Taking the Initiative [Dark]

[Dark]

Insistent pawing in the vicinity of her whiskers finally roused Minh rather reluctantly from sleep. She forced open one sleep-crusted eye to glare blearily at Monty, who had settled on her chest in a solid heap of oppressive bander-weight.

"I can't breathe, you know. What do you want, anyway? It's still dark; s'not time for breakfast."

She rolled over, tossing Monty off her, and fussily tried to find a comfortable place on the flagstone. Odd. She would have sworn, after the opulence of the bathing room, that the old woman who had so kindly offered them shelter would be able to afford proper beds. Maybe some blankets. Pillows.

Minh bolted upright, "Fuck."

Monty chattered in frustration, saying something that--if Minh spoke bander--would probably translate into something like this: No duh, bitch. What did you think I was trying to tell you earlier?

"Well, you don't have to be so rude about it."

She peered into the gloom, smelling damp, dank earth--a cellar?--glad that, on top of everything else, she wasn't chained.

Cursing the architect who had felt the need for such a ridiculously low ceiling, Minh shuffled over to where Mnem was curled up against a wall, a bright blotch of color against the gloom.

"Mnem? Wakie, wakie, eggs and bakey."

No response. Minh shook the canine's shoulder rather persistently, before falling back onto her hind legs in frustration. What was wrong with her?

She wasn't a medical doctor, but she began to give her friend a cursory examine, hoping to find some reason for her unresponsiveness.

The big welt on the side of her head really should have been more obvious.

[Bee]

Mnem felt like someone had bashed her upside the head with a frying pan--but she wasn't entirely sure. One moment she was watching as Minh slipped off into sleepyland, and the next, she was waking up on the cold floor of some dark little room, with a killer headache and a terrible urge to vomit--she held herself very still for a moment to fight off the impulse to be sick. Then her hand wandered up to the side of her head, and her fingers came away bloody. She had been knocked out. How? By who?

How long had she been out?

She realized after a moment that Minh was staring down at her.

"What the hell happened?"

Frying pan. Someone had bashed her upside the head with a frying pan. Who had--a chipmunk. No, squirrel. No--something that burrowed.

Rabbit!

That wasn't right either. Mnem closed her eyes and sighed deeply. She was probably concussed. This was not good news for them. She could only hope it wasn't a bad one, and she would be back in working order soon.

[Dark]

What happened? They had been lulled into a false sense of security by a sinisterly clever crone, drugged out of their minds--or beaten out of it, in Mnem's case--and thrown into a cellar of some sorts. For what end, however, remained a mystery.

She glanced at Mnem's uneven pupils--a concussion; how dandy--and realized the explanation would probably go right over her head, but went ahead and told her anyway while she scanned the darkness for any viable exists.

"Okay. Mnem?" She poked the delirious canine in the rib to focus her attention, ignoring her babbling monologue about squirrels and frying pans. "I need you to stay awake. Monty here is going to viciously maul you anytime you start to nod off, just to make sure, m'kay? I'm going to try and get us out of this mess."

She shuffled to her feet and randomly picked a corner, starting a thorough circuit of their tiny prison. It was odd she didn't feel hungover, or something similar, and she couldn't help but wonder what the bitch had used to drug them.

She had to proceed rather carefully, as the cellar was stuffed to the roof with foodstuffs--salted porks hung from the ceiling, barrels of wine and beer were stacked precariously, shelves carved into the dirt held glass jars full of pickled vegetables and canned fruit, and sacks of potatoes and other perishable food littered the ground.

The only way out, however, was a set of tiny steps cut into the dirt, which ended at a very sturdy oak door--leading to the pantry, probably--which happened to be bolted from the outside.

Well, fuck.

[Bee]

Minh told her to stay awake, that Monty was going to get her if she didn't, and Mnem absorbed this information, processed it, thought about responding to it, and then promptly forgot about it. She stared at Minh with uncomprehending eyes, wondering why she was looking at her like she expected Mnem to say something.

She looked around at the varieties of food stored around them, and thought that the squirrel-rabbit had a very well-stocked house indeed. The better for feeding visitors, and then--doing what with them? She did something with them. Was she doing something to Mnem and Minh and Monty?

"We're in some kind of basement," Mnem said, rather inanely. Her headache was worsening. Not good, not good. She tried to remember what had transpired. She hoped it would all come back soon; she hated not being able to recall things. "What the hell happened?" she asked Minh.

[Dark]

Minh was trying to be patient, considering Mnem had a concussion and was likely to slip into a deathly coma at any moment, but there was only so much composure to be summoned when locked in a cellar awaiting one's certain demise.

There was no way out. After she'd checked the premise, she'd sat through a shift of Mnem-watching and let Monty run its own survey. Monty had no more luck than she did. The walls were made out of a hard, clay-like substance and digging their way to freedom would just take too long. The door wasn't budging.

Currently, she was sitting rather dejectedly on the steps of the cellar, throwing a small twig for Monty. Who knew demonic banders enjoyed a good game of catch from time to time.

She answered Mnem, again, for the fifth time in as many minutes and tried to stay calm. There had to be a way out of this.

[Bee]

Periods of lucidity were being more frequent, and Mnem took this as a good sign. She could even keep it in her head that she was in a food cellar and had been knocked unconscious by a frying pan. Beyond that things got a little sketchy.

"I wonder," she said, more to herself than Minh,"what the old bat plans to do to us. Nothing good, I should think. Not after she drugged us. Beat us. With frying pans. Drugged us with frying pans and beat us with kava." That wasn't right. Her face scrunched up. Oh, whatever. Her head hurt too much to figure out how that train of thought had gotten derailed.

