#bby your doing amazing but maybe concentrate more on making more human friends?

[boxboysandotherwhump]

Things only whispered about

taglist: @finder-of-rings @salamancialilypad @albino-whumpee @comfy-whumpee @haro-whumps @vickytokio@ashintheairlikesnow @orchidscript @yet-another-heathen @finder-of-rings

side note: Chapter 13 is not yet written. It will contain the first day of Sahar’s and Charlottes training for their entry exam. The current chapter (chapter 14) takes place during their last day of training.

Chapter 14

Charlotte had always considered herself disciplined and in good shape from years of intense dancing, but those post training runs would be her undoing if Sahar wasn't going to slow down soon.

The woods thick undergrowth cut up her calves and every heavy breath she heaved with burning lungs hurt all the more since Sahar's fist had smashed into her sternum earlier today.

His huge eyes had been filled with terror as he helped Charlotte to regain her breath, rubbing soothing circles over her back with hands that wouldn't stop trembling. Stuttered apologies spilling from his lips.

“The risk of training, I suppose.” She had grinned and hidden a wince.

Charlotte wasn't grinning now, too focused not to lose Sahar’s back in the midst of giant roots and flower stems.

Just how did he make jumping over those slippery moss covered hurdles look this easy?

She was just about to call out to him when a faint high pitched beeping echoed through the heavy lavender scented air made her stop.

Coming to an abrupt halt a few meters in front of her, Sahar asked: “Did you you you hear that, too?”

“Yeah. It comes from the border, doesn’t it?”

He paused, canting his head to better hear the whisper silent ‘beep… beep… beep’ over the rustle of leaves and the ever present hiss of their defence units, spraying insecticide into the air to form the invisible barrier of thin mist that kept them all safe.

“Yes.” Uncertainty flickered in his eyes, lingered in the quick tap tap tap of fingers over thighs.”Do do do do you think one of- one of the the the units- that one of the units is is is is…”

“No. That sounds way too quiet to come from a unit.” A sunbeam broke through the canopy, danced over Sahar’s arm and dipped golden light into the divods of his scars. Charlotte turned towards the sound. “But let's go and make sure.”

They creeped through the underwood, careful not to snap a twig underfoot or rustle the leaves that brushed their arms and legs and faces in unwelcome ghostly caresses. Every breath was a quietly, carefully measured micromovement of lungs.

One of the defence units hissed high above their heads now, the big chunky device securely fixed on the halfway point of a giant steel pipe tower whose top broke through the thick canopy. Charlotte had never seen the large solar panels mounted up there, or the giant canisters filled with insecticide, safely hidden in the foliage.

None of the village kids had ever dared to climb up the towers to take a peek. No one wanted to be responsible for damaging a unit and dooming them all to hell.

The steady ‘beep… beep… beep’ had gotten louder and was very clearly not coming from the unit overhead. Whatever made that sound was just behind the bushes Charlotte and Sahar were crouching under. Right in front of them.

“Sahar?” Charlotte whispered and turned to him, only to find the space beside her empty.

Sahar had vanished in between the softly swaying goutwort stems.

“Char- Char-Charlotte.” His hoarse trembling whisper barely carried past the large leaves.

Charlotte's palms prickled as she broke through the last barrier of leaves between her and the four meter wide stripe of self-healing concrete the village founders had poured around their border. Four meters of clear view in an endlessly growing forest, before the soft, second border of lavender, lemon balm and peppermint sprouted high into the air right on the other side.

No matter how often Charlotte and the other orphanage kids had sneaked onto the strip on one stupid dare or another, she simply couldnt shake the feeling of unease that creeped up her spine as soon as she left the certain safety of the units radius.

“Look.” Sahar stood with his back pressed against the bushes behind him, ready to vanish back into their cover even though the bright smile that danced over his face betrayed his excitement. Pointing towards a sad looking lavender bush, he whispered: “A a a a a a a- Charlotte, it’s it’s it’s it’s- It's an old, old gardening bot.”

And it had heard them.

The bots head turned towards Sahar with a mechanical whirr, fixing him with a face full of glowing visual sensors. It had an uncanny resemblance to an insect, with its unreadable expression and the two many spindly legs twitching and whirring under its green roundish body.

“Human identified.” The pleasant voice of a human woman coming from a tiny speaker in the center of its round head made the fine hairs on Charlotte's neck rise. “Requesting help.”

“Oh. Oh, oh, oh Charlotte look. It it it it’s arm is stuck, stuck in the roots.”

Charlotte considered the bot as it struggled fruitlessly against the yarn thick, twisted roots it undoubtedly had tried to entangle and reburry in an effort to preserve the plant's health.

“Let’s free it and take it to the mechanic. That thing must have some heavy-duty solar batteries built in, if it's still operating.”

“But-” Frowning, Sahar dug a short sturdy knife from his belt bag and unsheathed it. “Isn’t he go-go go, isn’t he going to,to kill it?”

