//------------------------------// // 2019 project - Diamond Sisters - Chapter 6 draft 1 // Story: RoMS' Extravaganza // by RoMS //------------------------------// “I hate you!” Trixie threw her arms back leaning forwards to glare daggers at Granny. A wistful smile locked on the old lady’s face. She let Trixie vent out. Trixie spun around, pointing a finger at Tempest and Rarity, waking up under the blanket. “Who said I, Trixie Lulamoon, allowed you to let my boyfriend go?” She kicked against the feet of the brazier and yipped in pain. Rarity rolled to the side as Tempest yawned and brought herself to her haunches. Trixie covered the distance teetering her pointed index an inch away from Tempest’s nose. “I didn’t and yet you let him go! Back to father. You’re terrible friends.” Tempest got up and took a step forward, pressing her stomach against Trixie’s extended hand. Suden sagacity lit behind Trixie’s eyes.  “Shut up.” Tempest’s open hand flew against Trixie’s cheekbone, throwing the teen off-balance. Rarity winced with the clack of whip that resonated in the Barn. Trixie hit the floor, her shoulders creasing the musty carpet below as she rolled on her back. Stunned, she looked up at the ceiling. Heavy tears rolled down her eyes and cheeks, pearling down her ears lobes to hit the floor in silence. “Stop trying to boss people around, brat,” Tempest said, walking over her to Granny. “We will be out of your hair in a jiffy.” “I have some food for you,” she said, nodding towards the kitchen where Featherlight had slept.  “Thanks.” “So, where you’re heading?” Tempest stretched, her hands easily touched the ceiling. “Chasing after the glow on Rarity’s arm is a stupid idea,” she said. Rarity looked down at her arm, the scarring process was well underway. “We’re malnourished, tired and we’ve got a liability.” Tempest looked down at Trixie who still laid down on the floor, covering her eyes. “We should hit the nearest town and exchange some of the goods from the cart for clothing, rations and find a way to earn a living.” “Wise decision,” Granny said, looking down to Trixie as well. “I’m sure the lady’s name has enough clout to go around but you’re right to look for better accommodations before trudging through the deadwood and what’s beyond.” “Beyond?” Rarity asked. “Do you think the deadwoods continue on forever?” Granny chuckled. “No, no, you have the grasslands to the East and the Waste land to the West.” Grass. Rarity recalled her dream of the woman Applejack. Yellow under a heat she’d never experienced and cracking under the hazy hair of a season, Summer, she’d never heard of. “What’s in the grasslands?” “Nothing, really,” Granny said. “It’s a flat land for miles and miles without end. Like the forest, though, here be monsters.” “Speaking of,” Tempest cut in. “Any advice for the trip. What’s the nearest town? How do we deal with monsters?” “I’m sure Featherlight told you that the outside is pretty safe during the day, but once the night is about, you will find yourself facing horrors.” Tempest nodded and rummaged through her pockets to retrieve the specked daggers. “Now, your best bet is going to Dale. It’s a fortified city a day from here. You can make it before nightfall.” Trixie sniffled, opening her eyes to glare up at Tempest. “Dale is the place Dash used to run to on a daily basis. She was so fast she could cross the forest offtrack and back in a day.” “Well, look where it led her. She’s… The forest swallowed her.” Trixie welled up again but she refrained from sobbing. “I have to warn you, though,” Granny said. “The road has a tricky part that you must pay attention to. It branches off mid-trail when you reach a clearing. I’ve not been there in years but it’s not unheard of to mistake a path for another. Always take the leftmost one.” “What happens to those who take the others?” Rarity asked. Granny didn’t answer.  Rarity extracted herself from the blanket and once she folded it, she went on to help Trixie up. Granny led the three to the kitchen where they shared a rapid breakfast. Trixie stared down at the mushroom porridge in her hand, glancing quickly at Tempest from time to time, a hand rubbing her reddened cheek. Her pale blue skin was covered with specks of dirt and her once pristine garb was riddled with spots of mud and halos of sweat. Dust charged Tempest’s mohawk and she often scratched her face with untrimmed nails. “We look like vagrant,” Rarity noted. “We always look like that,” Tempest said before slurping down some of the thick brew. “What makes you realize that.” “Speak for yourself,” Trixie muttered. “I feel icky.” Tempest didn’t pay attention, she glanced at Rarity instead.  “I’ve had those… dreams of another place. Everything is so… smooth? Clean and hot. And the colours. Beautiful.” Rarity sighed.  “We’re not in your dream, though,” Tempest. “Nothing but rain, mud and pain here. At least, you’re here.” Rarity smiled gently. “We need a shower.” “The rain will take care of it.” Rarity chuckled. “We do.” Minutes later, Trixie and Rarity left the Bunker behind Tempest. She swung a small satchel on her back, a gift from Granny. It contained rudimentary survival gear. Rarity was glad for the two firesteel stick she’d given. Tempest had traded them for her last dynamite stick.  The group snatched their spear-walking stick, thanked Granny who quickly closed the door behind. The rain was cool and the fog thick. They stepped on the road and continue onward. “Come on, Trixie,” Rarity whispered, pushing the teen between her and Tempest. “He’s not here.” Trixie threw a last look at the road that headed to Canterhigh, sighed, and turned to focus on Tempest’s taut back. She muttered. “Let’s go.” The deadwood fit its namesake in the morning, thought Rarity. Not an animal sound, a rustle, a peep or a chirp. Only the rain plucked the ground. Cascades and rivers flew down the steep, crossing the road every time in rushing stream that upturned rocks and carried sediments to an unknown destination. With the rain and the fog, the smell of rot was the other constant. It penetrated close, nose and mind, and Rarity covered her mouth with a tug of her shirt. Tempest carried through, tapping the ground with her stick to watch for traps under the muck. Trixie was slowing the group down. Tempest often looked behind her to see Rarity and Trixie’s walking speed.  The teen was gettng sick. Her face was pale and the gash she’d earned from the beast the day prior was oozing pus that trickled down her face as the rain peppered her skin. She faltered and fell. Rarity caught her before she hit the ground. “Trixie, are you okay?” Rarity asked, knowing she was definitely not. “I think, I caught a cold.” She was sickly pale and burning. “Take the lead,” Tempest said, dropping her spear to the ground to wrap her arms under Trixie to set her up. Rarity found herself first to watch the road. Her heat drummed in her chest as she was forced to look up and down at the earth intermittently to create a path through water and mud. A shadow flew above her head and she yelped. Tempest fussed, nearly slipping behind as she helped Trixie walk, he hand sustaining her under the armpit. The crow was back. It studied Tempest and Rarity for a moment. Its eye went down to Trixie whose head was bobbing slowly. It looked further as if to count them. Then it cawed loudly and flew away. They pressed on, helping themselves of metal and wood railing to hasten further when they were available.  A distant howl echoed through the wood and broken and torn trunk shattered a mile or so away. Tempest lifted Trixie up in her arm. “Let’s move faster.” They did. The sound of rushing water intensified, coming from further down the path as the forest density increased, dead branches hiding an ever increasing among of light from reaching the ground. Rapids surged in front of them, scraping at the rocky banks where hardly a plant grew. Series of stop stabbed out of the water. A small wooden bridge extended over the violent river but though it still stood, a large gash cut it nearly in half. “Follow me,” Rarity said, helping Tempest manoeuvre between jagged rocks as they made their way a hundred yards up the rapid to get to the bridge. The wood was rotten, cracking under the pressure of Rarity’s feet as she set her foot on the first step.  “Trixie feels sick,” the teen mumbled. “Yes we know,”Tempest huffed as she gathered her breath, a hand clasped at the wet guardrail. Trixie sat on the first step, holding her head between her knees. She retched.  Rarity walked up the few steps, wanting to inspect the state of the bridge before crossing. By the rage of the river, she knew Runners had to pass through the bridge. It had to be safe. Still she was afraid of the hole that threatened to collapse the whole construction. Rarity froze as someone waited for her. Standing in the middle of the bridge behind the gap dug into the wood, a slender figure stood. Though she had no face, Rarity could tell she was a girl. Slender to the point of sickness, the faceless waited with an arm out, holding something in her hand. Her head tilted to the side. With her other hand, the faceless straightened her finger above where her lips would have been, then extending her arm invited Rarity to walk up to