She cast her glance about the food cellar and frowned even more deeply. "You'd think this place would be more well-kept. Everything is covered in dirt and grime and grass. Some of these pillars aren't even holding anything up anymore." But now she was ranting. She looked at Minh for a moment, and said, "What the hell ha--"

No, she had already asked that question. She remembered that now. She had gotten bashed upside the head with a frying pan and she had a killer headache and she had already asked that question. She sat back against a bunch of sacks of flour and sighed.

[Dark]

Minh would be lying if she were to claim to have been listening to Mnem babble her way back towards the vague direction of lucidity, but she wasn't so entirely oblivious that she couldn't pick up on a stray wisp of genius.

"--dirt and grime and grass. Some of these pillars aren't even holding anything up anymore."

Why hadn't she thought of that?

Okay, so--she had grass. She could work with grass. But exactly could she do with it?

Nothing. That's what.

Except...

She eyed the structure of the cellar, paying particular attention to the pillars and, even more importantly, those of them that seemed to have fallen into disrepair. The worst seemed to be centered in the far corner.

Considering the type of cellar, and the chill factor, they were probably under several feet of solid earth, but if the support pillars were to be removed there would be nothing to stop the roof from caving in from its own weight. There was, of course, the distinct possibility that the entire ceiling would collapse, and not just the section she weakened, suffocating the would-be-escapees. She didn't mention that part to Mnem.

"Monty--feel up to a little bit of digging?"

[Bee]

Minh had an idea. This was not good. When Minh got ideas, things exploded and people got filthy and sometimes a few of her plants even got destroyed. She was looking at the pillars, in particular, and then she was muttering about structural support and talking to Monty about digging, and Mnem had a terrible sinking feeling that Minh was about five minutes away from making them all very, very dead. But Mnem didn't have any better ideas, aside from patiently waiting for Death, so this would have to do.

Mnem scooted over and placed herself under a thick shelf. This would do absolutely no good whatsoever should Monty mess up the digging and make the roof collapse, but it made her feel better, and sometimes a false sense of security was the only kind you were going to get, and you needed to take it.

She watched Monty dig at the dirt and gnaw at the pillars in the far corner.

"Try not to kill us," she muttered.

[Dark]

Ears twitched in mild irritation, eyes slanting away momentarily from the task at hand to watch Mnem as she searched for a 'safer' location. Not that it would do her any good, if Minh had miscalculated.

Considering the possible ways this could go horribly, horribly wrong however, Minh actually felt safer for being directly under the danger zone--being instantly crushed in the very-realistic landslide sounded a much better way to go, than slowly suffocating to death in the little cubby Mnem had made for herself. That was just Minh, though.

She considered the beam they were currently sabotaging, observing it closely for signs of strain. It wasn't enough.

"Monty, we need to take out another beam."

Given their options, which weren't very appealing or exactly safe, Minh fluffed her fur up in agitation and worry, choosing the closet beam on the right. It was the best option to seriously compromise the roof, but the beams further into the interior were in bad repair and she was afraid they wouldn't be able to hold up against the strain.

The idea was to damage the beams enough that gravity would finish the job for them while they scampered off to a safe distance. They had to work quickly, though, if they wanted to work the second beam into the plan.

She grunted as she clawed at the wood, splinters embedding themselves in her hands and flying at her face while Monty dug furiously at the base, white fur stained black.

It was quiet, besides that.

The beams started to go with a groaning wail, and for the first time in her life, Minh prayed.

[Bee]

Mnem watched from her little hidey-hole as the pillars fell, taking out about a fifth of the ceiling with it. Dirt and stone and debris crashed down as Minh and Monty flung themselves back in Mnem's direction, and as the ceiling cracked and fell, the hole expanding, Mnem feared that it wouldn't stop, and they would all be crushed. But it did. There was a large pile of detritus on the floor of the food cellar, and all they would need to do was tip a shelf to be able to make their way out.

They did just that. The old badger had come running at the sound of the collapse, and Mnem almost laughed when Monty flung hirself immediately at the old woman's face.

The wretched bat went careening around the kitchen like a drunkard, shrieking and flailing and trying to detach Monty, who was currently working at removing one of the badger's eyes.

Mnem saw the frying pan resting on the backburner of the stove, and her eyes lit up with delight. That old bitch had more to worry about than a crazed carnivorous little beast.

It took her mere seconds to grab the pan. She swung it in a wide arc, crashing it hard into the back of the woman's head as she flailed by.

The badger hit the floor in a bloodied heap, and Monty stared curiously at her still face for a moment, a bit disappointed, as though eating someone's face was much less fun when they were unconscious. Then Monty cheerfully began to remove an ear.

Mnem dropped the frying pan.

"Well," she said, and she was finally starting to feel like her normal self, "that was a charming diversion. Now let's get--" A bright glint caught her eye, and the sentence hung unfinished. On the old badger's wrist, previously hidden by her sleeves, was a lovely little bracelet. Gold. Simple. Elegant. Mnem liked it quite a bit.

So she reached down and grabbed it.

Something odd happened to the badger. The red J and heart symbol on her fur rippled away, like her chest was water and someone had thrown a pebble at it, and when the ripple stopped there was a three and a club.

Holy living hell. What else did this woman have in this blasted cottage?

She didn't have a chance to find out. The floor made a creaking, extremely unhappy noise. Mnem looked to the hole in the floor. Cracking, expanding. The whole damn floor--and therefore probably the house--was going to cave. Damn it!

"Minh, honey, it's time to run."