of the bed.

13-Apr-2023 20:43:44

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The Wild Girls (chapter story)