Author's Note: Welcome back, dear audience, and apologies for the long wait. Our lighthearted misadventure begins here, though I would recommend any new readers first check out the brief prologue published a little while back. Not essential, but still. Now for the disclaimers. This story features content with dubious consent at most (and probably some offensive language). Rape is wrong. Don't do it. Everyone knows this. If you don't enjoy stories with this kind of content, don't read them and don't whine about them in the comments. All characters who engage in sexual conduct are of age. Now, on with the show.
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The day our heroines' collective fate began its drift towards the unthinkable was born much like any other. When the company awoke and broke camp it was under clear skies with the mighty sun just cresting over the Eastern horizon. As they set out the same gentle breeze that had whispered them to sleep the eve before still held sway, but that was to change within the hour. The first sign of trouble came when the distant horizon grew dark and hazy, an onrushing tempest casting a shadow over the land. From then it wasn't long before the winds began to build, slowly at first but rising ever faster. By midday the very air had been whipped into a frenzy and a seemingly boundless armada of ominous thunderheads grew closer by the minute.
Silke, the party's lightfingered thief, walked at the head of the company alongside their elf-blooded huntress Keire, the two girls typically entrusted at the vanguard as between them they could boast the sharpest eyes and ears in the party. Sharpest in this case referring to the sensitivity of their ears, of course, not the unusually pointy shape of the the huntress's. Silke, whose ears appeared perfectly normal for a human though they were quite sensitive as well, was having a particularly unpleasant time. Her choppy black hair was even wilder than normal, each and every gust rearranging it into a newer, madder pattern as the shivering young woman clutched her bare arms tight around her exposed midriff, a vain effort to stave off the wind's harsh bite.
After glancing once more towards the encroaching thunderheads, a move she had been repeating at an ever-increasing rate over the past hour, Silke finally turned towards her companion to voice those concerns they both surely shared. "How much farther is it to the next village, Keire?" Even with the scout just a few measly feet away, Silke had to raise her voice to be heard over the roaring gusts.
"I'm not sure," the archer returned her companion's grim look as she too strained to be heard. "Two miles, maybe more."
"We'll never make that in time," the thief shouted back, an undeniable hint of dread creeping into her voice at the prospect of being caught out in the kind of torrent that was due to arrive any minute. From the expression on her face it was clear the archer wasn't keen on the prospect either. Silke hadn't gotten to know Keire quite as well as she had some of the other members of their party, her fellow scout wasn't exactly the most talkative of women, but spending a good chunk of each day walking out front together had given her enough experience to read her comrade's expressions at the least. Right then the huntress's face showed more than a little worry, and if the woman who had spent more time in the wilderness than all her comrades put together was concerned, well, Silke wasn't about to question her.
"No, we won't," Keire agreed. "And it won't take a storm like that long to turn this track into a mudpit. Once that happens we might as well be crawling." Silke groaned at the prospect of being bogged down further, the sound swallowed up by the winds before it could reach even her own ears.
"Then what's the plan? Will the forest give us cover?" No sooner had the words fled Silke's mouth than her wide-eyed companion began to vigorously shake her head, the motion setting her long brown ponytail aflutter.
"No way! The forest would be suicide," the huntress shouted. "We'd still be soaked to the bone within the hour and it'll get so dark in there you can't see your nose. Even if I managed to keep us from getting lost we'd be helpless against whatever beast we stumbled across first." Silke felt herself shuddering at the thought, it certainly sounded like a nightmare. Specifically a recurring nightmare from her childhood which had always begun with her wandering lost through the woods, evolved into a terrifying chase by a monster she could never remember by the time she woke up, and then culminated in a whimsical dinner party under a dead oak tree at which her own left leg was the main course. Naturally, that was an experience she had little desire to reenact in her waking hours. Especially the dinner party. Frogs shouldn't sing, that just wasn't natural. More than a little shaken by the sudden reminder of a trauma far in her past, Silke was about to repeat her first question only for Keire to cut her off before she could, nodding emphatically towards a cluster of craggy hills they had been approaching for some time. "Our best bet is in there. Find a leeward outcropping to hide behind or, goddesses willing, some kind of cave."
"I would kill for a cave right now," Silke shouted, her fellow scout nodding in agreement. Next to the prospect of being caught out in a thunderstorm even the dingiest of caves would have seemed practically a palace. Not that she had ever minded being underground half so much as most humans seemed to. The cramped spaces and damp air were nothing compared to some of the spots she had been forced to squat growing up on the streets. And as to the dark, well, a thief does her best work at night. Burglary, pickpocketing, mugging, it all came easier when one could fade away into the darkness the moment the deed was done.
"You might have to," Keire warned. "Any cave large and dry enough for us is liable to have something gnarly living in it." There was a flash of something painful in the huntress's eyes at that warning, but Silke didn't catch it. She knew nothing about the first time her friend had been forced to take a life, that of a ragged outlaw whose den she had unwittingly sought refuge in and whose intentions towards her quickly proved anything but honourable.
"Ugh, one bridge at a time, Keire. I'm going to fall back and tell the rest of the girls to pick up the pace. Those hills look pretty far away." Silke's companion just nodded in agreement as the thief turned to walk back the way they had come. The rest of their company was clustered together some thirty paces back of the scouts, far enough that it took a few moments before they could be heard over the wind.
Estelle, the tall lady-knight who had been responsible for gathering their party, strode at the front of the pack, her face set firmly in an emotionless grimace. Silke wouldn't have said she was fond of their supposed leader, per se, but the redhead was at least more tolerable than most highborns. She didn't actively talk down to those around her and had paid half of the coin she promised up front, so she was alright in Silke's books. Not that she wouldn't still pick the woman's pocket when they parted ways.
"What's the news?" the tall redhead asked as soon as Silke was within shouting range. She never had been a particularly patient sort.
"Keire thinks we can find shelter in those hills, but we need to pick up the pace if we want to make it before the storm hits." That wasn't exactly what the huntress had said, perhaps, but a street orphan like Silke had once been learns fast that hope is a far better motivator than despair.