her. Rarity took a first step, never breaking eye contact. Large boots, denim pants and a leather apron, she didn’t look much different from the miners Rarity had lived around her whole life. The lack of facial traits rose hairs on her nape of her neck. She took one more step. The faceless threw what she held and Rarity caught it with a coughed yelp. The small canvas bag crushed under Rarity’s fingers as she clasped the item in both hands. Rarity opened the small string that wrapped its opening. The strong scent of fresh bark struck her face. She’d once seen a tree, a willow bark, being cut up from its roots in Canterhigh. A rare sight and with a distinctive smell that brought Rarity back.  The bag held two bundles of thin strips of willow barks and a small bottle with a reddish liquid inside. Rarity opened it and an acrid taste hit her face. Rarity looked up to the faceless. She mimicked drinking then pointed at the bottle. Rarity looked down again at the bottle then back at the endof the bridge. Tempest was taking care of Trixie. She’d emptied her mushroom porridge. “Th-” The faceless was already gone. Perplexed, Rarity walked down the stairs and sat next to Rarity as she held a nauseated Trixie underher other arm. Tempest arched an eyebrow as she saw the small bag in Rarity’s hands. “The faceless girl was on the bridge,” Rarity told bemused. “She gave me willow bark.” “Fresh?” As Rarity nodded, Tempest looked at the bag with surprise. Then she laughed. “Whose soul did you trade for that?” “Nobody,” Rarity chuckled, giving a gentle swing of her shoulder against Tempest’s. “She just… gave it to me.” “I don’t like it,” Tempest said as she retrieved the small bottle and gave it a smell test. She retched. “Ach, willow extract. Smells like baby shit.” “From what Granny said, she doesn’t seem to be the one asking for payment down the line, don’t you think?” “That’s because Granny paid it back. We don’t have anything to give.” Tempest observed Trixie hack her lung as a drip of snot drooled out of her nose. She sighed. “Let’s worry about debt later.” Tempest uncapped the small bottle and forced it to Trixie’s lips. She threatened till a dizzy Trixie relented and winced as the concoction made its way down. “We’ll boil the bark when we have fire,” Rarity said, hoping Trixie would hear. “Let’s head out.” They carefully crossed the bridge, Rarity leading first, her eyes looking at each and every tree, searching for the faceless girl. Hours passed and the day slowly advanced towards the evening. The path, now a mudway opened to the clearing Granny had warned them about. A small cobblestone fountain stood at its middle, covered in ivy. A clear arc of water sprung out of the mouth of a stone fish at its middle. It was steaming. Everyone rushed the fountain and plunged their hands into the hot bath before them. It smelled of sulfur. Tempest didn’t have to warn Trixie not to drink. While tempest removed her top and slipped into the water, removing flakes of mud and sweat over her skin to Trixie’s horrified look, Rarity looked around the clearing. She counted five pathways going on their own deeper into the Deadwoods where thicket hugged or crawled up to the middle of pavement remnants. “I think we’re going to have a problem,” Rarity called. She counted five paths, but the leftmost was simply the path they’d come from, making a u-turn to drop down a steep hillside where a few stone steps had been carved. It was less a road and more an old beaten yet now-flooded trail. The second leftmost street was an actual one. Tempest dunked her clothes in the water and quickly fit them back on top of herself. As she flicked the strands of hair that fell on her face, she walked to Rarity’s side and studied the street layout. Trixie floundered her way to Rarity. “Who’d have thought you lacked any sense of prudeness.” She threw a glance at Tempest. “You stink now.” “I’m clean, you’re not,” Tempest replied. “I can’t beat that,” Rarity said, looking back at the fountain. She smiled. “Is it still clean enough? I know you usually leave a mess behind you.”   