Part 2
Sasha felt her feet stumble and fold beneath her about the same time she saw the earth surge forward to catch her. She fought the impulse to throw out her arms, the little girl's frightened face scolding her into near accordance, but Sasha couldn't stop her descent. She watched the girl tumble from her grasp like pottery from a kiln, but then all she could see was the world holding her tight. Roots grabbed at her hair, dirt taking to the air in anger over the disturbance, the ground shaking and dipping downward. She rolled forward for a few seconds on momentum alone before crashing to a stop at the foot of a tree. And then, then the pain hit. It swelled upward, it's vehemence brimming over the confines of her body as it stole the breath from her lungs, almost as if to announce its presence and scold a distracted child for failing to pay it due attention.
She had felt the reeds break a while back, noticed the wobble in her step and the indignant response from her leg, but she hadn't honestly put much thought into it. Pain was something she had learned to live with a long time ago, and Sasha found paying it any attention unnatural, a gift of power or an acknowledgement of concession. And now the pain had returned, tired of being reprimanded and silenced, prepared to pull out all the stops for a bit of recognition. Sasha could feel her leg humming beneath her cautious fingertips, snarling in anger, a garish bruise spreading featherlike wings across the length of her calf.
"Sasha! What the hell was that?" Dara was there now, the little girl clinging to her hip, and within seconds Sasha could feel gentle, probing fingers surveying the injury. "This didn't just happen, Sasha, it's a pretty deep seeded knot. When?"
"About the same time we tried to outrace twenty of the king's best men. It's not a big deal; I'm fine. Really. Just gimme a second."
"Yeah, that was a mighty fine tumble you just took, that's for sure." Dara shook her head and stood up, hesitating for a moment to shift the girl's added weight. Sasha couldn't be hurt; he couldn't win, he couldn't take someone else away from her. "Well, we certainly aren't traveling anymore today. I'm going to go gather some firewood and see if there's anything around here I can use for a snare. Watch her for a bit, will you? She still hasn't said anything and I'm getting worried."
"Dara, that's ridiculous. We have at least two, three hours of light left. I sat down, took a little breathing time, and now I'm perfectly fine to walk for a while longer. See?" Sasha gritted her teeth and slid a bit farther up the tree, hoping to use its added height and sturdy weight to climb back onto her feet. She inched upwards a few inches, her calves dangling in the soil but her back supported, before releasing her hold. Her legs, which were supposed to catch her, crumbled under the blinding pressure. Bright lights danced on the horizon and her lungs grappled with emptiness.
"Saw all I needed to, thanks." Dara placed the little girl beside Sasha gently, smoothing tussled blonde hair from her eyes. "I'm going to be right back, okay? I just need to go and get some things for dinner. Are you hungry?"
Eyes blinked in response, fixated on Dara's face, but her mouth remained tightly shut. Unresponsive.
Dara sighed and eyed Sasha warily. "When I get back, I don't want to see you collapsed a few meters from here. You stay right where you are. That leg is never going to heal unless you take care of it, and neither of us is stupid enough to believe we can languish around whenever we see fit. Today is all the time we have if we hope to stay a few paces ahead of what's coming up from behind. So you sit here, nice and easy, and relax. Talk to her a bit. Just don't move."
Sasha paused for a moment, her mouth opening and closing in silent protest before she realized the emotion could not be fed any support besides pride alone. Dara was right. They needed to keep moving. Here, in this world, staying in one place too long is an invitation for the Pretender to come and see what all you've amassed for the taking. Sasha wasn't too stubborn to admit that her leg hurt something fierce, and the actual idea of foraging through the forest right now sent sympathy pains shooting through her.
"Alright, I'll sit here with her. But only because I think she's had a little too much excitement and shouldn't be lugged around for an hour. I could help you. I just think it'd be better for me to stay here. For her."
"Ah." Dara suppressed a blooming smile behind a slightly raised tone. "Thanks for that."
Dara could barely wrap her mind around the task at hand as she allowed the trees to swallow her whole, shielding her with uniformity and continuity. Sasha couldn't be hurt. She didn't know how to accommodate that into her plans, didn't want to understand how different things could become. Traveling at their pace was already difficult, putting a strain on Dara's unschooled muscles, but that sort of leg injury would hinder their speed dramatically. Dara knew it was selfish of her, to be wondering about the tempo of their trip and the practicality of it all while Sasha could barely force herself to stand, but she had no time to lend for injuries. As it was she was rushing to unravel the riddle and obey it all at the same time. The truth was, despite everything she believed about the future of the kingdom and the queen's role in its revival, she wasn't prepared to sacrifice Sasha in the process. And that alone scared her. The fact that she had gotten so attached, so connected, to Sasha in such a short time was contrary to Dara's nature and frightful all on its own.
