“Are your pirates nice, then?”
“Nope.” He shook his head immediately. “And they’re dangerously incompetent.”
“Well, then I guess it’s for the best. I think things will work out just fine here for a little while longer until someone comes from Galland to retrieve me.”
“Do you like it there? In Galland?”
“Not really.” She shrugged. “Do you like Cormoran?”
“Not really.”
“Ah.” She paused for a beat. “Do you find yourself paradoxically both sexually attracted and at the same time completely terrified by your captor? And if so, would you please sign a consent form to be part of my research study in order to supply me with a wider sample size of subjects? I need more data.”
No one said anything for a breath.
“Wow.” Ryle mouthed in wonder. “Okay. Good.” He sounded amazed for some reason. “I’m glad we had this talk. Let’s just sit quietly now, okay?”
“I’m Badroulbadour.” The woman who arrived with the pirates but who now wanted to stay in the camp announced. “I was… well, I was basically held hostage by my mother for the longest time, and then kidnapped and taken prisoner by barbarians, but then I found the love of my life.” She sighed with deep emotion. “My darling Xiphos.”
“Yep. The forty-five minutes you’ve known him have all been just magical.” Ryle commended sarcastically. “Sooo many memories.” He turned to Tandy. “Not to tell you how to do your science thing, but Dory would be an awesome participant in your study. She didn’t even have time to bond with her kidnapper before deciding she wanted to sex him up.”
Tandy pursed her lips in thought. That was actually an excellent suggestion.
They fell into silence again.
The dark-haired girl started fiddling with the stones around the spring and yanked out a smooth rock, paying no attention to the fact that its removal caused the water to slow to a trickle and divert in a new direction. It would probably soon render the entire pool unusable and thus destroy a vital and necessary resource for the community. People could die as a result.
The woman didn’t seem to care. She started to sharpen her stolen blade on the wet stone, producing a rather ominous and frightening scraping sound, like she was imagining all the people she would soon kill with it.
Ryle watched her silently, almost hypnotized by the creepy ritual.
The girl noticed she had drawn his attention and stopped her sharpening. Her eyes narrowed at him and her hand tightened on the weapon, as if both bracing for Ryle’s imminent attack and also warning him off.
Ryle let out an amazed breath. “Wow. You folks have been out in the desert too long.”
The girl went back to sharpening.
Ryle rested his arms out on the rocks behind him. “Hey, Scary Basket Case Lady? Are you a princess, by chance?”
“No.” The dark-haired woman looked up at him, unfazed by the non sequitur. “Are you?”
He ignored that and turned to Tandy. “Are you a princess?”
Tandy considered that for a moment. “I’ve been kidnapped by the ruler of The Wasteland, does that count?”
“Yeah, I’ll count that.” He made a helpless gesture with his hands, like he completely expected that answer. “See? Every single woman I meet ends up being royalty. Or decides to kidnap me. Some princesses do both. What are the odds of that?”
Tandy shrugged. “I don’t have access to enough research at the moment to provide an educated estimate on that. Sorry.”
The dark-haired woman ignored them, remaining focused on her knife. She ran her finger down the edge, testing its sharpness, then went back to work.
Tandy smiled at her friendlily. “I’m sorry, we haven’t really gotten to talk to each other, what with the abduction and all.” She waved at her. “Greetings! What is your name?”
“Why do you want to know my name?” The woman stopped her sharpening and eyed Tandy suspiciously. She started to practice with the weapon absently, flipping it and spinning it from hand to hand. It showed an astonishing level of skill and dexterity. “What? Are you writing a book or something?”
Tandy nodded proudly. “Yes, actually. Although, right now, it’s just an academic paper on how the Wastelandi culture influences its linguistic structure and feelings of sexual tension vis-à-vis capture enslavement as a method of establishing romantic pair-bonds.”
The knife spun out of the woman’s hand and fell to the sand unnoticed. Instead, she slowly turned to look at Tandy, her brow furrowed in a perfect expression of confusion.
“You have very expressive eyebrows.” Tandy observed, complementing the woman.
