Chapter Text
“I’m sorry,” Ken said sheepishly as she dug into the mass of mashed potato and meat and dropped a dollop onto Heather’s plate. “I really wanted to put some cheese on top, but I used up the last of it last month, and the traders only come by so often. Not much of a shepherd’s pie.”
“Yeah.” Heather stopped staring at the intricate feathery blue patterns on the porcelain plate and tried to focus on the food. She breathed in the scent of thick mashed potatoes, slightly browned on top and laden upon fried, ground up meat that smelled of more flavors than she’d eaten in her whole life put together. Strange vegetables were scattered among the pieces of meat—some round, wrinkly little grape-like things and some onion-like bulbs that had been chopped up and fried. “I’ll live. I guess.”
“I really would have rathered do turnovers,” Ken mumbled, sitting down. “But I haven’t been able to get to the Burning Mill since that group of yellowjackets took it over last year, and milling the acorns by hand takes so long I haven't been able to get around to it, so… I don’t have any flour.”
Heather had no idea what a turnover was. She had no idea what any of this was, aside from the rat meat and the potatoes. She grabbed her fork and took a bite.
Her breath caught.
Back at the Bandit Camp, there were three easy ways of flavoring a meal—salt, sugar and mammoth fat. Other herbs and spices, like black pepper and limpwurt, were either traded for or harvested off of the dead.
This… was delicious. It was incredible. Criminal. The meat was spiced and salted to the extent that the rat’s gaminess was almost totally swept away on a wave of complex flavors. The little green vegetables popped with sweetness, and the chopped-up bulbs were just crunchy enough to add texture, caramelized in rich, peppery bacon fat.
Catteken was talking. Heather wasn’t listening. As she devoured her helping, she vaguely heard Ken mention things called ‘peas’ and ‘tarromin bulbs’, but didn’t care about the names. Not really.
She did care about how Ken had gotten ahold of food like this, though. Did Catteken eat like this every day?
Could the Bandit Camp…?
As Ken took the rest of the dish away to the icebox, Heather’s eyes narrowed with passing displeasure. She shoveled the last of her serving of shepherd’s pie into her mouth and turned to retrieving the scraps that had spilled on her bedsheets, scooping them up in her fingers and eating those, too. She wasn’t wasting a scrap.
Only once the food was gone, and she was done licking her plate, did she register something odd. Something she should have noticed sooner. She looked up suspiciously as Ken took something from the icebox. “Why aren’t you eating?”
“Huh?” Ken glanced over. “Oh, I will later. But this has to last us both for some time. Besides, I don’t eat as fast as you, and I’m about to go take a… bath.”
Catteken couldn’t keep the distaste entirely out of her voice. Heather couldn’t conceal her amusem*nt. “Okay, sure. Whatever.”
Catteken had already had plenty of chances to poison Heather if she’d wanted to, Heather supposed. She just couldn’t imagine someone having this kind of food in front of them and not eating as much of it as they could at once, before someone else got to it.
“Do you want dessert?”
“Do I want to what?”
Ken set a small bowl in Heather’s lap. Like the plate, the bowl was a beautifully-crafted ornament, pale porcelain decorated with images of yellow insects flying from flower to flower. Wasps. No, wait, those had to be bees. Inside the bowl rested a block of dripping gold, a rectangle of thick, molten, gooey sap shimmering from within six-sided cells. Bright red berries peppered with tiny green seeds on the outside were scattered across the comb.
Heather stared at the bowl for a second, wordlessly accepting the spoon Catteken offered. She picked up one of the berries with the spoon and examined it. “These are… strawberries, aren’t they?”
Every now and then, Asher, one of the Camp’s three leaders, would surprise the trainees with a jar of strawberry jam. It was always an exquisite surprise to have the pizza dough rolled out, slathered in jam and cheese, and rolled up and cooked like that, dribbling with hot, sticky-sweet jelly that burned their tongues if they didn’t wait long enough for it to cool, which, obviously, they never did. But she’d never seen an actual fresh strawberry before. Keith and Donny would be so…
The sweetness placed before her bittered a little.
“How long am I going to be stuck here, anyways?” she said. It came out a little harsher than she’d meant it. She tossed a strawberry in her mouth and bit down. Despite her mood, the explosion of juicy tartness on her tongue made her mouth water, and she lunged for another one dripping with gold. The golden sap-like substance was sweet and familiar-tasting. It must have been what Ken had used to sweeten the tea.
“At least two more days.” Ken shifted, taking a seat at the chair by the bed. “Probably three.”
“‘Probably’?”
“Yeah. If I can walk you back to, um, wherever you’re from, I can probably take you back in two. But if you wanna go alone, it’s three. At least.”
Heather took a deep breath. The third strawberry tasted blander than the other two. She fought to steady herself as she felt that earlier anxiety trying to make its return.