She settled down on the forest floor with a handful of green twigs and a few thorny branches pulled from the briar bush conveniently on her left. Dara had learned to make a snare around the same time she learned to fish and build a fire, the rebels' way of making sure no one was ever abandoned incase of annihilation and the necessary scattering, and Dara had truly never expected any of these skills to come in handy. The familiarity of the motions were soothing and calming as she began to fashion the snare, a trick of the light almost convincing Dara she could see Cameron and Michael giggling next to her.
One snare was finished now. Looser than she wanted, perhaps, and small, but finished. She moved on to the next one seamlessly, and Dara felt a hovering burden release her from its shadow. She could do this. She could find food and make a fire and gather leaves for bedding. It was a plan now, a concise streamlined outline. She could take care of them, she could make everything better. She could.
Chapter 4
Sasha sighed loudly and banged her head against the tree trunk. She hated sitting still almost as much as she hated doing nothing. Especially when she knew there was something she should be doing, something she could be doing. Uselessness was an itch that seemed to crawl across her skin, tickling her insides, taunting until she felt like screaming.
Sasha sighed again and knocked her head a little harder, feeling the bark grate the back of her neck and the scrapings slip down her shirt. She sifted a handful of dirt through her fingers and contemplated counting the tree droppings.
"This is ridiculous. I'm not usually like this, you know," Sasha informed the little girl. She hardly seemed to notice the conversation, continuing to wrap her doll's hair around her fingers, but Sasha didn't seem to notice her indifference.
"I came all the way here by myself. Thirty miles on foot with nothing but the clothes on my back and a kitchen knife. If you don't think I've gotten hurt before, well, you're wrong. I've been through much worse than this and I got out of it. By myself. I don't need someone ordering me around."
Sasha grunted as she shifted her weight, sparing a concealed glance towards the little girl. She was still staring downward, hands white-knuckled around her doll, but her fingers had stopped twisting, and when Sasha stopped talking she looked up. Eyes met eyes for a moment before Sasha looked away, averting her gaze to the pile of pebbles hugging the trunk of the tree.
"You remind me of my sister." Sasha's voice was softer now, its edges dulled with memories and regret, and when she spoke again there was a distinctive wavering.
"Jilly was blonde, too, but her hair never got so long. Mother cut it short because Jilly never remembered to brush it, and it used to become such a tangled mess. I remember how much she hated having her hair short. How much Jilly wanted long hair like Mother's. Like yours. Jilly would have loved your hair."
The little girl was openingly staring at Sasha now, her doll merely dangling from uninterested fingers. One tiny hand began to play with the tips of her hair, running the silky length in and out of her fingers like a treasured piece of silk she just discovered. Sasha felt a chuckle bubble in her throat and she distended her hand automatically, memories still seizing her mind. She stopped short when the little girl reared backwards, frightened by the sudden proximity, and stared at Sasha with blue eyes that should have been brown.
"May I?" Sasha held her hand out slowly, waiting for the little girl to settle. "If you want, I can brush your hair like I used to brush Jilly's. Would you like that?"
For a moment, she sat still and silent and Sasha wondered if she hadn't understood. And then, there it was, the first bridge, the first connection, into a cosseted mind. Two slow nods.
"You have to scoot up a little, then, if I'm to reach. Since Dara might toss me into a bear pit if I leave this tree." Sasha paused while the little girl weighed her options for a moment. She slid closer, her head just within reach.
Sasha ran her fingers through the thick blonde hair, grimacing as she came face to face with snarl after snarl. This hair hadn't been brushed for a very long time, the neglect leaving tangled mats nearly impossible to dissect. It would take awhile, but since she was stuck here warming up the dirt she might as well keep her hands busy. She began to hum low in her throat as she worked on entrenched knots, the familiarity of the moment leading her back into habits she'd abandoned.
The little girl rarely winced or flinched as Sasha's untangling forced a gnarled knot to yank at the roots. She was silent, the bracing of her fingers against the dirt the only sign of discomfort. Sasha was quite impressed, although, admittedly, a little worried. She knew it hurt, and she knew it wasn't a gentle sting either. Her hair was a contorted mess, and Sasha had been methodically tugging on sensitive roots for quite some time. No one, especially no one that young, should have stayed silent the entire time; it should have elicited a response, even an instinctive one, and the lack of connection to the pain symbolized a level of retreat Sasha had been hoping she'd escaped. Conservatism was noteworthy, but stoicism in such a young child suggested a burdensome internal pain. Childhood was supposed to be the time when pain was gathered unabashedly, with no fear of future consequences, only concerned with moment to moment aches and bruises. Children weren't supposed to be afraid of the pain yet, weren't supposed to completely understand the give and take relationship, and shouldn't force themselves to swallow the urge to cry out if need be.
"Jilly, hand me some of that long grass over there, will you? I'm going to braid your hair tonight so the tangles don't work their way back by morning." The words had left Sasha's mouth before they'd registered with her mind, and she bit back a scream of disappointment. She'd been doing so well, forgetting, compartmentalizing. It felt so good to say that name again. But yet, this was a little girl too, a little girl who had just heard all about Sasha's sister and perhaps wouldn't understand that Sasha wasn't going to sacrifice this child in order to recreate the sister she had lost. She was a little girl, too, someone else entirely, not Jilly. It just felt so good to say her name.
