#rott extras

Wilhelmina

Qora was young when she first met the strange Wilhelmina; barely an adult, and still a naive child. Because although her bones ached every day from the hard labour helping her father, and the scars still showed from the many times the other kids pushed her into the stream, she thought that all would be better if she just prayed. And pray she did. To Golding for strength of body and warmth of heart, to Lysandr to be strong in the face of adversity, to Wykk so that those that harmed her would never see the pain she felt each night.

It was on a hot summer’s eve, aiding her father in chopping wood for the hearth, when she met Wilhelmina for the first time. She stood at the outskirts of the forest surrounding the village, an inscrutable look on her pale white face. Her shawl was in tatters—though that could have been the fashion of the time—and her old dress hung loosely on her wiry frame as if dressing a corpse. The young half-elf thought she was looking at a spirit at first, until her father let out a shout.

“Oi, Mina, what are ye doing ou’side wit’out yer ma?” His voice was strained as he cautiously approached, a soft breeze blowing her long ginger curls into her face. And yet she did not move. Qora remembered thinking about her soft-looking, pillowy lips, her thick eyebrows, the freckles across her nose. It was a beautiful thought. A beautiful thought which she promptly pushed to the back of her mind. After all, the wood was heavy and it was giving her splinters.

Qora let out a groan as she dropped the chafing logs into the basket, rubbing at her naked arms in regret as she came away covered in a blotchy red rash. Her father was returning with the strange young woman in tow, leading her gently by the wrist. She looked even more frail up close, her hazel eyes were sunken in and dull, her pale cheeks gaunt. Her wrists and ankles looked purple. Everything was the epitome of a dead girl walking. And yet she breathed.

“Kit,” Qora’s father said in his gruff tones, giving her a ruffle of the hair as they met at the woodpile once again. He gestured to the young woman, barely could she be older than herself, and gently coaxed her forward. “This is, uhm, Mina. She, er, she’s sick today so I need ye t’ take her back home. Ye know Fletch’s home?”

Qora nodded, how could she not, and looked at the frail young woman again. Her hair hung down over her eyes, cascading past her shoulders and to her hips. It looked soft, Qora thought. Again, she pushed that thought away. Was the healer her mother? But she had never crossed paths with Mina on her countless trips, and they looked nothing alike. The healer was a dark-skinned dwarf woman, for starters.

“I can go,” Qora confirmed, sputtering when her father forced the two girl’s hands together with a stern, ‘Don’t lose her. And scream if anything happens.’

It was about halfway down the dirt path into the village that the young girl finally spoke. “I’m Wilhelmina. Not Mina.” It was a soft, heaved breath of air at first and Qora wasn’t entirely sure she had heard anything. After all, up until that point, she wasn’t entirely sure the strange girl even could talk.

“Huh? What?” Qora thought that, maybe, it was another ambush from the kids of the town, but when no one tackled her to the ground and gave her a black eye, she slowly turned to the red-haired wonder. Their hands were still entwined. “Was that you?”

“My name isn’t Mina,” She said again, weakly but surely. Her thick eyebrows were curved downward in what Qora could only describe as an attempt at a frown. “It’s Wilhelmina.”

“But-“

“No one is allowed to call me ‘Mina’ it’s a stupid name for stupid people.” Wilhelmina looked away, the tips of her ears and nose going pink. And then she promptly snatched her hand back, holding it to her side as if trying to keep something inside. They continued walking.

Qora noticed after a few long bounds that Wilhelmina had lagged behind and as she spun to stare at the young woman. Her legs quivered with each step, her skin somehow only looking paler in the sun. Qora returned just in time to catch her. And yet the girl struggled.

“Let me go I can stand on my own!” Wilhelmina’s forearm collided sharply with Qora’s collarbone but the half-elf, despite her stature, was much stronger than the frail little girl. She managed to force her into a loose bear hug, holding Wilhelmina to her chest as she kicked and flailed and screeched. But like the rest of her, all her actions were somehow slower, somehow brittle and fragile.

“Calm down!” Qora tried, but when her nose was hit by the back of Wilhelmina’s head all she could do was curse, holding the girl tighter as she fell backwards to the ground. Somewhere in the scuffle, Qora hit her head, dust and stone pouring from her mouth as the girl struggled away. Perhaps she blacked out. But only for a moment. And when she came to, Wilhelmina was crouched barely a meter away, peering at her through a veil of red. Qora cursed again.

“I can’t stand.” Wilhelmina said slowly, her lips forming around the words and not quite saying them right. It was as if her tongue was too big for her mouth. Qora moved to sit, but a sharp pain in her head caused her to slump back down on the dusty road. She groaned, curling up into as small a ball as possible. There was some shuffling as a weak body drew close. Even at such a close proximity, Wilhelmina felt cold. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine.” It wasn’t fine. Qora wanted to yell and scream and kick out like Wilhelmina had done the moment before but she had long since learnt that protesting is weakness. She wished it was the product of growing up with a father. She wished it was learnt in theory, not in practice.

“I’m burning,” Came the soft voice from beside her, weak and fragile and quaking like the mountains in the winter. Like Qora sounded when she was about to cry. Qora opened her eyes and looked to the mass of red hair hunched beside her. The white skin on her naked arms was peeling and flaking in the sun’s heat, the top of her hand blistering as direct light passed over it. Qora shot up, groaning as the vertigo kicked in and the world spun around her.

“What are you?” Qora found herself asking, struggling to her feet with an odd calmness and gently taking the girl’s hand once again. She slowly directed them both to the shade of Old Farmer Jack’s big shed. Wilhelmina slumped to the ground again, curling up into a ball and burying her face in her knees. In just a few seconds, the blistering healed over, leaving naught but redness in the area that previously looked infected.

“I’m sorry,” Wilhelmina could only repeat, but Qora didn’t process her words as she slumped down beside the girl, her insides churning as her vision faded then returned. When she had acclimatised herself once again, Qora looked to the frail creature shivering in her place. Wilhelmina looked back. Her pupils were dilated like the moon, barely showing a sliver of the unnatural green of her eyes, her skin more pallid and sweating red. Then Qora’s gaze fell to her mouth. Biting deeply into her bottom lip was a mouthful of knife-like teeth, sinking in deeper and deeper until the ends came out the other side. It was as if the girl was in a trance, her body swaying from side to side as the world around them faded into nothingness.

“Wilhelmina!” There was a shout and the two young girls jumped from their respective trances. Fletch, the stout woman came barrelling between the two, separating them before inspecting Qora first before the pallid girl clearly in need of treatment for… something. Qora pushed off the dwarf, squaring her jaw and insisting that she was fine! Without a word, Fletch moved onto the thinner girl, thrusting a dark cloth against her mouth and muttering, “Hide it.”

Wilhelmina looked normal again. Or as close to normal as was possible for someone such as she. She blinked and suddenly her eyes were no longer huge saucers, her hair falling over her face so all that Qora could see were hands and a cloth pressed against her chin. Fletch took one of Wilhelmina’s wrists harshly and spun to face the young half-elf. There was a calculating glare on her face.

“Don’t tell anyone.” Qora didn’t plan to. It would only make her more of a target. And besides, everyone knew the village healer was crazy, so logic stated that anyone who associated with her was also crazy. Instead of biting back, Qora simply nodded.

Before Fletch and Wilhelmina left, stumbling down the road to the healer’s cottage, the young red-head gave Qora a look. One that had meaning behind a blank stare. They would meet again.