Some NC/R themes. Loosely based off Hansel and Gretel, but their imagined ages are 20-24. Thank you for reading!
-
"Could you slow down?" I called after her. She barely looked back, leaping forward and latching onto an impossibly small ledge.
"Damn monkey," I muttered to myself as she pulled herself up. I didn't boast the physical prowess she did, and it made me feel just a bit small as I went the long way around. It was always like that, whenever it was me and Greta.
"You have only yourself to blame for not exercising more." She'd stopped and was waiting for me on the path. That made it feel worse, and I glowered as I walked towards her.
"And if I weren't as good of a shot as I am, we'd have been starving. So I'd stay quiet." I rearranged my quiver so it lay right, my arrows giving a clatter of complaint on my back.
"And I'll be the one to save us, should we run into trouble." She turned and continued her quick pace.
I rolled my eyes but said nothing more, partly because I couldn't come up with anything biting to respond with. Not that I could have ever admitted that.
Greta had a way of moving about without ever casting a glance back to me. It'd always been so, even since we were children. It'd ceased to bother me after the time when we'd been chased by a wildebeest and I'd fallen down. She was much faster and had already been halfway back to the house when she noticed. Before I knew it, she'd returned to pull me out of the way of its charge, finding a thick piece of wood to swing at it until it turned tail and fled.
That was my younger sister. Fast, a little self-absorbed, but somehow still she always found a way to take care of me. So I never complained.
Her movements were light, as if she were always ready to run off should something come bounding out of the forest. Strapped to her back are her battle axes, large things that she always kept wickedly sharp. They looked so out of place on her back, because for all her strength, she really was small. She stood at least a head and a half shorter than me, but it never really felt that way.
She was just larger than life.
I was her opposite in many ways. Where she was rigid, I was pliable. Where she was fiery, I was calm. I would've even likened us to chaos and order, were she not to detest me for the description.
I had no idea how we'd turned out that way, but we did. And, it'd been serving us well on our journey so far.
Other than a man at an inn who'd tried to get too handsy with her (and had backed off once she threatened to remove his hands from his wrists), we hadn't yet encountered much. It'd left even me feeling restless. That was one thing that both Greta and I agreed on: we both thirsted for adventure.
That was why after the witch that married our father chased us away from home, we joined the Adventurers' Guild. I'd wanted to take on missions that paid well despite being easy enough, but she'd scoffed, calling me weak. When she threatened to go on dangerous missions anyways, whether I wanted to or not, I'd had no choice but to begrudgingly follow her.
After a few years of successful missions, we'd made a comfortable living. But neither of us liked to sit still for too long, so when adventurers began talking about an impossible task, she had been the first to volunteer us.
I sighed, watching Greta's braids swing back and forth above her shoulders.
I wasn't the happiest to be here. There'd already been four other attempts, and none of them had returned. The odds seemed pretty bad to me, but she'd just scoffed and said, "But we're better than them." And that had been the end of that.
A movement to the left caught my attention, and immediately I had an arrow notched and ready.
"Reveal yourself." I said.
"Please don't shoot!"
I lowered my bow.
"What is a child doing in the middle of the Barren Woods?" Greta lowered her axes.
"I'm sorry," said the little boy. His eyes were red and he'd obviously been crying. "I've been lost for days, and I'm so hungry..."
Greta and I exchanged a look, and after a moment she let out a little sigh as I pulled out a pack of dried meat. "We don't carry much with us."
"Wait." She said. When I looked at her with disbelief, she jerked her head to the side.
The child remained in place, watching us as we huddled together.
"I think we should keep going." She started.
"Greta, that's a child. He's going to starve and die unless we help him."
"Something about it stinks," she said, wrinkling her nose. "He's alone, this deep in the forest?"
"Like parents have never dropped children in the middle of the woods before?" I smiled grimly, and she looked away without a word.
"That's not what I meant."
"We only made it out back then because Ephris found us."
"I know." She snapped. "But I'm allowed to have my instincts, aren't I?"
"Yes, my darling sister." I said with exaggerated patience. "But all the same, if we leave this boy now I don't think I'll be able to live with myself."
I saw her thinking, her dark eyes flicking back and forth between me and the boy.
"Fine," she spat. "If we lose out on the reward for this, it's on your head."
I didn't say aloud what I wanted to, which was that there certainly wasn't anyone else competing with us. The rumors had become more and more outlandish, and I was sure that only someone foolish would embark on the adventure. Or maybe two foolish someones.
Either way, with her reluctant permission, I walked back towards the child and knelt down, holding the dried meat out for him.
He took a small step forward and accepted it, giving me a tearful smile. "Thank you kindly, sir. Really."
"Of course." I said. When he took the meat from my hand and began chewing on it, I turned to my sister. "See?"
"Hayes!" She screamed, hefting up her axe.
At the same time, the boy yelled. "I'm sorry!"
I fell to the ground, all the breath sucked out of me. A terrible burning sensation had started in my side, and was slowly crawling across my body.
"No no no no--" I heard her more than I saw her, my eyes closed against the pain. I belatedly realized that the wheezing I heard was coming from me.
"Hayes," she shook my shoulder, but I couldn't do anything but keep my body clenched against the burning that was accumulating at my fingertips.
And then I felt it. Something was going to happen, something completely wrong.
With the little oxygen I had left in my lungs, I croak out. "Go."
"What the--" I heard the spray of gravel from the path as she scrambled away from me.
