Little Blind Mice [Bee]

[Dark]

Raniya considered. After the non-confrontation with her parents, she was feeling emotionally drained and vaguely nauseous; food was the last thing on her mind. It was something that could occupy the intermittent hours, though, and the sooner she spent the coins weighing down her pack the sooner she could stop thinking about them.

“The Slippery Eel isn’t as half-bad as the name would suggest, “ she slowly made her way down the stairs, following the mental map of the building she had in her head; she kept close to the walls and used her ears to keep a tab on live obstacles. It was easier when she got out on the street, and she confidently headed toward the tavern.

“A booth,” she ordered to no one in particular, knowing someone would jump up to lead the way; her parents were well respected, and that netted a certain level of difference to Raniya. She was in a foul mood when she slipped into her seat.

“Order whatever you want. I’m paying.”

[Bee]

That was generous. Helena made noises and then properly said thank you. She bowed her head to look at the menu. Right. I'll have an order of well-done total darkness, thank you. She waved a paw randomly in the air and after a moment a waitress came over to read things off. She needed protein, and thus decided on some tender stack of beef on a slice of bread. With a bonus helping of gravy. It even came with veggies on the side.

She pawed at the little slip of paper in her bag. She hoped this person she was going to talk to could turn up something; she was sick of being miserable all the time.

She considered ordering some booze; it was a tavern, after all. But it probably wasn't best to get tipsy before making the journey back to Capital City; once Helena started drinking, she usually kept going until everything spun and swirled with pretty colors and then she fell over. So she just settled for the meat and some lemonade.

[Dark]

Raniya ordered a salad with a liberal amount of crumbled bleu cheese and a light vinaigrette drizzled over the top. She was a vegetarian by nurture--and later, after a rebellion that ended with her being violently ill, preference. The smell of meat had the tendency of making her vaguely nauseous, and Helena's meal wafted warm, moist death; Raniya picked at her salad morosely.

Eventually she gave up the pretense of eating and pushed the dish aside. To pass the time she toyed with the salt shaker--or was it pepper?--while carefully considering the darkness. Her ears swiveled absently to follow the din of the tavern's other patrons; such boring people.

Listening to them, Raniya was even more impatient for nightfall. She wanted to be gone; she wanted this place behind her; and, most importantly, she didn't want to think. Not about the pitiful people around her, not about her parents, and most definitely not about her own miserable little existence.

"It's about that time."

[Bee]

It wasn't, quite--she was still blind as a very blind thing, after all--but she thought maybe there was the faintest tinge of gray at the edges of her vision. She felt that maybe if they wandered around a bit and then left...perhaps by the time they got out of Torquehelm and back onto the beaten path, it would be better.

She finished off her food. It was good to have delicious meat in her system. She might had ordered some kind of extremely bloody steak, but she was a little hesitant to spend Raniya's money even if she seemed in a bit of a hurry to rid herself of it.

She stood obligingly when Raniya said it was time to go, however. She was itching for her vision to return. She had discovered shortly after this bunny madness began that bright lights in her eyes caused a stabbing burning hell of pain, but she didn't expect to encounter many of those on the path.

"Right," she said.

[Dark]

The farthest Raniya had ever walked was the one-mile marker along the road leading out of town--it was where the cobblestones ended, and Raniya had never been able to make herself step any farther than that. The world beyond seemed an empty, yawning space that would swallow her up if she ventured too far.

Raniya reached the end of the cobblestones sooner than she had expected, and hovered uncertainly. She wasn't upset that she was leaving--what did she have to miss in this crummy old town?--but she couldn't seem to make herself take that final step.

She gritted her teeth and stepped off the cobblestones onto hard-packed earth, fighting a swell of panic; there were markers every 25 feet, or so she had been told, and they'd be fine as long as they followed them. Of course, they wouldn't know if the road diverged, which was--problematic.

"Do you know if the path splits?"

[Bee]

"Not for a while," Helena said. "I'll take us the right way when we get there."

And it wouldn't be a problem at all once night fell and she could see where they were going. It was such weird sensory whiplash, to constantly shift from using her eyes to relying totally on her other senses. The dirt was pleasant under her feet. She was certainly a city girl, but she was finding that she didn't much mind the great outdoors, either. As long as the great outdoors didn't attempt to eat her.

They moved slowly and cautiously, both because Helena wanted to waste a bit of time before the sunset and because they were both bugger-all blind and needed to be careful about where they were going.

Finally, she thought maybe that her eyelids were getting a little more loose; she thought she saw a little sliver of...something. The sun must be setting.

[Dark]

The pace they had set was wretchedly slow and Raniya was exhausted before they had gone much of any distance at all. Growing up, she had never really noticed her blindness--she had never had any reason to fear what she couldn't see--but as she had gotten older she had become all too aware of the limitations, and they were all painfully obvious as Helena and she made their way along the road.

With the exception of that initial swell of panic, she'd been confident enough in her sense of direction to stay on course--just as long as she tagged each marker so as to verify--but the farther they walked, the more certain she became that they had missed a marker. Until they ran into it moments after, and then it would start all over again. It was a bloody vicious cycle, and Raniya knew she was being ridiculous, but she couldn't seem to help it.

It was getting dark, too; she could feel the temperature dropping.

[Bee]

And suddenly she could see everything. Every pebble in the path, every leaf on the trees, every shadow and every bend; the world stretched out before her, and it was beautiful in its dim cast. It was good to open her eyes again. She let out a sigh of almost giddy delight.

"Okay, everything's gonna be a bit easier now," she said.

Simcha made a noise somewhere in the back of her head; Helena suspected that she was happy that Helena could see again too. She reached up and petted the little pelt around her neck. Sometimes it was almost reassuring to have a horrible curse. It was reliable, at the very least. She wondered if getting rid of the curse would destroy Simcha forever and ever. That was almost...sad.

Beh! Thoughts for later. Now they could make speedier progress. "Stick close; I won't steer us wrong!"

[Dark]

Helena sounded confident enough, but Raniya couldn’t help but wonder if, that by voicing her apparent infallibility, Helena wasn’t trying to convince herself. Regardless, even if it was fake confidence, it was more than Raniya possessed at the moment. She trailed closely behind on Helena’s heel, and tried not to think about how much the lack of cobblestone unbalanced her.

Personal failings were not something that Raniya liked to admit, even to herself, but plausible deniability gave way quickly when confronted with the truth; unless you were stubborn, and Raniya was being stubborn. She couldn’t be afraid of what she couldn’t see, or she would go insane--maybe she was there already--and maybe denying it was simply a lesson in futility, but she wouldn’t believe that.

She shook her head, and focused on following Helena, ears tilted forward to track the sound of the other girl’s steps. Better not to think at all.

Raniya‘s ears swiveled on their own accord and she stopped, frowning, “Did you hear that?”

[Bee]

Helena frowned. She did hear. Something. The dull fluff of foliage in the distance; the breaking of branches. Something was trying to be quiet. She froze. It was getting louder, slowly, which meant that it was probably getting closer. She was suddenly thankful that she could see exceptionally well in the dark.

Shapes in the trees. Cards. Big ones.

This was baaaad news.

Helena stepped back, collided with Raniya, made an apologetic oomphf noise and stumbled forward a bit.

"So there are people coming and stuff," she said, with a bit of a frantic edge. Of course. Why wouldn't there be creepy things approaching from trees? Everything goes fine when Helena is on her own but the moment she's in front of someone everything gets all fucked up and she's a big loser again. Her life was the equivalent of always making the shot when no one was looking but missing every time she had an eye turned on her.

"I...uh...I don't think they want to make friends. Run fast like a really fast thing."