Tempest smirked, “I called dibs. You get the water you get.” Rarity looked at Trixie who huddled against Rarity for warmth. The teen’s eyes were weary, drained of happiness. Tiredness dragged her cheeks down and her eyelids closed one after the other. “Check which path is the best to take,” Rarity asked. “I’m gonna bath the child.” “I’m no child!” Trixie protested, dragged away by the wrist to the fountain. “Close your eyes when I take my top off.” Rarity looked back at Tempest. They shared a tired look, and Rarity pushed Trixie backward who basculated through the clean spray of water to splash into the fountain waters, its surface ever disturbed by the rain. Trixie shocked herself back up gasping for air. Tempest swiped her hand through the water and huffed, amused. “You could have warned me,” Trixie boomed. “It’s sadly too late now.” Rarity stepped in the fountain fully clothed as well. The bite of sulfur gnawed at her left. She hesitated a second, bit on her tongue and dunked herself in the water. Once her shoulders under the water, she stripped off her clothing. Her mangled shoes floated up to the top and floated around, drifting up to the drain that fell off the side of the fountain, clogging it. “I’d rather be soaked and warm than soaked and cold.” Trixie slid back into the steaming fountain, her eyes and forehead the only thing that settled over the surface. Rarity snatched an underwater stone with a gently grating surface. “Come here and take off your clothes.” “Trixie Lulamoon doesn’t strip in front of commoners.” Rarity was taken aback. “You’ve never taken showers with other people.” “Are you kidding?” Trixie laughed. “I have my own bathroom. For myself. Sometimes my servants come in to clean, but that’s it.” Trixie looked back at Rarity. The former miner stared at the teen with darkened eyes. She didn’t repeat herself. Trixie looked around as if searching for prying eyes, then finally she took off her linen top who floated around. She shuffled and her pants came up as well. “Happy?” Trixie growled, redness on her face. Rarity rubbed the stone against Trixie’s back, asking each time when she went to a new place, arms, legs and lumbars. “I hate you,” Rarity muttered, startling Trixie. “I mean, I don’t hate you. I–I just envy you. You’re everything I’ve never had.” Trixie turned back to look into Rarity’s eyes but Rarity was lost mindlessly scraping at the teen’s back. “The opportunities, the goods, the food, the life, everything. Happiness and childhood.” “You’re hurting me, Rarity,” Trixie cried. Rarity opened her left hand, releasing the grip on Trixie’s upper arm she didn’t remember closing in. “Sorry, it’s just…” She met Trixie’s teary eyes and raised the stone out of the water. “Have you ever worked in your life?” Trixie opened her mouth, inhaling deeply, but the words never came. Her lips closed slowly and she swallowed. She lowered her gaze to her side and rubbed her shoulders above where Rarity had pinned her. “No, I’ve never worked. I’m too young.” Rarity took a deep breath and turned around, searching for Tempest. The tall gall was strolling around the different paths that gave onto the clearing. “Look at Tempest,” Rarity said. “She’s seven years my elder. Watch how she walk, how I walk. Slightly hunched, a slight limp. Scars on our backs, legs and arms, and sometimes a thin slice on our head where hair will never grow back.” Tempest inspected something on the ground, crouching rather than bending her back. A knee to the mud, she set her two hands at the bottom of her back and stretched, once, twice. As Tempest rose up, one of her knees shook and the purple woman gave it two pummels of her closed fist. “We, miners, never grow old,” Rarity sighed. “We toil to warm up people like you. That’s why I hate you, why Tempest hates you. Who you are, represent, is just knowing full well we waste our life for a master in a castle.” “Like father?” Rarity nodded but didn’t reply. She wanted to circle Trixie’s neck with her hand and press. All the years stolen, the pain inflicted, the work, backbreaking and humiliating. She dropped the stone. She saw how easy it would be to maintain the kid under water. She set her two hands on Trixie’s shoulders. Trixie shuddered. “Rarity?” Trixie asked. “Yes?” “Do you want me to rub your back? One woman to another, outside Canterhigh.” Rarity’s voice broke. “I’d like to.” Rarity turned before Trixie did, and she dunked her head under water. The pain of sulfur was better than showing the tears that ran down her cheeks. She only lifted herself back to the air when instincts kicked it. Trixie had picked up the stone and was scraping her counterpart. Rarity felt Trixie’s curious touch over several scars. The teen hesitated every time she was about to scrape over one.  “Does it hurt,” Trixie asked? “It doesn’t,” Rarity said. “Some do but they usually cut deeper.” Trixie continued her work as Tempest ventured a bit further down each path. She walked backward each time. The first time scared Rarity, expecting the beast from the day prior to pouce out of the falling darkness. But after the second and the third, Rarity understood Tempest refused to show her back to the dark. After long minutes, she walked up to the fountain. “You too still in there?” “It feels good to be warm sometimes,” Rarity replied. “Well, we have to head out.” Rarity gulped as she watched Tempest scratched the back of her head. “I think Granny didn’t give us all the information we needed. She said to take the leftmost road, right?” “I heard path,” Trixie coughed and wiped her nose.  