“That leg really needs time to heal, though,” Catteken added, frowning. “I mean, if it was up to me, you’d stay here another two weeks at absolute minimum.”
If it was up to me.
Heather’s eyes narrowed. “Is that right?”
“Yes. Traveling with a bad leg just isn’t safe in the Wildy.” Ken rubbed her shoulder. “Um, in my opinion, I mean. Even if we take the obelisk…”
Heather took another deep breath, fingers tapping against her knee. Calm down. Calm down. “Thank you for your opinion, Ken.”
Catteken was silent for a moment. Heather could tell she was being studied, and she hated it.
“You’re upset,” the strange girl said at last.
“Oh, really.”
“I think so.” Ken rubbed her palms together. “Um, yes. I…” She hesitated. “Did I. Did I say something?”
You just told me I couldn’t go home tomorrow, you brainless child. It’s not always about you.
Heather glared down at her bowl and popped another strawberry into her mouth. She resented how delicious these tasted almost as much as how that nervous quiver in Ken’s voice made her feel the need to reassure her. “No,” she said through a mouthful.
Don’t blow up. Calm. Calm.
“Okay. Thank you.” Ken looked down at her hands. “Can I ask what it is?”
Heather popped another berry into her mouth. She didn’t want to risk saying anything right now.
“Are you worried about your family?”
Heather’s fingernails dug into her leg.
“I mean, you probably… you have somewhere to get back to, right? And you’re pretty young, so you… you probably have family looking for you, right?” Ken gave an uncertain smile. “Maybe they’ll find us first, and then you won’t have to—”
Heather gave a coarse laugh. “I’m young.” Her head shot up. “And how old are you? Where’s your family, Catteken?”
Catteken’s smile cracked at the corners like thin ice. “I’m, well, I’m not sure how old I am, actually. But, um, according to the bees—”
“The bees? Oh, for Zam’s sake.” Anger rose in Heather’s gut like a fire suddenly given air, finally given something it could burn. She gave Catteken a vicious smile. “Maybe I’m upset because I don’t want to be stuck here for three days with an insane person who talks to her bees and stinks like used bandages.”
Ken blinked. Twice. “I… I, um…”
Heather couldn’t take that stupid wounded look in Ken’s eyes, so she turned pointedly to the door. “Didn’t you have somewhere to be?”
Ken was quiet for a moment.
She heard Ken rise from her chair. The girl padded over to the door, opened it, and stepped out. “Be right back,” she called, and slammed the door.
Heather set the bowl aside and flopped back on the bed. She stared up at the rafters.
A hoarse laugh escaped her.
“Damn it.”
The laughter tasted bitter on her tongue.
After a moment, she sat back up, grabbed the bowl, and shoveled all but one of the remaining strawberries into her mouth. Despite an unpleasant aching from within, she ate voraciously. She needed the distraction. The strawberries were mouthwatering. She turned to the block of molten gold, licking up the dripping sap from the wax.
Three days. Three days until she could get back to the camp. Three days with everyone thinking she was dead. The bandits didn’t waste time on sentiment. Would they give her things away tomorrow? Would Keith finally get the top bunk he’d always fought with her over?
She moved to take the last strawberry and toss the bowl aside, but paused.
She was stuck here.
“I’m stuck here,” she said quietly to herself, trying to make herself accept it. Because she was, wasn’t she?
And if she was stuck here, being all stupid and gooey and nice to that girl… it didn’t have to be weakness. It didn’t have to leave weak points.
It was strategy. For whatever reason, Catteken was insisting on pretending to be friendly. Maybe it wasn’t an act, and the girl just really was touched. It didn’t matter.
Heather’s leg was broken. She had no idea what direction the Bandit Camp was in, nor how far away they were. She couldn’t get home on her own. Ken had all the power here, even if that made Heather’s stomach clench.
Whether that… insane girl really was the real deal or not wasn’t here or anywhere.
Heather needed to keep Catteken happy with her. That was the only way she was getting home. Ken could keep playing nice all she wanted—sooner or later, if Heather kept pushing her, that mask would slip, and then where would Heather be?
Out in the ash.
She gripped the bowl tightly with both hands. Nobody at the camp would even know she’d survived if she died now.
You probably have family looking for you, right?
Heather’s jaw clenched.
She gripped the bedpost and carefully descended from the bed, using the bedpost to half-limp, half-climb over to the door to retrieve a wooden crutch she’d noticed earlier. Noticing a pile of wood shavings littering the floor around it almost stopped her still. Had Ken only just carved this today while she’d been unconscious?
She shook herself briskly as she used the crutch to fully straighten. The dizziness returned, but much lessened now that she wasn’t trying to put weight on the leg. It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter. She was doing this because she needed to keep her host—her captor—happy. That was all.
