Little Blind Mice [Bee]

[Dark]

"Good evening, Feair."

"It's morning, Raniya, as you well know."

"Morning somewhere, yes. Not here, though."

"Don't be difficult."

"Hn."

"Have you looked into my problem? You promised."

"Promises. Little good to a blind girl."

"You aren't blind, Raniya."

"Everyone is."

Raniya woke, little difference in here and there. The same uninteresting, black that made up her world. Was here any more real than there, where Feair waited? Was this the dream?

She uncurled from the ratted nest of blankets that made up her bed, stretching stiff limbs. Mother was already up, banging pots and the like in the kitchen; the scent of spiced oatmeal and bacon tempted her from the comforting confines of her bed.

"Raniya! Rise and shine, angel. It's another beautiful day!" "Geez, Raniya. You're going to sleep your life away!" "Come on!"

Raniya swung her legs over the edge of the bed and considered the wall she knew, theoretically, was there but that she couldn't see. They were always so happy, so bright. So brittle. Her existence was like a heavy stone wrapped around their necks, keeping them here, weighing them down, dragging them into the same darkness in which she dwelt. She wondered how long it would be before they broke.

She headed down for breakfast.

[Bee]

Helena wasn't quite sure what had drawn her to Torquehelm, except for massive and crippling self-pity. Somehow, she had gotten it in her head that people who believed themselves to live under a curse might somehow be able to help her with her curse; help her with the dead bunny wrapped about her neck like a scarf and the voices in her head. She thought they might understand.

She had made sure to travel at night, when she could not only see but see so well that the whole of the world seemed visible before her, but as dawn broke her eyes (once turquiose, now glittering black, like obsidian)squeezed shut. Even in the gloom of Torquehelm, where the only light to be found was what filtered through the canopy of trees.

Sightless now in the early morning, she managed to get herself to a very small inn, whose owner sounded so surprised to see her and so happy to have a guest that her nightly rate got cut nearly in half. Helena imagined that Torquehelm did not enjoy a very prosperous tourist business. What kind of ad campaign could they possibly have? "Visit dismal Torquehelm! The must-see destination for fans of soul-destroying depression."

She crawled into bed, preparing to sleep through the day.

Please don't leave me. I don't like to be alone. I'm always...

She clenched the pillow in her paws, claws ripping into the soft down.

"Go to sleep, Simcha."

There was a ghost of a whimper in her head, an echo of sadness bouncing around her gray matter, desperate in its despair. She couldn't ignore Simcha when she made noises like that. Helena had cried herself to sleep often enough making those sounds that she couldn't entirely shut off her heart. She threw the pillow across the room.

"How do you suggest a blind girl has fun in a realm full of depressives?"

Simcha didn't answer. Helena fumbled her way out of the room and out of the inn, searching for...something.

[Dark]

Sitting at the table with her family, Raniya bent her attention to her breakfast and did her best to ignore her siblings. Anisa, her older sister, was discussing business opportunities that might further her singing career, while Hadi, the youngest of the three, was--according to their mother's chiding--creating structures out of his oatmeal. Again. From the rustle of paper, father was deeply engrossed in a book and generally ignoring them.

"I'm done." Raniya pushed away from the table, and headed for the door. One of the bonuses of being blind was that someone else always cleaned up after you; no dish-duty for Raniya.

"Are you going out again, dear? I really wish you would take your brother with you. I worry." While Raniya knew that her mother was concerned for her safety and well being, sometimes she really just wished that the woman would mind her own damn business. She was blind, not helpless.

"I'll be out late."

[Bee]

Helena wasn't sure where she was going--she was just bumping into people and apologizing profusely, but most seemed to step out of her way, if she was reading movement correctly, like they were used to this sort of thing. Or were just very attentive people.

Let's find....

Simcha didn't complete the thought, and Helena pushed it out of her mind. Simcha didn't complete sentences very often; the meaning and intent were often vague. Most of the time she just heard an echo of a whisper, or a sad sound; the message was elusive. Helena would have felt better about her craziness if the voices spoke coherently.

Tell me to set something on fire, she thought. Tell me to throw myself off a cliff.

That was normal crazy. She would have liked normal crazy.

She collided with a very solid shape, bumping herself backward onto her arse.

"Oh, I'm--"

"--so sorry, I wasn't--"

"--paying attention, you'll have to--"

"--forgive me, I didn't--"

"--see that you were blind."

There was a laden, awkward pause. The solid shape made an uncomfortable noise. Helena wondered if he would be interested in fucking the disabled. He had a good frame, a deep voice--she thought he might be rather attractive in a bearish way, and she hadn't gotten laid in weeks.

Instead of the crude proposition she wanted to make, Helena said, "Is there a blind-person hang-out here?"

