Taking the Initiative [Dark]

[Dark]

The next morning, Minh would only vaguely remember ordering Monty to keep an eye out for potentially dangerous predators. As it was, her mind was a cluttered mess of memory/dream that took awhile to get sorted out and more than likely got a bit muddled together in reclassification.

What she did know was altogether more frightening. Sometime during the night--maybe seeking warmth, more than likely just thrashing about--she'd managed to wrap herself around Mnem in a tangled mess of limbs. And she had the feeling, considering their bad luck as of late, and their blacker moods, Mnem wouldn't entirely appreciate Minh using her as a built-in heater.

The problem, of course, was trying to extract herself while Mnem was still asleep, and Minh wasn't really sure how she could manage it.

Staring up at the gnarled roots that made up their shelter, she frowned in consternation. This would be interesting.

[Bee]

The first thing Mnem became aware of was that there was something warm wrapped about her, and she absently nudged herself closer to block out the cold; the second thing Mnem became aware of was the fact that the something warm was actually Minh, who had apparently decided to molest her in her sleep. Well then.

"Good morning, sunshine," she said, rather grumpily, and wiggled away from the other woman. She crawled out of their little cave and stretched. She was angry at herself for having slept, but at least it had been someplace vaguely concealed, and she hadn't been killed in her sleep. She had had a very strange dream about Monty wearing hir skull helm and a tattered cape and stabbing both Mnem and Minh to death with a spear made from a broken arrow, but she chalked that one up the recent bizarre events and the stress. Monty would not do that in real life.

Probably.

She tried to gauge what time of day it was by looking up at the position of the sun, but she couldn't tell anything through the cover of trees. By some of the brighter, vibrant green and the bits of blinding light that showed in rare holes in the canopy, it was probably late morning or midday. Damn. It would be dark at six-thirty or seven, which meant that they had only half a dozen hours before things got really dangerous again.

They would need to eat quick and get moving. Mnem looked to one of their ragged packs--one of them, one with food, had been shredded. By little bander claws. Obviously Monty had not been keen on waiting for a meal.

"You just bloody ate a veritable feast of other bandersnatches! You're wearing one of their skulls as a headdress. How can you be hungry?"

Monty glared at her balefully and then belched the mighty belch of the well-fed.

Mnem grabbed the sack. There was a little bit left in it. They would finish that before moving to another bag.

To Minh, she said, "Breakfast time."

[Dark]

Minh hadn't eaten before she'd gone to sleep, and she was left staring at Monty in stunned disbelief. Really, she shouldn't be surprised, considering Monty was the incarnation of Pure Evil, but she couldn't help her instinctual reaction to such a heinous crime. The unholy shriek that issued from her maw wasn't at all dignified, but--food.

"How could you!?"

--

She was still feeling rather mulish several hours into their hike, stomach gurgling unhappily about the little bit of bread it had gotten.

"I'm a carnivore, damn it. I can't live with these conditions. I need meat."

She eyed Monty speculatively, before giving up the prospect at futile. The damn thing would maul her to death before she even got a bite.

So wrapped up in her own abject misery and woe, she almost missed the telling wisp of smoke. Where there was smoke, there was fire. Where there was fire, there were generally people--or a forest fire, and wouldn't that be their luck. And where there were people, there was food.

She turned to Mnem, the gleam in her eye a bit unnerving, "Catch that?"

[Bee]

She had seen it. Smoke, in the distance. A sign of civilization. Or of fiery, rapidly approaching death, but she was desperate for a chance to look at the bright side of life for once. Perhaps the people would have food--more and better than the measly rations they carted around--and maybe even a comfortable place to sleep, and then they could show Mnem and Minh a way out of this wretched wood. That was the very brightest side of life she was looking at. The reality was likely to be a good deal gloomier, but she could deal with later disappointment for a great uplift in the present.

"Oh, indeed," Mnem said, picking up her pace to a very brisk jog, trusting that Minh and Monty would follow. They wanted the same things she did. Monty perhaps wanted more bloodshed, but that could hardly be helped. She hoped they could prevent Monty from attacking whoever was making the fire.

As they appraoched the source of the smoke, Mnem could hardly believe her eyes. A cottage, out here in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by woods and crazed marauders who tried to arrow people. A quaint, cute little house that smelled like fresh-baked cookies and grandmothers. Smoke drifted out of the chimney in almost whimsical swirls.

Mnem was more than faintly disturbed.

"Minh. Are you seeing what I'm seeing, or have I gone 'round the proverbial bend and this is a hallucination vomited out by my now-addled mind?"

[Dark]

Cooo.....kies?

Minh was in a sweet, sweet, happy place of joyful joyness, high on the euphoric qualities of food smells. As it were, she didn't sense anything overly wrong with the cottage they had stumbled upon. In the middle of nowhere.

Something niggled vaguely at the back of her brain, like an itch she couldn't scratch, but she chalked it up to prolonged starvation and left it at that. It seemed a perfectly quaint little place. With food. In the middle of nowhere. And that was alright.

"Oh! You poor dears! Look at you! All washed up, you are! Come in, come in! We'll get you all cleaned up, and get a hot meal in you. You'll be right as rain."