The woman frowned slightly, the thin line of her lips turning down at the corners. Tandy could almost see the woman’s every thought as it went through her brain and was immediately translated onto her face. First trying to decide if Tandy’s complement was an insult, then determining what other hidden meaning it could have, then finally the girl’s eyebrows went up in a universal signal of “Okaaaay… weird.” She picked up her knife again.
“Okaaaay.” The woman nodded, her lips now forming a resigned pout. “So, you’ve obviously lost your mind already.” She started to look pleased for some reason. “Good. That means I don’t have to drag your green ass along with me when I escape. Not that I was really planning to bring you, but it certainly makes things easier.”
“She made me do things…” The man doing Noxii’s laundry told the group quietly, sounding haunted by the memory of whatever Noxii had done with him in bed. “Forbidden things…”
“Oh, quit your whining.” Ryle made a dismissive face. “I’d much rather be treated like a living sex toy by a tough warrior lady than I would march to my death with asshole pirates. Man up, dude. I’ve seen your captor, okay? Shut up. There are worse fates than being forced to pleasure a beautiful woman every night. In fact, that’s rather hot.” He pointed at the man to drive the point home. “A lot of guys would love to be in your shoes right now, pal. I’d gladly trade kidnappers.”
The man started crying.
Ryle rolled his eyes contemptuously.
“That’s a double standard.” Tandy observed. “You’re ignoring this poor man’s right to choose who to be with.”
“Yep.” Ryle nodded. “It’s called ‘being a guy.’” He waved a dismissive hand. “And from a strictly personal standpoint, I’d like to point out that that dude is a Galland soldier. And Galland is an ally of Baseland, who pretty much killed everyone I ever knew and loved in the world. So you’ll have to excuse me if I don’t exactly lose any sleep over this mopey asshole’s sad plight. He deserves soooo much worse than being forced to screw a hot barbarian lady in inventive ways.” He leaned his head back against the rock. “Besides, you’re just as bad, Miss ‘I’m going to write erotic fiction about my kidnapper and I.’”
“It’s not ‘fiction,’ it’s a legitimate scientific study, which only happens to also be erotic. And it’s completely different.”
“All I’m saying is that life is really, really shitty. So if a warrior lady finds you hot, I say fuck her brains out, whether she considers you property or not. Frankly, at this point in my life, I could use some utterly meaningless sex.” He swallowed, sounding emotional for a moment. “I’ve… I’ve had the other kind. And it hurts too much when she’s not there anymore.” He cleared his throat. “Sadly, as for me, I don’t find myself attracted to my kidnapper in the least. Uriah is not my type at all. I want to feel special, you know? But he’s just a serial kidnapper. He’s not ready to commit.” He nodded. “But, to be honest… yeah, I’d totally sleep with his partner Ransom though, if that were on the table. She’s pretty. And really mean and bitchy to people, but in a hot way. But I don’t think that feeling is a result of us bonding, so much as a result of me being a man and her being… you know… stacked, smart, and pretty as hell.” He put his hands behind his head. “Emotionally, no. But physical? Sure. Why not. But that’s not even a remote possib
ility, because she’s head-over-heels for Uriah. Seriously. They’re kinda friend-zoned at the moment, but they’re like… creepily in love. It makes me hate them even more than I already do.” He paused. “They’re terrible people. It’s not fair that terrible people find happiness while the rest of us…” He trailed off.
The dark-haired woman started to tuck her weapon into her boot to hide it, then stood up so that she could see if the knife was visible to passersby or not.
“How about you, Basket Case Lady?” Ryle smiled in amusement. “Have you found yourself smitten with any of your enslavers yet? Which captor have ya got your eye on? Come on, spill.”
The woman yanked down the cuff of her baggy blue-grey pants in anger. “That old man comes near me? I’m going to cut his balls off.” She vowed darkly. “He might be used to women throwing themselves at him, but I’m not one of them.”
“I don’t think that’s his intention or desire.” Tandy volunteered, feeling the need to defend Kobb for some reason. “At all. I think he’s just friendly, not trying to... umm… get involved or become your suitor or anything. And even if it were somehow his ultimate goal, I’m having a hard time imagining that he’d try to force you into anything.” She nodded in certainty. “He doesn’t… umm… fancy you. I think he’s simply trying to help you, for no other reason than that. He’s a spiritual man and that’s his way.”