She kept reminding herself of that as she limped across the room with her bowl and spoon, knelt down over the washbasin, and started on the dishes.
Guilt was useless.
The Wilderness wasn’t fairyland. It wasn’t a place where you could talk to your chickens and your bees and frolic around picking strawberries and expect everything to be sweet and candied. She scrubbed hard at a plate caked with mold—when was the last time this hobgoblin of a girl had cleaned around here, anyways?—and chewed her lower lip. Guilt didn’t put food on the table. Guilt didn’t block a knife. Guilt didn’t light a fire. You did what you had to do. That was how you learned to breathe air choked with ash.
You were on your own. Even with the other bandits, sometimes.
She thought of Keith and Donny running off and leaving her for dead. Especially with the other bandits. Nobody was gonna stick their neck out for you. It wasn’t even fair to expect them to, really. You weren’t gonna do it for them. Anyone who thought of the Wilderness as anything but a free-for-all was delusional.
She popped the last strawberry into her mouth.
“Delusional,” she said to herself as she started on her own bowl, and she laughed. Nothing about today made any sense. Maybe she was delusional herself, and this was all some Wilderness shadow she’d been caught in, a ghost who’d died here long ago.
The door opened, and a rush of cold air swept in. Heather turned to see Ken step inside and close the door behind her.
Catteken’s curly hair was drenched and deflated, and her clothes had the look of someone who’d gotten dressed before they’d had the chance to fully dry. She was shivering, but still managed to look irritated as her eyes met Heather’s. “What are you doing up?”
“Your dishes.” Heather held up the dusty old scrub brush. “Someone’s gotta.”
Briefly, Ken seemed at a loss for words. She looked between the brush and Heather, blinking rapidly. “You’re…”
“You’re welcome,” Heather murmured, turning back to her work.
A warm, calloused hand grasped her wrist.
Heather stiffened. She spun, her other hand reflexively forming a fist—
“Heather,” Ken said, giving Heather’s hand a squeeze, “I… thank you. This is very nice of you.”
She was pretending not to notice the fist. Heather could see the tension in those big brown eyes as they fought not to look.
Heather’s own gaze drifted down to the hand holding her wrist. She felt her cheeks heat up slightly, and she made her hand go limp. “Reflex,” she muttered to herself without thinking.
“It’s okay. I understand.”
Heather’s cheeks burned. She was talking to herself a lot tonight. That was not a good habit to let herself form.
“Thank you, Heather,” Catteken said softly. “But maybe, um, you should do these in the morning. It’s late, and you need your rest.”
Heather hesitated, then nodded. “Right. Fine.”
“Do you need help getting back in bed?”
“I got it,” Heather snapped. She grimaced at how that sounded. “I… got it,” she repeated, forcing what she hoped was gentleness into her voice.
She grabbed her crutch and struggled upright to make her way back to the bed.
She couldn’t help a grateful sigh of relief as her head touched the feather-down pillow. How was everything in this cottage so soft?
Heather lay there a moment, facing the wall. What a day. What a strange, strange day.
She squeezed her eyes shut. She had to put it out of her head. Ken was right about one thing: Heather needed her rest, or she was never getting home alive. She reached down and pulled up the blankets, shuddering at how cold they’d gotten.
“Are you coming?” she called back. “Or are you sleeping in the icebox?”
“Right,” she heard Ken squeak. “Um, yes. I mean, um, no, I—I’ll take the bed. Just for the heat. If you’re sure it’s alright.”
“Right.” Heather rolled her eyes. “Get on with it, then. It’s freezing.”
After a pause, she felt the bed rustle and shift, and she felt Catteken’s body join hers under the covers. The girl was at the very edge of the bed, practically falling over the side as near as Heather could gauge, but at least she was all the way under the blankets and sharing some body heat.
Anyways, Heather wasn’t about to scoot away to make more room. This was Ken’s dumb hangup, not hers. They were just bodies.
Heather heard Ken fumbling with something. She realized it was the lantern when the cabin went dark.
All was still.
There were a lot of frightening things in the Wilderness. Silence was one of the worst. Silence could be deadly. She usually fell asleep listening to the rumbling of the lava springs and the chattering of the bandits outside the cabin, and if the latter went silent, it usually meant she needed to go for the knife under her pillow
But this silence, with the only sounds being another body shifting under the covers, felt like something else. It felt weird. Almost… intimate.
The darkness seemed to have given Ken some courage, because Heather felt the girl shifting a little further from the edge, scooting in a little closer.
About time, Heather thought. All these hangups were absurd to her. They were just bodies. Besides, they were both girls, so why would it even…
Catteken’s foot brushed Heather’s ankle.
Heather’s breath fluttered and failed in her chest.
Oh.
This. This.
She swallowed.
This felt…
As subtly as she could, she scooted a little toward the far side of the bed.