Charlotte sighed. All surrogate keeper weariness, revealing the big impatient sister of too many siblings related by circumstance instead of blood. “Sahar. You can’t kill something that has never been alive in the first place.”

The whirring of struggling metal limbs picked up anew, accompanied by the plaintive soft beep… beep… beep that had led them here. “Requesting help. Requesting help. Help.”

Sahar sank to his knees beside the bot,shushing it with a little pat to its mud crusted head before he started to carefully cut into the knot of entangled roots. “Don’t, don’t worry. We we we have, we have you out of this in no time.”

That the bots' distressed beeping stopped was solely its programing, Charlotte told herself, as she listened to Sahar’s affectionate hums.

Something rustled the leaves of a lavender bush nearby, and all three of them froze.

Charlotte scanned the sea of gently swaying greens all around them, eyes flitting restlessly over large leaves. Every dancing shadow they cast had her heart stutter stop in her chest.

The knife quivered in Sahar's grip as he frantically resumed cutting.

They could feel it before they heard it. An awful rhythmic tremor that made the ground vibrate under their feet.

“Danger detected. Initiate protocol 34217.” The bot announced and shut down with a high pitched double ding, retracting its still free limbs into itself before the red glow of his eyes expired in all but one.

Charlotte's breath caught in her throat. Her eyes snappet to Sahar, crouched low under lavender leaves on the wrong side of the strip. Three meters too far from safety, if the creature marching towards them really was what Charlotte feared it might be.

The thud, thud, thud of too many legs in lockstep drowned out the quiet sounds of the forest. Stole away the whispering wind.

She had never encountered one of them, but the horror stricken tales, whispered over the steaming brim of mead-filled mugs by two surviving scouts, matched to a tea. It’s name had only ever been a murmur in midnight hours, a cold shiver down her neck.

Centipede.

Sahar gestured for her to leave, to take five steps back into the safety behind their border, hands clutched around the knife in a steady, white knuckled grip.

The bush right next to him moved. Charlotte did not. And the creature broke through.

Its long black body glistened in the sunlight.

A twitching antenna brushed Sahar’s shin and his legs gave out. Crumpling to the ground, a choked off laugh spilled from his lips. “A fuck- fuck- fucking millipede.”

Its hundred pointy feet clicked over the concrete as it scuttled onto the strip and Charlotte wanted to kick its stupid, round, pincerless head. A wave of relief imploded inside her, burst against her ribcage and sent shockwaves down her limbs. Her legs trembled, deadweight heavy and feather light and she wondered if that's what weightlessness felt like. That elusive disorientation inside your own skin, as an astronaut had described it in one of the many books that were recovered from the ruins of a world she’ll never know.

The millipede jerked its head to the side, all of a sudden, thrashing its body in invisible agony.

Charlotte dodged the mighty arthropod by a hair's breadth and stumbled backwards into the unit's radius of protection, nearly tripping on the edge where hard concrete, smooth and bare of any fissures, gave way to soft earth. Tiny droplets of fine mist caught in her curls and dampened her skin, tickled the tip of her nose.

Jerking and thrashing, the millipede fought against it’s formless prison of disorientating discomfort. It’s body segments rattled and chirped, rubbing together as it made a beeline for the bushes and burst past Sahar, who dove underneath the bot. Just so avoiding getting his foot pierced by one of the creature's many clawed legs.

He stared up at Charlotte, eyes comically round and lips twitching into a smile. The barest flash of teeth. The bot’s underside pressed against the crown of his head and pushed a few short curls down over his forehead.

The corners of Charlotte’s mouth twitched. Warmth prickled over her lips and trickled down her throat, like a swallowed sunbeam kiss. Too hot and too sudden not to burn.

“Danger passed.” The bot announced, all eyes flashing red in unison as it reactivated with a cheerful chime. “Requesting help.”

Sahar flinched, startled as a mouse caught by Mr. Mittens the orphanage’s cat, and hit his head on the bot with a dull metallic thud.

Charlotte winced in sympathie. “Are you alright?”

“Yes, uhm, yes I, I am.”

“Good. Then let’s hurry and get out of here. That rustbucket is not worth ending up as insect foder for.”

A few more frantic cuts, almost devoid of Sahar’s previous gentleness, finally freed the bot from its botanical contraption. Sensory scanners already focused on the next plant to tend to, the bot got ready to stalk off when Sahar grabbed him by an arm. Long fingers wrapped around mud stained metal.

“Way- way- wait. We have some fields you can, can can- that you can tend to.”

Twelve glowing eyes seemed to consider him for awfully long, silent three seconds.

A ‘for fucks sake, Sahar, just move’ burned on the tip of Charlotte's tongue and she was just about to cross the concrete and drag him back behind their border, when the bot chimed.

“Friend identified.”

A soft smile blossomed on Sahar's face. All half hidden teeth and tenderness and Charlotte knew; they would not rake in any rewards today.