The speaker was a rather robust matron badger, silver-gray at the temples. No sooner had she bustled them into the house, Minh was sinking into a deep old-fashioned tub full to the rim of steaming water. It was pure heaven. And Monty seemed to think so, too, as s/he was paddling around in the shallow end. S/he even let her use a bit of the cleaning sand on hir, before s/he swam out of reach again.

Minh sank back and melted into a puddle of relaxation, aching muscles sighing in relief. Oh, yeah. Heaven.

[Bee]

The bathroom had four tubs and two showers, and seemed uncommonly large for a cottage so small. Most of the inside of the place was uncommonly large for a cottage so small. Especially the kitchen. One would think the old woman did nothing all day but bake. Not that Mnem wasn't a fan of making a few batches of apricot chews, but this woman took culinary dedication to a level that was damn near unhealthy. Why the hell was she baking so much? Did she like to be ready for lost travelers who might wander by her door once every decade or so?

Showering had washed away most of the blood, and she had looked forward to her bath, but Mnem was not able to fully relax, which irritated her and made her even more tense. She wanted to get clean, get food, and get going. They could sleep in the dirt for all she cared. She just wanted out of here.

A little way into the soak, there was an overly cheerful knock at the bathroom door. "Children! Little dears! When you're ready to come out, I have a simply delicious meal all spread out on the table for you."

Mnem wanted to stay in the tub, and then perhaps sneak out of the cottage and run. But hunger beckoned. And the ferocity of her own response to the old woman and her house almost made her think that she was just in some kind of shock and being obsessively paranoid. Almost.

"We'd better eat."

[Dark]

Right. Food.

Minh slithered out of the tub, an oozing blob of contentment oblivious to Mnem's paranoia. Monty followed, clearing the tub with a graceful flop, shaking hirself vigorously while Minh toweled off and tried not to laugh. The bander really didn't look so threatening with hir fur standing up on end.

"Food sounds great."

--

The kitchen really was impressive--especially the industrial sized wall-oven, which Minh was sure would have her brother salivating if he were here--and Minh settled down at the sturdy oak table with a contented sigh. After all of their bad luck, this was definitely a turning point in the right direction.

She kept a close eye on Monty, who was snuffling around the closed pantry doorway. Its aura seemed a little...dark. Maybe it was hungry, again? She had no idea how the little rodent ate so much, without gaining an ounce. Demonic rage apparently burned a lot of calories.

"It smells delicious. Do you need any help?"

[Bee]

The woman merrily dismissed Minh's offer to help: "The food's all done, dear; don't you worry. Just eat." She laid the last dish on the table. Mnem looked at it with wary curiosity. It looked delicious. Better than delicious. She was quite sure she would have murdered for that meal under any other circumstances. But she was not sure she wanted it.

Her attention shifted to Monty, who was pawing rather insistently at the pantry door. The old badger expressed cheerful confusion over this and commented on what a cute little bandersnatch Monty was--when she tried to pet hir, Monty issued a deep growl and snapped at her fingers, but the woman appeared uneffected by this. Mnem wanted to take Monty's reaction as a sign that the woman was evil, but Monty reacted that way to damn near everyone. That s/he was so fixated on the pantry was a bit strange, though. Perhaps there was some particularly tasty-smelling meat? But who kept that in a pantry?

Mnem sighed, and spooned a bit of very appetizing-looking soup. It smelled off, somehow. Mnem wished she could put her finger on exactly what it was, so she could refuse it in earnest and with real reason.

But the badger was staring expectantly. Mnem reluctantly brought the food to her mouth.

[Dark]

Minh didn't suffer any of the hesitations of Mnem, slurping down the soup so quickly she almost scalded her tongue. It was some sort of buttery broth with bits of parsley and some indiscernible spice that Minh couldn't name off the top of her head, chunks of potatoes spread liberally throughout. And it was delicious.

Breaking off a hunk of steaming rosemary bread, she mopped up the residual soup in her bowl with a happy murmur, and dished both she and Monty up some of the roast chicken.

She was rather happily devouring a small mountain of mashed yams when sleepiness really started to take its toll. She felt warm and clean and well fed, and unbelievably tired. Looking at Monty, passed out cold on the floor, she couldn't help but feel the first warning tingles of unease.

She tried to speak, but she couldn't seem to get her mouth to form around the words that kept slipping away from her. She threw a panicked look in Mnem's direction, head lolling as she slumped down in her seat. Her eyes slid reluctantly shut.

So...tired...

[Bee]

Mnem looked at Minh and Monty with a very high degree of alarm. Monty was down for the count, sleeping on the floor, and Minh appeared to be drifting very quickly into the realm of dreams. There was something in the food. There had to be something in the food. The old woman had gotten hold of some kind of terrible brew and she was using it to take them out. A sleeping potion, then. Poppies? A heavy dose of valerian or kava? Some unholy combination?

She rose to her feet quickly, determined to confront the old woman and get Minh, Monty and herself the hell out of there, but no sooner had she turned in the direction of the badger than she saw something large and black--a frying pan, she realized dimly--flying at her face, and she barely had half a second to feel the pain as it crashed into the side of her head before she was out cold, hitting the floor next to Minh.