“’Spiritual man’?” The woman repeated, then scoffed at the words like they were a joke. “Let me tell you something: that one?” She pointed in the direction of Kobb’s tent. “That’s no holy man.” She slowly shook her head to drive the point home. “You see the way he stands? I spent my whole childhood around very dangerous men. Every day and night. You learn quick how to spot the worst ones, just so you can avoid them and save yourself a lot of pain. And that one?” She pointed towards Kobb’s tent again, her voice taking on a serious edge. “He holds himself like a killer. The worst kind of killer there is. Like a man who knows he’s the toughest sonofabitch in the world and is quietly making a plan to kill everyone he sees.” She snorted in contempt. “’Spiritual man.’ That bullshit is just camouflage to hide the blood. Hide what he is. What he does. What he wants.” She met Tandy’s eyes. “Trust me on this… he’s the most dangerous man you’ll ever meet, Greenie.”
Tandy swallowed, unconvinced but still unnerved by the woman’s tone. “Well, even if that were true, he still doesn’t seem so bad. Perhaps he’s…”
“I don’t care if he’s fucking Maritimus the Martyr.” The woman snapped sarcastically, referencing an ancient— and currently forbidden— Gallandish deity renowned for his compassion. “I didn’t join the army to be raped by some doddering barbarian. I don’t want him anywhere near me, no matter what you and the little pirate boy are thinking.” She nodded with certainty, twisting her iron ring around and around on her finger. “Understand?”
“’Little pirate boy’?” Ryle gasped in disbelief. “I’m not a pirate! Or a ‘boy’!”
“Leave the Pirate Boy alone.” Tandy admonished. “He’s not ‘little,’ he’s an entirely normal sized man.”
“That too!” The Pirate Boy agreed.
The dark-haired woman paid no attention, talking right over them. “If I wanted to be violated and murdered, I could have stayed at home.”
“And Kobb is in his mid-40s.” Tandy corrected. “At absolute most. He’s hardly ‘doddering.’”
“He’s fifty if he’s a day.” The girl retorted immediately, more in challenge than from an actual belief. She just wanted to be difficult and this seemed to be a favorite topic, for some reason. “I’ll lay odds on it.”
Tandy barely refrained from rolling her eyes, which took monumental effort and an incredible amount of professionalism. “Either way, I think he could still easily bench-press any man in Galland, and I don’t think that fact is in danger of changing anytime within the next few decades.”
“Who? The guy with the ponytail?” Ryle asked, then nodded. “Shit yeah. That guy would whoop my ass, no problem. And I’m like half his age and have spent most of my life fighting in a war.” He turned to look at the dark-haired girl in amazement. “That dude is trying to rape you?” He made a low sympathetic whistle. “Shit, lady. I don’t think that little knife is gonna be enough. You’d need like… a fucking dragon or something to take him down. And even then, I think you’d have to resign yourself to the inevitable.”
“I’m telling you, he’s not interested in her in that way.” Tandy insisted. “He’s just nice.”
“Men like that aren’t ‘nice.’ They’re just waiting for an opportunity to strike and then fuck your corpse.” The dark-haired girl was unfazed by Tandy’s logic, and sat back down by the water. “The second he closes his eyes?” She drew her finger across her throat in a mock slicing motion. “He’s a dead man. And then I’m gone. Come back here to lead the army up this plateau and exterminate these savages.”
Noxii’s hostage made a terrified sound. “I just need to exterminate these stains!” He cried, almost hysterical now. He started moving the scrub brush over the fabric so quickly and desperately that his hand was becoming difficult to see, it was just a blur of motion.
Tandy ignored him. “All I’m saying is that you have no one,” Tandy continued reasonably to the dark-haired girl, “so I don’t see why you can’t get along with Kobb while you’re here. Being friends isn’t difficult. He’s actually really easy to talk to. Except for the language barrier, obviously, which I’d be glad to help you with. But it would be very nice if you two could work on some kind of father-daughter bond.”
