1
Bianca
Bianca nudged the snow-covered stone with the tip of her boot. She frowned at the way dirt clung to the underside in clumps. There was likely going to be all sorts of huge pill bugs and beetles underneath.
Normally, she would have screamed at the sight of insects. But Valspire had instructed all not to disturb the quiet with even too loud a breath while the Hyphae traveled through this part of the Whispering Woods. Their revered, all-knowing, benevolent director had repeated this sentiment to Bianca with a stern glare and a forceful poke with the blunt end of her staff. Nothing would interrupt their travels to perform for the Winter Solstices at the next six cities or so.
Thus, she chewed the corners of her mouth shut and swallowed a gagging feeling in her throat back as she nudged the stone again and shifted it enough for it to roll downhill, carving a path through the blanket of snow on the ground, and releasing a small swarm of insects to flee in all directions.
Behind her, Horace nickered, sniffing at the ground for any bit of vegetation.
“Shh, oh, you are not helping,” Bianca waved a hand at the impatient nag. She wasn’t supposed to be letting him snack on the job, but she couldn't handle both a horseandthe bugs. Besides, what sort of cruel person was anti-snack?
“Ew. Eww, ew, ewwwwww. Oh Silvan don’t let any of them come near me,” she mumbled, a small prayer to be saved from her current peril.
Horace gave a little snort, it sounded oddly judgemental and derisive, as if to say, ‘Whoever heard of a Halfling afraid of bugs!’
Look for mushrooms. Always look for mushrooms, always unpack the caravans, always repair costumes. It had been months since she’d been promised the chance to shine on stage, her dark skin glowing under the stage lights, her hair twisted with bright, gorgeous ribbons. It sounded marvelous, but she’d yet to even once experience it. Silvan forbid, Bianca be allowed to do anything else for their troupe. She’d only ever caught their campsite on fire once, and that was ages ago!
Valspire had spent the better part of an hour lecturing their traveling theater troupe about new rules for behavior in the Whispering Woods. ‘Be on your guard,’ the director had warned the lot with a glare, and Bianca had done her best impression of Val’s stern pout from just behind her. She only got caught when one of the younglings snorted. Child actors.
Valspire had continued, after a brief recess, to reprimand Bianca that there were a great many things to fear in the Whispering Woods. Things that a traveling band of actors could not hope to defend themselves from, like thieves, murders, assassins, and most fearsome of all, spiders.
It wasn’t fair. Bianca grumbled to herself under her breath, setting her basket aside to crouch down and root her fingers through the frozen soil.
Soon enough, but not so soon to prevent dirt from caking under her nails, she found the soft, delicate mycelium she was searching for. The fungal roots were clustering thicker and thicker as she traveled west, and would hopefully reveal a few blooms somewhere. This morning had given her little luck with foraging. Though in her opinion, going out to forage for mushrooms in winter was a fool’s errand. Especially when saddled with the camp’s worst horse. She couldn’t be expected to produce much under these circumstances, truly.
Partially satisfied, she stood, brushed her hands off, and froze.
It would have been one thing if she had spotted the orc far off in the clearing, so she could hope to melt into the ground and hope her mottled cloak would be enough to camouflage her against the white terrain. But he was hardly a few yards from where she stood, staring right into her.
Bianca had seen orcish people before, often the merchants or wandering trader variety. As a Halfling they were all tall to her, but she didn’t think they were supposed to be quitethatlarge. But this one, cloaked all in deerskins, stood at least twice her height.
Surely, a hulking brute like that one ought to make more noise? She hadn’t heard him approach, not so much as a crusted ice crunch underfoot, nor a branch snap, nor a breath—
A breath. She was holding hers like she had forgotten to use it to scream.
Move on, move on, move on, she willed silently as the orc stared her down, unmoving.
Her heart stuttered to a near stop when the orc took a lumbering step towards her. She couldn’t tell if the earth shook or if it was just her knees quaking as he approached.
She should have taken off in the other direction the moment she saw him, but she knew she would never outpace him, even with a head start. Out of the corner of her eye, she glanced to Horace, steadily plodding away from her in search of grass. Dammit.
The most she could ever hope for was to hold still and hope the orc had worse cataracts than the troupe’s director. Maybe he would mistake her for some sort of shapely, well-dressed sapling, she tried to console herself, even as she despaired.
Then, Silvan save her– the orc reached for her.
Bianca curled in on herself, closing her eyes tight and flinching. Of course this was how she died, a lack of vigilance and an excess of her own foolishness.
She waited several moments for death. It took its sweet time.
Ever impatient, she opened an eye. The orc’s hand hovered just by her face, letting a centipede as long as her forearm crawl off her shoulder onto his hand.
For once, Bianca’s revulsion of bugs did not overtake her senses. She couldn’t blink, her heart could not beat, until the horrid thing was removed from her person.
The orc tossed it aside. Distantly, Bianca registered the bug hit a leaf before it wriggled back under into the dirt, the only sound in the whole forest.
She held the brute’s eyes, deep set and dark under wild brows. His expression was impossible to read between the blue streaks of paint across his face and the shadowed cowl of his deerskin. This close she could see the bones of smaller beings stitched into his leathers, the tooth earring, the long scars across his nose.
