Little Blind Mice [Bee]

[Dark]

"Run where?" Raniya knew that her voice was shrill, but she couldn't see, and running blindly could end with her being just as dead as if she had stayed and faced their would-be assailants.

She seethed. It wasn't fair that she would finally escape that miserable little town, only to be gutted not a day's journey from home. She refused to let that happen; she would take her chances with the running like a fast thing, and hope that she didn't run fast straight into a tree, because--embarrassing, and probably equaling death.

Raniya turned sharply on her heels and ran, fervently hoping that the group of badies didn't have any fast quadrupeds. While Raniya wasn't pudgy, she wasn't in shape by any definition--besides maybe round--and she wouldn't be able to keep up her swift pace for long before her lungs started to burn and things started to cramp. Hopefully life-threatening danger would keep her going longer than usual.

[Bee]

Apparently Helena's vibrant green was easier to track in the dark than Raniya's black and purple, because she seemed to be draw the bulk of their small band of guests. Four, maybe. Robbers with intent to...rob. Mangle and kill probably, too. That would about be her luck.

Simcha whispered something about the lonely oblivion of death.

"Well you're not being very helpful!" she told the rabbit sourly. Then, over her shoulder to her pursuers, she yelled: "We're poooooor! We haven't got anything worth anything! Go away!"

Then she hit a tree.

Of course she hit a tree.

Why wouldn't she hit the fucking tree?

For a moment her anger at herself actually overpowered her fear. She all but tingled with it.

Actually, she was tingling with it. Her limbs felt funny. Everything felt funny. The vaguely painful funny like an arm is waking up after laying on it weird.

Then, suddenly, she had hands. And the hands were grabbing the scruff of some bastard who was getting too close and talking about money, and then the hand was flinging that bastard away into the other bastards.

Then she guessed she got mean, because there was screaming, and she was pretty sure her Hair was choking someone, and she could hear "YE GODS" and "CRAZY BITCH" on the air like a pleasant breeze.

"I told you to go away," she said, dreamily. Her brain was still attempting to find her body, she thought. Now where was Raniya?

[Dark]

Raniya knew someone had been following her, but he turned back when the others started screaming; she didn’t care to find out what happened, and kept running. All kinds of things lurked in the forest, being so close to the Tulgey Woods, and if they had startled something best left alone, she didn’t want to be anywhere near them. Hopefully, Helena had managed to avoid the same fate.

It was a long time before she stopped running, sides heaving and legs quivering with exertion; her lungs felt like they were on fire, with her heart caught uncomfortably in her throat. She didn’t know how much time passed before she stopped shivering, shaking, gasping, but eventually she pulled herself together enough to take note of her surroundings.

She was quite certain she was lost--she wasn’t on the path anymore to be sure--but she didn’t seem to be in any immediate danger. The forest was quiet, but it wasn’t the eerie stillness that presaged a predator; just normal night noises. She wouldn’t die immediately, at least.

Raniya shifted until she was backed up against a tree and settled down to wait. If Helena wasn’t dead, there was a good chance she’d come looking for her and if that was the case, it was best to stay where she was for the time being. She shivered miserably; it got cold after dark.

[Bee]

"Raniya," she called, stepping over the unconscious body of some canine whose face she had apparently punched in (bloodied faces were highly unattractive, she noted absently, though apparently some people liked that kind of thing...) "Niya?"

Her sight--which allowed her to see on for miles, and a wonderful gift it was, especially if she was (innocently) following someone cute--was going to be largely useless in a place that was so damn dense with trees. She was gonna have to hop around and see if any one angle allowed her to see anything useful.

Which wouldn't work either if Raniya was hiding somewhere, which she likely was, what with the fact that they had just barely escaped an attempted mugging. She wouldn't have gone too far, though, if she were smart. Blind person running deep into the woods was probably not the brightest thing to do, but then there was of course the whole "mindless" part of "mindless terror."

"Raniya?"

[Dark]

It was a long time before Raniya heard a noise the didn't belong, and sounded vaguely like her name being called from a long distance off, and because the only person who would know her name was Helena--unless the bandits had tortured Helena into reveling it to trick her out of hiding, or there was some mind-reading terror waiting for her to stumble into its web and gobble her up--it was safe to assume that the bandits were gone, and it was safe to come out of hiding.