The girl’s head whipped back towards Tandy, glaring at her like she had just suggested to the woman that she try eating her own young. “That man is not my father.” She growled, sounding unreasonably insulted and genuinely pissed off over the idea. “I’m not fucking eight years old, Greenie! Just… just shut up about it. Whatever ‘bond’ you think I have with the ‘holy man’ exists only inside your stupid green head. Shut. Up.”
Ryle’s eyebrows rose in surprise, then he nodded. “Oooh… okay. I get you now.” He said, apparently coming to some conclusion about the woman. “Sorry. Took me a minute because I wasn’t expecting it.” He flashed an amused smile. “You’re just full of surprises, aren’t you? Wow.”
“Fuck off, Little Pirate Boy!” The dark-haired woman snapped, then refocused on Tandy. “I’m going to kill the old man and then I’m going to leave this horrible place.” She promised. “And burn it to the ground.” A slow smile of devious intent crossed her face as she imagined the scene. “Flowers and all.”
Tandy let out a long-suffering sigh.
The girl always seemed to be moving, even when sitting still. A being of pure energy and barely restrained ideas. Everything about her was impatient, passionate, physical, and brash. Done at a run, probably while screaming.
She made Tandy tired.
Luckily, the woman was almost always off doing violent things somewhere else, which meant Tandy didn’t spend a lot of time with her.
Tandy wasn’t really so much about the whole “doing things” thing.
Generally, she preferred reading about people who did things.
It was much easier.
“I need to vow revenge more.” Ryle decided after a moment’s pause, like it was the result of long deliberation. “Just start randomly threatening a campaign of bloody violence and retribution against complete strangers who irritate me. It sounds badass.” He pursed his lips in thought. “I need to sound more badass.”
“Step one: stop being a fucking idiot.” The dark-haired girl added for him.
Ryle stared at her for a moment, then started laughing cheerily. “Oh, this is so much fun.” He told the girl seriously, still amused over something. “I will never not love this. Seriously. Didn’t see it coming and now that it’s here? I mean…” He started his mocking laughter again, enjoying his private joke.
The girl’s eyes narrowed in irritation. “Shut up.”
She bit out warningly, which only made Ryle laugh louder. He positively chortled with glee.
Tandy began to suspect that something odd was going on, but she wasn’t sure what. In any case, she was undeterred by both Ryle’s weirdness and the woman’s negativity. Tandy was a diplomat, which was all about building bridges between people, even if the demented individuals in question only seemed to want to lurk under said metaphorical bridges, threatening passersby like a troll. “Well, fine then. I can be your friend.” She told the woman sunnily. “My name is Tandy.” She bowed her head respectfully. “Greetings.”
The girl turned to look at her like Tandy was a complete moron. “Oh, hurray.” She deadpanned. “I’ve met a fucking greenie named ‘Tandy.’” She stressed the name in a higher voice, as if it were somehow a joke. “And now I’ve made a real friend while kidnapped by the sex-crazed savages of ‘Team Wasteland.’” She made a mock “thinking” face. “Makes my looming brutal rape seem like a small price to pay for all that.” She let out an exaggerated breath and threw her hands up, like she were relaxing now that the decision was made and the crisis averted. “I guess… jeez… the only thing to do now is to braid each other’s hair and gossip about which of the cute Wasteland boys in the gang we hope fucks us in the ass next!”
Tandy pursed her lips in thought. “That’s… that’s sarcasm, correct? Because my hair has been very difficult due to this climate, truth told, and if you could offer...”
The girl leaned forward in frustrated aggravation, shaking her hands to drive the point home. “I don’t give a shit what your name is!” She pointed to the horizon. “I am outta here! I know what happens when women are treated as meat, and I want no part of it! So you can live in your sad little delusion about how pure their motivations are for fucking enslaving us, but I’VE GOT GODDAMNED SELF-RESPECT!”
They were all silent for a beat.
“I don’t even really have a brush.” Tandy continued calmly, still talking about hair. “You’d think someone here would have one. Personally? I think they’re hiding them all for some reason.”
Captive of a Fairytale Barbarian Page 14