Rarity would blew her own under water. The smell of sulfur burned her nostrils. “I saw a cave down the stone staircase, it’s a hundred yard or so away.” Tempest looked at the mist overhead and the rushing darkness. She shuddered. “Let’s find shelter now we’re lost.” Rarity left the fountain first, putting back her wet but warm clothes on as fast as she could. The rising wind and the rain would soon cast her cold. Trixie snatched her floating top and pants and hid behind the fountain to put them back on. She stepped over the walls of the fountain dripping in water. “I don’t feel so good,” she said. “We’ll boil some water for the willow bark when we’re in the cave. I’m sure we can find some wood to light on fire,” Tempest replied. “Let’s hurry. I wouldn’t like to worsen your cold.” “Th–Thanks.” The stairs were polished smooth by water, age and use from hundreds of years prior. Rarity nearly fell, slipping inside her splotching shoes. Trixie grunted and fussed every time she took a step.  “How do you do, walking in such a soggy… weather?” “Mines are often flooded.” Tempest said, retrieving her dagger to cut at the bushes leading to a gaping hole in the side of the hill. Circled by two slab of stone, the entrance was black as night and the entrance was covered in multiple layers of decayed leaves.  “That's good news, Tempest?” Rarity asked, pointing the accumulation of dead branches on the ground. She hoped it would confirmed nothing had entered and left the cave in a long time. “I’d hope so.” Tempest walked closer, heeding the darkness within. “But that’s a lot of branches. I just hope it—” “Lalala!” Trixie echoed, both hands on her ears. “Just go inside.” “I’m not entering… that,” Tempest said, staring at the entrance with a grimace. “I can’t see anything.” Rarity waves her arm around till it glowed. She was glad the direction of the light wasn’t inside the cave. And so, light bearing forward, she stepped over the branch barrier and stood at the entrance of darkness. The inside was dry in most parts, a few puddles of sale water remained here and there and slabs of stone one could sat on lay about on a bed of grey dirt. Rarity stepped further in and the cave was merely a small room that narrowed into a gullet when she could pass under by crouching. She heard Tempest or Trixie snap a few twigs under her foot. Rarity hesitated a second then slipped under the small entrance.  To her relief, the room had no exit. It was a single hole, laid with sand and dust. She looked up and saw a few holes peppered the ceiling like chimney to the surface. Tempest pushed Trixie in, carrying with herself a series of branches she’d picked at the outer layer of the cave. She threw it in the middle of the cove along with Granny’s satchel, and pulled back to the outdoors. “I’m fetching firewood,” she said. Trixie and Rarity both watched the branches in the middle of the room. Rarity started to feel cold. The clothes tucked at her skin every time she move, accompanied with a shivering cold wave down her back and torso. Trixie was huddled in a corner, sniffling and holding her knees up to her chin. She sighed, “Adventures are boring.” Rarity chuckled. “I don’t think this is an adventure. It’s a run away.” “To where?” “I don’t know.” Rarity opened the satchel and retrieved the two firesteels Tempest had traded. Shaped into handles, she gripped the two and slapped them against each other. Sparks flew. Tempest made several trips, each time dropping dead tibers she’d managed to cut with her dagger. Rotten or decayed, they could still burn it. It would smell and burn the eyes and create smoke, but it would work. Rarity struggled to her legs and collected as much kindling she could find around the cave.  Trixie observed her for a minute until she sat up, grabbed a nearby rock and starting digging a fireplace at the center of the room. She made a stone circle. An hour later, a small fire raged at the center of the room and the cove was slowly warming up. Night was up outside and the creeping sound of wind whistled through the ceiling holes.  As they watched the embers crackled, Rarity chuckled. Watching Tempest and Trixie’s confused looks, she smiled. “We’re safe, here. Underground. We really aren’t at home anymore.”