Sasha felt all the air leave her lungs as one tiny hand gently placed three long stalks of grass into her open palm. Blue eyes blinked up at her, waiting, blissfully unaware of the battlefield of emotions inside Sasha's mind.
"Who's Jilly?" Dara's voice sliced through the heavy silence and Sasha wasn't sure if she was relieved or disappointed. Dara's arms were overflowing with wood, a curtain of wide leaves threatening to spill onto the ground, and she shuffled forward with the gait of someone who was exhausted but trying to hide it.
"Just-just a girl I used to know." Sasha stammered, her hands still braiding the little girl's hair as her eyes tried to conceal memories of an entire lifetime. Those memories belonged to her, and she wanted to hoard them greedily, guard them from even harmlessly inquisitive minds. "I was just talking to her, since you pulled the macho act and decided to fight the entire forest by yourself, and the name came up. I think she likes it."
"We have to call her something, at least until she's ready to tell us her real name." Dara unloaded her arms a few paces from Sasha, the noise of logs smacking against hardened dirt echoing even as she walked forward and knelt down in front of the little girl.
"Your hair looks beautiful. Sasha did a gorgeous job." Dara ran her hands along the long braid, surprised to see hair where before there had been knots and tangles. She looked younger, somehow, even more like a child. Dara could swear she saw a smile, a hint of pleasure and pride, but it lingered for a moment before disappearing beneath wide blinking eyes. The small hand stroked her doll's leg, not quite grasping it, reassuring herself it was there. That perhaps change wasn't inevitable.
"Is Jilly alright with you, honey?" Dara asked softly. She felt funny, naming a child who knew herself, called herself, something else. But having a name was the first step to belonging somewhere, to feeling apart of something, and Dara ached to crack the silent shell. There was a little girl buried inside there somewhere, under the fear and the ghostly memories, and Dara wanted to let her free. "You don't have to talk if you don't want to, but it's your name, so I need you to nod if you like it. If you want it to be your name, until you're ready to share your real one with us. Can you do that?"
It was a short nod, not quite curt as much hasty but its message was clear. Jilly it was, then. Sasha had been rather ambivalent before, when Dara had first returned, but there was a smile on her face now. A smile she hadn't even known she wanted. It wasn't her Jilly, she knew that, understood that explicitly, but in a way it was like bringing part of her sister back into the world.
Dara smiled widely and nodded her head a few times too before standing up and turning to face Sasha. "My snares worked faster than I'd thought. I'm going to get a fire started and then go get the rabbit ready. Try and get her to face you; I didn't want to bring it back with me incase she saw it, and I want to make sure she doesn't see what's going into the dinner."
Sasha nodded and kicked at the ground with her unhurt leg, trying to gain enough leverage to hoist herself a few inches higher so she could grab ahold of the tree and pull herself the rest of the way onto her feet. She wasn't a complete idiot, she knew that traipsing around in the forest was a little past her capacity at the moment, but surely she could get the fire started. She just had to get over there first.
Dara, already on her way back to the pile of firewood, turned around at the noise. "What are you doing?"
"Trying to get up on my feet."
"Yes, I see that. Sit back down. You're going to hurt yourself even worse."
"I can make a damn fire, thank you, I still have two hands." Sasha snapped angrily as she flopped back down to the ground. The added weight had brought the throbbing back from a dull roar to a clawing shriek. She grudgingly had to admit getting up on her feet was a rather painful and counterintuitive process. Perhaps inching over there was a better option? It wasn't that far.
"Why are you so damn stubborn?" Dara kicked the burgeoning fire pit with exasperation and stalked over to Sasha until they could stare angrily at each other eye to eye.
"I don't like being treated like a child. I'm not useless, and I shouldn't have to sit here the entire day while you run off and do all the work. I can take care of myself."
"I know you can take care of yourself. You're too stubborn to have accepted help from anyone else. But just because you can do something doesn't mean you always have to. Why can't you just accept that you're hurt, and I wanted to let you rest? It's not a stupid punishment, you half-wit; I was trying to help."
"I'm not very good at accepting help." Sasha said softly, narrowing her eyes a bit when Dara snorted in response. "I'm used to doing things by myself. I've-I've been alone a long time." Dara patted Sasha on the hand a few times, and smiled when Sasha patted hers back.
"You can start by saying thank you and sitting your butt down when I say so. We both know that leg is going to take time to heal, Sasha, so sit here, play with Jilly, and let me help out a little."
"You have twigs in your hair." Sasha muttered. "And there's rope or something around your wrist. Did you make a snare or eat one?"
"Shut up."
Sasha's lip twitched upward and she bit back a grin. "Thank you."
"Welcome."
TBC…