Refuge

Writers: Yvonne
Date Posted: 3rd March 2014

Characters: Vell
Description: Vell finds an abandoned cot in the woods
Location: Elsewhere on Pern
Date: month 5, day 9 of Turn 7
Notes: Follows Lost

Vell scratched at her itching, insect-bitten skin and glanced up at the sun. It was late in the afternoon. The sun would set in three candlemarks or so, and she was exhausted. And hungry. And still the stream bed kept winding on, smaller now and littered with fallen leaves and sticks. She sighed. "Around the next bend, Itch. Then we'll camp and I'll figure out what to do for tomorrow."

No food, and jungle everywhere. The bandits weren't likely to follow her this far upstream, so she should be able to camp the night in safety. But tomorrow... tomorrow she would have to go back. Perhaps if she followed her own footsteps until she saw where she'd dismounted, and then strike off into the jungle from there... if the bandits were waiting for her, she might miss them. Or get completely turned around and never find the road again.

Itch tripped, and Vell winced. "One more bend," she said soothingly. "Just one more."

When they reached the bend, Vell sighed in relief. As she'd hoped, there was a little grassy clearing that had been a sand spit in the spring and summer when the stream was lively and quick. Now it was grown over. She led Itch onto it and pulled her backpack from the saddle, then undid Itch's girth. The runner sighed in relief as she bent to place the saddle on some grass. Then stopped.

There were wagon tracks. Unmistakable. Two parallel lines ran from the sandy spit into the jungle, but they were old-- ghosts of what they used to be. Vell straightened and squinted into the trees. If there was a road, it had to lead to somewhere. But the way was overgrown and barely visible in the grasses and vines. She looked at Itch. "Want to come for a walk?"

The runner's ears swivelled towards her at the sound of her voice, and Vell took that as a 'yes'. She left the saddle and pack where she'd dropped them, and taking Itch's reins led him into the trees. The moment she stepped beneath the canopy the air was cooler. Vegetation slapped at her face and thighs as she pushed through, and she had to tug Itch along. The runner wanted to nibble on everything green around them. A few steps in she lost the parallel wagon tracks and had to stop, squinting between the tree branches to find the way. There-- a slight clearing, a path between the trees that shouldn't be there. And up a slight rise...

Her heart beat a little faster. There was a cot, clearly long abandoned. Perhaps a remnant of the plague that had decimated Pern in her grandparents' time. There were holes in the slate roof and the windows had long lost their glass, if they'd ever had glass to begin with. The door hung akimbo on rusted hinges and grass grew up between what she could now see used to be careful flagstones.

Vell tied Itch to a tree to make sure that he wouldn't wander off, then approached the cot. "Hello?" she said, her voice sounding alien in the still of the woods. There was no reply, but she hadn't really expected one. She picked up a stick to brush the spinner webs from the entrance to the cot, then pushed the door open.

The inside smelled like tunnelsnakes and mold, and was dappled with sunlight from the hole in the roof. A table stood in the centre of what was a one-room cot, heaped with grime and what looked like a pair of earthenware mugs. There were shelves on the wall heaped with rotten goods and a rusting iron stove against the far wall. Something rustled in the corner and Vell jumped. A tunnelsnake, maybe.

Vell laughed at her own jumpiness. There was nothing here, and no one. She took a cautious step inside, then another. A chair had fallen onto its side, so she righted it and set it at the table. There was a candlestick there too, half buried in leaves that had blown in. There was an alcove in the wall heaped with dirty, rotted blankets that had been torn by something. Vell walked over and cautiously lifted a corner with her stick, and a trundlebug ran out. She squealed and stepped back. The heel of her boot hit something. She looked down and gasped.

It was a jaw bone. A human jaw bone, broken in two. She knelt beside it, noticing the puncture marks that sunk into the bone. A wild feline, probably. **Who were you?** she thought, suddenly nervous.

The bone was bleached and dry, and a green lichen crawled across the inner crevasses. It had obviously been there for a long time. The cot had been abandoned for decades, too, judging by the dirt on the floor and the plants growing in the corner. Decades or longer. And there were no feline tracks... were there? Suddenly worried, Vell got to her feet and paced to the door. The dirt was marred by nothing except her own boot prints. Still worried, she paced out across the cracked flagstones in widening circles. She walked around the back of the abandoned cot, then gasped. A garden!

...Or rather, the remains of one. A sickly redfruit tree, a patch of what looked like blackberries, and greens growing wild amid the weeds and saplings. Still cautious, Vell approached the redfruit tree and picked the first fruit that came to hand, eagerly peeling it and biting into the sweet flesh. The juice ran down her hands and chin, and she licked her fingers clean. Her stomach growled in approval. With no food in her pack, the garden was a gift.

She wandered back around the side of the cot, still searching the ground for feline prints, but found nothing. The garden, the cot, the stream nearby... "Let's stay here tonight," Vell said to Itch. "And maybe tomorrow. Threadfall's tomorrow, and even though it's green as anything here, it's still a roof over our heads. What do you say?"

The runner said nothing, but his ears were pricked toward her. He was standing at ease, and there was a strand of long grass sticking out of the corner of his mouth. Vell giggled and pulled it free. A roof over their heads and something to eat-- they were a long way from that morning.

Last updated on the March 6th 2014

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Refuge