She heaved herself to her feet, thankful to be moving again--it was bloody cold--and headed in the direction she heard the shouting. She only ran into a few trees by the time she got close enough to properly identify the voice, and felt a rush of relief when she realized it was Helena that had been shouting.

"Over here, Helena."

[Bee]

Helena felt a rush of relief and she vaguely saw something stumbling into and between trees. Well, she was certainly glad her new friend hadn't stumbled over an embankment, landed in a shallow stream, and drowned to death!

A soft, sad sigh floated across her brain, and she got the idea that probably Simcha would have been happy if the girl had drowned. Wicked little rabbit-thingy. Helena tried to emit some kind of soothing brainwave for Simcha's benefit and rushed over to Raniya; she considered a hug--decided against it--thought about it again--and reluctantly kept her hands down at her sides. Don't startle the blind person, she told herself; she didn't like it when people got the jump on her during the daytime, after all.

"Ahhh!" she said, triumphantly. "I beat them like an Ace-ranked stepchild. Not that I would ever beat my stepchild if he were an Ace," she continued, thoughtfully. "That would of course be horrible. Anyway, we're clear." She looked down at her hands--her brand-new hands!--and felt an influx of pride. She beamed happily, the terror of moments ago completely forgotten. "You all right?"

[Dark]

It was hard moving past Helena beating hardened outlaws into the ground, but Raniya wrenched her mind away from pondering this--they weren't here now, and as long as they didn't show up again to terrorize them, Raniya really didn't think she cared what had actually happened--and considered Helena's question.

There had been a number of trees that had been stumbled into, quite a few more exposed roots that had been tripped over, and her whole body felt like one gigantic bruise (and she was fairly certain she had stubbed her toe) but she would survive, and she didn't know that she particularly wanted to admit any of that, so she settled for: "I'll live."

"Shall we make ourselves scarce? They might have friends." Or there might be something worse lurking about; Raniya didn't particularly want to find out.

[Bee]

Helena agreed that running into anyone else was probably going to be a complete moodkiller for the rest of the night (and probably also the garden variety of killer), so she and Raniya began again to head down the path--faster than they had been traveling before, easier now that Helena could lead but with more paranoid glances off into the woods.

The sooner they got to the capital and talked to the associate of Raniya's mother, the better. A good night's sleep in her own home would be nice too. She didn't like these traveling shenanigans. And knowing her atrocious luck, she was only liable to run into more of them. She imagined her entrails scattered along the path from Torquehelm to Capital City. Unpleasant.

"Probably," she said, speculatively and mostly to herself, "probably we should have tried to wrangle some kind of carriage ride back to the capital..."

Too late for that now. They walked on.

[Dark]

Raniya wondered where Helena expected to have come across the funds necessary to purchase a coach ride--it was rather costly, as not many drivers were willing to risk the journey, being so close to the Tulgey Woods, and those willing knew their worth and charged accordingly. Raniya certainly did not have the coin to afford such a luxury, not that it was much safer if something was lurking on the path, coach or not.

But, no matter now; they were walking.

Raniya really didn't care for walking; she was rather out of shape, truth be told, and she was constantly stubbing her toes on something. She felt completely wrung out from their earlier ordeal; she was tired and just a tad cranky and she desperately just wanted to tale a nap. Not that taking a nap in the middle of a ghoul-infested forest was a good decision.

She huffed unhappily.

[Bee]

It didn't escape Helena's notice that her traveling companion was becoming more and more put-upon by the journey; thanks to having Vishne as a younger sibling, she felt she had a pretty acute sensitivity to sullen unhappiness. What Raniya was giving off wasn't the same as V's melodramatic woe, certainly, but it all fell under the umbrella of "being a drag". And, well, Helena couldn't blame her. She was getting tired too. And her paranoia was making her twitchy, which was making things worse.

Plus, they had been walking so long that it was getting on near daylight. Dawn was approaching. She could see the faint rosy purple in the sky. Her vision would fail soon.

She heaved a sigh. "Okay! Whaddya say we find a little nest of tree roots to hide in or something and get some sleep? I'll get us a good spot. I'm beat."