Rubberband World 1 (Patreon)

Hey guys! Sorry for the long gap in posts. I've bled a few followers for it, but oh well. I've been tied up editing @RickGriffin's new book and OMG, it's sooooo good. It's honestly my favorite book so far.

Anyhow, that's finally done and I can go back to writing, so here's a chapter for a non-HC story that I'm calling "Rubberband World".

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving!

———

Despite the chill in the air, Gretchen was soaked with sweat. Her brown wooly coat hung limp and salt water dripped from her wide nose with the rhythm of a funeral drum. She was on her last row. She couldn’t see her goal from here but knew it was just over the hill’s crest. Another few minutes and she would be done with the plowing for the rest of the season.

The leather harness around her broad shoulders creaked as she leaned into her task. She guided the plow with the worn wooden handles and the share bit hard into the soft soil beneath her hooves.

To her left, a tall stone wall stretched down the length of her property, dividing field from road. She didn’t really need a wall, but the soil had been rife with rectangular blocks of shale and she couldn’t plow through them, so they had to go somewhere.

Just beyond the wall, she spotted a long pair of ears standing tall—a traveler walking the road in front of her land. Gretchen grunted when the share hit a thicker tangle of roots and the traveler’s ears twitched. “Hello?” called a friendly but unfamiliar voice. “Is someone there? I thought I was alone.”

“Just me,” Gretchen grunted. She dug her hooves in harder and tried to get the plow moving quicker, but “fast” was never in a donkey’s nature. “Nothing to worry about.”

The ears disappeared for a moment, then a kindly face peeked over the wall in a spot where the ridge was still one stone shorter than the rest. “Oh, hello there!” he called.

The stranger was handsome enough. The donkey had short grey fur with white outlines around his eyes and across the bridge of his snout. His eyes were big and green, and they sparkled in the sun. In a way, he reminded her a bit of her older brother—before the big dumb jerk had headed out seeking a life of adventure. Steven’s eyes had glinted that exact same way, the corners of his mouth would turn up with the same hint of mischief.

But as handsome as he was, and as pleasant as his voice sounded, Gretchen was tired from a long day of work, and she was a filthy mess too—dirty, sweaty, sore. She wasn’t the most sociable of girls to begin with, but she really didn’t want a stranger seeing her like this. “Yup. Just me. Nothing to see here,” she grumbled, focusing only on her work.

“Did you plow that entire field?” gasped the head atop her wall. He gazed out at the endless stretches of tilled soil; the even rows furrowed across it.

Gretchen allowed herself a little smile. Though perhaps not as pretty as the other girls in Brookside, she was always a hard worker and took a lot of pride in her accomplishments. “Yup,” she said. Then added, “And the field behind my house too.”

“All by yourself?” he asked with a hint of disbelief. “How could you do all that?”

She shrugged. “I didn’t do it in a single day.”

With a clang, the share struck another stone. Gretchen groaned. She unhooked her harness from the plow and using her hoof-like fingertips, she quickly dug the shale block from the dirt. The stranger just watched her in silence as she toiled, so she hefted the stone up on her shoulder, walked over to where he was peeking in, and set the rock in place, filling up the gap where he’d been resting his chin.

With a grin, Gretchen returned to her plow and watched as the stranger’s ears headed off down the road. Despite her dragging the plow, she noticed that he was moving even slower than she was. “Hey!” she called over the wall. “Are you okay?”

“Not so great, no,” he admitted. “I was walking throughout the night without a lamp.”

“Before moonrise?” she asked. “It must have been pitch dark!”

“Yeah, it was,” he said. “Do you … know when moonrise is?”

“Tomorrow morning,” said Gretchen, “before lunch.” In the Brookside Town Hall, there was a big almanac that listed the exact times the moon would rise and set for the next fifty years, but she couldn’t imagine why anyone would need to know it with such precision. That it would rise tomorrow morning was plenty close enough for her.

“Damn,” cursed the stranger, “and how far is it to the band?”

“Not far,” she said, taking a moment to wipe wet wool from her eyes. “Eight or nine miles, I would guess?”

The stranger groaned and the ears stopped making any progress at all. She stopped too and stared over the wall at his ears. She wondered if he was looking at her own.

“Last night in the dark,” he explained, “I stepped in a hole. I twisted my ankle pretty bad.”

Gretchen rolled her eyes and slapped her palm to her forehead. Now that was precisely the sort of stupid thing that Steven would have done. “What sort of pudding-brained idiot walks the roads in the dark?” she grumbled. “You’re lucky you didn’t snap your leg in two!”

“Yeah, well I don’t feel so lucky right now,” he sighed. “I don’t suppose your town has a healer?”

Gretchen sighed and let her head hang loose from her neck. “A part-time one only, I’m afraid,” she called over the wall. “She divides her time between Brookside and Hilldale, alternating months on either side of the band.”

A long pause before he asked the obvious next question. “I don’t suppose she’s in Brookside this month?”

Gretchen shook her head. “Afraid not. She won’t be back until after moonrise.”

“Damn.”

She leaned her weight on one hip and stared over the stone wall. “I suppose I could take a look at it, if you’d like,” she offered. “I’m no healer, but you’ll find we’re a pretty self-sufficient lot here in Brookside. Kind’a have to be.”

“Well, that’s a very kind offer, mi’lady,” he said. She perked her ears at that. Gretchen was far from a lady, but it was still nice of him to give her the benefit of the doubt. “But I doubt I’m in any shape to scale this wall…”

She laughed so hard she brayed. Eventually she wiped her eyes and called back to the stranger, “Just over the crest of the hill, there’s a gap in the wall and a path to my house. If you can make it that far, have a seat on the porch, and I’ll have a look at your ankle.”

“I’ll make it,” he promised. “And thank you.”

“All right. I’m almost done here anyhow.” She smiled to herself and went back to her work. Though she hated being forced to socialize when she was a stinky mess, if the traveler was hurting that badly, then he’d just have to hold his nose.

At the end of the row, Gretchen removed her harness and knelt beside the plow. That last rock had bashed a big divot in the share, but with plowing done for the time being, she’d have plenty of time to file the blade back down before needing it again. She looked up from the dirt just in time for the stranger to round the corner.

From his shoulders hung a soiled white tabard with a single red slash across the center. Beneath that, chain mail armor down to below his hips. He wore a leather pack on his back, a silk ribbon in his mane, a wide belt across his waist, and a sword from his hip.

Gretchen’s eyes bugged out and her jaw hung open. She’d never seen a knight before! Brookside was on the outer edge of the kingdom, perhaps a good month’s walk to the capital. “Oh, sire!” she shouted. She lowered her head and trembled. “I… I… I…” she gasped, unable to form words.

“Sire?” he chuckled. “No, I’m just a knight!”

She looked up once more. “Oh sire, I had no idea who I was talking to! I’m so sorry!”

He shook his head. “No, please get up,” he sighed. “I liked it more when you were calling me pudding-brained.”

Gretchen’s eyes opened even wider and the insides of her ears turned beet red. “Oh my! I called you an idiot. I’m so very, very sorry!”

“It’s all right!” the knight assured her. “Really. Please, there’s no need for all of this.”

She leapt to her hooves and grabbed the knight’s wrist before wrapping his arm around her shoulders. Despite his protests, she kept one hand on his wrist, one on his belt, and half-helped, half-carried him down the path, across the porch, and into her home, refusing to let go until she’d plopped his tail down in the softest chair she owned.

———

Reviewer's link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UYg-3htd7si9yE9FUJwyZZDK0XwxIG0c5K3QvG3suh8/edit?usp=sharing

Thoughts?