"I--um--yes, actually, kind of. The fountain. It's--er--" He put a hand on Helena's shoulder--awkwardly, ever so awkwardly; she wondered if he had clothes she could tear off--and pointed her in a new direction. "Just walk straight down this street. You'll get there in maybe ten minutes."

"Thanks," she said, a little dreamily, and wandered off to her destination.

[Dark]

Raniya had wandered without any sort of direction but had, much to her chagrin, ended up right where she always wound up: the old village fountain. It once had been the centerpiece of town, but when the marketplace had moved the fountain had fallen into disuse. It was the perfect place to get away from people, and it was actually rather pleasant to waste an afternoon on the moss-covered rim, listening to the soft splash and gurgle of water. It was one of the only places Raniya felt partially sane.

Sprawled out, with one of her paws draped in the pool, she considered the expanses of her world. It wasn't completely dark behind her blindfold--she could sense varying degrees of light--but she was still blind. One paw reached up to finger the cloth that bound her, and not for the first time she wondered what would happen if she took it off.

[Bee]

She tried to keep her trajectory as straight as possible, not wanting to get turned around by some inconveniently-located object and send on a path to, say, the village cemetery. Helena knew she was close by the slow muting of voices and the sound of running water. As far as blind-people attractions went, this was shaping up to not be a bad one. Wanting for action, perhaps, but making up for it in serenity. She felt almost peaceful as she approached. Simcha apparently liked it, too: she was perfectly quiet.

Sighing in something like contentment, she felt around for a bench or something, somewhere to sit so she could sit back and relax. Her hand grazed mossy stone, and then full upon something warmer and considerably fuzzier. She squeezed it curiously. What manner of fungal growth was this?

She realized that it was a person, and froze in horror.

[Dark]

It took Raniya a long moment to realize she was being groped, and wasn't this a new sort of situation to get herself into?

"I may be blind, but I'm not entirely without senses. May I inquire to what you think you might be doing?" And would you maybe do it again? Raniya squashed down the treacherous part of her that longed for physical contact--especially from someone who didn't feel obliged--and settled on indignant. She wasn't someone that people could go around groping as they pleased, after all. She had her pride.

Or...maybe not. It would probably depend on the circumstances. She did at least have some standards--she knew that after her brief acquaintance with Waltraud, who had thought a blind girl would be easy picking. He had made her skin crawl and had promptly been sent packing.

[Bee]

Helena recoiled, and began blurting out apologies and berating herself as the stupidest person to ever walk the face of the earth--before what the girl said finally sunk in, and she said, wonderingly, "You're blind, too?"

Well, this was an interesting turn of events. She had believed that her stocky and deep-voiced man was leading her on about there actually being an actual place where blind people in this village congregated, teasing her, in a way, to get her to leave, but apparently he was telling the truth.

Helena felt a sudden surge of relief, and when that wave of emotion receded, she was left in something vaguely resembling good spirits. For a moment, at least, she didn't have to feel like the only sightless person in the world. She wondered if the girl's blindness had been a curse, as hers was, or if she were born with it, or if it were--a Torquehelm thing, some kind of eye mutilation or something.

[Dark]

Raniya listened to the nearly incoherent string of apologies; of course Raniya was blind, "Didn't the blindfold give it away?" And then, when her brain caught up, "You're blind?"

Well. That was probably the last thing Raniya had been expecting. No one else in town (that she knew of) was naturally blind or bound with a blindfold, which meant whoever it was that had groped her had to be from out of town. Raniya had never wandered farther than the fountain, with the small exception of when she was seven and had tried to run away. She made it as far as market, where she had promptly collided with a vegetable cart and been apprehended by a well-meaning bitch who thought Raniya was "lost."

"So we're both blind. Now that we have that established, just who exactly are you? I'm Raniya."

[Bee]

"I'm Helena." She smiled. As a gesture it meant nothing, and one of the worst things about her relatively newfound blindness was to suddenly have the visual cues, which she had relied on so much in the past, become utterly worthless, but she thought the expression might have shown in her voice, in the friendly tone.

Suddenly she was gushing out information: "I'm a Josiggy by nature, a Capital girl by nurture, and now I'm just visiting Torquehelm to..." How best to explain Maybe rid myself of my own curse by coming to a region entirely populated by people who believe themselves cursed? There was no way to phrase that that didn't sound weird. Her vague hope was to learn, from people who had overthrown their own curse and bindings, a way to overthrow hers. Dim, stupid hope. "...take in the lovely scenery. It sounds like a nice, depressing place."

She wasn't really looking forward to finally seeing it, when dark rolled around. She almost hated having vision after sunset, because a night full of acute sight left the morning darkness all the more jarring. It was like every day she was being blinded for the first time, and she could never adjust, never get her bearings.

Gods, she hoped Torquehelm had what she was looking for.